The Almost Love Story of Kwasi and Thomas

Photo: mawuli lanyo, Unsplash

The poem ends

 Soft as it began—

I loved my friend

—Langston Hughes, ‘Poem’ (To F.S.)

1.

The waiter at the counter watches them. Short-lived glances driven by questions. Questions about these two men, none older than twenty-eight, who walk into a near-empty restaurant on a quiet evening. It is not that all waiters do is become judges of anybody who walks into a restaurant. No. But when two men—one dreadlocked and the other with a blonde low-cut trim—walk into a restaurant somewhere in Accra, they come in with the wind. Like a strong-scented perfume, you inhale the lush scent, you follow the trail, and you wonder, just wonder. It takes two men to run a waiter mad with wonder. The young women sitting in a corner of the restaurant also get this. They, too, watch as these men sit down at a table, as if they belong there.

The blonde man picks three fingers of yam chips, dips them into a sauce, and fills his mouth with them. Because a full mouth eases things. A full mouth means the tongue is too busy to make room for voice. And when two men find themselves at a table in a restaurant, one’s mouth hot with pepper and chips, the other must carry the weight of starting a conversation. So, the dreadlocked man does. He begins with a laugh. Something curt, a short exhale through the nose. “How long has it been, Thomas?”

“How long has what been?” His words are muffled by the sucking of fingers.

“You know.”

Isn’t it funny how the subject of a “You know” always knows?  Sometimes knowledge may be hidden behind a door by time or willful amnesia. But “sometimes” is not today, and the subject in question is not this Thomas. Not this Thomas who breaks plastic from the cap of a bottle of water, takes his time to untwist the cap, and then gulps the water, hoping the gulps are loud enough to take the edge off the moment, hoping the chill the water carries is cold enough to quell the fire inside his belly, inside his memory, that place carrying the answers to this “You know”.

He wants to say, “I am sorry.” Natural and simple. But, right here, between them, like a bathroom door refusing to be locked when you stand in the shower, naked and vulnerable, he says, “Three years. Three years, Kwasi. It has been three years.” 

 2.

This day begins with waakye. Wrapped in ahaban, just the way Kwasi likes it. Spoon mixing tomato stew and shito, rice and beans, from leaf to mouth. The hot delight. The day begins with food, but it will scroll its way into an operating table, a boy, only ten, bleeding and dying. 

“I don’t get it. How can an ambulance be late?” Kwasi asks, peeling blood-soaked gloves off his hands. 

It can be easy to save a life. Easier to live with someone dying when they come into a hospital with a dead liver. But when someone dies because an ambulance was too hard to reach and arrived too late to take a child hit by a car along the Tema motorway to 37 Military Hospital, a less than twenty-minute drive, hopelessness washes over you like ink swallowing paper. The other doctors in the room do not respond to Kwasi. Words to a man without hope are not always a panacea. This is not their first death, nor is it his. They know nothing said will give him what he seeks. A nurse walks over, places a hand on his shoulders and asks, “Should I speak to the boy’s parents, or will you be able to?” 

Most people would understand if Kwasi looked at this nurse and told her to take this cup from him. Most people would understand if Kwasi did not acknowledge her existence. But that is not the kind of doctor he is. The kind of doctor who walks through a waiting area with padlocked lips, fully aware that even a single word could bring relief to those sitting by cold metal chairs, anxious to know if their relative is dying in a room. So he responds, “Medaase, but I’ll do it. Where are they?” 

To end a day that began with waakye, with blood, then death, then soap can make weak strands of hair finally fall off. A hair tug to appease what thinking cannot resolve. But this is not the day to lose hair. So, Kwasi texts a friend. 

“Hey man, what’s up?” One grey tick. 

He scrolls to their old texts. This thread with this friend who is not a doctor, this friend he has known for years, this friend he goes to for easy conversations, something different and always genuine. A “how have you been?” that escalates to an “I lost someone a few months ago”, and then a “why didn’t you tell me?” A question that can only be answered with silence.

After minutes of scrolling and shaking his head at old memories, Kwasi returns to the present, to their last text. He goes over to the profile of this friend. No last seen. No profile photo. Nothing but the name, Thomas, displayed atop it.

“This weirdo has probably gone offline again,” he thinks. “I’ll call him in the morning.” 

When morning comes, it comes with the heaviness of the day before. Heaviness slightly tempered by a message to a friend, a journey into old memories. When morning comes, it comes with a short prayer, a “I have all that I require for life and godliness”. When morning comes, Kwasi returns to his phone with hope. A response from a text that strikes through this heaviness like an arrow of light through a dark room. His hope gets shattered by the “Hey man, what’s up?” with one grey tick. He calls. Even that does not bring him hope. He goes to another online platform, another space he shares with his friend, and there he finds something that looks like hope. A post made an hour ago. He messages his friend there. 

“Man, I tried reaching out to you via phone. What’s up?” One grey tick. Two grey ticks. Two blue ticks.

This had happened before. An empty profile. But he waited because he had nothing pressing to discuss. Days turned to weeks, and when he finally called, someone else picked up. A stranger. 

“Thomas, where have you been?” he asked, expecting a familiar response.

“This is not Thomas. It’s his father.” The voice said. “Hwan nie?”

“Oh, sir, this is Kwasi. I’m friends with Thomas. Please, is Thomas around?” 

“Thomas, bra bɛ gye phone no,” the father said. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

The phone call, cut short by the meanderings of a father, gave way to a new chat box. There was an explanation for the period of silence. A minor delivery issue. A change of phone.

“Maybe I’ll pay you a call sometime.”

“Pay a call?”

“Yeah. I could visit sometime. For a game or something.” 

“Oh, that’s what ‘pay a call’ means? I never knew that.”

“Well, now you do. Good for you.”

“Funny how you’re always teaching me new things. Introducing me to new things.”

“Well, good for you.”

So, how does something like this happen? You wake up one morning in an empty house. A blank profile. Messages tick once here. Messages tick twice there, and yet there’s no response. A strange voice at the end of a call that is not really a call, saying, “The number you have dialled does not exist.” How does one wake up one day and decide to be the instigator of a blankness like this?

3.

The first time they met was at a festival. By a book tent. 

Thomas, in a twist hairstyle, evading a Kwasi in his usual 3-inch unkempt hair, being sweet-talked into purchasing a book by a retailer.

“Man, if there was ever a book I could vouch for, it has to be Sally Rooney’s Normal People,” he says. “Two people developing a bond so intense, so devastating, it does proper damage.”

The seller watches Thomas direct this sale as smoothly as a tailor threads a needle. Because it is her shop and she cannot be silent under her tent, she adds to the conversation, “I hated Connell at the beginning, but I love how Sally Rooney addressed the emotions and mental anarchy in the story.”

“Yeah, yeah, true,” Thomas responds with a smile. “You should definitely get this.”

Like one obeying an order, Kwasi grabs the book. “Well, I’m certainly going to read this.” 

What does a young artist seek at a book tent? Does he suddenly abandon every other purpose because he met someone interesting? Or does he play the game? Act a little bit disinterested in anything that spills beyond the moment with this other person? Or ask the seller in the book tent if she has a book he has been looking for?

When Thomas sees a hard copy of Jack Gilbert’s Refusing Heaven, the old Greek structure displayed on the cover, his hands do not suffer to feel it. He could almost see the words “Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew”. It takes a dead thing to deny desire, and if Thomas is anything, he is not dead, so he fastens his hands to the page that will satiate his desire. Words. Head makes a meal of the words, sensation grows, grows, and when it hits, “I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph”, he falls. 

“Is this the last copy?” Thomas asks the book seller.

“Yes. It is.”

“How much is it?”

“Ninety cedis.”

Book in hand, he walks around the tent, eyes searching for something at the table. Something that can steer him to another conversation with Kwasi. 

Failing to find any other place to carry his desire, Thomas asks, “Did you get everything you hoped to get?” 

“Yeah, I did,” Kwasi said. Handing some notes to the bookseller.

“You ought to tell me what you think about Normal People,” Thomas suggested. “Let me give you my number, so you can reach out to me when you read it. Yeah?”

This is easy. This is what people do. They exchange contacts, hoping to stretch whatever it is they can stretch. And after weeks, they are on a first-name basis. Names said right after a “Yo.” Names said before a “You dey watch the match?” Before a “Today, make we trip beach?” And after months, they sit separately in their worlds—one an aspiring doctor, the other an aspiring artist. They create a bridge between worlds, where they share their wishes to ride like horses, where they meet sometimes and have several laughs and teases. 

But will it ever go beyond laughs and teases, will it? 

It starts with a laugh about a choice of clothes. 

“Too young to be dressing that old, sad and without colour.”

“Fuck off!”

It starts with a tease about sensual things.

“The way we talk, it’s almost as if we’re dating.”

“Haha . . .”

“Oh, but really, we fit so well. Easy. It could last.”

“Fuck off!” 

“Ha. Ha.”

It starts bending with a disagreement. Always a disagreement. Something as simple as a joke.

It cracks with a knowing. A thing stretched too far beyond what it can carry. Isn’t it vexing to make a bed for two and yet have only one sleeping on it every time? There is a silence in-between two people who share a road but are on different journeys. A silence so heavy it must break, even if the thing that breaks is a heart or two hearts.

4.

A lifetime of hiding in dark places will gain attention. It is the light that lets half a life empty out and fill with crane song. Bei Dao wrote that, and it is exactly why, how and what brought them here to this restaurant. Three years since the stretched thing broke.

The medical doctor, Kwasi, found himself in a theatre one night with some friends. Natural, like the earth turning, the friend of a friend of a friend of another friend, all grouped together at the end of a play in the parking lot of the National Theatre. The artist, Thomas, found himself in a theatre one night with some friends. Natural, like the earth turning, the friend of a friend of a friend of another friend, all grouped together at the end of a play in the parking lot of the National Theatre. It is Accra after all. City of circles. City quite small and yet contains many. How easy it is to meet a friend who, three years apart, has brought a staleness to being called a friend. When you meet this friend who is not a friend, the question is, to greet them with a smile, a hug, or a handshake?

“I’m Kwasi, nice to meet you.” Kwasi nods.

When you leave without a word, do not expect to be treated as anything other than what you are: a stranger. Thomas, although surprised by Kwasi’s gesture, gets this.

He responds, “Thomas. Nice to meet you, too.” 

These friends of a friend of a friend, too alive, too hungry for more in a night in August, decide that they must go somewhere else. The night cannot end like this, and so it doesn’t. They make their way to a gallery in Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City. An Exhibition. “Constellations Part 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space co-curated by Nuna Adisenu-Doe, Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson, and Katherine Finerty”, the large black font at the entrance says, and they all walk in like the viewers they are. Like the acquaintances and friends they are. Except Thomas and Kwasi, who take glances at each other. Little and short. Eyes meeting eyes. Eyes disappearing away from eyes. 

The problem is, in a gallery, a person can stand entranced by the image of a web of machines, darkish-green housing of an engine, only you cannot tell what machine this engine fits in. Another can be stuck, entranced by a carousel of some sort, the body of a woman, black and deep like a polythene bag, with the contours of her shape made in white, limbs, breasts and eyes painted white, lying inside a tyre painted red, held by beige chains from a ceiling fan painted slightly orange, in motion, a make shift carousel. A person can be entranced by beauty and make no move to see the other parts of the exhibition. But two strangers who are not really strangers strolling in a gallery would not be held by any painting. The only thing that holds their attention is each other. And it is no surprise when Thomas and Kwasi meet at a Painterly Object Series, the shadow of a man trapped inside a glass mirror, simple and yet too concealed to describe. They stand at this altar in silence. A measured silence that only the bold dare break.

“Interesting painting.” 

“Yeah. It’s alright.”

“I like what you’ve done with your hair.”

“Um, thanks?”

“How have you been?”

“Good, I guess. It’s an interesting night.” Kwasi sniffs. “I saw somebody I used to know years ago tonight.”

“Oh?” Thomas says. “Was it a good reunion?”

“I can’t say. I wouldn’t call it a reunion even. Just an unfortunate passing meet.”

“Okay . . .”  Gathering his words, Thomas asks, “Why was it unfortunate?” 

Kwasi turns away from the painting, stung by the nonchalant tone behind the question. He raises his eyes to Thomas and then returns to the painting.

“I don’t think we know each other like that, bro.”

“Oh.” Thomas smiles. “I get you. My bad. Sorry.”

The silence returns between them. 

“Would you maybe like to go somewhere someday, sometime, so we could talk?” Thomas chews the silence. “Anywhere, anytime you’re free.” 

Kwasi takes a few minutes before responding. Weighing the words, the choice to make. “Right. Maybe I know a place.” 

“Oh, good, good,” Thomas responds

 5.

“Hey guys . . .” One of the women from the other table in the restaurant walks into the moment. “My friend and I were watching and thought to ask if you’d like to hang out with us?” A smile enveloped the request.

“That’s fine. Can you give us a couple of minutes to finish over here and come join you guys?” Kwasi stalls the request with a smile, too. 

They wait for her to walk away, and when she reaches her table, Kwasi smiles at her friend too. Then, he drops the mask of a smile and wears the face that suits the moment between him and Thomas. Shock. Frustration. Annoyance. Something in between.

“I hear you. Believe me, I do. But what did I do? What exactly was so bad that made you just choose to cut all ties with me?” Kwasi asks.

Silence.

“You just,” Thomas stutters, “you just didn’t see me.”

To see somebody. Three words synonymous with “I love you.” And to love somebody sometimes is to love them in a way they cannot see. 

They are here now. Here, where it is too old to act. Too tiring to act. So, Kwasi responds, “Neither did you.”

Silence.

“You say we were on different frames of mind back then, and I get that. I know that. But I was there. Trying to be your friend. No. I was your friend,” Kwasi says. “You didn’t see me either.”

Something chokes, so Thomas takes a drink. 

“Do you know what happens when someone abandons you? The wound refuses to heal. A friend cuts all contact with you for no reason, and you begin to live in two worlds with whoever you meet. One leg already out, ready to leave before they leave.” Kwasi speaks with a calmness, in a low tone, as if the thing he is saying is a secret that shouldn’t be shared. “You go on to doubt yourself, even. Wondering if you were even a good friend? Because I mean, nobody just suddenly stops talking to their friend unless this friend has done something so awful that sharing words becomes meaningless.”

Thomas exhales. The words beg to be drawn out of his mouth. But words sometimes can be meaningless. 

“You know, I don’t think we can get it right. To be friends again with someone who does that?” Kwasi scoffs. “I don’t know. But I wish you had talked to me.”

“Who would that have helped?” Thomas finally says. 

Silence helps. Silence hinders. Silence destroys.

Kwasi gets up, his chair forcing a groan out of the floor, and walks towards the exit.

“I did try to reach out, you know,” Thomas says. Soft, the truth coming out of his mouth like oil from a bottle.

The waiter behind the counter watches Kwasi halt his steps. The ladies by their corner watch, expecting the union they had requested with these two men. Kwasi stands there, face away from Thomas, eyes to the floor, listening.

“I didn’t respond to your message, and ever since, once in a while, I seek you out in a post. Or rather, posts with you in them seek me out,” Thomas continues. “For example, the photo from that event, PaGya! in 2022, showed up on my socials, and there you were, dreadlocked, seated, legs crossed, attentively listening. The other time, a mutual friend I didn’t even know we had posted something, and you commented. How I wanted to like your comment just to let you know I thought of you. Even that play from the theatre, I wouldn’t have made it, but one of my friends insisted. The magnet of you, our friendship, brought me here.” 

But again, what do you do when a friend leaves like a stranger and then returns, speaking like a friend who never left? Do you run to them? Welcome them? Or do you treat them like the stranger they worked their way into? When Kwasi walks out the door, the glass shutting quietly, Thomas is left with nothing but an answer, a closure, the kindness he never offered.

Photo: mawuli lanyo