Henry's Hypothesis

Dami Ajayi

Before the unfortunate event of my death, I was a mathematician, so you can figure out my love for symbols, formulas, and numbers. But before I came to love symbols, I loved life. And before I loved life, I loved God.

I was even convinced back then, that Adam couldn’t match me when it came to communing with God. But that was once; a long time ago. Before I became deaf to God, or God became silent. Anyways, you never can really tell with just one perspective of any account. Objectivity is not mans’ greatest forte.

So you must really wonder how I ended up tying the knot with a history teacher. How objectivity could descend so low. But like I told you earlier, before symbols, I loved life. I was indulged in the fantasies of a tomorrow. How could I have thought that an arranged marriage, which I later found it to be contrived, would have a fairy-tale ending? How could I have thought that familiarity was the elixir of love? We knew each other so much. Perhaps, that was why we were insular to each other.

I can’t really say if my wife is beautiful. For me, beauty has never been a subject that lends itself very much to objectivity. But I can however say that she is thin, her weight, at least since we got married ten years ago, has remained at forty-five kilograms. Her breasts are no bigger than average-sized limes, and her nose is an exact replica of her father’s.

But, I can’t say I loved her.  What is love anyways; a concept, a consequence or sheer condescension? How can love be explained without recruiting the prefix, “con-”? But there was a time I believed in life. There was that time when I thought the concept of love was either a consequence of concession or condescension. With my wife, it was the former.

So we got married in the same catholic cathedral we had been baptized and confirmed in. Behind us was a crowd we hardly knew, witnesses to our vows, our parents’ felicitators. Our overjoyed parents, clad in similar lace material, beamed like they were twin newlyweds.

I can’t say I was unhappy. But marriage lacked the thrill for me, for it was not something I had looked forward too. All my life, at least the earlier parts, I thought I had been consecrated to God. I had dreamt of myself in a collar, giving sermons and communion. I was optimistic when I got married, full of life—not like a teen, but more like someone who thought excitement was a consequence of existence. Thus began my experiment, with sex, marriage, and life.

Our honey moon was bitter. My wife refused me the first night, claiming she was tired after a long day of stress and activity. I conceded. She kept to a journal she kept, and several times, jokingly, I would inquire what she was writing. But, she said it was none of my business. Later in our life together, I would find out that it was much easier, even though it always was a Herculean task, to get between her legs than between the pages of her journal.

My love for life was fledging and fleeting. It was a short stint and a painful realization. So you would understand how the baton was passed to Mathematics. I loved math like a child. Measurement had always been my strong suit, solving problems, doing sums. You can’t question the objectivity of Mathematics. There are never two answers to a question. There was no spectrum of ideas as options. Even if there were several approaches, they all led to one solution.

So I buried myself in numbers and symbols. My formula for life was academia. And with it, I made a successful career. My doorplate bears my name in brass with the title “Professor.” And if you open my door, you would learn how I drowned myself in the depths of my discipline.

She pulled me out. She saved me; that beautiful smile, her pure yet raw emotions, her sincerity, but most of all, her openness.  I never set out to cheat on my wife. But our loveless marriage was more or less a legalized cohabitation. I just couldn’t reach her through her barricade of frowns and indifference. All she did after work was to write in that stupid journal. Our conversations were few, awkward and far between.

Anita.

I can’t also say Anita was beauteous, boisterous, and voluptuous. I don’t know the indices of such measures, but I can say she was full of life.

But, that day she walked into my office, I looked up from a textbook and I saw a nubile girl beaming with a smile. She kept coming. And soon I began to wait. She never said much either. But whenever she looked at me, she looked into me. I could read her eyes like a blind man could read his Braille. All she had to do was look at me.

Our first time was the best beginning. She drew me into her bosom and initiated me. I became her slave. Tasting became a habit. Obsessions became addiction.

Then, she stopped coming. Anita vanished. A week passed. And then the news came. That a female student had died. It was vague, something about a pregnancy and an abortion. Your guess is as correct as mine. It was Anita.

Mathematics had always been a solution to my failed marriages, asphyxiated aspirations, mid-life frustration, childlessness, and dead ambitions.  Mathematics had never failed me. But now it did. How could I cure myself of her? How could my life ever return to an even keel? How could I drown again in rivers of formulas, lakes of measurement, and depths of objectivity?

Objectivity had failed, just as much as subjectivity. For once, I realized that not all could be measured. Not all values could be numbered. Not all experiences could be figured. So I took to forbidden juice of vines.

Now you must wonder what killed me. Your guess again is not far-fetched. One night I was returning home and I tripped in my ataxic alcoholic gait. I fell on my head and something snapped. It was dead in the night so I couldn’t be saved. I had planned it that way.

So when my neighbors wake and find me in the gutter, they would not understand.

Dami Ajayi, a penultimate medical student, is also the associate editor of a campus Lifestyle Magazine. His works have been published in The Guardian, Africanwriter, Hackwriters, Saraba and Nigerianbiz amongst many other platforms. He is working on his first collection of poems, Black Muse and Clinical Blues.

Comments

[wirndzerem gb]

Re-reading this profoundly philosophical and morality tale, I realised, to my great delight, how the author has adroitly engaged the dualistic controversies of objectivity/subjectivity, myth/reality, arts/science, rationality/non-rationality etc. he handles it with an hilarious yet witty exuberance. it's a great piece of writing!