MY JOURNEY IN LIFE.
EPISODE 5
I got really nervous as the gap between our faces reduced to three inches. I saw this willingness in her eyes that made my eyelids want to hvg each other as the motion continued. But out of nervousness, my left hand, which rested on the table between us mistakenly hit the glas-s of malt that was in front of me and it spilled all over the table. Immediately, we retreated to our normal positions, and the drink that had spilled on the table bec@m£ the talk of the moment till we left.
Next morning belonged to a Monday, and I was up and prepared to leave for work while she was to leave for school. Ogechi was a first year student of Creative Arts in the University Of Nigeria. We bade each other goodbye and left to our different destinations. Before we left, she smiled at me and said; I enjoyed your music. It’s really nice. More grease to your elbow. Thank you, I said, and we left.
Sometime later, Ogechi suggested to me that instead of continuing my education at IMT, where I obtained my ND certificate, I should apply for direct entry at UNN and continue there. I told her I didn’t want to spend more than two years in any higher institution, explaining to her how long I’ve spent alre-ady after obtaining my ND. She went ahead to explain to me that if I’m taken into UNN via direct entry, I’ll start from year two and will only have to spend three years. Isn’t it better to spend three years to get a university degree than two years to get an H.N.D, considering the fact that more value is placed on a university degree? She tried to make me see reasons with her.
After many arguments, I cons£nted, not really because of the B.A and H.N.D thing, but because I was going to become her course mate if I did. I studied Communication Arts at IMT, and would be admitted into the dep@rtment of Creative Arts at UNN with the necessary steps taken. I had grown so fond of her that I didn’t want to be ap@rt from her when I finally left her house. And talking about leaving her house, I was to leave after two months. But this is the third month since I moved in. She hadn’t said anything about me leaving. Seems like she had also gotten to love my company so much that she didn’t want me to leave again, plus, I was really of good behavior. On the other hand, I didn’t want to leave because I wouldn’t get the kind of treatment she was giving me anywhere else. There was another reason why I didn’t want to leave, but I hadn’t figured out what that reason was. I just knew there was. All the same, I knew I was going to leave some day, hence the suggestion she brou-ght up ensured that our worlds never went ap@rt after I left.
Ogechi got so concerned about the low state of my finances and offered to borrow me some money to start up any business of my choosing, so long as I promised to make refund on a promised d@t£. I agreed to that, and got N100,000 from her, which she gave cheerfully. She really trusted me. I added that to what I had saved up and invested it in FOREX business. From then, the mornings met me in front of my l@pt©p, and nights left me still trying to make some profit out of the stock market. The time I spent conversing with Ogechi reduced, we didn’t hang out often again, we rarely c@m£ together except we wanted to have a meal together, which we always did. I just had to make enough profit to repay her on time and also have enough left for me to become a big boy. After countless sleepless nights, I started ma-king profit from the FOREX business and soon enough, I hit my initial mark and repaid Ogechi. Then my approach towards the business intensified.
It wasn’t quite long before Ogechi’s elder brother who graduated from UNN called in and announced his coming over to Enugu in three weeks for his clearance and some other things he nee-ded to do before going for Youth Service. Ogechi was dull after the call. I asked why she was dull and she told me. I had only three weeks to get my own ap@rtment and leave before her brother c@m£ in. Of cause everything was now okay financially. All I had to do was to find a good ap@rtment for myself. I started my search for a house and found one after nearly two weeks. I paid for it and moved in without even furnishing it. My plans was to furnish it little by little after moving in because I didn’t want to spend more time at Ogechi’s house in case her brother decided to hasten his journey down to Enugu. Ogechi accompanied me down to my ap@rtment on the day I moved in. The ap@rtment was virtually empty. The only things that could be found in there were the ceiling fan, the carpet, wall hanger and the mattress. These were the first of the items I bought for the ap@rtment after I paid for it.
We both sat on my be-d watching a movie (love don’t cost a thing) with my l@pt©p. It was about after 8pm when she asked me to see her off. I urged her to stay a little longer.
By precisely 9:30pm when she was about to leave, the cloud changed. It was definitely going to rain. She had to pick a cab or board a bus before the rain started. We both went outside and waited for the next available bus or cab. Seemed like the bus and cab drivers also wanted to hurry home to avoid being caught up in the midst of a heavy out pour. We still waited for a driver that probably was still willing to do a little business before retiring for the day. Then suddenly, the skies gave way to volume of water it held and it met us right there. Apparently, there was no way she was going to get a cab or bus to take her back home that night. The only option we had left was to head back to my ap@rtment, and we did.
We started running back home, but before we reached my house we had alre-ady been soa-ked by the rain because my house was some distance away from the tarred road. We st©pped at the veranda and waited for some water to drain off our cloths before getting inside the house to avoid messing up the carpet. I took off my shi-t and trou-ser and hung them on the burglary proof. I was left putting on bo-xer and singlet. I turned and looked at her, and she asked; what? You expect me to do that too? I’ll do that in the bathroom, she said. We went in afterwards and she hit the bathroom to dry herself up and all that. I heard her call my name from inside the bathroom. I answered and she asked me to get her something to change to. I had no girl cloths whatsoever, so I brou-ght an oversize t-shi-t that was given to me by my father and handed it over to a hand belonging to a b©dy which hid right behind the door of the bathroom.
Some minutes later, she c@m£ out of the bathroom with her hair loosed and scattered. The t-shi-t swallowed her but was a little bit above her knee level. I also got into the bathroom to get refreshed. On getting in there I noticed something. Not only did I see her dress hanging in there, her un-der garments were as well. She had nothing on except the oversize t-shi-t I gave to her. On realizing that, my heartbeat increa-sed. I had promised to be of good behavior, and I definitely was while at her house. This was my house for crying out loud. Does that promise still stand? Many negative thoughts crossed my mind. The more I tried to dismiss it, the stronger it got. Then it bec@m£ like Satan himself had s£nt me a voice message from the depth of hades when what I refer to as; ‘THE STRANGE VOICE OF A DECEITFUL THOUGHT’ crossed my mind. This is the voice I heard in my head;
When the time comes, you will st©p,
For now, you can go ahead and sin.
Even God knows you will flop,
So just keep the mess from being seen.
These sins take long to fill a cu-p,
So fear not God’s judgment, His mercy will always win.
If you fall today, God knows there were times when you were up,
So don’t panic, soon, you’ll again be clean.
Come on; take some time out from the t©p,
She eagerly awaits your arrival at her in-between.
It’s been forever, since anyone went there to shop,
So hurry! She’s alre-ady high on dry gin.
She wants to be harvested like a wild crop,
Ha-ha, don’t be amazed, it’s a thing in her gene.
Pl@yher like h!p-hop,
Forget the saying that God watches you like a TV screen.
After that finished pla-ying in my mind, I rushed out of the bathroom with an attitude of determination and met her lying on the be-d and scanning throu-gh the songs in my l@pt©p’s music libr@ry. She noticed my unusual manner, sat up and stared at me confused while a song was still pla-ying from the l@pt©p. The look on her face showed that she perceived something strange about me. But she neither asked nor said anything. Instead she l@yback on the be-d like one who ran out of defensive measures, surrendering to an opponent that couldn’t be defeated. That action of hers provoked a powerful response from my b©dy system and……,
MY JOURNEY IN LIFE.
EPISODE 6
Like I was saying before the fly flew in, that action of hers provoked a powerful response from my b©dy system, and I proceeded to act on the thought which the strange voice had pla-yed in my mind. I knelt on the be-d, looked her in the eyes and smiled, but she didn’t return my smile, neither did she frown or make any objections. Just then, the song that was pla-ying from the l@pt©p ended, and another one began. The new song that started pla-ying was actually one of mine, and the lyrics to the song altered a lot. It lifted the pres£nt at atmosphere and dropped another.
This is how the lyrics go;
The reason a thing is loved is the reason it is HATED.
The reason a thing is praised is the reason it is PERSECUTED.
There are doves and serpents EVERYWHERE,
If I could fly, I’d be the one the sky would call my DEAR,
I would be flying with the eagles in the AIR,
And I wouldn’t even shrink out of FEAR.
But I’m down HERE,
Sounding so loud, hope u can HEAR?
The gospel is what I SHEAR,
You know that the end of all things is NEAR,
So tell it to the ones u hold DEAR,
That they may fear what you FEAR,
& wear righteousness as you WEAR.
Tell them that have ears to HEAR,
For no one knows the day, the month or the YEAR,
When the saints of the Lord will DISAPPEAR.
I pray I’ll be one of them, Oh! How ha-rd it seems to PERSEVERE,
How I wish the only thing I had to stay away from was BEER,
But it isn’t, because I look around and see temptations EVERYWHERE,
Too much pressure from a group called PEER,
So much that even when I sleep, in my dreams they APPEAR,
But nah, in all these things I’m still HERE,
& I am not going anywhere until I’m caught up in the AIR,
Not just I, but all whom to God’s word have not turned a deaf EAR
As soon as I heard just the first verse of that song, I relented, l@yon the be-d beside her and re-leased the de-ep breathe I had taken in. After about five to six minutes of silence, Ogechi said; I’m proud of you. And again she said; goodnight. I replied her goodnight and we retired to be-d, music still pla-ying. We didn’t pray that night.
By the time I woke up the next morning she was alre-ady prepared to leave. You’re up alre-ady? I asked shyly. Yes I am. I have to hurry home and prepare for school.
She didn’t in any way seem disappointed at me like I thought she would, so I bottled up the apology I wanted to tender to her. Or could she have been hiding her feelings? I couldn’t help but feel guilty, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong, so to speak. Just that she didn’t even expect me to put up such act. But then, she said she was proud of me. Many thoughts just kept running throu-gh my mind, and I didn’t know which one to settle with. So I dismissed them all and concluded that I would take whatever comes as a result of what I had done. After all, whatsoever a man sows, so shall he reap. Alright then, I replied. Let me esc-rt you to a cab. Okay, she responded sharply. As we worked down discussing, the usual flow in our conversation was abs£nt. I would say a thing and she would respond, and then they’ll be silence for about 30 seconds. She would also say something of which I would respond to before the silence continues.
That’s how it was until she boarded a cab home. We said goodbye to each other, and it sounded like goodbye forever. As I walked back home I met two guys who started hailing me unst©ppable. I wondered why they did so. I just moved in yesterday and hadn’t made any acquaintances yet. As we closed the gap between us, they started raining praises on me and misinterpreting their suspicions to suit their own purposes. Well, that’s left for them anyway.
I got back home, freshened up, turned on my l@pt©p and started my normal FOREX transaction. The figures in my bank account were increasing little by little. But while the figures were on the increase, my communication with Ogechi was on the decrease, as we didn’t call each other often, and only met in church during church services, since I had become a full b!own member of Christ’s Embas-sy. Even at that, we ba-rely had time enough to speak to each other. I couldn’t visit her due to her brother’s pres£nce, and I couldn’t summon the courage to ask her out or tell her to pay me visit at my house because of our last experience, which wasn’t terrible according to my judgment. But for some reason, I just couldn’t say a word in that direction.
Out of sight bec@m£ out of mind. I was missing her company like hell. The money I was ma-king could not fill the vacuum her abs£nce left in me. Nothing was of interest to me anymore and I began bearing the burden of indescribable feelings. The more I kept trying to shove away the memories that triggered those feelings, the more I kept reminiscing on the good times we shared together. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I had to bring back those days. Truly, you don’t know what you have until you lose it.
I consulted the brightest of p@rt of my mind on how to resolve this issue and found that the best way to get close enough to her again was by joining the choir. I made my intension to join the choir known to the choir director and he brou-ght me in and introduced me the crew. Judging from the look on her face, I could tell that Ogechi was surprise at this development. From the night at my house till this very moment, she never acted as though she was pushing me away; neither was she coming to me. She was simply unpredictable. As soon as I joined the choir, everything went back to normal and soon enough, her brother was done with his engagements in Enugu and left. She and I were alone again.
After her brother left, we resumed visits to each other’s houses again, but we never got to spend any nights together. One of those days we got talking, and this is the record of our conversation;
‘So what made you decide to join the choir? She asked. Thought you said you weren’t good with high pitch?’
‘I’m not. But I’m re-ady to learn. And I can do the tenor p@rt till I’ve learnt how to pitch high. There’s no nee-d having a talent that can’t be used to the glory of the giver of the talent in the first place’
‘But you’ve alre-ady done so with your songs haven’t you. By the way, ever since I listened to your song ehh, I pl@yit more often that you can imagine. That track is really breath taking. You’re really talented you know?’
‘I do. Thanks for the complements. I don’t get that often. But you see, there is no limit to what a man can do to honor.
God with his abilities. I figured that doing my own tracks doesn’t require more than me to get it done except I want to feature another singer. But with the choir it’s different. The ideas are collective, and I’ll get to the chance to do more live performances than I would with my own songs, especially now that I’m not yet lunched into stardom. And this will also act as an opportunity for me to get conversant with singing before a multitude of people, so that when I become a star, I would do so with ease’
‘So now, is it about glorifying God or rehearsing for the future?’ She asked with raised eyebrows’
‘Both my dear. Both’ I replied
‘May it be onto you according to you plans’
‘Amen. What about you and your dream to reach the world throu-gh music. I promised to help out, remember? Or have you given up on it?’
‘Of course not. A lot was going on which didn’t permit the pursuit of that dream’
‘So what about now? Are there still things going which still don’t permit you do it now?’
‘I guess not’
‘Then let’s get started! On Saturday I’m taking you to the studio so you can see how things work there. Maybe you’ll be challenged when you see some people doing some pretty nice songs and will be inspired to do something too. Just tell me what you want to sing about and I’ll create suitable lyrics for it’
‘You’re so enthusiastic about this whole thing’
‘Sweet heart, it’s called LOVE. I love music, poetry, and writing. But definitely not as much as I LOVE YOU’
She was shocked beyond measure to hear me say that to her. She just kept staring right into my eyes with utter amazement and had a countenance on her face that depicted something like ‘SERIOUSLY?’ She was short of words. She just smiled softly and looked away from my face to the ground in slow motion. Perhaps, that was the time for me to empty my heart of its content, so I began;
Swiftly was my heart glued to you,
When my eyes got a glimpse of your hairdo,
Earnestly, my mouth longed to say a thing or two,
Even if it meant just giving you a clue,
That all of me agree with all you do.
Honor would it be for me, to untie you shoe,
Enter my heart and see if all I say is true,
Access my soul, search it all throu-gh,
Rate what I feel for you and see if it’s not true,
Truly speaking, I love you. I wish you love me too.
Ogechi kept staring at me as expressed my true and sincere feelings towards her endlessly. All throu-gh that time, she was smiling unceasingly. When I was done, she didn’t say anything. I believed she nee-ded more time to ponder on all I had just said to her, so I expectantly waited for her to be done with that and maybe, give in. Or was she going to carry this over, in other to have much time to think it over? There wouldn’t be any nee-d for that. She knew all there was to know about me alre-ady. I didn’t know whether or not to place my hopes high since she had been very unpredictable since her first and last visit to my house. I just kept whispering tender loving words which ca-ressed her emotions to the point where her b©dy started moving to the rhythm of my voice. Then she asked;
‘How long has your heart nurtured this truth?’ she asked
‘The moment you walked out of the bathroom fully made up on the first day I set foot in your ap@rtment. I was watching and admiring you from behind as you left for the market. Ever since then you’ve occu-pied the better p@rt of my heart.
‘Why did it take you so long to say something?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s just say I was waiting for the right time’
‘And you think now is the right time?’
‘I couldn’t think of a better time. My heart may explode if I try to hold it in any longer. So tell me, do I stand a chance?
“We’ll see about that’
I and Ogechi started pursuing our dreams. We visited different studios, went for big and small show, and did a whole lot of stuffs aspiring singers do. With time Ogechi was re-ady to start recording her own songs. I was not really re-ady to record more songs since I had a couple of them alre-ady which had not been adequately promoted. Besides, Ogechi c@m£ first in everything. So she would just give me an idea on what she wants to sing about and I would write lyrics for it, and she records. It was just a matter of time before she started writing her lyrics herself.
In our course of doing all these, we met a number of gospel singers who were ma-king waves alre-ady in the music industry. One of those days we were in the studio recording her song when a male gospel singer by name, Ck walked in to buy studio session. Ck got impressed by Ogechi’s wonderful voice and started to inquire about her. After talking a whole lot with Ogechi, he proposed to make her his backup singer in his new song, the very song he c@m£ there to do.
Ogechi was so glad to be a backup singer to Ck, who was on his to, and very close to his prime. I was also happy because the p@rt I lead her to walk in was taking her exactly where she wanted to go. So she started meeting with the Ck more often than not for rehearsals. At a point it got so much that I bec@m£ uncomfortable because she ba-rely time to spend with me anymore. It’s either she was with Ck rehearsing, or she was with Ck’s manager deliberating on her costumes and makeup for the video of the song, since Ck intended to shoot the video of that song as soon as he was done with the audio recording. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t even tell her how bad I felt about her directing all her attention to Ck’s song. I just waited and prayed for the whole thing to be over so that things between I and Ogechi would return to normal.
Soon enough the song was recorded and the video was sh0t, but it didn’t end there. Whenever Ck had any invitation to sing, Ogechi would go with him because he always sang the song Ogechi backed him up. And you know that guy had gone a long way to the t©p. He had almost become like the singers at the t©p and had a lot of fans, so there was no end to the invitations he got to sing at different places in Nigeria. This is exactly what Ogechi wanted. Just that it wasn’t her own songs she was showcasing. But at least, she was very close to that. Ogechi bec@m£ known to be a good backup singer and other singers called on her to back their songs up as well.
Her voice was soon heard on quite a number of songs and she was very close to signing autogra-phs. Ck even went ahead to get Ogechi to do an international pas-sport, reason being that she would have to go with him if he was invited to sing there. That was done before anyone could say J.A.C.K! I was happy for her since her dreams were finally coming true, and I helped in ma-king it happen but at the same time, I was missing her company because she was either in school receiving lectures or somewhere performing. The only time we had for ourselves was when none of those were happening, and that was rare. While she was doing all those, I was always in front of my computer on FOREX transaction, ma-king cool cash.
The next academic session began and I was with Ogechi in the same dep@rtment. Remember she had suggested to me to apply for direct entry and continue year two in her school? Well, that’s exactly what I did. This way, we got the chance to be close to each other again on a regular basis. She was so excited at that. She really wanted to be close to me. As a matter of fact, she loved it, and it was more obvious than ever. After this somewhat ‘REUNION’, everything went well between us and we were re-ady for everything. I and Ogechi were now formally ‘COURTING’.
WATCHOUT FOR EPISODE 7