This Christmas.

I wrote this a year ago.

Merry christmas everybody. Sure I’m a little early but hey…

Enjoy. :*

The smell of garlic assaults my senses as I wipe my face with my hands.

I adjust myself on the stool and it creaks. I adjust again, and it creaks again. Louder this time.

Everything makes a sound in this kitchen. The handles of the pots squeak. The hinges on the door groan. It’s like I’m an instrumentalist, and the kitchen, my studio.

I stand up and open the pot cooking on the stove. The heat from the handle burns me and I drop the cover quickly, like I’m shocked it burnt me. I add a little water to chicken cooking in the pot, Cover the pot and sit down again.

The smell of chicken fills the air. It feels so good. I can go to the parlour and sit with mummy and the twins while the chicken cooks, but I won’t. I will stay here and tend to this chicken. I will make sure it’s perfect.

It doesn’t matter that it’s just the chicken legs that brew in the pot. The chicken legs that Aunty Ajoke had sold to mummy yesterday. It’s chicken. Mummy says that so far it’s part of the chicken, it’s still chicken.
I inhale the aroma. I take a lot of it in, like it’s some special perfume that I’ll never perceive again.

I stand up and put off the light. The sunlight is seeping into our small box of a kitchen so I have no use for this red light anymore.
This kitchen is about the size of Hannah’s wardrobe in our old house.

The old house.
Mama says not to talk about it.
So today I won’t talk about it. I won’t talk about how our old kitchen is over 5 times the size of this new one.
I won’t talk about how the walls of our old kitchen were adorned with tiles and how the walls of our new kitchen is adorned with soot.
I won’t talk about how our new house is a small one room apartment in apartment in Suleja, while our old house was a 6 bedroom duplex in Maitama.
I won’t talk about it. Mummy says not to linger in the past.

It’s easy not to talk about how things were, but it’s impossible not to think about it.
How do I stop thinking about the fact that we moved from grace to grass, from plenitude to penury.
How do I stop thinking about the fact that in barely a month, it was all gone?
Mummy said that daddy’s business had faced some difficulties, and we were going to have to make some ‘adjustments’.
She told me to explain that to my 7 year old twin brothers.
Mummy didn’t really give me a detailed explanation, and I never asked.
I never had to. I knew. I heard all the shouting in their room at night, I noticed as the help started leaving one by one. First John our gardener, then Hannah our chef.
I don’t blame her too. How do you tell your 17 year old daughter who just finished secondary school that your life is falling apart?
And that all your money is gone?

I knew that Daddy had invested in a business that went bad, and that we had lost all the money.
I knew that mummy was a house wife, and apart from the money that Daddy gave her she had no more money.
I also knew that Daddy had taken a loan from the bank, and that they would come for the house soon.

I however didn’t know, that they’ll take everything in the house.
I didn’t know that the wrinkles on daddy’s face and the worry on mummy’s brow will increase per minute.
I didn’t know that Oluwatofunmi and Oluwatofehinti would cry everytime and that I would have to be the one to soothe them.
I won’t think about how I had to stay home to take care of the family.
It wasn’t like they made me, I just knew I needed to.
Mummy and Daddy were falling apart and so were Tofehinti and Tofunmi, someone needed to be strong for us all. I needed to be strong for us all.
But I will not think about it. Mummy says not to.

I check the chicken again, this time with the ‘supposed to be yellow’ rag that we keep on the window seal, and then I go back to leaning by the sink.
It’s almost done.

I will listen to mummy and think like she said.
She said this christmas is all about hope.
She said we should be thankful.
When she said that, I laughed, and she threw me a look that would have made Medusa jealous.
She reminded me that Tofunmi and Tofehinti were still in school.
She told me that Daddy had just gotten a letter for a promising interview and that things would be better.
She reminded me of how we found God this year.
She reminded me of life’s little treasures.
How we could afford to laugh,
How inspite of everything She and Daddy had stayed together.

She said this christmas brought hope.
She said we had to celebrate.
She bought tacky decorations. We are eating chicken instead of shawa or awara.

She bought new clothes for the twins. Even though they are okrika,Second hand, they are new. Atleast to them.

This christmas, instead of me to be grumpy and sulk about how this christmas is different from the last and how much we’ve lost.
I will think about how much we’ve found. How we’ve become closer as a family, how we’ve found Christ.
This christmas is after all about hope.

The chicken should be ready. I pick up the ‘supposed to be yellow’ rag again, take the pot off the stove, put out the fire and leave the kitchen.

I walk into the sounds, the sounds of my family laughing in the parlour.
The sounds of love, and laughter, even in penury.
This christmas, I do have a lot to be thankful for.

Letters.

I know I have been away. I would apologise, only I don’t quite know if I’m back yet.

But for now…
The talented talented @Edgothboy and I worked on something together.

Enjoy. :*

Valerie,

Do you know me?

Am I still the same boy you ran away with all those years?

I still remember those nights when your arms cradled my faltering heart, cupped gently under my armpit while yours lulled me to sleep with steadied beating. I lay awake, pretending to sleep while you fought terribly to still the fear in your heart and stay your tears. Oh I prayed for the blessing of sleep, of the bliss of ignorance but it never came, and for we lay there, you and I, turned to liars by this all consuming love we shared. You were afraid I would be taken from you as everything else had been. Life had taken our parents, gone like the deceptive sunshine of autumn; we thrust into the malevolence of winter. Your virginity had been taken, in a stranger’s bed, bought for the price of a warm dinner for two. Your innocence taken by the indifference of the foster family we were placed in, their false smiles masking the weariness within. Your life was hard before I came along, with my dimpled smile and my ever trusting nature; your quiet confidence endearing me to you eternally. You had tasted all consuming love and you weren’t going to let it slip through your bitten down nails.

Have I changed, metamorphosed into this grotesque person that has threaded your luscious mane of black with false strands of grey?

I see the veins, taut on your neck as you swallow back venomous words. I stagger to you, my movement impaired by the alcohol coursing through me, and I wrap my limp arms around your neck and kiss your cheek enveloping you in the stench of a failed man. You stand impassive, arms at your sides, and you let me do what I will. In that moment, I could be no more than the caress of a draft of wind, easily ignored. Fear grips me and twists my insides, and the demons of drink whisper in my ear, tattling taunts that just maybe I have lost the power to draw out emotion from the pillar of ice you’ve become. Flustered, I push you away from me and you fall to the floor, and your composure is shattered. You curse, wielding your tongue like a sword, piercing my insides more deeply than any cut could go, shredding my soul like paper. I burst into slurred laughter and collapse to the floor as you curse and curse at me, reminding me of every single slight I have committed against you, carefully catalogued and kept for moments like this when purging is necessary. I fall to the floor, the world swirls around me and you barely notice as incensed as you are. The steady stream of bile begins to stutter, each word soaked heavy by the tears that begin to fall. Your sword turns inward and you blame yourself for my failings, picking at yourself like a rhesus infested with fleas. Your tiny body threatens to break under the weight of the tears and I crawl to you, slobbering apologies. My tears are a mockery of yours, they are tears of relief for you still feel. Encased in your cocoon of indifference, love still survives.

Do you feel unfulfilled by me? Am I what you bargained for all those years ago?

We were young once, you and I. But I doubt that there was ever a time your shoulders didn’t carry the weight of the world. Even then, they were hunched in anticipation for yet another load. You took a gamble with me. You intertwined my hand in yours and led the whimpering mess that I was into a new life. You took me on your shoulders, along with all else you carried there and you refused to let me go when I grew heavy and weighed you down. I couldn’t see the ground, didn’t never felt the burden of my own responsibilities, you were always there to add them to yours. I never knew my love was all you wanted as barter. And when I forsook everything and gave it to another, it broke your heart. How was I to know of all the lovers you turned at the door? How was I to know you treasured me above the house you’d built with your hands? How could I see that you had given up the joy of tiny hands and feet brought forth from your womb for me? You had smothered me, carried me even when I was strong enough to walk beside you; made me less. And she broke me, the one I loved. I couldn’t bear the pain, all consuming, like a fire that raged and even the gallons of wine and beer I drowned myself in did nothing to douse the flame. You were there, but your arms had wasted and your back was broken, unable to carry me when it was most needed.

Did I break you irreparably?

Your smile is gone, withered away with your confidence and your charm. You sit by windows and halfway places, looking out but unable to leave. You are tied to me, like a ball and chain and you have been shackled for so long that you have forgotten what it was like to be 15 and free. Your brother holds you here, in this house we built, with his pain and his bottles and your promises. I am too much of a coward to let you leave. I have never not had you by my side and the time I strayed, we are still paying for. If I was stronger, I would push you away, I would lock you out and not open the doors no matter how hard you banged and pled. I would carry your burdens on my shoulders and let you the luxury of happiness. But this love we share is a selfish love, and I can bear to carry now is a half full bottle. Forgive me, flesh of my flesh. I cannot bear to free you, not yet.

Ed.

Ed,

Who are you?

I want to start this letter with my dearest, or dear, or any of those endearments that you use off handedly for someone you love, or care about. Or someone you know.

But the thing is, I don’t know you. You are a stranger. You do not have the lopsided smile my Ed has. There is a slouch where my Ed stood tall. A bitterness and a rot in the eyes that housed warmth, richness and love. Love for me. Love for us. pure, unbridled love. And passion.

And stranger, you reek. It is not the cheap alcohol and the stale sweat that you reek of. You reek of failure. Failure, defeat, bitterness. And loss. It’s these that make me want to throw up all the food that I have not been able to eat until my throat is raw.

It was okay.

It wasn’t a great thing losing our parents. It was hard. We had no food. We were lost. But I wasn’t alone. I had you. Everything was okay. We were okay. It was okay in the times we had nothing. It was okay when we had nowhere to stay. It was okay in the times we thought we’d die of cold and I’d hold you tight and try to fill you with the warmth I barely had.

It hurt.

When he stuck the metal inside me. It hurt but I didn’t mind, because I was doing it for us. It would have hurt more but the roughness of your palm, squeezing my hand was enough to reassure me. To let me know that I’ll be okay. That we’ll be okay.

It hurt.

When I saw the way you looked at her. A part of me knew I had lost you. It hurt but I numbed it, pushed it aside the way you’d push away vegetables. It couldn’t be true. You were my soulmate. I hadn’t seen clearly. You couldn’t have looked at somebody with so much want in your eyes. But it was true. I hadn’t seen clearly. The sheer want I had seen in your eyes was there, only it wasn’t want, it was need.
Need that I had never seen in your eyes. This stranger with her knowing eyes and wide hips had found her way to your heart, lodged there, kicked me out and there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing but hope against false hope that I was wrong.

I was crushed.

When you finally told me you were leaving. That you had found love. That she was a dream. I was angry. I screamed. Reminded you of all I had done for you. All we had been through together. I called you ungrateful. Insensitive. Heartless.

I reminded you. I sat down and I let the tears flow. Hot tears. And I threw my pity party; party packs and all.

I recounted, detail by excruciating detail, How I was pounded and pummelled and pounded again. All for you. Just so you could have a bed and warm food.

How the cold, rusty metal stabbed me, ruined me, ruptured my womb.

I said everything. You had drawn first blood, it was all I could do.

And then after that, I begged. I begged and begged and knelt and clawed at your legs and crawled till my knees were scrapped. But you looked at me with sadness on your face and tears in your eyes and you left. You walked away and you left me.

What you don’t know is that the minute you walked away, you walked away with every ounce of feeling I had left.

And then you came back. Like I knew you would. She had left you. And so you had come back. Only this time, you weren’t my Ed. My dearest. You were this Ed. The one I address this letter to.

I wanted to turn you back out. To leave you to the dogs. To desert you like you deserted me. But I couldn’t.

You needed me. I liked you needing me. So I welcomed you and I tried to help you put the pieces of you back together. But the more I tried, the more you fell apart, and the more you fell apart, the more the feelings I didn’t have anymore were crushed. The more the heart I no longer had broke.

And so even now, now that I have fallen to the floor like my pride, my love and my dignity. And my composure is shattered and I spit out the words and I cry.

I cry, not because of the pain in my side from your elbow as it jabbed me when we fell. But because I have hurt so much that I just can’t feel anymore.

And because I can’t believe that I really can’t feel anymore, I recount my tale of woe and I blame myself, I pick the dagger of our sad story and I stick it in my middle and I twist. I twist and twist but there is no blood.

I cry and scream harder because I’m desperately trying, trying to get to my Ed because I know he is somewhere somewhere lost inside this stranger.
I scream and I fight because the fight for you is all I’ve ever known.

Stranger, please bring my Ed back.

I need him back. He is my family, my brother. My lover, my life.

please.

Valerie.

Fighting 101.

This came in the mail.

Enjoy. :*

* * *

Anger. Hurt. Pain.

Those have been the phases since Friday.

We will talk about it. I will forgive you. Because the pain of being apart from you is more than I can take.

But will I forget that you have not fought for me?

Maybe I’m a dreamer who believes in fairytales and watched one Rom-Com too many. Maybe I’m a drama queen. Maybe I’m just a woman. But if the roles were reversed, I’d have fought for you. I’d have come at you with guns blazing, not taking no for an answer.

“I don’t think I’m ready to deal with this yet”

Bullshit. I’d have called your bluff and forced you to deal. My pride that means a lot to me would’ve meant nothing to me before the beauty that is you; that is us.

I’d have peppered your phone with calls and all forms of messages at regular intervals till you turned it off or blocked my number. Then I would’ve called everyone around you to hand you their phone till you chased them away.

Then I’d come to you. I’d find you wherever you were. I’d have come to your house, church…wherever.

I’d have said:

“I’m sorry.”

Not because missing you was hurting me.

“I’m sorry.”

Not because I was in pain.

“I’m sorry.”

But because I caused you pain.

“I fucked up.
I’m sorry.
I love you.
I’ve been such a fucking douche bag.
I’m so sorry.
I hate to see you hurt.
Hate that I’m the cause of it.”

Because you know that at the end of the day, your life as you know it would not be the same without that person. And so you fight. Because you believe. You don’t give them a chance to over think things. You dropped the ball, so you run after it like you’re running for dear life. And you get it, pick it the fuck up and hold it tight. So that before you drop it the next time, you’d remember.

Remember the chase and how out of breath you were. Remember the terrible fear that gripped your entire being when you thought that you may not have caught it. These are the things that you remember.

And that’s how you fight. You come at it with all you’ve got.

I will find you. I will fix this. I will fix myself.

But I wish you would’ve fixed me.

Laughter.

Hey!

So we(this blog) will be a year old on Monday.

I’m more than proud of how far I’ve come since I started this blog. Well… The only way from here is forward.

Enjoy. :*

Parents don’t realize the damage their occasional slight remarks cause. It is not their fault really. Some times they just don’t realize they have forgotten to turn their internal filter on. If they do realize what they have said they make the mistake of assuming that little ones won’t remember or that the words they string together won’t make an impression, an indelible print in their little one’s life.

Once; when I was nine years old and my breasts were smaller than tear drops and my belly shot out like I was playing mummy, I had tied my teddy bear underneath my top with my small wrapper. My mother had given me a gentle but firm poke in the belly and said, “My round girl, see your tummy! We have to watch what you eat oh, if not you will not be able to pass the door.”

She had laughed a little too loudly after that comment. I don’t know if she was laughing like that because she realised how inappropriate her comment was, or because I just looked at her, shot out my tummy even more, stuck my nose in the air and waddled away.

The comment was forgotten till I turned 12. My breasts were a little larger now and my belly did not shoot out so much anymore. I was conscious now. It was the holiday after my junior WAEC and I had enjoyed myself too much. The familiar fold that adorned my waist had grown and it had found a companion too.

It was the third trouser that I had tried that didn’t fit me. My mother tapped my little behind and said. “Onyi,” in the way she fondly called me. “This your weight is getting out of hand oh, you are almost fatter than me now.”

She laughed an awkward laugh and I laughed too. I still don’t know why I laughed. Maybe to quiet the voice in my ear that kept screaming ‘Round girl! Round girl!’

The comments became more frequent. Every time I tried a dress and it didn’t fit, Every time I ate a cake slice too much. And then it was every time.

It was then I knew I couldn’t hear anymore comments and the annoying awkward laughter that accompanied it. That Saturday, Aunty Margareth saw me eating chocolate cake and asked me why I was still eating that when I should have been nibbling on carrots, and mother had looked at me and laughed that laugh again and told Aunty Margareth that she kept telling me the same thing.

Aunty Margareth saying that was okay, because well it was Aunty Margareth and everyone knew she didn’t know how to talk. It was mother’s reaction that really hurt me. I knew what I had to do.

It was easy. I had seen a girl on Television do it once. All I had to so was stick a finger down my throat each time I ate and the problem was solved.

So I solved the problem. Once. Twice. Thrice. Then every time. And the voice in my head stopped screaming Round girl.

Mother’s smiles and encouragement and her comments about how she had been scared that I would have become fat and ugly if I hadn’t wisened up let me know I was doing good.

It is why I wonder why she’s looking at me now and crying, asking where she had gone wrong and why I didn’t talk to her about my disorder.

The doctors say I could have died and that bulimia is not something that just starts. She keeps looking at me. I half expect to hear her annoying throaty laughter again.

The Lonely.

This post is inspired by so many things. Much more than I can explain.

Enjoy. :*

“Broken pieces of, a barely breathing story…Where there once was love, now there’s only me…” – The Lonely – Christina Perri.

I’m not cold anymore. The cold that started from my head, then spread to my legs and eventually my soul, I don’t feel it anymore. The cold has gone and left in it’s place a lukewarmness.

So now I’m tepid. Only in this tepidity, I’m more cold than hot.

I’m wearing his brown shirt with the Mad hatter today. The one he gave me because he said The Mad hatter reminded him of the theme on my phone. I have gotten up from my bed, and I have had my bath. It’s more than I did last week. I just stayed here. I didn’t cry. I still haven’t cried. It’s not like I haven’t tried. They say crying makes you feel better. That crying helps you let it out. It’s what Itohan said when she came on Wednesday. She was crying as she spoke to me. I don’t know if it’s the stench that was coming from me, or the loss of Kodina, or how she thought I was feeling that was making her cry though.

I was touched that she was crying either way. I was even more touched that she stretched out her arms and hugged me. She was warm and the faint smell of lilies danced around my senses. What Itohan didn’t know was; I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want to let it out, I didn’t want to feel better, I didn’t want the pain to go away. I wanted the pain to eat at me like a cancer, to tear at my insides, to wreck me and destroy me, to fill my blood and to snuff out the air from me.

Knowing Itohan, I knew she’d tell me how important it was to be alive and feel better so I didn’t say anything. I just hugged her and let her speak.

She dragged me to the bathroom and helped me shower. I didn’t object. I was too weak to.

When she picked out my green dress for me to wear. I told her I didn’t want to wear the dress, that I wanted to wear Kodina’s blue shirt. The last shirt I took from him. The one that still smelt of him.

That was the only thing I said to her the whole time she was there.

It’s been two weeks since the day he left. Two weeks since he left me.

Mother has given up on me. She came in here yesterday and was crying that I wanted to die because Kodina was gone and that I was hurting her by hurting myself.

I just stared at her till she left. I wanted to speak but the words wouldn’t form. It was all I could do. Stare.

I still haven’t cried. Now, it’s not like I don’t want to. I don’t know how to.

The radio on my phone is still off. I put off my service because I don’t want to speak to anybody. I don’t want them to call me, comfort me or tell me everything will be fine. There is no need to offer me doses of false hope and baseless reassurance. I might choke.

Steph left me a playlist when she came on Thursday. She left her iPod too incase I didn’t have the songs.

I’ve been listening to it ever since.

I drown myself in the music and I am transported to another time. Another time where I still have my Kodina.

Candy.

I open my eyes.

Steph is perched on my bed and she is looking at me.

“Hey.” She smiles a sad smile.

“Hi.” I sit up.

She kicks off her sandals and lies down comfortably on the bed.

We stay in silence for a few minutes.

She’s fiddling with her phone but she takes occassional breaks and just looks at me.

“Paperweight.” I say finally.

“What?” She drops her phone and concentrates on me, the evident concern in her eyes.

“Paperweight. What you are doing reminds me of Paperweight. It was our song.”

She sighs.

” We picked it after we watched Dear John. He said it was the perfect song for us. He would sing it everytime we woke up together. He said it was his excuse for staring at me when I was sleeping. He said we were going to get married and that we would have cute artsy babies. He told me to better go and learn how to prepare abacha because he liked abacha and we were going to have to eat it every saturday. He laughed when I told him his eyes were like a dream and that they reminded me of hazelnut because they were hazel. He laughed even more when I said that hazelnut reminded me of chocolate and I love chocolate and so that’s one of the reasons I love him. He told me I made the most absurd relations.”

I laugh. She laughs too. She’s hesitant. Like she doesn’t know if she’s allowed to laugh.

“I didn’t like his cousin Ifeanyi. I hated the way he always stared at me whenever he saw me. He looked at me like I was meat and I was almost sure that if I looked closely I would see the drool drop to the floor. He laughed and he told me that I was a hot sexy mama and he didn’t blame Ifeanyi. We can’t make artsy babies anymore. My K is gone. I was learning to make abacha. Ada was teaching me. K come and eat abacha. I want our babies. Come and sing paperweight. I told him that I loved Little House and he said I shouldn’t because I’d never feel like that and that I would never have to sing it. He said he’d always be here. He said he’d never leave me. He broke his promise. He…He…He…” It’s only in between my heaving and my spluttering that I realise I have been crying.

Steph is crying too. She’s holding me now.

“Stephanie Kodina is dead. Stephanie My baby is dead. Stephanie Kodina fell down in his bathroom and died. I told him I didn’t like the tiles in the bathroom that the design was ugly. He didn’t change it. Stephanie…Kodina didn’t change the tiles. The ugly tiles killed my Kodi. He didn’t change it. I can’t live. I can’t live without him. He was my strength. I’m alone. Kodina has left me alone. Stephanie Kodina was my life. I can’t do it…” I can’t stop heaving.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you lost him. ” Stephanie keeps muttering. She’s crying more now.

I keep crying. I allow my pain to flow with my tears. I don’t hold anything back. I allow myself let it all out.

The Journey.

Hey!

This story was for a…something.

But here…

The fabric of my suit pricks the crook of my arm. My bag seems a lot heavier than it did this morning, even though I emptied a little less than half of it’s contents at the office. Now my bag feels like the bag of cassava grandmother made me carry the last time I went to see her, and my suit only adds to my burden.
I would have been more uncomfortable if I was still wearing the heels I wore to work this morning. The black heels mother had forced me to buy.
My tattered black slippers that mother keeps threatening to toss saves me all the time.

It’s hot and I’m tired. It has been a long day and I just want to go home. I’m lucky I got out this early. I told some phony story to my boss about how my sister was in the hospital and how she needed me. He seemed to be in a good mood so he let me go. It is true that my sister is in the hospital, but she is in a hospital in Kano and that’s because she works there. And she needs me. To rest and to be healthy. So invariably, I didn’t lie.

It’s 4:30 and I can try to get some sleep before mother comes back from the shop and starts complaining about how I haven’t cooked dinner.

The junction is extremely busy as always. The smell of fish and stale sweat permeates my senses, as a hawker runs past holding at least four fish.

I am getting impatient. It’s getting late and this place is dangerous at night. The boys drop their fish and gala for knives and guns and begin their second jobs.

A taxi slows down in front of me. I know he is going my way because he is facing my direction. It’s an ugly tiny toyota looking car. It looks like it has seen better days.

“You dey go?” The driver screams. The car seems full already. I scramble into the car anyway. I don’t want darkness to meet me here.

I have to lift one butt from the seat for the door to close. The woman beside me shifts a little. I’m grateful.

I am overwhelmed by a cocktail of smells. The most intrusive however, a familiar, yet pungent smell that tugs at my nostrils. I turn and I see that the woman beside me is carrying a bag of onions. I turn and face the window. It’s a good thing this ride is for only about 25 minutes.

I allow my mind to wander and I place my hands on my bag that rests on my legs.

“Who is the person that get the bag in the boot?”

The driver’s voice invades my thoughts and takes the place of Sia’s I’m in here.

“It’s me.” The man beside the onion woman says.

“It has been in the boot since. What is inside sef?” I’m interested in this discussion now. I can’t help but wonder why the driver is so interested. Is it important the contents of the bag put in the boot?

“It’s money. About $10000.” Bag man says.

“Aah! Please oh. Why are you carrying it around? I hope you did not steal it oh.”

“Erm…erm…” Bag man seems like he has something to hide.

“Talk now.” Onion woman seems eager to join in the conversation.

“Yes. Talk.” The girl on the otherside of bag man speaks for the first time. She looks like she is wearing all the colours of the rainbow.

“My Oga is a very wicked man, he has not paid me for 6 months. He sent me to take this money to the bank and I took it. I’m just looking for where to change it.”

“I don’t want any trouble oh. I’ll soon drop.” The last man speaks and he gesticulates like for emphasis. I wish he didn’t do that. The result makes me turn back to the window in a hurry.

“Please I understand him.” Rainbow girl says “Let’s talk about how we can help him.”

“I don’t know anywhere we can change it, but how much will you give us?” Odour man seems greedy.

They go on and on about the money and I almost don’t hear what they are saying. Too much is going on. Under different circumstances this story would have reminded me of the story Ifunanya told me about the time when she was going back home from lesson and…

The colour drains from my face and I start breaking out in cold sweat. I start saying all the prayers I can remember in my mind.

Onion woman taps me. I stare at her with a blank look on my face.

One chance. One chance. The words keep echoing in my head.

“You know where we fit change the money?”

I shake my head.

I need to get out of here fast. It all makes sense now. The unnecessary questions.
Oh Father Lord. Hail Mary full of grace…

“Stop. I don’t want to go again.” I don’t even recognise the almost growl that is my voice.

“Sister but we never…” The driver starts.

I throw N300 at him, it’s far more than the fare and I hold on to the door handle.

“I want to drop. NOW” my voice is a growl now. He slows down and I come down and run.

31 Day Reset: Day 31

Hello!

I’m doneeeeeeeeee!!!!! I completed it. I finished my reset. Wooooohoooooo!!!

Day 31.

Create a vision board.

I don’t feel the need to cut cardboard and magazines and all that.

But I have my vision board. In my head. And my vision pictures, on my phone.

Thank you for following me on this journey.

You people rock. :* :*

Love always,