Alchemy of Pain

by Titilayo Oloidi

You don't really know pain until you know Pain

A little boy sits at a dining table on a rusty Monday morning. He spills tea on his uniform and leaves crumbs of bread on the table. His mum berates him with a few spanks on the back, he cries and consoles himself till it's time to leave for school. He has proposed in his heart to "never be mummy's friend ever again". But when she drops him off at school, he doesn't want to go. He gets out of the car after much persuasion and watches the car zoom off. He walks sullenly towards the school gate, dreading the day already. Pain.

A teenage boy, sitting at the far corner at the back of a classroom. He only hears what the teacher is saying but he isn't listening. He thinks of home, how he snuck up on his sister crying in the parlour at 2am that morning and how his father detests him and is clearly ashamed of calling him his son. "So, Sukanmi, with my explanation of the effects of chiaroscuro, could you highlight at least two points from my lengthy talk?", the teacher's voice jolts him back from wherever he was. All eyes settle on him and his meets with a girl he's obsessed with. She clearly doesn't think much of him. He breaks into a sweat and utters a sentence that triggers the whole class to roar in laughter. He excuses himself to make use of the gents, he sobs in there till it's break period. Pain.

Two weeks ago I met Pain. No, it wasn't clad with black rags and dried tendrils. He was on black though and he sat beside me in a shuttle. I later got to know him better and he shares many things with me; the day he spilled tea on himself and got spanked as a little boy, he said, "that was my birthday and I thought she would notice at some point. I delayed in the car cause something deep within me kept tugging at my feelings and I felt she could've remembered somehow, but she didn't. I don't know if she eventually did as she drove off, I still wonder if she ever looked at me at least once through her rear mirror the same way I looked at her drive off. Nothing was ever right that morning. I knew it right from the moment the hot liquid scalded my chest and left a brown patch on my uniform. She died that day, an hour after she dropped me off at school".

You don't really know pain until you know Pain. I know Pain very well now, but I don't know pain. Cause if I haven't experienced what Pain has experienced, I know nothing about pain. Pain is a really sweet person, I've grown very fond of him. He's quiet but can be very chatty at times. I want to share Pain's pain but he won't let me cause he doesn't want me to experience it. But I experience Pain in my little way, through our evening strolls, our petty talks and stolen kisses.

I guess that's what Pain teaches; to not share what you have with others, to not let others feel the way you feel. You don't really know pain until you know Pain. His life is a classroom and I'll live the rest of my life in it, studying him. I want to know Pain.