Sitting in the park, idling, was a favorite pastime of mine. Idling is the wrong word, but to passers-by, that’s what it appeared to be. I loved being alone. In a small town like Tororo, nearly a ghost town, privacy couldn’t be found. The noise of urban life, the roar of cars, the shrill of boisterous children, the irritating voices of adults peddling their wares for a living, quarreling, chatting and gossiping, and the eyes – the creepy stares they fix on you, the inquisitiveness of the neighbors. I used to imagine it was better in the villages, in the rural civilizations. I however realized it was worse, for there, unlike in town, the sense of communal being is so strong, whoever meets you along the path to the well wants to say ‘hello’, even a total stranger will want to have a long chat with you. And if you insist on your habits, they will call you arrogant, unsocial, and in most cases, mad – madness seems to be the only explanation for such reclusive tendencies. What I construe from their eyes as they pass by me in the park is – ‘What’s he doing there?’ and when this person passes by four hours later, and finds me still seated under the same tree, on the same spot, doing the same thing, which seems to be idling, this person will say ‘Ah, he is mad. Why else does he sit there, all day, doing nothing?’

On Christmas day, I was in the park for more than six hours, from noon until after sundown. The town had become so hostile. I could not bare a minute in it. First, there was the heat, the sun was fierce in the cloudless sky, wrapping up the town in an infernal sphere that made it difficult to breath, you could feel the sear on your skin, you could feel the air struggling to get into your lungs, scalding the nasal cavity. Then there was the dust. No. there was no wind to stir the dust, it was the vehicles and the feet of thousands of merrymakers, pounding the scorched earth. A film of dust hung in the air such that each breathe was full of dust and heat, making your nose and throat to ache. There was dust on the walls and roofs, dust on the cars, dust on the new clothes of the merrymakers, clothes they had saved for all year long so that they may appear smart and cool. Yet the heat and the dust did not deter the merrymakers. They had waited for this day all year long and nothing was going to stop them from having fun, and being merry. They poured into town from the neighboring villages and choked the streets – girls with treated hair, the oils they used to soften their hair and make it long and loose melted in the sun and slid down their necks; boys wearing shoes for the first time in the year; men and women who’d not left the village since last Christmas, now had a chance to visit town –they all flooded in, as if they’d been told the newborn king was somewhere in the dusty streets. They came to admire the buildings, the cars, the shops. They bought sweets, cakes, mandazis, and colored, flavored ice called baraf. They littered the streets with tons of oily paper and polythene wrappers. They gathered in the corners, where music blared from giant speakers in the shops of music dealers, and danced. The town folk came out of their homes to gawk and ridicule them. It had become part of Christmas in this town, the rustic fellows flooding the streets, the street dances, and the town folk gawking and laughing.

Excitement always gripped the town residents. They woke up early to go to church, which got so full that regular churchgoers dreaded it, saying it was a day for pagans and sinners to pray, people who spend half of Christmas Eve looking for their bibles, then an hour dusting and wiping them clean. From church, they returned home to feast. They bought chicken and tons of beef and rice and cooked so much food, and they bought crates and crates of beer, for, to them, Christmas was a day of going to church, eating, drinking, and being merry.

I couldn’t spend a minute in town. Whoever met me would shout ‘Merry Christmas’ and I didn’t know how to reply. The noise of town, the music – yes, every home made it a point to turn the volume all the way up – oh! Town was hell on that day, the merriment got into my nerves, ripping away my peace.

I think I have a problem, a phobia, which drives me to solitude, and most people think it’s eccentric. Over the years the solitude has turned into a loneliness that I find enchanting. That Christmas, I hasted away from the burning town, from the merriment, to the solitude of the Municipal Gardens, my favorite park.

Like all government property, the park had been neglected, the grass was knee-high in some parts, only patches here and there, especially under trees, had ankle high grass. Dead leaves and papers littered the place, with a used condom here and there. Still, I loved the peace and quiet it offered. Its trees made it a cool place with a lovely breeze that blew away my troubles. Its green hedge made it private enough for some people to consider having sex in it in the daytime.

I got in through a hole in the fence.

There was a man dead asleep in the bushes. Even from a distance of ten paces, the reek of crude alcohol nauseated me. Christmas creates excitement. People spend a whole year waiting for it. In the days before, the excitement builds, people shop, people whet their appetites, the excitement mounts, steadily, rapidly, until nothing else rings in their minds but what they will do on that day, how they will dress, what and how much they will eat and drink. The excitement mounts till some people, like this man, burst before the actual day. It was just noon, yet this man was dead drunk. To examine him, I had to hold my nose. His clothes, it was very clear, were new but had puke and piss all over them – the smell! – His shoes and belt were missing. He’d saved for months to buy them. Now, most likely, they had been stolen.

There were other people in the park. A family was having a picnic near the two storied municipal council offices. A couple, probably lovers, were at one extreme end, behind the library. The park was about the size of a football field, with the council offices and official entrance at one end of the square, facing the town. The library, quite a small building, was on the other side and took up only a small portion of the hedge. The trees were planted in rows, they were very old trees, planted when the town was founded over seventy years ago by colonialists and Indian traders.

I chose a tree roughly in the middle of the park, a good distance away from the picnicking family, and from the couple, and the drunkard. Also, none of the illegal paths in the park passed near this tree. The bush provided me with some cover, only a critical observer would notice me. I lay down to enjoy the solitude.

In the middle of the afternoon, I heard a rustling and at first I ignored it. It could have been a lizard, or the wind, but it came again, and again. I did not start up at once. I thought it was just another passer-by, or someone else seeking peace. But the rustling, now rhythmic, was getting louder, louder, and closer to me. It was the crunching of dead leaves as someone crept towards me.

I sat up. The first thing I saw was the suit; the white coat and white trousers shone bright in the sun. A black shirt peeped under the coat, and a bright red bow tie strangled the wearer. He had a showy hairstyle. His hair was pedantically arranged on his head, and his beards were styled too. The barber had spent more time, a lot more talent, on the beard than on the hair. A pin thin strip ran from his ears to his chin, a slightly thicker strip ran around his mouth, joining the mustache and the beard in a perfect O. There was a thick triangular patch under his lips, with the tip of the triangle touching the lower lip. Sweat shone on his face, a lot of sweat, but he did not care. The hanky stayed in his breast pocket, unused, and the hems of his milk white trousers were stained red with dust, his shoes – once polished and shining bright – were caked in dust too.

He took one hesitant step after another towards me, his eyes dead on me. I stared back, startled, and angry. I didn’t want anyone to disturb my peace. Yet he looked at me as if I were a prehistoric fossil he had just discovered.

I wondered, what does he want? He had apparently invested so much on his looks, spent hours at the barber shop, hours polishing his shoes, and his white suit meant he was a squeaky clean kind of gentleman. But why, I asked myself, is there so much sweat? He surely has a hanky, why not wipe it off? Worse, why did he let dirt smear his trousers and cake his shoes?

“What are you doing here?” he asked me, stopping a pace away, his voice husky.

“Not your business,” I told him, staring in anger.

“I have to know,” he insisted, “what you are doing here.”

I rose to my feet. I started to walk away.

“No,” he snatched my hands. “Don’t go. Tell me –”

“Sir,” I snapped derisively. “You are drunk. Leave me alone.”

“Drunk?… No,” he shook his head. “I’m not drunk. I’m only asking you what you are doing here.”

“It’s not your business!” my voice rose.

“But I must know –”

“I don’t want to talk to you!”

“Christmas,” he insisted. “Christmas is a time for being happy. You are not happy –” I tried to break free, he clung to my hands. “You are lonely. I passed four hours ago and saw you here. I came back and still found you here. Why?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Why do you want to be lonely? It’s Christmas. Party – party – everywhere there is a party. Happiness. Happiness! But you – you are seated here, alone, unhappy – looking very unhappy – why don’t you join the rest? Go and eat and drink and be happy.”

There was something in his husky voice, a brooding tone, and there was an expression on his face, a worn out look, a grimace of pain, that made me stand still and listen to him. He was not drunk, I could now tell, there was no smell of booze on him. He instead had the smell of a perfume mixed with sweat. He stunk like one who had walked a long distance in the sun. He looked exhausted, worn out and very hungry.

“You look sad,” I told him.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I’m not happy. I’m very, very – I might kill myself.” He let go my hands, tears showed on his face. “This is not – I’m very –” he wiped away the tears with the back of his hands. “What about you? I saw you were seated here, looking lonely when you should be celebrating, and I came to talk to you.”

I succumbed.

“Sit down,” I told him. We sat in the grass.

“I don’t like parties,” I told him, “I was bored at home, so I came here.” I lied. “I fell asleep. You woke me up.”

“You don’t like parties?” he was amazed. I nodded. “Even Christmas doesn’t – you don’t like Christmas?” Again, I nodded. He was quite for about a minute, thinking. “What about your family? Your brothers? And your friends? Surely your friends would want you to be with them?”

My family had long given up trying to make me change, they sort of came to accept my reclusive nature. I’d taken over a year without seeing any of them. And I didn’t have any friends.

“Yeah,” I lied. “I just escaped from them.”

“What about your wife? You can’t be here when she’s there, alone. You can’t.”

“I don’t have a wife.”

“Your girlfriend then. You must have a girl if you don’t have a wife.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“But – but how come you don’t?”

I shrugged. He was quiet, staring at me in confusion for nearly two minutes.

“You are lucky,” he said. The tone of his voice grew sadder. “Very lucky. This has been my worst Christmas, all because of my wife.” He sighed. There were now tears in his voice. “I didn’t have money to buy her a new dress.”

A lizard ran up the tree, brushing its rough body on the old bark, making an eerie, rustling sound. A big lizard with a big blue head. The man sobbed. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. The sweat on his face seemed to have increased. There was a cake of dirt on the collar and the cuffs of his white coat, a film of dust had rested on the shoulders of the coat, and had turned his hair mousy.

“We’ve been together for almost a year,” he continued. “We aren’t really married, but she’s been staying in my house since April. I think she got pregnant. We were planning to have a nice little family. We loved each other so much.”

His mouth was dry, lips almost cracking, the Adams apple sticking above his red bowtie moved as he swallowed hard.

“I lost my job towards the end of October. In the middle of November, my wife drew up a Christmas budget, she said we had to plan early to make it a wonderful day. I looked at the budget and was alarmed. It was six times the rent! Yet, we hadn’t paid rent for two months! I explained to her that we couldn’t have such a budget because I no longer had a job. She said ‘Okay. You draw the budget for Christmas, but don’t forget to buy me the dress I showed you last week.’ It was a fancy dress, I’ve still failed to understand its design. It’s maroon with small blue flowers, and it has a coat attached to it, a black coat, when one is wearing it, you’d think one is wearing a coat over a dress, but here, the coat is part of the dress, sewn onto the dress – and from the knee down, the dress changes color, shape and material, let me say the bottom part is like the bottom of a wedding gown – big, loose, it looks like a net, and its white, so white. The dress has a big, red hat with white flowers on its brim, and black high-heeled shoes and white stockings, and red pants, to go with it. And my wife wanted it, the whole set from hat to shoes to pants.”

He paused. He licked his lips and swallowed saliva. He badly wanted water.

“I didn’t have money to buy it. I told her so. She was disappointed, but she said, ‘okay.’ That’s all she said, and we never talked about the dress again. I thought she’d understood.

“In the first week of December, she said to me, ‘John’ – that’s our neighbor – ‘has bought his wife a new dress,’ and a week later, she said, ‘Sam’ – another neighbor – ‘has also bought his wife a dress.’ I replied, ‘I wish I had money,’ but she cut in quickly, ‘Don’t worry. I love you. We shall wear the clothes we wore last year.’ This suit was what I wore last Christmas, she too has a nice kitenge, a left over from last year. To make up for the lack of new dresses, I struggled – I really struggled – and I bought a turkey, a lot of other delicious foods and a crate of beer. She said ‘That’s why I love you – you make me so happy – so happy.’

“Then today came. I woke up late with a hangover. She was not in bed. Nor was she anywhere in our home. It’s only two rooms, so I didn’t have to search hard to see she was missing. I thought she’d gone to church. I thought she didn’t want to wake me up so she went alone. I dressed up in this suit –” He looked at his suit and touched the bowtie as if he had just remembered what he was wearing, and looked surprised that he was still wearing it.

“I went to Church. I couldn’t get a seat, not even a foothold. The church was so full, there was a bigger crowd outside than inside. After the service, I saw some of my neighbors. That’s when the bad news hit me. They saw her sneaking away at dawn. They said she had a big suitcase, and she told them she was going to visit her parents.

“I went back home and realized she had packed everything of hers and run away – yes, she’d run away.” He paused, a very long pause, his head bowed, sweat dripped off his brows onto the grass between his feet. It was an awkward silence between us.

My eyes ran around the park. The picnicking family had gone, the couple was strolling, hand in hand, to an exit. In another ten or so minutes, unless someone else came by, we’d be the only souls in the park.

“She’ll never come back,” the man added. “She ran away, without even a bye, without leaving me a note, without explaining, she just ran away, when I never expected it, when I thought we were at the peak of our love and steadily heading for a lifetime together – she ran away – she was pregnant, three months pregnant, with my baby – she ran away – why? Why did she do it?”

I was mum.

“What do you think made her run away? On this day – why did she choose today?”

I had no answer.

“Do you think it was the dress?”

“I don’t know.”

“But I struggled to make us enjoy this day – the turkey, the beer, the money I gave her to make her hair – I really struggled – it’s only the dress which I failed to buy – only the dress –” he said dress with a pitiable tone. I think there were tears on his face, amid the sheets of sweat.

Without another word, he rose to his feet. His eyes searched the tree under which we sat. Being very old, the branches looked ready to snap at the slightest provocation.

“This tree can’t hold a man’s weight,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied. “Its branches look weak.”

He walked away. This time, he didn’t creep. His gait was purposeful, as if he were trying to imitate a soldier in a parade. He marched through the bush, his hands swinging violently.

I turned away from him. I lay back and tried to once again enjoy the cool shade of the tree, the peace, the quiet, and the solitude.

Twenty or thirty minutes passed. I then heard another sound, the violent swinging of a tree’s branch, the leaves shaking, it seemed to me that a giant was shaking a tree. I sat up, angry at this new interruption. I looked for the tree where this noise was coming from. I saw it – I saw him – a figure dressed in white suit dangling on a branch. I stood up, mesmerized. His body went still, and then started to swing, gently. His trousers slipped down to his ankles. He was wearing green and white boxers. He had a scar under his knees. He had used his belt. For a brief second, as he swung, he turned and faced me, his eyes were closed, his face still shone with sweat. The white coat opened as the breeze brushed past his body, the hanky fell off the coat, floated in the wind for a brief moment, then down to the grass. He turned again and showed me his back side.

As I watched, the branch on which he hung creaked. The body kept swinging, turning round and round, unaware that its fun was about to end. It seemed not to care too, it just swung and turned, merrily, like a child at playtime. With a loud crash, the branch broke and plunged into the bush, pushing the body down into the grass. Then there was silence. A very deep silence. I was frozen, I couldn’t see the broken branch, or the body, because a tall bush grew around the tree.

~~

About the Author: Dilman Dila is a writer and filmmaker. His books include Where Rivers Go To Die, which was shortlisted for the Philip K Dick Awards (2024), and The Future God of Love. He was shortlisted for the BSFA Awards (2021), the Nommo Awards for Best Novella (2021), and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2013), among many accolades. His short fiction appeared in The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, and in The Best of World SF V.2, among many anthologies. His films have won multiple awards, including The Felistas Fable, which was nominated for Best First Feature by a Director at the Africa Movie Academy Awards (2014). He regularly makes short science fiction films that he shares on his PeerTube channel.

For more of his life and works, follow him on his website www.dilmandila.com