14 March 2020

The date is 15 March 2020.

We are advised to minimise contact with one another as a global pandemic allegedly threatens the future of human life as we know it.

The atmosphere is damp and overcast as it has been for months lending a dreary dreamscape backdrop to a situation which is surreal and difficult to find your feet in.

I sit in the back of a cab as the Nigerian Uber driver sets out his views on the virus and on women. He asks me for my story.

I grant him his request and he becomes increasingly agitated.

“What’s wrong with you? Eh?? You’re a handsome guy. You are worried about a woman in the past? Women come and go. Women destroy men. Women are easy. All you need is money. When I need to fuck, I save money and go to Nigeria.”

I tell him that I do not need to fuck.

I tell him that I failed in my responsibility as a boyfriend.

I tell him that I do know what I have done wrong and that all I ask for now is the right to call a wrong a wrong and to try to live with and cope with it in peace.

He tells me I am crazy and mentions psychology.

He asks me whether I have ever tried fucking two women at once. Three women? Four women…

He asks me to contemplate how much peace of mind that could give me.

I reiterate that I betrayed the love of my life. No suggestion of his can change that.

He tells me that he is married with kids and still wants to fuck.

I tell him that my days of fucking are over.

The further I continue with the spiritual journey I began around 2 years ago, the further my faith is strengthened, the deeper my prayer becomes, the stronger my confidence is in the knowledge of where I went wrong and why history will never repeat itself.

My detachment from desire is growing by the day.

I thank him for his thoughts and tell him that I am going home to pray.

The simple truth that people around me contend with today but will one day be compelled to understand is that she did not destroy me. She made me.