Rain, Coffee and a Lonely Ride
“Are you ready? Catcher Catcher” She ran as fast as she could so he wouldn’t catch her. He never did. This was her best game because she was a lot faster than him and so she always won. Today, they were playing in her grandfather’s maize field. The maize stalks had grown so long so it hid them from any uncle or aunt that would be looking for children to send on errands.
Iretioluwa lived in the compound next to her grandfather’s so he always came over to play whenever she came to visit her grandpa. They would play until her grandma called her in to help out in the kitchen. She would always shout, “Moriolaoluwa!!! Leave your husband and come and help me cook!! You’ve played enough today.” But today, grandma left her to play for longer than usual because she was traveling back to Lagos the next morning.
“Mori slow down na”, of course, she wouldn’t stop. He wanted to use that to catch her, Not today. “Mori something bit me oo! Stop running”, she kept running until she couldn’t hear his steps anymore. There was silence for a few minutes. The only sound she could hear was her panting and the distant sound of frying in the kitchen. “Arrgghh!!!” That was Ireti’s voice. “Ireti what is it? Where are you?” The maize stalks were so long so she couldn’t see him and it was already getting dark to make it all worse. Suddenly, she tripped over something. A leg?
“I’ve caught you!!” He laughed with joy. “Ireti you cheated.”
“Is that why you are crying?”
“I’m not crying joor” But she was. Why was she crying? She wasn’t even hurt that bad. When she looked up, through her teary eyes she saw something different in Ireti. His arm was swelling and getting really big.
“What’s happening to you Ireti? See your arm.”
She tried to reach out to him but she couldn’t. Something was pulling her away. He was growing bigger like he was going to pop and she was trying so hard to reach him to help but her efforts were useless. That thing was stronger. She was still crying and she couldn’t hear him anymore. Her eyes were going dimmer and dimmer until everything was dark.
“ Beep, Beep, Beep”
5:00am. Her alarm never woke her up but today was different. As soon as the alarm rang, she was pulled out of her state of sleep with tear-filled blurry eyes, and surrounded by darkness. Thank God it was a dream. Her room was still and silent. She could hear every single sound, the sounds of the drops of rain outside the window, the crackling sounds from the plastic bags and squeaks from the neighbourhood rats ransacking the big dustbin two houses away, the chirping sounds of the crickets in her kitchen as they journey back to their hiding places away from the morning sun.
She hated rainy days because rainy days meant a very slow morning. She turned to pick up her phone from the side table where she leaves it to charge every night before going to sleep. 38 MISSED CALLS? 100 MESSAGES? Why were they calling her? What was really going on? And then it hit her.
Ireti was gone. Forever.
No more laughs, No more calls, No more late-night movies at his apartment. She wouldn’t hear his voice anymore. She would have to learn to make reference to him in the past tense. Reality shot her straight in the heart and the emotions she had suppressed all through yesterday when her mom broke the news were coming at once and she couldn’t hold it.
She had spoken to him just three days ago. A new resort had opened up in Jaye, one of the new man-made islands under Lagos and he said that they had to go there to spend the weekend. She had been so busy the past few weeks and she really needed some unwinding time. They needed some unwinding time. They hadn’t spent time together in a long while and had a lot of catching up to do. The plan was to meet at his house on Thursday after work and they would drive there in his car.
Yesterday, her day started, as usual, wakeup, start the coffee machine, prepare for work, drive to the LURT (Lagos Underground Rapid Transit) Station, buy her ticket, wait for the train, get to work, get breakfast and start working. She was having her mom at the house for dinner by 6pm so she left the office by 3pm to prepare. She got back home by 3:30pm, undressed, prepared some poundo yam and efo riro and set the table. 5pm. She needed to rest a bit before her mother’s arrival so she laid on the couch in the sitting room, covered herself with a shawl and closed her eyes for a little nap.
“Moriolaoluwa!! Mori!! Mori!! get up! dide oo nkankan ti ṣẹlẹ!!!”. Why was mummy shouting? she just got to sleep now.
“Mummy, what is it? ki lo ṣẹlẹ?”
“Ireti oo!, Ireti ni! Ahh!! and he was so young ooo. Ireti had a cardiac arrest!” Her mom kept shaking her head, sitting on the coffee table looking at the ceiling, tears streaming down her face, her bag was right beside her on the coffee table her scarf on the floor close to the door. Why was she shouting? She couldn’t process what her mother was saying.
“How do you know? Why are you crying? Wait…mummy what did you say?”
“His mother just called me as I got here. She said he was just about to open the door of his car when he slumped and his colleagues rushed him to the hospital but…he didn’t make it. Ireti…ti ku, he’s gone.” The tears started again. This time, the cry was louder.
She was in doubt. That can’t be true. Ireti’s very healthy. He exercises regularly, even more than she does. It’s a lie. It can’t be true. She went deaf for a second. Her brain was processing everything slower than she wanted. She couldn’t hear anything again. Not her mother’s shouts, not the birds outside, not the cars passing on the road, nothing. She stood up, like her mom wasn’t there, walked to her room, locked the door and curled up in her bed. The tears weren’t flowing but she just laid still as a comforting sleep embraced her.
Rain, Rain, and More Rain. Now the presence of the rain made sense. The rain was mourning her loss too, It wasn’t a heavy rain, just a light shower, washing away the bad news of yesterday. She could not imagine life without him. The thought of that emptiness was eating her up. She needed to get away from all this. She needed to escape.Her mind was racing, Her emotions were everywhere. She needed to leave this place called home.
She dragged herself off the bed, went to the bathroom and looked at her face in the mirror. She looked like a mess. Her hair, scattered, a mixture of mascara and tears running down her dark cheeks, lipstick smudges and sleep marks everywhere. She washed her face thoroughly and then looked at her image in the mirror again. Now, she looked slightly better. She looked to the top right corner of the mirror frame where she had a note written by Ireti some months before, when she lost her previous job. She had placed it there to remind herself of those words daily. His squiggly writing read,
“When you can’t do anything about it, don’t. Just take a jolly ride and do what you can do. Live life.”
At that moment, a crazy thought came to her mind. She packed her toiletries, dropped them in the duffel bag she had already packed for their trip, zipped it up, changed her clothes, picked her journal, her umbrella, her phone and her keys and left the room. Her mum was asleep on the couch. Her hair scattered, shoes nowhere to be found, her bag still in the same spot on the coffee table where she dropped it yesterday. The shawl she had used yesterday was on the ground. The food she had prepared for their lunch date was still on the dining table stale. She packed it up and threw it in the dustbin plates and all. She started the coffee machine and made her way to the couch where her mother was asleep. She didn’t want to wake her up so she quietly covered her with the shawl, arranged all the things she had scattered around and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“Ding.” Her coffee was ready. She tiptoed across the sitting room to her open kitchen where her coffee was, poured it into her travel mug with two spoons of honey and made her way to the door. She looked at her phone again, the 38 missed calls and 100 messages were still there. She wasn’t ready for all that drama. She dropped her phone on the counter and wrote a note for her mom.
“Here’s my phone, so don’t try to call me and please don’t look for me. I am going to a safe place and I will be back as soon as I heal. I need to deal with this news without drama. I love you mummy, Bye.”
She placed her phone beside the note on the kitchen counter and left the house. She picked the spare key from under the flower pot and went to the car.
Since the opening of the LURT (Lagos Underground Rapid Transit) Station some years back, the traffic on the Lagos roads had drastically reduced. Most people preferred to use the LURT train because it was faster, safer and very convenient. So, on this cool, wet morning, as Mori made her way to Jaye Island, the road was very clear. On a normal Thursday, at this time, she would have been preparing to go to work. But today was not regular neither was it normal so she cared less if she lost her job or not. She needed her sanity.
As she drove, she paid attention to the surrounding areas and the little things that characterized Lagos, something she never had the time to do on her way to work. The cool breeze on her face was very calming. The women were already frying akara in their big frying pans, dropping the perfectly whisked akara mix into hot oil and as it sizzled, never once did they dodge the splashes. Like they were immune to it. The agege bread sellers were also close-by blowing air into transparent nylon bags to put their freshly baked bread. They had a symbiotic relationship with the akara sellers as this was the classic Nigerian breakfast. These women did this every morning to feed their families.
“Mori, I always tell you that you need to enjoy the little things of life.”
She could hear his voice clearly, like he was in the car with her. Everything reminded her of one thing he had said in his life time. He was a man of many wise words. And he was always right. Watching these women made her realize that life would still go on. He was gone but the people who were blessed to be awake would still move on with their daily lives and so, she too would also move on.
As she drove on, the cool morning air brought back the nostagic feelings of their college days when they would go jogging early in the morning and then stop by at the cafe to get some coffee to start their day. She hit a little bump in the road which brought her back to reality. Her coffee was already getting cold, just how she liked it. She took a sip of the bitter-sweet drink with relish. She had to be fine. That’s what Ireti would have wanted.
Suddenly, something caught her eyes on the side of the road and so she parked. It was a little dog that looked just like a dog they used to play with at her grandfather’s house when they were still children. She came out of the car to get a closer look at the dog. It was sitting at the side of the road as if it had been waiting for her. The dog was looking at her like it knew her. So, she decided to try calling it the same name they used to call the dog from her childhood. It was a very generic name. “Aja!” Immediately the words came out of her mouth, as if waiting for her, the dog got up and walked away towards a church hall that was close by. And she couldn’t stop her feet from following.
When she entered the church, she didn’t see the dog anymore but there was a man sitting at the altar facing her and she couldn’t see his face clearly. He beckoned her to come closer. She was sceptical but kept walking closer slowly. The fear of the unknown gripped her but her legs kept walking without her mind. When she got to him, he was Ireti. She was seeing a ghost. She knew. How was it possible in reality? He opened his arms and gave her a bear hug. She could feel the warmth of his body. The smell of his musk and cinnamon mix perfume was very strong in her nostrils.This had to be real. A ghost wouldn’t feel this real. She hugged him back tightly and her tears started again, but this time, she had Ireti to pat her back as she cried.
“I knew you weren’t really gone. I knew you wouldn’t leave me Ireti.”
He didn’t say anything and just kept patting her back until her cries had reduced and she was dosing off on his chest. Then he whispered,
“Moriolaoluwa, my lovely friend, always remember that I love you dearly.”
And she slept comfortably in his arms.
“Beep, Beep, Beep”
5:00am. Her alarm never woke her up but today was different. She was going to be alright.
