Koojo About Marriage

Koojo About Marriage

Koojo About Marriage 

Koojo found us at a restaurant. He was a short man. His face was shattered and rugged. When he walked in, he was a shadow—faint, weightless, almost unnoticeable. 

Koojo looked torn from the inside, as if something had clawed at his soul and left him fatally, irreversibly damaged. That tear had now crept out, spreading through his crooked frame like a slow wildfire, consuming everything in its path. Looking at him, his form was now just the ruins of something once whole. 

He walked towards the counter. As he walked, his feet scraped against the floor, slow, hesitant, as if each step was a burden. His knees buckled slightly, struggling under his failing weight. 

He was wearing glasses, crooked and slipping away from his face— cracked on one side. His blue shirt was blemished, and his brown khakis looked exhausted, frayed, barely holding together with patches. Through his battered shoes, unraveling at the seams, we could see his toes peeking at us, shooting through torn socks. 

Reaching the counter, he whispered to the waitress. The waitress pulled back slightly before leaning in again to hear what he said, her lips tightening. Koojo saw it, registered it, but did not react. He wanted a bottle of water. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled, dirty note and laid it into her twitchy hand. 

It was then he caught our piteous gaze with a side glance. He looked away. He bent his head, whispered to himself. Perhaps he didn't like to be a spectacle. We looked away—guilty, unsettled. 

None of us mentioned a word, no one whispered. It was the kind of silence that thickens the air, pressing down that even the music from the TV felt distant, as if played outside the restaurant. 

It was the sudden, slow screech of a chair being pulled that snapped us back. Koojo had moved to our table. I had thought, maybe he wanted to rebuke us for staring too long, for turning him into a moment of curiosity and pity. 

Now closer, I could see his face. It was a face of a man, etched with a quiet sorrow. Wrinkles were beginning to settle—not from age, but from the weight of life pressing too hard. His jaw was stiff, dry, as if words had been left trapped around it. His eyes were sunken and blurred, looked resigned, in no kind of any search anymore. 

For a moment, we were confused but he quickly put us at ease with a light head nod. We returned it hesitantly. He asked if we were by chance a couple. My fiancée smiled and nodded. "We're getting married soon," I said with a smile. The waitress returned with his water. He thanked her. She did not say anything. She just turned away, wiping her hands on her apron as she left. 

He began to open the bottle. His fingers—thin, trembling—curling around it, nails long and caked with dirt. He took a long sip, placed the bottle on the table. He sighed. It was a deep, quiet sigh—the kind that doesn’t seek attention but carries the weight of too much time. He managed a faint, almost reluctant smile. 

"That's good," he said. His voice was soft, stretched, like someone speaking from the other side of a long, empty road. "Marriage is good, it's good to be married." When he said that it's good to be married, it sounded more like a memory than a belief. 

Then he told us he was Koojo. A father of two. A husband for ten years. He was thirty-five years old. "I know, I look sixty," he had been quick to remark with a chuckle, when our eyebrows had raised at his age. 

"Still young really. Just... just that dreams got erased along the way," he had concluded about his age with a tinge of regret. 

Koojo had once been a devoted Christian, very staunch in his faith. In his early twenties, when life still promised, he had played the piano in his church. The pastor loved him. The congregation adored him. 

One day, as his fingers moved over the keyboard in a moment of praise and worship, Linda had walked in church. He had seen her. Linda. She had just arrived in town with her mother. The mother and the pastor were long time acquaintances and over the years had become friends. 

After a few Sundays. Koojo was head over heels. He could not see a life where Linda was not with him. However, he lacked the courage to let Linda know of his feelings. The pastor was his friend, a confidant, he told him of his craze for Linda after service one Sunday. 

The pastor was elated. His trusted his pianist had found someone. He believed in marriage and had encouraged his pianist from time to time to let him know when he found someone. He promised he would let Linda’s mum know. 

The next Sunday, Koojo met Linda at the blue lakeside. It was their first date, a chance to get to know each other. The pastor and Linda's mother had arranged it. 

That was their only date. 

A few weeks later, Koojo and Linda walked down the aisle. They moved into a small room around the corner nearby the church. When he mentioned the room, he paused, chuckled like it was an unbelievable thing to do. 

In that room, time stopped, days lasted months, months lasted years and a year seemed a decade. It all turned around so fast; it hadn’t waited at all. 

When they moved into that room, regret had held the door open, and frustration settled them in. The euphoria of marriage faded quickly. 

Linda no longer looked beautiful and charming. Linda had quickly become fed up. Linda was no longer beautiful. No longer happy. No longer patient. No longer the woman he had imagined. She nagged. She demanded. She sighed at him with exhaustion. And she had borne him children faster than his pockets could catch up.  

Fatherhood was demanding. It never gave him a chance to try first. 

It didn’t take long. He soon realized what a mistake they had stepped into. Koojo had immediately begun to drink. First, to forget. Then, because forgetting was easier than remembering. 

His pastor still preached, but never checked in. 

Then he paused. His fingers traced the rim of the bottle, lost in thought. We sat there, silence stretching between us. 

After a while, his head bent a little. He chuckled, smiled at himself and laughed but with a sound so faint it almost wasn’t there. "I'm talking too much, I should leave,” he said. 

He stood up. He picked his bottle of water. He didn’t say goodbye. Just nodded. A brief, tired gesture. He walked away. 

We watched his shadow stretch and disappear through the doorframe. 

I called the waitress for our bill. 

Even now, with my wife—then fiancée—we still wonder about Koojo. His name slips into our conversations, uninvited, lingering in the quiet spaces when we talk about marriage. And maybe, just maybe, that man knew something we never will. 

EzroniX Short Stories