Party Time 1

I had promised myself not to bring out the computer. Not to put it on. But there is something so beautiful, so calm and enthralling in the evening, that I felt I needed to write down something of this.

It is Friday evening. Didn’t work today. In fact have been doing some spring cleaning.

Today is the big day.

Today we celebrate our anniversary. Seven years of living together.

It is a calm evening. Quiet.

The temperature, according to the radio, is 26C. Feels lower, but I do not mind it at all. Rain over the last couple of days has washed the air, scrubbed it clean. It is motionless, the leaves on the trees like thin green statues. I can see where a bluebottle fly has landed on a thin tendril, thread of greenery. It is so calm, the tendril bounces up and down, and settles, motionless in the air. The world is a dark, healthy, living green all around me. The soil is dark and wet and clumped together. The red dust which makes the dry season in Kampala notable is nowhere to be seen. It has been bound by the water, together, to the soil, underfoot.

My lawn is still green, the dry season has not had much hold. And of course the response to the rain is always very rapid.

It is calm. Very calm.

The sky is a pale blue, interrupted by pearly strands of cloud, here and there. A few birds cross the heights. Small, tiny from where I am. Going home, most likely. The bats are not yet out. They are huge bats. Fruit bats, I think. they signal the dusk by invading the air and crossing back and forth like so many fighter aircraft in an airborne melee. Silent, swift motion, zigzagging across the skies, miraculously missing each other in flight.

The sun.

A ball of flame sliding past the horizon. The flames are still seen. Golden, long shafts touching the green leaves turgid with water. A brilliant, golden light that has surrounded everything here.

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Had a small interruption. Some of the guests are arriving. And now that I am back, the sun has gone down. Dusk, real dusk had descended.

Seems almost a pity that I will have to get into the house. Too rude to stay writing on the computer.

It is our anniversary. Seven years of being together.

Interesting, I always tease my lover that we were together in bed four hours after our first meeting. Spent that night together. No gory details for the public, please.

Now it is seven years since, and incredibly, what started as a blind date for a couple of guys deep in the closet, in homophobic Uganda, is a relationship which many envy.

I, we take it day to day.

My partner believes in monogamy, and ‘till death us do part’. I am a sceptic who is slowly getting to the point of full conversion. Faith. Together, it has been something interesting. Ups and downs, many plateaus, many challenges. And we are still together.

Now, I must absolutely go and entertain my guests. Too rude of me to stay on the computer while I do have guests.

GayUganda