NEVER GONNA QUIT!

NEVER GONNA QUIT!

A man calling himself AHusbandsman1on1 went online and posted this ad on several social media sites.  The ad was eventually removed after it became the focus of a great deal of controversy:

“I am a handsome, intelligent and successful Black professional who is looking for a husband.  I can work with a brotha on the husband thing, but I need you to know that is where I’m heading if we start a relationship.  Right now I’m not going to make any special requests of my future husband, I just want to see who responds, what they respond with and take it from there!  I am not making any promises to anyone right now except that if you sound, look and feel like somebody I think would be right for me I will devote my undivided attention to you in the hope that we might discover something truly remarkable.  I ask that you send your name, general location, list your favorite thing to do (honestly), and leave your cellular number with a time that you can best be reached.  If I do not respond within 12 hours of your post please continue living a beautiful life.  If I respond within minutes please be ready to at least receive a call so I can hear your voice”. 

PS… just let me convince you that I will make an excellent partner and husband for you and I promise you will not live to regret it!

Sincerely,

AHusbandsman1&1

The man known only as AHusbandsman1on1  woke up early one morning and realized that he was growing old and lonely.  He feared that if he did not cultivate the relationship that would one day lead to the companionship which would see him through to the end of his days he would die a bitter and disappointed man.  AHusbandsman1on1 had so much to offer the world, everyone who knew him said he was a true renaissance man but he knew that the world was not currently or presently having a renaissance, everybody was just trying to survive to the next goddamed second of the next goddamed minute of the next goddamed hour of the next goddamed day… Notwithstanding the shortcomings of the world he had managed to somehow exist outside of, he was really a grand old gentleman.

AHusbandsman1on1 trembled as he watched the posting affix itself to the expressionless membrane of his computer screen watching as the prompt populated in the form of a cartoon bubble, saying, “your message was successfully posted”! He had not been quite that excited about anything for as long as he could remember.  It was at that instant that the gravity of his desperation really hit him, he realized it was purely likely he might not ever get a response.  He referenced the clock at the lower right corner of his computer, it was 2:00 A.M.  For the first five minutes after posting he stared at the dumb glow of the unchanging screen daring it to notify hi of a response… but the screen just glared back at him emptily and began to go into sleep mode.  It was as if the screen refused to validate the shimmer of hopefulness which had ignited the purpose of his very being.  About 4:00 A.M.  the room began to light up  with virtual feedback from AHusbandsman’s cellular phone.  He had programmed his email address to play, “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Barry White when a new email hit his in-box.  The computer, which had also been programmed with this feature, began to echo his phone.  The room was awash with competing bursts of Never Gonna Give You Up at different points of execution but he lay motionless sleeping through the entire cacophony of thrill. 

A week later AHusbandsman1on1 was found dead in his small apartment.  There were no relatives to manage his affairs and he laid in the morgue until money was raised by some residents of his apartment building to have him humbly funeralized by manner of cremation.  One neighbor remembering he was not religious decided to hold his memorial services in her living room and after the ceremony she poured some votive essence of his ashes into the terra-cotta pots of the flowers on her balcony.  Her balcony which was really nothing more than a fire escape was where they would sit and talk about life but often they just sat noiselessly listening to the resonance of the outside world as it riveted off the walls of the narrow alley into which the fire escape encroached.  AHusbandsman1on1 had loved her plants many of which he had given to her over the years.  Before his belongings were removed to be set out on the sidewalk as if AHusbandsman1on1 had been evicted she confiscated his plants, noticing the landlord had left the door unsecured, and set them beside her own..  And there the plants flourished until she died five years and seven months, ten hours and  fifteen minutes, twenty-two seconds later…  

Written By David Vollin

REMOVING THE OLD SLAVE CEMETERY

“There used to be an old colored slave cemetery in Arlington Virginia at the terminus of the “Pike” but it was dug up in the early 1970’s to make way for a new hotel.  Many of my ancestors were buried there it being one of the few cemeteries for colored folk in the area.  Nobody knows what happened to the remains of those men and women…” D. Vollin

There used to be an old colored cemetery there,

Underneath the waist-high weeds… the empty eye-sockets of slaves,

looked up to the heavens from their graves,

though no reference remained to mark just where.

So long that field had lain without ceremony or gathering,

whilst poke weed climbed and quickly ripened in the spring,

when its sanguine berries swayed on withered stalks as the land was autumning,

and when the smooth snow leveled it, hiding it away from reckoning.

O’er time I imagine that every plot had been filled,

It being the only place around for burying the colored dead,

the land climbed a steep embankment flattening as the slope came to a level head,

but remained untended by the colored folk still living near that hill.

When time remembered where my father’s lay,

it knew their families had not died out or moved away,

we all watched as the green hillside was cut down deep beneath the clay,

so the wheels of progress could have their way.

By David Vollin

GALLERY OF RELATED IMAGES