… continued from Part Eleven.

On his way home, Tony was very silent.

Outside the gate of his house, he felt the night-wind softly call, and he took out a sheet of paper from his back-pocket, and a pen, leaned against the wall and, whilst a bird sang somewhere near and somewhere far, like an ancient dream coming again, coming home, he wrote: On this we stand.

Did you love me, did you not?
My, what a heart…
Did it break, broke it not?
I do not know –

Is it ending, is it beginning?
Hard to tell…
‘Tis forever my love
Forever we are this –

This? What is this?
It is this:
Please be true to your heart forever.

*

Ada saw him from upstairs, leaning against the wall just at the edge of the gate, writing … in the dark. How could he see what he was writing?
And he was always writing.

She heard a sparrow singing on a branch in front of the veranda. It was a lovely eternal song.

“Did you see her?” she asked him when he entered. She did not see any piece of paper in his hands. She could still hear the birdsong somewhere near and somewhere far and somewhere deep within her soul, a dream on the long walk home.

“Who?”

“Ngozi.”

Tony searched for an evasive answer, then gave up. How did she know?

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Forget it.”

“She’s travelling in six days’ time.”

“Where to?”

“Germany. University. Work. I don’t know. She wasn’t clear.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, double-ouch.”

Later she said:

“The poems you gave me yesterday. They were nice.”

“Hm.”

“Ngozi read some too, on the bus.”

“Hm.”

“There’s food in the kitchen.”

“Thanks, I’m starved.”

“She’s a nice person; even almost special, I somehow think.”

Tony was silent a while. Then he shook his head and said:

“It’s complicated.” – and walked into the kitchen, his mind on Ngozi.

… ***
… to find out how this delicate and unfinished love story between Tony and Ngozi played itself out, buy and read the full novella on
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Available from December 2013.
TWICE IS NOT ENOUGH.

– AKA TERAKA.