• Voices from the grave save Dr Tom after all else fails, but his reprieve is short-lived
Image: PIXABAY
Diary,
I tend to believe I’m unlucky in love, but that might be a mere fallacy. Sometimes people bring bad luck upon themselves. That’s the feeling I get when someone tells me they were involved in a car accident after boarding an overloaded vehicle. Or those idiots who die while taking a selfie on a cliff.
Since I don’t believe in marriage, I jump into the dating scene without a clear end game in sight. And when I do, none of my mates seems open to a perpetual state of dating without wedded bliss at the end. Harper, the beautiful American divorcee, came closest to tying me down, but now I’m at the airport, watching her board a plane home.
“I’m so sorry it didn’t work out,” she says into my shoulder as we hug. “I’ll keep trying to convince my mother that you’re finally the one.”
Her biological mother is dead, mind you, and Harper constantly communes with her spirit. A spirit that is racist as hell and doesn’t want its daughter marrying an African. At least according to Harper.
But wait!
“What do you mean finally the one?” I ask. “Has your mother’s spirit kept you from marrying other people?”
She sighs. “I’ve tried all kinds of men. Short, tall, fat, skinny, white, black, American, European and now African, but nothing doing.”
I feel for her. “Honey, I mean Harper, don’t you think it’s time—” I want to tell her she should consider not listening to her dead mother, but what if she immediately takes my advice? I’m dodging a marriage bullet, why put myself back in the line of fire?
“Time for what?” Harper prompts.
“I mean, maybe it’s time you took a break from trying. Give your mother some time to mellow and she might just come around.”
“You are so wise,” she says, a twinkle in her eye. “But I’ll have you know I have no intention of trying again. Not for a while, at least. I’m still intent on convincing her about you. Who knows? I might be back in Kenya soon.”
“I hope so,” I say, but frankly, I hope not. Not only don’t I want to go through her drama of preparing for the “perfect” wedding, I’m not ready to marry, period. Least of all to someone who talks to dead people.
Surprisingly, Harper’s departure hurts less than what happens next.
On my way away from the departure lounge, I bump into Shirly, the only woman who won’t go on a real date with me. Before Harper, I’d thought Shirly might be the one I finally settle down with, but here she is, in the company of an older white man.
“Hi, Tom,” she says. “This is McDonald, my husband. We just came from our honeymoon in Bora Bora.”