After Vize I swore never to fall in love again. Not because I was afraid of being hurt, but because I do not like the sensation of falling and I fell hard for her. People who claim they cannot love because they are afraid of being hurt are lying. Nobody does that, because no one can help falling in love.

Anyway, I had made up my mind when I met Naomi. It was one Thursday morning, I was rushing off to work when I saw her standing under the mango tree helping her mother sell akara. I will not describe Naomi. Close your eyes, imagine what you would wish your wife to look like, that was Naomi. Our eyes met, and my silly heart skipped a beat. I felt she felt something too. It was in her look, it was in the way we held our glance, it was the way her bright eyes shimmered in the early morning light, it was in her.

That is how I started buying Akara every morning and taking to work. She was always there. But I never said anything, not that I did not want to. I would have prepared a beautiful speech in my head. I would have practiced how I would tell Naomi that she was the sunshine in my drab world and the silver lining in my darkened skies.

But when I saw her the next morning the only words that came out of my mouth was,
''Good Morning. Please give me 200 naira Akara.'' She would give me, I would pay, and go away silent, with my feelings repressed and unexpressed. It was the agony of my silence.

I really do not like Akara and I was always giving them to our Gateman Papa Nora. The man thought I was always buying the Akara because I was nice like that. He always prayed for me profusely when I handed the package to him. He would jokingly say he would give me his daughter Nora to marry. I laughed it off.

One day Papa Nora fell ill and I was asked to drop him at home. I had to carry him inside because he was very weak. He directed me to his apartment and I knocked. When the door swung open there stood angel Nora. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Close your eyes and imagine the loveliest woman you have ever seen, that was Nora.

My heart skipped a beat and I fell head over heels in love. God! What will I do with this my heart that keeps falling in love blindly? It was when the old man started slumping I managed to regain my senses and I explained that her father was ill and had to be taken to a hospital. She greeted me, rushed in to change leaving me with only the fragrance of her perfume and that familiar butterfly feeling in my tummy.