From Eyes to Echoes
(Scene opens in the Baobab Grove, dusk. Lanterns sway. The CHORUS hums a slow love melody. MUHIBBA and ZAINAB sit on a mat, peeling kola and sharing thoughts. Nearby, THOMPSON leans against a tree, pen in hand.)
ZAINAB:
You've been dancing in silence all day.
Yet your eyes hum louder than flutes.
MUHIBBA (smiling):
Love is no loudmouth.
It sits like spice inside soup—quiet,
until the tongue discovers fire.
THOMPSON (calling):
Fire burns, remember?
That's why scholars take love as a footnote
not the thesis!
MUHIBBA:
Ah, but it's the footnote that explains the whole argument.
(They laugh. Enter IBRAHIM, carrying a basket of guavas.)
IBRAHIM (to MUHIBBA):
I heard you liked the soft ones.
I only plucked those that blushed when touched.
MUHIBBA:
You speak to fruit like a lover.
IBRAHIM:
I learn from watching you.
(They sit under the baobab, just the two. Quiet. Then softly...)
IBRAHIM:
Tell me the shape of your laughter.
Not the sound—
but how it dances in your chest.
MUHIBBA:
Like a calabash floating on river stories.
Sometimes gentle, sometimes overrun.
IBRAHIM:
Will you let me float with you?
In this story?
Not as a hero—
but as the riverbank that listens.
(Pause. The CHORUS begins a soft chant.)
Chorus (singing):
To love is not to claim but cradle.
To touch without taking.
To whisper without swallowing silence.
MUHIBBA (placing a kola in his palm):
This is the token of my affection.
Not because it is bitter—
but because we sweeten it together.
(Enter FATIMA and SHARIFA, observing from afar.)
FATIMA (to SHARIFA):
Look at them—practicing poetry instead of protocol.
SHARIFA:
You call it poetry. I call it danger.
Our family does not inherit softness.
FATIMA:
Then perhaps it's time we did.
(Lights dim except on the couple. IBRAHIM rises and recites.)
IBRAHIM:
Let me love you like seasons love the soil:
never hurrying, always returning.
Not with the bribe of roses,
but with the patience of millet.
(MUHIBBA, emotional, stands beside him.)
MUHIBBA:
Then I return this dowry in kind:
Not in cattle, not in gold,
but in story, skin, and stargazing.
I love you—
Not to possess,
but to pass on.
(They touch foreheads. Lanterns brighten. CHORUS sways and sings.)
Chorus:
The dowry was never goats or cloth.
It was the vow unsaid, the gaze held long.
Let this love rewrite the law of inheritance.
(Blackout. End of Act Two.)