Kandooondoo

The “Goodbye” banner evoked bitter-sweet feelings. It was just as mysterious if not as scary as when it all started. The sight of familiar faces was reassuring. It felt like home after all, the real home. Yet, something told me where I just left should be my home. It was a strange feeling. I looked back. The gate was closed. I knew then that it was too late, that I had to go back home.

Earlier, when I left home to visit a friend, my car had stalled, and then stopped. The dashboard indicator showed the fuel level was low. I cranked up the engine. The car jerked. It then lurched forward, propelled I thought then, in a smoother motion by the incline of the road. However, the road suddenly became a precipice, sending me into a freefall, the daze from which I had barely recovered when I found myself in an ascent from the furrow of what seemed to be an endless, wavy passage that meandered in empty space.  

It was not long before I realized that I was not alone. The wonder in their faces was palpable. Curiously enough, after the initial shock, I was soon at ease. Somehow, I felt safe. In an instant, perhaps captivated by the jolly, cherubic faces that seemed to randomly pop up, I also felt that someone would soon speak with me. Yet, silence filled the air. They seemed interested in my car. You could tell some discussed it. Notably, I did not see any other cars, or other recognizable means of transportation.  

They looked alike in many ways and dressed well. It was difficult to tell their age or gender. They appeared friendly and leisurely as they went about their affairs. They were all well-built, but I could tell subtle differences in their sizes, which seemed to be proportionally related to how long they occupied my space, and most importantly for me, the contact they made with me. Transactions seemed constrained by time, and in turn, by the dimensions of their purveyors. Yet, they were obviously seamless. Everywhere was well-lit, colourful picturesque signs heralding as time passed, landmarks that indicated abundance of life and an inclination to its necessities and indulgencies.

As my motion progressed, my curiosity heightened. I no longer wanted to be just an anonymous traveler in a strange land. With time long enough for me to see someone sipping a drink, taking a dip in the pool, or shopping in a busy mall, I started to feel left out. Everything seemed benign, effortless, but efficient, even when time apparently moved faster for some than others. People sometimes held hands, and they chatted, and joked, judged by the movements of their lips and the emotional inflections that characterized their actions. They were all apparently contented.

For reasons I could not make out, it suddenly became clear to me that things were about to change, that answers to the many questions that lingered in me were imminent. It was as if my hosts had at last found a way to reach me. Time moved ever faster, and sound, a medley, emerged from nowhere. I could tell some of the words, but not others. It was as if something was trying to synchronize elements of different tongues. This went on for sometime, the success of the effort variable, its product, still unhelpful, most certainly I imagined, for all concerned, not least me. I waited patiently, zooming around in space, trying to learn more about the place.

Just thinking of the attempt to communicate with me made me nervous, for the first time since being thrust into this strange land. Soon enough, beneath the pleasant thoughts of eternal bliss in which I revelled, pangs of the harrowing uncertainty struggled to surface. Temperance belied underlying tension as my instincts urged ecstatic hysteria. After all, that was how I reckoned at the time was best to express the dispute some words that filtered through in the apparently continuing efforts by my hosts to communicate with me signified.        

The beauty of the blend of peace and discord intrigued me. In fact, it appeared that both were crucial to the achievement by my hosts of their intent to reach me, as more words became intelligible to me the more of those that indicated they had differences of opinion I picked up. What was more, the relations between space and time in which I had simply floated now started to make sense. People and places “revealed” their identities, and what previously seemed a fusion of marks, shades, and contours turned out to be words, names, and numbers.

Even as I felt increasingly integrated into this new society, which tempered my unease, it dawned on me that the revelations that beset me had not doused my desire to speak with my hosts, which remained unmet. They still looked at me enquiringly, but said nothing to me, at best smiling, and seemingly talking about me, as they faded from my view. Before long, hope turned to gloom, as my handicaps became ever clearer, and I began to feel that I was caught in a web at the interface of a continuum characteristic of the schisms in progress that could explain why the web was for me, so impenetrable.

Not that I felt that my hosts perceived me as too lowly to interact with. Not at all, but I had no illusion regarding how much I lacked the wherewithal to play my part in setting up a two-way communication with them. So, I resigned to being just able to roam around, powerless to conduct any transactions, shut out from the realities of this strange world, unable to taste its food, drink its beverage, or even buy a pair of shoes. Frustrated, I longed to return to my world, despite its imperfections.

As I headed home, still in my jalopy, contemplating how my people could untangle the web, and operate as in the sublime world of my hosts, the challenges inherent in so doing hit me hard. Nonetheless, I knew that we could overcome these hurdles, if we tried hard enough.  I cruised on, hoping to cross the bridge ahead before an inner voice that urged me not to return home prevailed. As I approached the bridge, the banner appeared and a baritone voice thanked me for visiting “Kandooondoo,” just as another, sweeter and softer, reminded me that I had to go to work. At first I wondered where I was, but as I finally managed to open my eyes, and saw my mother, I knew I was home, home at last.