Why Did It End?

“You look so pretty when you’re mad,” Jide said with a huge smile. This was the first time he had looked at Lola since he picked her up from work; she had been going off about a colleague who was rude to her at work. “Babe, stop. You’re not listening to me. “Of course I am”, he replied, “I was only complimenting you, but now I’m done, so you can go on talking.” He said. 

She smiled lovingly at him because she knew this was his way of distracting her and calming her down whenever she was riled up about issues beyond her control.

Lola always wondered how she got so lucky to meet someone like Jide. She wasn’t remarkably pretty or had the Kim Kardashian curve; she was a 5’6 light-skinned lady, and she was built like a child. She considered herself a plain Jane, but Jide always made her feel like she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

They met at a mall where Lola usually does her weekend grocery shopping. They were both commenting on the price hike of meat at the store, and he made some jokes which made her laugh.

One thing led to another and now, it’s been three years since that day and she has never regretted a second of it. He made her laugh and cry with his romantic gestures, which she didn’t know Nigerian men were still capable of. She always wondered why he chose her, but as the years rolled by she realized there couldn’t be anyone more perfect for her than him.

They kept on talking in the car while they were heading to the two-bedroom apartment they both shared as a married couple. After a short while, they were stuck in traffic and Jide had to roll down the windows when the heat became unbearable. He kept on talking and making jokes about her awful colleague when she looked around and saw a couple of people running forward, Jide came down from the car to inspect what was happening, “give me a minute babe let me check what’s happening it’s probably a tanker that has broken down again on this road,” he said.

She watched him leave and was still smiling at how lucky she was for getting this dark-skinned 6’2 Yoruba demon to fall in love with her.

All of a sudden, she got a whiff of gasoline and saw people running back, she saw Jide from a distance waving at her and that was when the explosion happened.

The moment she came to, she couldn’t get rid of the ringing in her head, the windshield of the car was smashed to bits and she wondered how she was still alive. She unbuckled her seatbelt and came out of the car to look for Jide. That was when she saw the bodies on the streets.

Lola couldn’t scream or even speak, she just kept on frantically looking for Jide through the mass of mangled bodies and dismembered body parts. She saw an arm of what looked like a 5-year old child,a baby stroller with only the body of a baby strapped to it—the head was nowhere to be found— the sight almost made her throw up but she continued her search.

A dazed woman walked past her, mumbling some words, when Lola went to grab her, she looked closely and saw that half of the woman’s face was missing, her brain was barely in her skull. She withdrew, turned around, then she saw him, lying on the floor with a serene look on his face. She wanted to scream, bang her head on the floor, throw up or at least move but all she could do was stand and stare at him with his internal organs leaking through the gapping absence of his torso and his lower jaw hanging by a flap of skin.

As she walked closer she could see an eye was missing, his beautiful lashes were gone, all that was left was a bloody tangle of a melted face and a broken nose.