My story began on Monday.
It was the first day of the week. My alarm
rang at 5:30. I was being my usual lazy self and refused to get up from the
bed. My body felt too heavy, and I didn’t have the strength of mind to lift my
being up from where it comfortably lay. I snoozed the alarm ad closed my eyes. Just
a few more minutes, please, I begged no one in particular. Maybe I was speaking
to the alarm clock.
The next time I heard the alarm it was 6:30
am. The speed at which I threw myself out of that bed and jumped in the
bathroom, showered, dressed up and got ready for work all before 7:00am is
still a mystery to me till this day. I was in my car and driving to work. Well,
I was driving until I got to the inevitable traffic congestion at Richard
Mansel Drive, which was just five minutes away from my office if the traffic wasn’t
so awful. I was late already, and the idiotic traffic warden whose job it was
to direct the free flow of vehicles was doing very poorly. I cursed and sighed
and cursed again. By the time I had manoeuvred through that quagmire of machine
and carbon mono-oxide, the time was 8:!5.
I sped past cars and pedestrians as I drove
into the office complex and found an empty spot to park my Accord. My Accord
grumbled a bit before its engine finally quenched. It needed maintenance, but I
had no money for that yet. I rushed into the 8 storey building that was Omega
Oil Servicing Co. and took the elevator to the fifth floor. During the elevator
ride, I brought my tie out from my pocket and knotted it as best as I could
before I arrived at my floor. A few eyes observed me as I did this but I didn’t
care about them. I was more concerned about the scornful look I was expecting
to see on Mr Odimuya’s face as I stepped into the Senior Staff meeting in his
office.
Mr Odimuya was smiling when he saw me. He beamed
even and offered me a “Hello, James. We have been expecting you.” His grin was
quite unusual. His teeth glistened more than it should. He was in a grey suit
with a red tie. Mr Odimuya never wore red ties. But then I got to realize that
he did that for the rest of the week, because to him, red signified love (not
danger?) and we were in a season of love. Then I remembered that Valentine’s
day was coming up on Thursday. So I wasn’t getting a tongue lashing for being
late today, I guess. I allowed myself a smile of my own as I sat down in a
vacant seat and enjoyed the rest of the morning.
The valentine talk filled my ears from all
lips at work that morning. I couldn’t get enough of it. And just as I sat down
in my office minding my own business, then walks in Susan. She was one
colleague I’d known for three years and have never liked. Reason being that she
loved to talk - a lot - about nothing that made much interest to me.
“so who’s your lucky girl this Thursday,
Jamie?” she asked even without bothering to exchange pleasantries.
I stopped what I was doing, and looked at
her. We exchanged that look for a few seconds before I looked back at my PC and
continued typing.
“Hey, come on… don’t go all blank on me
like that. You’re a cute guy. You’re not gay…well if you are I wouldn’t know,
and I don’t really care though, maybe I would find it funny and look at you in
a certain way from now on. But that’s all crap, we both know you aren’t, and
that means you love to stick it in a vajayjay. So whose is it gonna be on Thursday,
Jamie?”
Usually, I don’t get angry at work. I’m the
cool, calm, collected guy who’s always polite to everybody and likes to move
along with my colleagues. I do not search
for the troubles of others, and pray all the time that theirs would never find
me. But at that very moment, when Susan had just finished speaking and was
looking at me in that very disgusting way that she does, I stood up…and just
like it was in slow motion, I hit her across the face with the back of my hand.
Susan spun and hit the wall first before falling to the ground…and stayed
there, unmoving.
***********
The next day was Tuesday. It was 9:15am and
I lay in my bed looking at the ceiling. I had been suspended for a week,
without pay. It was the most sickening thing that 2013 had thrown at me yet. Susan
had survived my back-hand slap. Well,
it was more than a slap, since she actually fainted. She lost consciousness for
almost five minutes. I had stood there for a minute or so, first confused,
thinking she was faking it, and then bending over her to check her pulse, maybe
even considering CPR. A lot of junk went through my head at that moment…before I
reached for my phone and called the office medics.
When Mr Odimuya heard of my actions, he called
me to his office to hear what I had to say. No matter what I had said, having
such physical confrontations in the office usually led to being sacked. My whole
existence was shivering as I stood before Mr Odimuya. He was with a calmness I had
never seen of him before, in grey suit and red tie, glasses sparkling in the
bright light above us, and telling me that i was to be suspended. I could have
jubilated, until he mentioned the part that I wasn’t going to get paid for the
period I would be absent and my salary could be slashed as more punishment.
Susan deserved what she got though, I told
myself as I lay there, thinking about my life. Still, it was wrong to have hit
her. But the pain and anger all mushed into one within me had erupted that
Monday morning. I gritted my teeth and wondered how I was going to survive with
a slashed salary. If only Susan had stayed at her damned desk instead of coming
to find out who I would be ‘painting the town red’ with on Valentine’s day. And
even when I thought about it, there was no body I had in mind of going out with
on Thursday; and especially not now that I didn’t have any money for such.
By Wednesday, I had become extremely
restless. I couldn’t stay around the house an
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