Peace
by A.
D. Koboah
Find out more about A. D. Koboah's Peace. You can also read about her debut novel Dark Genesis (FREE) in my
previous blog post.
Description
Peace Osei is young, beautiful – and addicted to heroin; the only thing
that can keep painful past memories at bay. But when a face from the past
re-enters her life demanding answers to questions she is not ready to face, it
threatens to send Peace swimming deeper into self-destructive waters. Having
spent so long drifting away from the real world, can Peace find the strength to
face the past and banish her demons?
Excerpt
Chapter 1
I quickened my steps
to try and shake off the grinding pain in my stomach. But that only made it
worse, forcing me to slow down and come to a stop by the side of the bridge
whilst everyone else swept on past. It was rush hour so nobody noticed me, a
small figure dressed in black trembling against the icy metal railing under
dense grey clouds that threatened to unleash rain on the city below. Unable to
move or think straight I let my eyes drift over the raging waters of the River
Thames, which stretched out like a rippling black sheet for miles before me.
And as I stared at the dark angry water, it seemed to come alive, taking on the
appearance of an enormous creature stirring restlessly beneath me. The sound of
the waves crashing against the bank now sounded like an unearthly heart beating
slow and steady against the soft sigh of the January wind.
I wondered then what
it would feel like to plunge into the midst of the creature beneath me. Would
the seconds spent in the air before I hit the water feel like an eternity, or
would they disappear in a flash? Would any of the people sweeping past me even
notice or stop long enough to care? And once the dark, icy water closed over my
head, how long would I spend struggling before I gave in to its eternal
embrace?
Thankfully, the icy
wind was all I felt against me, the biting cold eventually jolting me out of my
morbid reverie and back to reality. Noticing a bus roll past and come to rest
at the bus stop nearby, I released my death grip on the railing and ran toward it,
only just managing to board it before it moved on.
Once aboard the
packed bus, I inched my way through the knot of people on the lower deck, up
the stairs onto the top deck, and chose a seat next to the window as the bus
lurched forward. Leaning back in my seat, I delicately fingered three soft
plastic packages in my right coat pocket and letting myself relax – ever so
slightly – I watched the city streets dance by.
Dusk had crept up on
us by this time and the glow of the streetlights beating back the invading
darkness gave the bustling streets a festive air as office blocks emptied of
their daytime inhabitants. I sat enchanted by the people that swept past, most
of them in heavy winter coats walking briskly in either ones or twos toward
tube stations or to join the larger groups that had gathered around bus stops
in what was a mass exodus away from the city streets. Some people I saw walked
with a grimace as the bitter cold whipped their faces. Their mouths were drawn
into thin hard lines and their vacant eyes told me that the stresses of the day
had followed them out of the office and would be with them long into the
evening. Others strode energetically down the streets, jauntily ducking out of
the way of their fellow pedestrians as they fled to the comforts of home. They
even managed a smile as they waited for buses that were often too full to
welcome them aboard. I also saw groups of young men and women around my age who
appeared oblivious to the punishing cold as they meandered down the streets,
laughing carelessly about something or other that had amused them. I kept my
eyes on those groups of blissfully young, untroubled types who were a
representation of something that had long ago ceased to exist for me, and
watched until they were either too far away to see or had disappeared into one
of the many pubs and bars that dotted the city landscape.
The bus soon sped
away from those people and the city streets, away from the London Eye which
stood over the near-black river, holding up its glowing blue capsules like an
offering of jewels to the twilight sky. Away from the grand office buildings
with their lit windows looking like Christmas tree lights in the distance. And
as the bus drew further and further away from the city streets and became
emptier with each stop, we were slowly taken away from one world and into
another.
No
impressive-looking office buildings were to be seen providing the background
for an opulent world in this new landscape. And whilst the world I had left
behind had statues and monuments as a tribute to their heroes and significant
events of their history, we saw no more of these as the bus left behind the
wealthy city streets and wound into the urban jungle.
Neglect instead wove
an ugly thread along the littered streets of this new world, and the only thing
that distinguished each unremarkable building from its neighbour was the
graffiti that screamed at the passer-by from every exposed concrete surface. It
seemed as though every time the bus turned a corner, it was met by a sprawling estate
or a high-rise block of flats that loomed menacingly on the horizon, dominating
the landscape and casting an oppressive shadow over the world beneath. I was
carried deep into this new world and got off the bus to the familiar sight of a
small group of drunks that had congregated by that bus stop. They were always
there, dishevelled, noisy and oblivious to the unease or open contempt their
presence evoked in those around them. In my eyes they were an example of people
who had given up on life; kindred spirits that had taken enough of life’s
knocks, had handed in the towel and surrendered. People who had made the
conscious decision a long time ago to stop striving for the better things in
life such as that better job or better relationship. They had instead chosen to
find that something better at the end of a bottle – or in their case, the many
empty cans of beer that littered the bus stop.
I left them behind
and made the short walk into the heart of the urban jungle, under a sky that
had already deepened to an inky black as night descended, bringing with it a
hive of activity as people either left the streets or ventured from their homes
to explore it. Cars roared past and I heard the sound of a police siren, the
piercing wail sounding like a bird of prey shrieking in the distance before it
died away. I passed off-licences, corner shops, and takeaway shops which were
now beacons of light in the darkness, drawing people in. I took comfort in the
kaleidoscope of colourful faces that passed mine; from white, Asian, Latin
American, Chinese and every shade of black; starting with soft golden browns
and travelling down the spectrum to the richest blue-black skin tones.
Some people I passed
were clearly not at ease in this world and they trod carefully through it with
their heads down, trying not to make eye contact with those around them in an
effort to get from A to B unnoticed. But for others, the world around them had
become a part of their identity and was as much an essential part of them as
the blood coursing through their veins. Whether they were obvious predators or
people that had simply fallen in love with the urban jungle, the hold that this
world had on them was a powerful one and it kept them coming back again and
again to dance to the rhythms of its dangerous beat.
I made it onto my
road without having to stop and give in to the pain which was clutching and
twisting my lower abdomen. I fled past rows of identical Victorian houses
towards the bright red door of a converted house which had become a lighthouse,
lighting the way home in the growing storm of my need. Once I let myself into
the house and stepped onto the worn dark brown carpet in the gloomy hallway, I
was able to release a deep sigh before I closed the door shut quietly behind
me. I slunk past a door on my left, which led to a one-bedroom flat, and up the
stairs onto the first floor which had been converted into two bed-sits with a
shared kitchen and bathroom. The tremor in my hand was more intense when I put
the key into the lock of my bed-sit and swung the door open to the glare of the
television set which I had left on in my haste to leave earlier on in the day.
Safely in my sanctuary, I wasted no time in shrugging off my coat whilst
fragments of news that nobody ever wanted to see or hear accosted me from the
television screen. It was a news bulletin about another missing or dead child,
and a photograph of that child wearing a school uniform they would probably
never have the chance to wear again. I watched the television sadly, affected by
the sweet innocent smile that the child’s parents must have longed to see again
in the flesh. Then I snapped the television off and plunged the room into an
expectant silence.
Carefully taking out
the tiny bag from my coat pocket, I reached for the lighter and roll of foil on
my chest of drawers, catching sight of a tall, slim, pretty young woman peering
at me from the mirror against the wall.
I avoided her as
much as was physically possible, but she still managed to sneak up on me when I
was least expecting it, and forced me to acknowledge her as I did now.
I watched as she put
a hand up to her face which had a strong hint of Ghanaian lineage in the
mahogany brown skin, small, flat, broad nose, full sensuous lips and thick,
jet-black natural hair that had been pulled tightly away from her face.
Although this face had undergone minor changes over the years, the eyes – my
eyes – were the only feature that had changed beyond recognition and looked as
if they had seen far too much in their twenty-three years on this earth. It was
the clear, deep anguish in those eyes that led me here and made me tear myself
away from the mirror back to the lighter and the two small pieces of foil that
I tore off the roll. Rolling up one of the pieces, I put it in my mouth and let
it hang off my lip like a cigarette then tore open the bag and emptied the
brown powder onto the other scrap of foil. Using slow deliberate movements,
which defied the urgency that was speaking to me from my every pore, I used the
lighter to melt the powder into a golden-brown ball and tilted the foil to make
the brown ball run down to the other end whilst chasing it with the foil roll
in my mouth.
Inhaling the
heavenly smoke through my mouth, I chased and chased until all my burdens
floated up and out of the room.
All my life it
seemed as if I had chased one thing or another; acceptance, love, chasing dream
after dream. Whenever I got close enough to those dreams, I realised they were
nothing but phantoms. Insubstantial ghosts that quickly dispersed, leaving
behind mists of failure, disillusionment and despair.
When it hits, when
that first wave hits and I am swept away from everything, swept far, far away
from the shore to a place where I can see nothing, hear nothing and feel
nothing, I sometimes see his face. His face in all its exquisite beauty often
overwhelms me, inducing tears before disappearing as quickly as it comes,
leaving me far out to sea with no sight or sound of land until finally, it
finds me... peace.
Featured Review
By Leesa
This is a heartbreaking, well-written book. It is a dark and depressing
story of a young woman of Ghanian descent who can barely survive in low-income
London. We meet her as a heroin addict, learning that she is trying to forget a
traumatic event. Koboah takes her time letting this story unfold, taking us
into the past then to the present to see how each step in Peace's life has led
to today.
I already felt immense sympathy for Peace, but about halfway through the
book, I started crying. Each following page wasn't getting brighter, and it
only got worse. I couldn't stop reading while I was so dumbstruck with grief
for Peace, so I resolved I wouldn't stop until my heart stopped breaking or the
book ended. My tears did stop just before the end of the book, but I'm still
melancholy. I will need to read a couple of lighter books before I venture into
such darkness again. This is not a criticism of the book at all; it's a
testament to how powerful the story is.
From the Author
I am of Ghanaian descent and spent the first few years of my life in
Ghana before moving to London which is where I have lived ever since. I
completed an English Literature degree in 2000 and although I have always
written in my spare time, I didn’t start writing full-time until a few years
ago.
My first novel Dark Genesis was inspired by my thoughts on dehumanisation. I was fascinated by the
ways in which people are able to dehumanise others, the impact it has on the
psyche and whether it is possible for people to find their way back from being
dehumanised. This led me to Luna and the ruins of a haunted chapel deep in the
heart of Mississippi. Rising Dark, the sequel to Dark Genesis, was released April 2014.
Links
