THE LAST DAY
West Coast Nigeria.
Lagos City.
A cloudy evening on the ever busy vibrant commercial city. The 9-5 workers can be seen on the busy roads moving to and fro. Some were in a hurry to either catch a bus or board the commercial bikes popularly known as Okada back home.
In the inland, most of the roads have sales persons by the sides with a variety of things on display for sale. One could see by one corner a woman with cheap cosmetics on her small poorly constructed table and near her a young lad with a customized wheel barrow to display different electronic accessories. The city have a main land and pocket of islands scattered around. Some of the islands are more of skyscrapers and sophisticated structures but the main land had more of commercial plazas housing different businesses as a common feature.
In one of the plazas, Esther a young lady of 27, married to a doctor with a 3yrs old daughter owns a boutique. As soon as she finished for the day, she locked up her shop and headed for the bus stop. The bus stop was on a two lane road and the commuters waiting for the right bus going to their various destinations crowded the metal structure providing shelter as they wait.
After about twenty minutes of waiting, Esther finally got into a bus. The journey usually takes 45mins to an hour to get to her area of residence so most times she spends her time listening to the songs on her phone through an earpiece and surfing the internet for anything of interest. She did some replies on her social media chat sites and she noticed there were two trending news. A commotion at the Airport and another celebrity marriage scandal. She was more interested in the marriage scandal so she hastily scanned through the Airport incident. Apparently there was mild commotion at the International Airport with passengers restricted from sections of the Airport. Security operatives were seen all over the place. No clear report of what actually happened but rumors had it that it was a bomb scare and since there was no explosion, a good guess was that it was a failed terrorist attack.
The celebrity scandal was about one of her favorite's Musician who was calling off her marriage after her husband and manager of two years granted an interview to a popular blog exposing her as an irresponsible mother to their kid and a only career focused wife.
Esther had avoided commenting on the story on her facebook and entertainment news sites but some comments on her Gram which she strongly disagreed with forced her hand to start typing.
``Its a shame that most people wud hav d guts to call Funke Gold a hoe jst bcuz Bobby said so, hav u heard her part of d story? Is Bobby d holy husband dat does not flex ouside? Why is it now dat d fame n money is flowing in, dat he now knows she is a hoe?”
Instantly after sending in her comment, she got a couple of likes and flood in of comments. Mostly abusive which made her regret why she bothered to even comment in the first place. She tried calling her husband Steve to tell him she was already on her way home but he wasn’t picking. She called her neighbor next to ask after her daughter Tare. Tare usually comes back from school with her neighbor Mrs Ogunkoya also known as Aunty Bimpe or popularly called Mummy twins who have identical twins Taye and Kehinde. She is a full house wife so she picks up the girls after school and later in the evening when Esther comes back from her shop, she would pick up Tare.
Three hours later, Esther had just finished cooking and was starting to get worried why Steven was not yet back and to not have even called. The next day was a Saturday so Tare would not be going to school. She was busy with the remote control changing the TV stations in the living room. Esther tried calling Steven again but the phone was switched off. She relaxed her mind consoling herself with the thought of the usual excuse he gives on events like this…he probably had an emergency and is operating in the theater at that moment.
Mid night at about 1am, when she was already in bed, her phone began to ring. Although she had been expecting the call, her heart leaped when she saw the display photo of Steven on her phone as it rang. She picked it up.
"Hello honey, what happened? I have been calling all day but…” Steven cuts in…"Sorry dear, I don’t have much time, we are in a meeting now with the Minister of health. I think we might have an impending epidemic and from the looks of things this is serious…I mean real serious”
"ohh…I didn’t know…are you not tired? Would you be back by the morning?”
"I can't say for now, we are still getting the briefing and this may take all night… but I will try as soon as I can to come home tomorrow”
"Which tomorrow? We are already in tomorrow”
"ohh don’t mind me joor…I will try and make it in the morning…gat to go now…night night love you”.
"love you honey”
"ohh what of my angel?”
"She is good, slept early sef”
"Okay love you, go back to bed, see you in the morning, bye".
"Bye, love you”.
As she placed the phone back on the table near her she knew she wont be able to sleep again. Morning just seem too far away. She felt so lonely all by herself on the bed. She just couldn’t wait for the break of dawn so that she could see her darling once again and get rid of the miserable feeling of loneliness but little did she know that the morning was bringing a whole different meaning to the word misery.
