Listening to 'The Journey', a song by Akan Victor, the boss at Badegg; as she reminisced over the possible intrinsic semantics of this soul-lifting song, she thought of the 'journey' she had to make that evening to a kiosk off her street, just to get something for dinner.
"What a country with its poor systems! Had it been elsewhere, maybe in Europe, I could have easily ordered for food from home, but not in Naija." She grumbled.
"Lazy you!" She could hear mum's voice echo from a distance in her mind.
Sluggishly, she put off the song, stood reluctantly from her eight-inch mattress and reached for her three-quarter trousers; still on her lingerie, she wore the three-quarter trousers beneath, and began to ransack her box for a top to match.
"Kpom! Kpom!! Kpom!!!" The knock on the door startled her off her chaotic thought.
"Who's there?" She yelled.
Confused whether to answer the door in her three-quarter trousers on a long nightie gown.
"I sure look more of a clown in these" she thought aloud.
In her momentary dilemma, she quickly decided to resume the search for a suitable top to match before answering the door; and the knock came again. She dashed towards the door like a gazelle set in battle array; expecting to see this neighbour, whose incessant stops to say 'hello' was becoming appalling; or even, she thought, it could be the 'aboki' caretaker of their compound, who's been requesting for Christmas presents, when it's vividly glaring he's a Muslim faithful.
"Hold on!" She exclaimed.
She's prepared her mind on what to tell whoever this intruder is; she'll just wade off whoever it is, with a cold attitude; of course, it should be someone from within; who else would dare visit at this 'odd' hour without first calling her phone. She pulled gigantically, the door handle; and there he was; her crush, her prince charming, the only reason her heart glows these days. There he was standing like a knight, though with no shining armour but for his phone; like a marshal hero enthroned in handsomeness; his aura immediately enveloped her. She was lovesick, like a wrecked ship on an island of snow; the one person she had always fantasized about, now standing before her; but not now, not in this moment of confusion, this moment of weird looks, from her unkempt hair, her trousers that looked like jumper and this horrible-looking lingerie. The awe his presence bore was so intimidating, handicapping and devastating altogether; her heart beat faster than an engine belt at a construction site, like a B.P patient, her blood ran swiftly in and out of her veins and arteries, like in a water fountain. The gaze of his eyes sent cold shivers down her marrows, his charming smile was alluring.
"Surprised?" He asked.
And oh! That sonorous baritone voice got her stuttering "Yeah! Yeaah!!" to her astonishment.
In some speechless moments, she thought less of her appearance but how to escape the embarrassment of being dumbfounded, for the words weren't forthcoming. She stood transfixed at the door, not knowing what to say or do; all her etiquettes on courtesy eluded her; and oh, he read her mind, like he always does, he's always in charge; one of the many reasons she's head over heels. He pulled her to himself; she felt his soft diaper hands running all over her feeble-frame body like a sieving machine. He gently rocked her hair, her scapula side of the back with a hand, while he stroked her spine with the other; as he pulled closer, her nipples touched his strong-built chest and her lap collided with his hard thing, her heart thumped faster, that one could imagine it escaping through the mouth in no moment. She shivered and buried her face in his deep sea-green collar shirt and gulped down the sweet fragrance of the deodorant he wore. Locked up in this warm embrace that seem everlasting; she murmured something that sounds like a welcome.
"Thank you" he responded, with that tone of a radio presenter on mid-night shift; that tone that sends her world ablaze in a chilly way.
As they stood engulfed in this mind-blowing but fleeting moment, he cupped her face with his hands and planted that soft thick lips of his on her upper lip, her lower lip, back to the upper; having wetted her lips enough, there came the tongue-to-tongue convergence. As they kissed, she felt his hands on her back again, but this time, grabbing her butts and she moaned in the sweet ecstasy of the blissful adventurous "journey" of this visit.
"Ting tung tong! Ting ting tong!! Ting tung tong!!!" The alarm rang to alert Olaedo of my habitual quiet-time by 5:30pm, for that was when she woke to say her first prayer for the day.
She sleepily rubbed my eyelids, accessed my room; there was no knock and no prince charming, but for my bed side books starring accusingly at her and the subsequent buzzing reminder that it was her off day from work.
"Mtchwww!" she hissed.
It was all a dream.