It all started on a normal Tuesday evening, at least you thought it was normal until certain abnormalities started to choke you up, making you regret why your maker had allowed you to live up to that point in time. You had just finished eating pap and kapenta, a delicious delicacy that you cooked frequently. You sat there on your single bed, caressing your full tummy as if you were trying to perceive how the digestive process was taking place inside of you.
You could feel the last bolus of pap vermiculating down your oesophagus as the last gulped water washed it down, speeding up the process. You belched loudly as you glanced at the time on your cellphone. It was 7:30pm. A special time for you. A special time for you and the alleged love of your life. A time when he usually sent his love messages. A time when the two of you would chat tirelessly, way until almost daybreak when the roosters would be welcoming the day with their loud, throaty crows, alarming the people that it was about time they bid farewell to their warm beds and get prepared to face the day.
And so it happened. A WhatsApp voice message from Collins popped up on your phone notifications. You felt butterflies in your stomach. You had missed him already, though you had seen him just two hours earlier at the university campus. You couldn't wait to hear his voice as he would be reciting his string of sweet nothings, which made you feel like a hunter being praised in his clan name after a successful hunt. So, you didn't waste time daydreaming about the events that would soon come to reality. You quickly grabbed your earphones as you sank into your padded duvet.
You heard shuffling. You heard their moans. You heard their disgusting tongue-clicking and lashing. You heard their not-so-pleasant sex talk, their loud, heavy breathing. You were tongue-tied. You examined the phone that was in your hands, yes, it was yours. You looked at the chat you had opened, yes, it was Collins'.
Quickly, you grabbed some earbuds and removed all the earwax, and afterwards, you listened to the audio again, only that time you didn't use earphones, but the outcome was the same. You could still hear that explicit act, even more clearly than the first time. And you cried. You couldn't explain the level of heartbreak that you felt.
"Am I dreaming?" you asked yourself several times. You pinched yourself, and the pain was authentic. In your mind, that audio still played on repeat, though you had long turned it off in reality. You sat on the red floor, careless of how difficult it would be to wash off the red floor polish stains on the white dress you wore. You rolled on the floor multiple times, making sure every inch of your skin got into contact with it as you tried to reduce your raised body temperature. You unplaited the cornrows on your head. You jumped. You punched the unpainted cement walls. You wrote Collins' name on the walls countless times with a marker, stabbing it at times as though you were inflicting real pain on him.
All this occurred in less than thirty minutes until you decided to check the audio again, only that it had been deleted. As for the sender, he was still online, unapologetic for the rubbish he had sent, acting as if his life was normal, like he had not inflicted any pain on someone's child, a fellow human being. Instantly, the blaring of your neighbor's speaker, as it vomited out Holy Ten's "Kilimanjaro," began to bore you. You couldn't bear the tenant's hoarse voice, highly pitched above the already loud song, as he sang, mimicking the backing vocalist's voice.
Without thinking it through, you stormed out of your room, enraged like an infuriated bull, and knocked on his door numerous times, with no audible response, until you stormed into the room.
"Ukuita noise iwe!" ("You're making noise!") You screamed the moment you entered his room.
Your neighbor froze there, naked, before grabbing a book that was close by to cover his dangling genitals. He was stunned, but you were not even embarrassed at that moment. Unapologetic, you grabbed three bottles of beer, which were opposite to where you were standing, and stormed out.
You woke up with a headache and a feeling of drowsiness. It was the knock on the door that woke you up. You tried waking up, but you couldn't, so after the long struggle, you finally made up your mind that you were going to ignore the knock completely, careless of whether it was your landlord or whoever. But the knocker was persistent, and he continued knocking, shouting your name, as if he was threatening to break down the door.
And so, you rose, staggering as you made your way to the door, kicking the empty beer bottles on the floor. You opened the door, careless of how your breath smelled, like you would during normal times, careless of the state of your hair, not minding if you had drool on your face or grains in your eyes. You just opened it and returned to sit on your bed.
Your neighbor, the knocker, Philip, bursted in with energy and sat on the bed across from you. You still hadn't found a roommate, so the bed was now your wardrobe and dressing table, and so your clothes, your lotions, including your underwear, were all over it. But you cared less about that for the time being. Only Philip managed to isolate himself from them and perched on the corner of the bed, trying as much as possible to prevent eye contact with your underwear.
There was silence. The kind that was eerie and thick, so thick you would need a bulldozer to break through it. It was just him questionably looking at you as if his eyes had the ability to draw answers closer to him, as if he was a magnet and you were the pieces of metal.
"Patience, what is it?"
There was silence.
You slowly raised your head, and all you managed to say was, "Huh?"
"Why are you acting like this?"
You gazed at him, confused.
"Do you remember how these got here?" He pointed at the empty beer bottles.
You were still clueless about what he was saying. You tried to remember why you were in that state. Your eyes scanned the entire room. You spotted a heap of used synthetic braids right inside the dish where you kept your utensils. That's when you touched your head and noticed that it was messy. Your hands scurried inside the mass of your mussed natural hair, as if doing that would make it plaited all over again. As if the used braids would just jump onto your head and plait themselves. But still, you were clueless.
"Did you... did you do that?" You inquired, pointing at the heap of braids and your messy hair.
He shook his head in disagreement and hid it in his palms. After recollecting your thoughts and pondering upon them, you let out a gasp through your O-shaped mouth, as embarrassment washed all the confusion off your face.
"You remember now?"
"I'm sorry." You managed to say in whispers, avoiding eye contact with Philip, since he had now lifted up his head. "I will replace your beer." You continued to say.
Only if you could erase the nudes that were still in your mind.
The level of awkwardness was continually rising up in your room. He looked at you, and you looked at him too, though you kept avoiding eye contact. You could see the worry on his face as he tried to decipher the cause of your behavior. The kind of worry that someone usually had for you. Now, who was that someone? You clicked your tongue as soon as that person's deeds resurfaced from the depths of your mind.
"Collins!" That's all you managed to say before your tongue got tied up, and tonnes of emotions flooded in at the same time that your tears flooded out.
"What happened with Collins?" He asked, even though you were sure that if he had brought one and one together, he had already gotten two as his answer. Maybe he just needed to make sure. But before you could think of what to say, you hurried towards the toilet, where you vomited.
"You've got a terrible hangover there. It was your first time, right?"
You nodded as you rinsed your face in the basin across the room.
"I will make some coffee for you. It's an excellent antidote for that. Be right back." He quickly walked away as you stared at your mirror reflection.
Your face was puffy, and you had dark bags under your tired eyes, as if you had not had sleep for days.
You moved towards the toilet seat and flushed your vomit, just as numerous thoughts began to cloud your head. Suddenly, worry crept in, accompanied by its two best friends, anxiety and tenseness. Regret was already pounding on the door of your mind, but worry kept it closed, assuring him that he would be let in at the proper time.
Was it the alcohol, or were you pregnant?