When a man Proposes….

There are many difficult days in a man’s life, but since he is a man, well, a man got to do what a man got to do right? Wrong.

All these incredibly tough days can never in a millionth year get close to that split second, that split minute which lasts more than it took Noah and his fellows to build the ark, that short duration which is long enough for a perfectly “roughaged”  bowel to change watery.. That one potentially temporal-insanity initiating moment he decides to risk his dignity, self-belief, sanity, and any other attribute attached to oneself, the moment he decides to bend one knee in front of an Eve in proposal.

Not all seekers find their destinies, even the Greek know, and similarly not all men put themselves through this kind of tension, for some it just happens, and they decide there is no need to feeding worms to an already caught fish (No to chauvinism, - haha). I personally have never been through this, but some things need not happen to you for a grasp to be achieved, especially terrible things.

“He went down on one knee, pulled the ring from his Tux pocket and there he was smiling and saying the magical words.. ‘Please, will you marry me’?” That is what they will say, then they will chew on how huge the fake diamond was, or how the ring shone against some disco lights on the dance floor, where the guy had decided to drop the surprise. There is so much they won’t say, so damn much… though somewhere deep down they know it happened, but who cares?

They won’t tell you of the ounces of liquor the guy had swallowed to try and calm his trembles and harness his ranging nerves, how many times during the day he had been startled by the reality of the event yet to be that evening. That early morning board presentation, when he had not even noticed Naomy of Marketing’s higher than normal slit, the same meeting when he had to ease his tie till it spread from one side of him to Timbuktu.. How he hated carrying handkerchiefs, but on the said day he had three, since his damn hands and nose and temples were so damn moist!

They will completely ignore the lunch he missed since his bowels had closed to a knot, and anything he swallowed would only float at the neck, and never get to the duodenum, not in a century, how the morning chocolate he always stole from Njeri’s desk tasted like a watermelon, and how more than half of it still lay in the bin waiting for its fate. His stomach will be empty enough to keep making those noisy growls against the butterflies, but full enough to not want anything getting in. Even the tapeworms which have now become immune to the deworming pills will be in cahoots with the situation, and will keep meandering and releasing gases, which will all be blamed on the poor love struck fella.

5’Oclock clicks, the day has literally run, like it knows he will flop tonight.

The boys know the drill, they go through it on a conference call, though the main culprit’s voice is shouting trembling in every vowel he spills out.

“Relax, you are not he first to do this noogle..” Alex, the ever single shouts and clicks. A curse follows him.

They get to the club, Eve is there in her long flowing dress, he has never seen it before and it doesnt look new at all, she is there, very much clueless,.. The boys had chosen a getaway from their local, because “We won’t mind anything going wrong in front of strangers..” Hiram the talker had advised, well, he happens to be member of the Hyaena family, so they had listened. Eve knows it’s only  a dinner date with bae, so the boys scatter in the confinement of corners, swallowing brown bottles, he is buying anyway! She is there, smelling nicely, her cluelessness and calm irks the fella, uuurgh, lets call him Adam.

Adam’s metabolism has now gone totally berserk. Everything wants out, but he forces it all in. There is that thin silly sweat welling up in the armpits, and he can feel another trickle down from the axis of his backbone, down his back to kingdom come. He can’t control his body anymore, and he gives up.

The waiter comes up, his order – Whisky, dry.

He gulps it in one two swigs, it burns his insides, he loves it. She just smiles and continues licking the rims of her Barbie-Flute wine glass. She is still as clueless as a girl I know on matters offside rule. They talk, yes, but he does more of listening, and zero of concentrating, he can feel the ring in the breast pocket throbbing him, “Take me out.. Take me out.. Let me smell some fresh air.. Its all moist in here…!”

Occasionally Eve throws the “You look distracted, am I boring you…?”  He only hears the last four, and quickly laughs it off.. “You? Not even in a million years ..”

He can damn hear his heart close to the esophagus, not the love which has flung it all that way up, but the scare and the throbbing. He thinks of texting his crew to “Mission Jeopardy, It’s a trap, Abort, I repeat, all troops abort and return to base”, but then he remembers something about quitters not being winners.

The cue.. he can hear the Deejay start to flirt with the song he was to propose on, looks up at his boys, and they go thumbs-up. “This is it.. Its not a drill..” He commands all parts of him. The lyrics to the song are now flowing, the mood is red, it’s Eve’s favorite song, she smiles, sings along, hums where she knows not of the exact words, then he decides, “What the….” Pushes his seat slightly behind, goes to stand, but his legs betray him, he sits back, curses silently and gives it a second try, it works, he is now standing in front of Eve, she looks confused and scared, he is happy. He tries to bend his right leg, it has that not-enough-grease sound and he decides to go with the left one. A short air biscuit he shoots behind, he can see fully formed droplets on his nose of perspiration, his hands are trembling, very much. He steadies and reaches for his breast pocket, It’s all moist in there, he swears the ring is also moist, and indeed it is, he pulls it out, it almost falls, but he traps it on his middle finger,  sees a glance of his heart throb almost through the shirt, as his eyes lock with Eve’s. She is petrified; everyone else in the club is looking on, guys cursing, girls wishing.

Some girls cheer, he shoots a second air biscuit, and his voice vanishes, his throat is now just an unused water pipe in a desert. He swallows hard, some saliva wets the voice box, enough for him to cloak “Please be my husb… sorry,.. please be my wife…”

The boys are now cheering .. “That’s our boy! Yeaaah..!”

Eve holds covers her mouth. He smiles, but curses in the inside “Say yes damn it..! Say damn yes..!” He regrets the whole day, in that second before she can say a word, he has cursed everyone from the smith who made the ring, to that beautiful attendant who giggled as she sold him the cuffs. His legs hurt a moment, he is kneeling on a bottle top facing up, it hurts like hell, he shifts.

“Yes Adam, I will..” she stammers, sobbing uncontrollably. He takes her slender arm, and slides the ring on the engagement finger… “Damn it…!” The ring is too big, he forces a childish grin and slides it into the thumb, it holds.. It will work. She smiles, ‘this will have to be one of the many silly antics he does’ she thinks.. ‘Damn, I should have used that sting trick to know her finger size, I was such a fool…’ He curses.

It’s done, he gets to his feet, he can feel where the bottle top had dug into relax, his boys are all over him, then Hiram the hyaena spells to his ear “Good bye bro..! You just pointed the gun to your head and pulled the trigger”.. Adam gives him the ‘I want to see you dead’ look.

That evening he drinks himself to a stupor, she has to carry him, his boys help her.. They all have to pay for not suffering like he did.