Part One: Heavenly Quiet

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There were big questions about the invitations, like how the bride had just doled them out to whoever with little expectation that anyone would come. It was one of those weddings where one had a loose connection to the bride: she had just come to the job and was getting married a couple of months later, and they didn’t work the same shifts, so it was logical that she didn’t expect much when she gave him the invitation. It just felt like one of those things that felt right to do. Now, when he remembers, the invitation wasn’t exactly to him, but to everyone associated with the company, a group that was rarely enthused by invitations, especially from one whom they had only met a couple of months earlier. He remembered contributing a small sum that was received with great excitement by the bride. It seemed as though it was one of those functions where the bride was pushing herself into lunacy to try and make it work, so the sum, modest to him, seemed to mean a lot to the bride, calming her fears of not making the required sum to have the function go ahead.

For him, handing that money to the bride seemed like a small thing to do, and he did it with the same passiveness he did with any other contribution, not necessarily interested in the success of the function, but as a polite gesture that underlined his egalitarian beliefs that if one sought to hold a function as noble and sacred as marriage, then it is only human that well-meaning people offer a hand to make it work. There was also a deeper motivation for him: the sense of pride that when the event eventually happened, he would have contributed a small part to make it work, and that he would have participated in a good thing.

But the idea of attending didn’t seem palatable; functions weren’t his thing. He envisaged that he would be engulfed in scores of people he didn’t know and would have an unpleasurable experience. But as the day of the wedding drew close, there was a strong feeling he would attend, if for no other reason than that he had attended a wedding months earlier and loved it. Two weddings in his first 28 years of life, and now attending this would make it two weddings in four months. He got increasingly excited to make it to this one. The day came; he saw the updates in the group about the church. He almost never attends the church session because he lacks clothes for it.

He figures everyone there is overdressed and he doesn’t want to seem like the shabby one, so he waits for the reception, where he is sure there will be ones dressed as casually as he is so that he doesn’t feel out of place. The place for the reception was hard to find, but after the manoeuvring and aimless driving about by his boda boda rider, they found the area: secluded church gardens where the well-meaning security guard ushered him in. He was wearing all black, but with a shirt of grey patches on it, because he felt he needed the black tempered somewhat so as not to draw the wrong conclusions from the superstitious. Outside the venue wasn’t a place to look at, but as soon as one has overcome the dusty pathway and the patches of burnt bush, they are met with the unprecedented beauty of the gardens, well-tended grass that goes on for acres, sparsely punctuated by poplar trees. Then the glow of the 3 p.m. sun from a distance. He found the place a heavenly quiet and for a moment forgot he was there for a wedding reception. That quiet was hard to find in a city that prides itself on being loud, but there it was with unmatched consistency.

He feared he was in the wrong place. The function looked abandoned and he feared the worst…

Written by

Okurut Wyclef

Okurut Wyclef, the dynamic Ugandan writer born in 1996, crafts captivating stories that blend African heritage with modern dreams.

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