The Voice Of Zarah, The Face Of...

“Kim,”

I turned around and searched in the crowd following the direction of the voice, no one looked familiar, so I moved on.

As I took a step, I heard it again,

“Kim”

Hian! (Exclamation!). I looked again and there was no one familiar. So I continued my waka and this time around, the voice was much closer, right behind me in fact. So I turned and this babe was right there smiling at me.

I hesitated, then smiled back while I schemed through the crowd for the person that has been calling my name. I was perplexed. ‘Abi mon lala ni’ (am I dreaming)? in my confused state, she spoke,

“Hi Kim, long time.” oh wow! This babe was actually smiling at me. She seems to know me somehow, as far as I am concerned, I have never seen her before.

I sha smiled back, trying to be courteous.

She realized I didn’t recognize her so, she introduced herself. “I am Zarah. I was in your house a year ago with your cousin … ?” she went on to remind me of the visit and some of the things we had discussed.

Everything she said I remembered about the visit, from the moment they walked into the time they left, everything. Her face I couldn’t reconcile.

This wasn’t the face that came with Dee. No. Not in a million years would I have placed her in that scene. I apologized for not recognizing her.

She was cool with it, “it’s okay, it’s been a while so I don’t blame you for not remembering.”

She chatted for a little while before we bade each other farewell.

I left that place very confused. This was a case of “the voice of Jacob and the hands of Esau”. I racked my brain trying to remember and ended up giving up.

Is it possible that I am the wrong one? I began to see her a little more often. We’d bump into each other on the way in or out. Even when I went to check on friends, I would bump into her. We would wave at each other and go our separate way, and some other days stop to chat.

But that face, hmmm.

So one day I was bored and decided to visit my friend. As I was entering her apartment complex, I met Zarah walking out. We chatted a bit then she proceeded. Racey was watching as we spoke. She waved at me and waited for us to finish. I got into the house, and after chitchatting a bit, my friend Racey got up to get me something to munch. She proceeded to warm the food she had cooked that morning.

While she was doing that, I got up and walked around the room. I found this picture album on the table and sat to flip through it. Something to while away time as Racey was in the kitchen.

Then I saw a picture of my cousin Dee and ‘the’ Zarah that came to my house, and boy, they were two different individuals. While one was light-skinned, the other was dark-skinned, like me or even darker.

I walked to the kitchen and pointed to the picture, she just took a glance at it and continued what she was doing, “Yea, that is Zarah.”

“Huh?” I was lost.

“My roommate Zarah, the one you stopped to say hello to on your way in”

Yesu Kristi!

“Bu bu bu but …” I stammered. Racey laughed and said

“but she is lighter”, taking the words right out of my mouth.

I nodded vigorously.

“How come…?”

I asked. My friend saw my distress and lack of comprehension and bailed me out.

“She is using bleaching cream, that is how. But why are you so distressed?” she asked me.

I went on to tell her about my encounter with Zarah and how I could not just place the face.

I have been so distressed. I have felt bad and wondered how it was possible to not remember only to discover it hadn’t been my fault all along but hers. She was the cause of my distress.

“How was I supposed to reconcile her with two different skin tones?”

I kept lamenting. Racey laughed so hard I almost got upset. She just didn’t get it.

Everything checked except the face. I even chided myself. I blamed and scolded myself for not recognizing someone that knew me all the way to my house fa, Haba!

I even thought it was one of those incidences with Kofo,. According to her, I never recognize her and I never really did because, as far as I know, ‘that’ meeting was the first meeting, even if ‘according to her’, it was the tenth or twentieth. I don’t know why.

Alas, this was different. There was no way I would have been able to marry dark-skinned Zarah with this light-skinned one.

At least now the mystery has been solved. I no longer have to wonder how I might have had a totally different picture in my head of the Zarah that visited with Dee.

The change in her skin colour completely changed her looks. Some people look the same, just ‘lighter’ but Zarah? Naaaa!

Well, now I know. I will no longer worry about such occurrences ever. If you have an “altered” skin colour, it will not be my fault for not recognizing you.

Abi no be so?