A Shattered Love, A Black Cloud.


Black Cloud.All Lota could see was the black cloud that brought so many memories along with it.She was standing in her balcony.From her block, one could view the beauty of Umuchima. Most mornings like this one, the view of several buildings was stolen away by the fog that always visited, the fog Obinna had called "Washing Machine". She smiled.He had been her everything,Obinna. He had come into her life, rejuvinated some sort of fire, added fuel to the flames, and at the brink of its loudest spark, had quenched it with water.She was left with nothing now, only pieces of shredded heart, and flesh that exhibited fake euphoria and fake completeness on her skeleton.

"Obinna you sef" She had said to him that morning, after he had said the fog that covered the entire area most mornings performed the same action as a washing machine.It sounded funny, the whole thing.

"Lota darling don't you see?" He had asked her "Mr foggy comes every morning to wash away everything that done the previous night by students. It purifies the area don't you see?, Mr foggy is a washing machine that destroys Umuchima's surface tension".

"Sicko" she had called him, amidst giggles.

Their love did not last forever as she had thought it would.Obinna was a Masters Degree student. He had come to FUTO to acquire a degree in Mechatronics, and it was
almost four months to the end of semester exams when she met him. It was his last year, all the more reason why she did not want to fall in love with him. She has asked her self countless times what she stood to gain from falling in love with someone like him. He was Six years older in age , and she was a three hundred level student.Her friends laughed when she told them he was in love with her, and she was falling for him too. The had pulled her by the ear in warning.Some said he was toying with her, that there was no way he wanted something serious.

How could he love her? a fine dude like him, who rode two cars, lived in World Bank, Owerri Town, he who was the best graduating student of his set here in FUTO at the end of his first degree.How could he love her, Small-Hunger-Striken-Lota with a flat ass and not so big boobs. How could he love her?

It was their misgivings that drew her closer to him, and , with all the strength and beauty in this world, Obinna had loved her.

Three months into the relationship and a month to his graduation, they had gone to visit his parents. They stayed in Port Harcourt. They liked her instantly . His mother told her Obinna had never brought a girl to the house before her, and that it was the happiest day of her life, that day. They had thought Obinna, their only son, did not like women, because he did not like to talk so much about them, but now, seeing her, all her years of fear has been brought to an end.

Obinna had offered to rent her an apartment in town, but she had declined. She did not want his wealth to get into her head, she had told him, and he loved her even more after that.

But that day, two years ago, the black cloud came. It brought along with it a heavy downpour that lasted throughout the day, darkening everywhere. Obinna was supposed to meet her later in the evening. They were supposed to go to Kilimanjaro in town to celebrate his graduation. They were supposed to , but didn't, because Obinna never came. He never called. Her phone had rang instead, with a visible strange number. It was a nurse, calling to tell her that his body had been deposited in the motuary, that he had been involved in an accident along Okigwe road, that they were calling her because he was trying to send her a text after parking along the corner of the road, when a trailer whose brakes failed jammed into his car, killing him instantly.

She had screamed. She had gone to see his body, and to face her reality.

Her Obinna was gone.

Her life never remained the same after that. The black cloud, an entity in their short love story, became her worst nightmare. The shadow. A memory, of Obinna.

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