Folks:

Oooh! This is a classic. One of the great features of attending High
School in the Gambia in the '80s. Indeed very fond memories. One received
lots of those letters...well, may be Bros. Yus, King Solomon and Saul Khan
(Shhh! I hope they are not reading), also wrote a few. Writing them alone
was an art. Enjoy.

Madiba.
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A classic 'love' letter By Reuben Abati (EMAIL)


I was riffling through my old things the other weekend: Secondary school
note books, undergraduate files and somewhere in my notebook for PhiChemBi
(pronounced FI-KEM-BA): Physics, Chemistry, Biology), I'd come across a
true
relic from the past: a love letter I'd written to the first girl I was
supposed to have loved. How the letter survives till today is a comment on
my personal habits. I don't keep diaries - I've always thought that only
mean people do - but I never fail to keep documents. Letters, ordinary
notes, office memos are carefully hidden away somewhere in my unending
file
of documents. My wife says it is junk but as it happened that weekend, I
encountered a document which recalled past memories. The keeping of junk
probably has its uses after all.


The letter in question is not an ordinary letter. It is the first letter
I'd
ever written to any girl. It was also written in a particular style. As
secondary school students, we had our own way of doing things. A form
three
student as we then were who was just being introduced to the mysteries of
science and agriculture, invariably felt that a love letter was a good
forum
to show off his erudition. Every love letter was scrutinised by one's
circle
of peers. For the writing of this particular letter, I had no fewer than
10
advisers. The letter kept going back and forth with each person, adding
his
own line. Our objective was simple: that the girl to whom it was addressed
should fall head over heels in love. We had high hopes that the letter
would
do the trick. You probably also once wrote such a letter.


In this joyless existence, love is one of the emotions that we experience
as
human beings, growing up as members of the community of man. We use the
word
love, even when we do not understand it. We believe in God without seeing
Him. It is the same with that thing which every young person calls
love. But
as we grow older, we become wiser. We are forced, by circumstances and
experience, to realise that love is not merely what the Holy Bible says it
is: I mean all that stuff about how love does not covet etc, but that the
act of love entails the realisation, the struggle to survive, the
preservation of the self in the midst of vicissitudes, and the inhumanity
of
man to man, is the truest act of love. We all fell in love, I suppose, as
an
initial act of fun, one of those rites of passage. These days, we are wont
to look back and chuckle. I am chuckling still. Here, then is my
beginning:
love is like this first letter: an emotional disconnection with reality, a
question mark: it is as follows:


At school, July 10, 1978



My dearest, sweetest, fondest, fantastic, extra-ordinary, paragon of
beauty
a.k.a Bose, I hope this letter meets you in a fabulous state of
metabolism,
if so doxology. My principal aim of writing this letter to you is to
gravitate your mind towards a matter of global and universal importance,
which has been troubling my soul. The matter is so important. Even as I am
writing, my adrenalin is 100 per cent on the Richter scale, my temperature
is rising, the windvane of my mind is pointing North, South and East at
the
same time; the mirror in my eyes has only your divine image. Indeed when I
sleep, you are the one in my medulla oblongata, and I dream about you. I
went out to sea in my dream, and I saw you: surrounded by H20 and you in
your majesty rose from the abdomen of the sea like Yemoja, the avatar of
beauty. Oh, Lord be with us! We are thy servants.


As you can see, I am in a serious dilemma. And I want you to take my
matter
seriously. At this junction, what our Lord said on this matter is germane.
He says we should ask, and we shall be given, we should seek and we will
find, and that we should knock, and it will be opened unto us. I am this
10th day of the seventh month in the year of our Lord, one thousand, nine
hundred and seven eight, asking, seeking and knocking at your door. My
prayer is that thou should open so that thy servant can enter. I want to
wake up in the morning and see only your face.


I want you to be the only sugar in my tea, the only fly in my ointment,
the
butter on my bread, the grey matter of my system, the oxygen in my head,
the
planet of my universe, the wall clock of my room. The conveyor belt of my
soul. I pray that you realise the gargantuan nature of my predicament. If
you refuse, my life will be like tea without sugar, like a snail without
shell, a Xmas goat without a horn; in fact I'd become an orphan. In fact
I'd
kill myself. What is life if I can't wake up in the morning and behold
your
face? You model of pulchritude, patiently created by God on a Sunday
morning
before he went on a deserved holiday. Please Bose, let me be your Romeo.
Make me the Adam to your Eve. Shakespeare said it all: if music be the
food
of love, play on. I want to emphasise, universally and responsibly, that
you
are love itself. You are the metaphor, oxymoron, thesis, antithesis,
irony,
gerund, conjunction and the adverb of love.


At this juncture, let me also say that geography of your body is a
permanent
allelluia. Not from your body, ammonia, urea and iodine- you are too
beautiful for that, what I see in your body is milk and honey. At this
juncture, brevity is the soul of wit. A stitch in time saves nine.
Procrastination is the thief of time. An opportunity once lost can never
be
regained. Make hay while the sun shines. All that glitters is not
gold. The
journey of a thousand years begins with a step. What God has put together
let no man put asunder. To be a man is not an easy task even if God's time
is the best. But time waits for no one. A man without love is like a fish
out of water. I know you are a sagacious girl. If you like the veracity of
what I am saying, please fill the attached form and let me have it pronto.
The mark at the bottom of this page is a kiss from me to you.



I remain


Your beloved, faithful, loyal,


One and only admirer.

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