MAGICAL MONDAYS WITH 'KREATE'

CHAPTER XIII

Tubosun

***

There was something incomplete about the last day in October. I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. I hung my leather jacket on my door hook, ransacking my mind for what it was. I came up blank. Frankly, it had been a very long day at work. I felt a sudden slight pain – more discomfort than pain - on the left side of my back and my hand went to it instinctively. I decided to lay down on the bed for a moment before rustling up dinner. The discomfort seemed to ease.

A 3,600 change had happened within five weeks. I had been offered a supervisory role in a completely different department. I had accepted because it paid better and would look good on my CV. Now I had begun questioning the wisdom of that decision.

Almost everything had to be learned about this department, and accomplishing this from a supervisory level, made the process more daunting. It didn’t help matters that most of the team members were giving me a hard time: the slender lady with a droopy eye moaning about being assigned to the same task all the time; the petite one with a sarcastic smiley face who I could sense questioning my every action; and my supposed perfectionist line manager delivering more negative than positive feedback. I could almost place a wager that they all expected me to fail.

Perhaps I was being paranoid. I wasn’t paranoid about one thing though: the job was stressing me out. But it was good for one thing. I had little time to think about Beatrice. And then the thought that had been elusive so far suddenly struck home.  Sumbo hadn’t rung my mobile phone all day. I had hoped passionate sex would rid me of the effect she had on me.

And perhaps it would have. But news of the accident had brought my world crashing down. Memories I had been trying to tame, memories of the events revolving around Beatrice’s death suddenly reared their ugly heads. My behavior on that day had been unfair and possibly terrible on so many levels but I had had to leave. I had needed to.  And perhaps that move would have severed any cord between us if I didn’t still want her. Even though I had a powerful, ominous feeling that anybody that found a way into my heart would die, which had prevented me from picking her calls, I still wanted to be with Sumbo. I yawned.

What a conundr-

Sumbo

***

I was itching to terminate the conversation, but my mother wanted to talk, talk, and talk. 

‘So, when are you coming to greet us?’ she asked, her face stretching beyond usual as she peered into the video chat screen.

‘Ha!’ I exclaimed in disbelief. She was incredulous sometimes, my mother. ‘I was home, only some months ago!’ ‘That was a long time to be away from your aged mother. A long time for any young woman to be away from her mother,’ she hissed. I knew my mother all too well and allowing her to guilt me into action wasn’t an option. I decided to employ some tact. ‘Mama, you know I cannot just up and leave my workplace whenever I want to.’

‘Mo mó.’ That is my traditional language Yoruba meant I know. She resigned and relaxed into her blue sofa, ‘but you should pay me a visit as soon as you can. It gets lonely here.’

I had two siblings and they lived with her, but there was no need pointing that out. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I replied noncommittally. 

‘So, when are you bringing a man home?’ Her quiet question sounded more like a demand.

For some reason, that question opened the veil to the memory of Tubosun, simultaneously saddening and rendering me speechless. I was angrier at him for ignoring my calls than for leaving in such an abrupt manner. I had spoken to Edna about it and she had advised me to give him some space. ‘If the truth is to be known, it would be revealed at its own time,’ she had said. Akin hadn’t been so philosophical. Without mincing words, he had epitomized Tubosun as a damn fool. 

‘I asked you a question, Sumbo,’ Mother said peevishly, she slightly raised voice dragging me back from memory lane. 

‘Soon Mama,’ I said, hoping she would let the matter rest. But that was wishful thinking. ‘Twenty-eight years old, Sumbo! You do know that you are not getting any younger?’ Her voice registered a blend of disappointment and dismay. ‘I want to carry my grandchildren in my hands before I die.’

The alarm on my mobile phone went off and I exhaled in relief. Saved by the bell.

‘Mama we can discuss this further at some point, but I’ve got to go. Today is Akin’s birthday.’  She sighed deeply. ‘Ok o, I have said my own. Give my regards to Akintunde.’ She had always preferred referring to Akin by his full name.  And the video chat went dead. I felt for her because I understood that the culture in Nigeria preaches that ideally a lady should be married in her mid-twenties. But what could I do? You couldn’t just conjure a marriageable man by snapping your fingers. I pushed the thought from my mind, scrambled got off the bed, and pulled open my wardrobe to select a dress for the nightclub. Akin and Beatrice would be picking me up in another thirty minutes. During the picnic we had some hours ago, Beatrice had insisted that I came along, completely ignoring my polite excuses. I decided on the only purple dress in the closet. As I stepped into it, my eyes caught sight of the ring on my finger. I barely noticed it these days. Perhaps it is because it’s been ages ago since I had had the dream. 

Kreate is a budding Nigerian writer with a flair for fiction. Writing for him began sometime in secondary school where he dabbled in poetry and plays. He has authored two self-published short novels.
He is a banker and lives in Surulere.