The Dream
She was combing her hair in front of the mirror. She preened this way and that, admiring herself. She tilted her head to brush the side of her weave and suddenly, the whole front fell off her head. She shrieked and whipped it off the floor and attempted to stick it back to the glue on her exposed cornrows, only that she attached it the wrong way. The back was now at the front. She grimaced and shifted it around. The heat was stifling and her hands drooped down in exhaustion. All of a sudden,
‘Tara, Tara! What are you doing?’ She jerked her head up in shock and saw the sign above the mirror, Lumidee, it said. The voice brought to mind the smell of pencil erasers and midday sweat in stifling classrooms. The voice appeared behind her and picked at her hair and there, her head was in a bun above her head with bangs bat wings.
‘Oh no! I hate bangs’
‘Now now, don’t fuss, bangs are classy and you have to look classy at your wedding’
‘Ah ah ah’ she wailed like a drowning bird and surely in the mirror, yours truly was in a wedding dress.
‘This must be a dream’
The voice cackled. ‘Dreams come true. You always wanted a dream wedding’
‘I meant a dream wedding, not a wedding in a dream’
‘ Be careful what you wish for next time.
‘Who the heck are you by the way?’
‘I am lumidee. I snuff dreams’
‘Now this is the creepiest thing ever’ she thought silently. Talk about dreaming on your feet’
In the confused silence, the voice intruded again, ‘Come out now, your handsome is waiting for you. But then handsome or not, you have to go.’ It cackled again.
She closed her eyes. ‘Please, please, please.’ She dragged her feet out of the mirror.
‘But where is the car to take me to the church?’ she asked of no one in particular.
‘Oh wow!’ A white limo drove towards her. It moved like butter on a hot spoon.
The dream jerked forward like a bad cough and the rear hit the pole.
‘Help me oh God’ she sighed and looked heavenward and saw a sign that said “The Pedro police station”
She felt dizzy and leaned against the pole. ‘Am I crazy or doe my car look like a hearse?’
The voice was back again, like a pain in the back. ‘Beggars can’t be chosers.’ It said.
She paced along the street to calm down, while the driver righted the car. She bumped into Tunji dede, her secondary school terror.
‘Wow’ he exclaimed. ‘You look great.’
‘I’m getting married’ she answered.
‘Oh’ Then he proceeded to touch her neck with a caress. She closed her eyes for a minute, when she opened them, he was gone, muttering something about getting a cab.
She walked slowly towards the limo, but before she got there, three of her friends jumped in.
‘But it’s my wedding’ she whined.
Everyone just ignored her, it was as if she was not there. She sighed and squeezed herself into the limo seat. She adjusted the skirt of her dress with a pursed lip calm and faced towards the window. A voice jerked her from her thoughts. It was the driver.
‘No ma’m you can’t sit down there. My babies lie there.’
The seat trembled and she jumped up and made space amongst the curiously inert occupants of the opposite seat. Strangely,the limo was looking like a bus by the minute. Beside her, an hausa man chewed a kolanut noisily. Tunji dede was behind her making a call to someone called Brenda. He kept saying ‘I love you Brenda, I love you Brenda’. Bola smacked her lips on gum and looked pretty in cornrows while Myame teased her. It was a horror high school reunion.
The anonymity of her groom bothered her. She closed her eyes and prayed that it was not her wastrel of a ex-boyfriend, but there was no other candidate that she knew of. She would have run the moment that stupid lumidee opened her mouth, but she was afraid of the frightful waste it would be. Fancy her mum organizing her wedding and she running, her mum would go of the loop. Better get ther and see first and she might get a pleasant surprise.
The hausa man nudged her by the side. ‘Pass me the siddi.’ He said.
‘What siddi ?’ she inquired.
‘The siddi’ he said again nodding towards a hammer hung on the window. She gave it to him. He nodded again and said, ‘ I know why you no talk since. Na because dreba no carry you go where you wan go.’
‘Baba na wetin I go do?’ she asked of him.
‘Siddon look.’ And she woke up.
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