I was down a street in Spring Town lined with strange trees with baffling heights that made them resemble pillars bearing the burden of a vivacious sky. I’d just clawed my way past bird shit and earthworms, through the damp soil of a garden harboring strange flowers. I’d never seen those species before. Each petal had the colors of the rainbow, and had incandescent thistles propping up from the center which when swayed, emitted a lush sprinkle of pixie dust. It all looked surreal. Anywhere I turned, something beautiful was sprouting.
I was plodding down a street in oversized clothes, which I had yanked off the clothesline beside the garden. Spring Town was now filled with little men who gazed at me as they waddled past, fascinated by my lankiness, awed at the way my body swayed heavily from the incoherence of each step I took. It was easy to mark me out. Everything was odd; the people, the world. I felt odd. I saw it in their eyes—the way the inconspicuous hesitation folded itself in there. Something was wrong. I heard it in their deafening silences; in the faintly audible whistle of a boy zipping past me with his scooter and in the slightly parted mouth of one man who almost stumbled, enthralled by what he saw. Something was wrong. I’d felt it as soon as I clawed out the humus of that garden, examined the tight flesh around my fingers and the softness on my face. This must be a dream. To wake up and find the world an alluring mess must be indeed a dream. I was trying to wake up from this dream. I was seeking answers and explanations.
But there was yet this incontrovertible feeling of appreciation. I was impressed by the less jarring natural green shades of the men’s hair I saw and the soothing texture of the air that scented over-washed with shampoo and baby cream. I had missed the smell of fresh air. Was it that I had forgotten how it felt, which made it to now seem priceless? Maybe the world had not changed and it was I who had no recollection that it had always been this way. Anyway, I needed clarity.
I found a store where a young man in juice-stained apron and a worn fez cap stood over a table of fruits which I had no befitting words to actually describe. There was a budding smile just fixed there at the edges of his well-shaped lips. But as soon as he sighted me, it fizzled out. He trotted to the door, anxiety sketched all over his face.
“You’ve returned! You! My mother told me!” The man announced incredulously.
I was surprised.
“How did she know?” I inquired.
“She once had a dream. She said that a man shall return and that I’d know when I see him. I’d thought she was crazy.”
It was obvious, from the way I looked distinct, to be easily marked as such a man whom some woman in the throes of death plus hallucination claimed to had seen. I let my eyes roam around the poky store; there was no other soul.
“What year is it?” I asked, devoid of the slightest knowledge.
“15th August, 2099.”
It sounded inconceivable. It shocked me and somehow it triggered a memory snuggling in some dark place inside me all the while. I staggered. He steadied me quickly, slowly shoving me unto a bench beside a shelf that smelt of rancid mutton.
“I know what happened,” I said, “It was one evening about a century ago. I was crossing a road to purchase drugs from a dispensary for my ill daughter when a vehicle flung me into a ditch.”
He appeared to be rapidly thinking as his face contorted and within seconds, his eyes widened as though they would suddenly tear off if he kept at it.
“My God, you have been asleep for almost a century,” he said incredulously as though the words didn’t come from him.
A sudden silence descended on the room and I held my breath, willing my mind to process what I had heard. My heart started beating wildly in my chest, while my thoughts ran amok like a hurricane. All the while, he was gazing at me. I pointed to a carmine red orb on the table.
“Is that an apple?”
“No, it’s an orange.”
“That can’t be. Oranges are green and yellow?” I argued.
“I didn’t grow up to meet that specie,” he replied in awe.
I sighed. The world had really turned on its head.
“What was it like during your time?”
“The gap-toothed Ex-general was still ruling here. The insurgents were at the crest of their display of headiness. It was war all the time. But now, I look around, I see peace and an arable world.”
I caught his amiable eyes glisten with love.
“Why do you think you’ve woken up?”
I hesitated before replying.
“I had this incorrigible way of not loving my wife and our daughter. I was selfish.” I had no idea why those words came to my mind but for some inexplicable reason, they somehow made sense. It was almost as if that very confession could unlock the mystery of what had happened to me.
Unsure of where to go, I stayed at the store and it wasn’t until the sun started drifting to its resting place that I summoned the courage to leave the young store attendant, Amar. I had spent the day telling him about the incomparable azure of the sky and the tall trees with mirror-smooth barks, which had the beauty of amethyst. I told Amar about the strange flowers in the garden. He said they were ‘Rainbowflores’.
I traced my way back to the house that held the garden. I heard noises in the yard. A middle-aged woman was pushing a boy on a swing. She froze as I advanced. The boy was smiling, bliss shimmering in his eyes. The tightness of the woman’s jaw and her almond eyes reminded me of my daughter. But her hands were too thin. I heard the subtle tremble of her voice when she spoke.
“How? You’re in the pictures my grandmother gave me!”
I nodded and smiled.
“I know. This is a miracle. A crazy miracle.”
I turned to the boy on the swing. He was smiling, bliss shimmering in his eyes.
