It’s 6 in the evening, a sleek car arrives to pick her up,
there is a temporal joy, pride, achievement and even satisfaction but it doesn’t
last for long, her conscience bothers her, her soul is troubled, her body is
not in sync something is amiss, completely amiss, she knows it, she feel s it
but she is torn in between.
She is taken to exotic places, fancy restaurants, and meets
people of class and substance but the guilt will not let her be, why am I doing
this? Why am I betraying so many people at once? Why am I stooping so low? For a
moment her reasoning gets the best of her, she walks out but walks right back
in, the guilt eating her softly.
Her nieces and nephews look up to her as a role model,
outwardly she is the epitome of morality, of hard work, of diligence and a
saintly being, so many people hold her on a pedestal, no one really knows her,
to them she is saintly, to her she is worse than the devil incarnate, it
bothers her, eats her up but she has no energy or will to let go, she has
become a slave to her own self, but why?
What does she get from him anyway? Not money, not fame, not
a good life, not material things and certainly not a great sex, then what? Every
time he would give her money, however little, her heart would sink with it; she
would feel like a walking skeleton so she stopped asking and taking anything of
monetary value from him. She would never let him buy her anything, she valued
her independence, and at least she still held on to that but then why was she
with him? During their whole ‘pretense’ she kissed him twice, both instances when
inebriated, the thought would come to haunt her later but she could deal with
that. Sex became a taboo topic to discuss between them, it nauseated her the
sight of him naked would literally make her sick and she made this known the best way she felt how without bruising
egos, so then why was she with him?
One thing she liked with the whole arrangement was the fact
that she set her own rules, and literally lived by them, rarely did she buckle
down and he knew this just as much, but then why did they have to put up with
each other?
…………………………
It was one fine Friday afternoon, outside library of one of
the country’s leading learning institutions; she had gone to meet him, to give
him her CV. They were meeting after over a decade of separation, they had once
met when she was a kid, she vaguely remembered him and therefore this meeting
other than to jolt up the past memory, she had hoped that through him, she
would secure a well-paying job- not an awkward scenario in itself-after all
this is a ‘man eat man country’ , who you know matters more than what you know
and being a fairly respectable person with lots of linkages, she had hoped to
tap on that and land herself her first job, her graduation was coming up in a
few months.
During their initial exchanges, she noticed a rather lonely
man, slightly unkempt and despite having everything else going for him he
needed help which not just everyone could give, his family was away, had been
away for years now, though they were constantly in communication their absence weighed
heavily on him. She therefore thought she would help, but how without ruining
everything? How?
……………………………
She knew he didn’t love her, he liked her a great deal but
certainly not love though he would insist on the latter, she equally liked him,
he seemed tender, was a gentleman enough and respected her a great deal, but
then it became an uphill task to ‘help’ him without compromising certain values
that she held so dear. But there is one more reason why she kept the whole ‘scandal’
going: she used him as a yardstick; she wanted a life and lifestyle like his,
he was deeply knowledgeable, had admirable business acumen, was a keen
investor, she admired all these and more and by getting closer to him, she had
hoped to learn a great chunk from him on how he did his dealings, the
principles and rules that he lived by and the secret to being so successful.
Maybe by taking this route she made one of her biggest
errors in life, she knew she erred anyway but was equally glad that every day
she could learn something new. She needed to feel a live again, her conscience
heavily weighed down on her and with all the resolve she could master, she
called it a day-she quit.
Though it was a fairly secret arrangement, the society could
have judged her harshly were the society be in the know, she doesn’t absolve
herself from her deeds either but wished
that sometimes before we cast the first stone, examining and understanding ones
motive wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.
(Jumbled up flow is intentional)
