Talking to A!

We didn’t mean for it to become serious. It was merely to pass time.

I know that’s not the smartest thing to hear from us, we with good heads on our shoulders, jointly and severally.

She is/was pretty. That was a given. The security men had made a remark one time she passed. She didn’t hear it but I heard it.

They had remarked on how put together she is and how they can’t wait to see how her life will turn out. One had randomly said: “her man go Dey enjoy”.

That was a strange statement because how do you get off thinking of her man by merely seeing her pass everyday at 8am.

It was that morning I decided to follow through with the sting of admiration I felt every time I saw her pass. She had a sharp mouth, the typed I liked.

I didn’t know how she’ll take it or anything but I was over-joyed when I heard I had to deliver a message to her personally. We usually don’t do that here, everything is via mails.

She was eating when I knocked her door. To me, that was too early. I sha pretended to not know she had been eating. I’ll quickly deliver the message and go on to do some chit-chat where I dropped ‘boyfriend’ more than once to which she gave this pretty toothless smile.

She was sweet, I had been going through a lot and she knew. We will talk about my outfit for an event the following day and she’ll wish me well.

Of course, as an Igbo man, I tell her how pretty she looked because frankly, she didn’t need to do too much.

It’s the day of the event and she had this gorgeous red dress on. Me too, I wore this nice sharp trad with good shoes, one of the ones I got on my last trip to India — such a weird place to get shoes. Had we been a couple, e for sharp die.

That evening, she made a point to teach me how to slow dance. The idea of spinning her still looms in my head. A goddess.

I ensured that she got home safely.

I didn’t tell her I was going to text or anything. Breach of privacy or not, it was one of those things you knew wouldn’t be so much of an issue so, I shoot her a message late at night, asking how she was doing.

She ddidn’t express surprise but I knew her surprise will be expressed physically — she is an addresser of issues.

I’ll call her after asking her if it was okay and she’ll say sure. She will even make a joke about not having a boyfriend to worry her.

That was the night we made the pact to just keep talking until we found out significant others.

The foolishness.

It’s been six months. The best six months of my life.

We talk every minute, in French, English, Igbo and the little Deutsche she has picked up.

Given everything that had been happening with me, everyone could confirm I didn’t look a quarter like my struggles. She made me shine.

Somehow, our office was out of bounds.

I’m leaving for Geneva soon. She can’t come until at least next year.

I don’t know.

I want to see her, I want to hold her.

I want her to pick me up from the gym on Saturday morning, blasting Igbo highlife and singing to it so accurately, you’ll forget she’s a Kalabari girl, my Kalabari girl.

She has said she can’t drop me at the airport. It will wreck her.

Me, I’m already wrecked. What was I thinking going after her ever so leisurely, knowing I’ll be leaving soon and that I felt a tingling admiration for her.

Ije-uwa!

Signed:

A finished Igbo man