This is the last installment in this series, one that is a bit tough for me to put down in words, both because it is deeply personal and it is such an old memory that it is not even coherent in my head, just a series of disjointed images. Here goes anyways, actually this is a memory that doesn’t invoke pure happiness, rather a bittersweet sorrow (to quote either Shakespeare or Oasis I’m not entirely sure) for what could have been but at least some gratitude for what was.

The incident took place back in the mists of my past, sometime in 1987 (I think) before my father passed away, my family was fractured and life changed so dramatically for me. Before that I was a typical kid, son of a planter, in Royal College, part of a tight knit community. If that life was mine today I would probably (assuming I had inherited some of my Dad’s sports genes) have played either cricket or rugby for school, maybe even captained, spent vast amounts of time in remote parts of the country and actually known my sister and mother as complete family members instead of the caricatures that thousands of miles and years apart created. I instead ended up in the microcosm of an international school with its mediocre sports programs, excellent academics and accompanying attitude problems.

The trip was to Kala Wewa and as I was only about six years old I can’t really remember all that conspired. I do remember going across the tank in an old boat, Uncle D in the front, watching the greenish yellow water plants whip beneath the sides. I remember wandering what it would feel like to be in that water, what fish and other wonderful creatures lurked beneath. I also remember emerald grass, almost shoulder high for a man, my dad silencing me when with a grunt a water buffalo got up some feet away and eyed us uneasily. Him whispering to me to listen hard for the elephant that was in the tree line and refused to come out, the breaking branches and ‘huffs’ sending delicious thrills through me. I remember the yellow mud, heaped around the elephant’s footprints where he had visited a circuit bungalow, the excitement at listening to the caretaker recount the visit. I also remember at night, at the bungalow we stayed in, a wooden ‘tat,’ a lantern causing a surreal red striped glow reflected off a red wall around a solitary gecko.

Most of all I remember getting out of the Trooper when we got to the bungalow we were staying at. It was overcast and as I looked down I was fascinated by a line of red ants, possessors of a painful bite, but peacefully wending their way between my blue Bata’s, contrasting against the white sand and minute black stones covering the ground. I’m not sure how long I watched them, but that memory is crystal clear. The red ants, blue slippers and white sand, as the breeze blew in off the Kala Wewa, blowing the last few days of my old life away.

Note: That was actually a pretty tough post to write and apologies in advance for any excessive sentimentality.