₦airaland Forum

Lolz, thanks guys, but that really is the end of the story. Its just a short tale I wrote out of boredom, not something I plan to continue. But thanks for reading and commenting.

Its been a long while I tried writing anything, but this night I'm going to revisit that long-forsaken hobby; not because I have anything meaningful to write, its just that sleep has decided to elude me this night, again.

I must have done something really bad to piss that sleep dude off coz 'he's' been really avoiding me these days. But what could I have done, bleep his girlfriend?

Well, you can't categorically rule out the possibility of that happening, going by the adventures I've had in the 'land of the girls' in the past 12 months or so. If there was to be a presidential election in 'fuckland', I'd win landslide, without rigging. Anyways, that's story for another day.

This night/morning I think I'll just write about how I met Izi; wierd name right? Well, its the short form of one Edo name like that, Izisumtnsumtn (I've forgotten....hehehe....if I know the full names of all my girls then I'll most likely not have room for anything else in my head). She told me it meant...ermm...gimme a sec...ermm....I've forgotten (it doesn't matter anyway, does it?).

I woke up that morning with the same reluctance to get out of bed I've been having for over a month. What was the point of getting out of bed early anyway; ASUU (Academic Staff Union of Universities that is, not the name of a calabar soup) was tired of playing defence and had decided to strike, the only reason I was still in school was because my project supervisor mandated me to stay back and carry on work with my project, my room mate, Wale, had gone home like a month ago, house mates also...I was practically alone in the world.

I was feeling weak and had a slight headache. I had barely slept. I opened my eyes slightly and allowed them scan the room for a while; the 9-inches matress I laid on was at the left corner at one end, adjacent to the wall that held the only window in the room. To the right was the giant-sized wardrobe big enough for 5 people (which is actually a building design error considering the fact that the room couldn't even conveniently house 2 people). The wall opposite had a mini wooden reading-table nailed to it, with two green plastic chairs sitting behind it. Everything in the room was green; the rug, the curtains (which had golden flowery patterns), our bathing bowls, even my towel (no, that one is lemon o....no o, I think its harlequin, haba, that's artichoke now....Mr man, this thing is Jade.......see, I don't know, if you like you can come and confirm the colour yourself). The LG home theatre sat like a chairman beside the wardrobe, facing the door, its speakers hung on the four corners of the room close to the decked roof. Overhead was the ceiling fan and the light bulb that hung precariously above it (Wale did a nice unethical job of suspending the bulb with the same wire that supplied it after the lamp-holder broke, genius....I'm sure that thing will drop one day though).
I reached out and pulled the duvet over my head, it was too early for me to get up. Just then my phone beeped. It was a text message. I was almost certain it was one of those rubbish mtn 5608 messages. I reluctantly reached for the phone from under the duvet, brought it close and slightly opened my left eye to read the message.

Sender: UBA

I didn't even bother to open the message. I sprang out of bed with the vigour of a hungry lion that just saw two gazelles making out in front of it. I almost jumped right out of the room. The wave of excitement coursing through my body didn't allow me stand upright. I was dancing awilo, alanta, kukere and ethigi all at the same time. Any mad man that saw me at that time would have called me his partner in progress. And did I mention I was totally unclad. I started shouting 'yes', trying hard to surpress d noise by fastening my upper set of teeth to the lower ones, and hitting the air so hard with my clenched fist like I caught it bleeping my girlfriend: you'd have thought I scored a world cup-winning goal.
You couldn't blame me though. I was completely broke, the last hard currency in my wallet was twenty naira, and you'd only hear echoes if you tapped my bank account with the back of your middle finger.

I had squandered my monthly allowance and it was not even middle of the month yet, so calling my dad for more money was totally out of it. I had phoned my brother to send me money and all he said was 'I'll think about it'. And my brother is the type that when you ask for money and he tells you he'll think about it, you had better start looking elsewhere. In short, I had no hope of money coming in from anywhere. As if that wasn't bad enough, I was out of foodstuff too. I ate my last cup of rice the previous morning...and hadn't eaten anything since then. So you can imagine how happy I was that my brother eventually sent me money.

I slipped into my perry cole boxer shorts, picked up my toothbrush from my wardrobe and dashed out to brush my teeth. I dashed back in, applied toothpaste to my toothbrush and dashed back out again. I dashed in again to pick my cup, filled it with water from the black 25litres keg that was just outside the room, and then finally went outside to brush.
All through, I was humming p square's 'chop my money' and dancing like the song was actually playing (out of all the songs I could hum it was chop my money....chop which money).
After brushing, I dashed to the bathroom and had the fastest bath I'd ever had: rubbed my body wit soap, scrubbed for some seconds, poured water on my head, and was out of the bathroom before the water touched the ground.
Still humming 'chop my money' I hurriedly applied cream to my body and hair, and slipped into my blue skinny jeans and my red and black polo shirt. Brushed my hair while standing in front of the mirror, rearranged a bit and smiled at the fine boy I was looking at in the mirror and pishaun, I was out of the room.........and pishaun, I was back in the room again, picked up my wallet, my phone and my rolex wristwatch, and looked around to confirm I had not left anything while I wore my wristwatch on my left hand. I said bye bye to the fine boy in the mirror, stepped out of the room and locked the door behind me. I slipped my flip flops on and strolled out of the house in my flyness.

I stay on ede-road (OAU students, sounds familiar abi?) House 26. The house is just by the road side. The walk down to school gate was quite a lengthy one, but I aint giving no bike man my hard-earned 50 bucks, never had, never will (besides, I didn't even have up to that on me that glorious morning). So I set out on my journey with a strange but delightsome swag. Even my gait was proud. I took every step cautiously and looked upon the world like I owned it.

The breeze was blowing calmly and gently swaying the trees on the other side of the road. It smelt sweet. Cars were speeding past as usual and the noise of tires rolling over coal tar filled the dry air. The sun looked like it had a smile on its face, it burned with mild intensity and I felt its heat bore gently into the pores of my skin. Funny how a little largess in your bank account could make you see the world differently.
Everything was beautiful, except for the little pang of hunger that was hitting at the left side of my stomach. But that was to be dealt with accordingly very soon. I planned to first withdraw 1000 naira and have a very good meal at forks and fingers, then go back to withdraw the rest. I could already picture myself opening the door to the restaurant with my left hand, taking my right foot in first as I strode majestically in. I could picture the smile on my face as I placed my order; fried rice and jollof rice mixed, 150, plantain, 50, spag, 50, one meat one fish and one egg, with one bottle of 50cl coca cola, no, maltina, it had to be maltina. I could picture myself putting the first spoon in my mouth, my teeth munching vigorously on the grains, I could feel the muscle of my throat pull the half-munched grains through my throat and I could feel the mixture of the grains and saliva land with a loud thud at the bottom of my empty stomach. I could see myself take a gulp of the chilled maltina and......damn, a dash of my left foot against a stone jolted me back to reality. I've never really been able to grasp which one meant bad omen; dashing your left foot or right foot against a stone, but for that morning I believed the left foot had to mean good omen, I mean, what could possibly go wrong, I had a big fat juice in my bank account, I was about to have the best meal I'd had in days, I felt like a big boy.

I had been walking for about 3 minutes now, as I approached olubuse junction I noticed a girl approaching from the other direction. I could see her with the corner of my eyes but I didn't turn my head, I wasn't in the mood for that kind of business that morning. She wore a red flowing shirt and black leggings, she had long hair that swayed behind her as she walked. From the little I could make of her face, she was very pretty, she looked like Beyonce, Christiana Milan and Rihana all packed in one body; with the right curves in the right places.
I kept walking coz I had no such intentions that morning, besides it felt like a wrong day for cupid to be that fair on me.

She joined the road and was walking right behind me. I slowed down my pace so she could walk past me coz I wanted to at least have a better look of her 'before', but she didn't; I noticed her pace slowed down too. Well, I didn't really care that much, I quickly pushed out the dirty thoughts that were fast occupying my mind like it was Occupy Nigeria, and replaced it with a more delicious thought: that of the captive in my bank account waiting to be set free.

As I got to the school gate an empty commercial bus stopped in front of me;

'Carbus!'
(even Wole Soyinka can't teach these ife drivers to correctly pronounce 'campus')

I hopped in and sat in the seat immediately behind the driver, hoping the girl that had been walking behind me would sit in front coz I really wasn't in the mood. She didn't. She sat right beside me even though there were a thousand and one other places she could sit in the bus.

Well, since apparently a jobless angel took time to arrange that meeting, I decided to make a lazy approach.

'Hi'

She turned her face towards me, beaming the cutest smile I had ever seen. Her lips parted slowly to reveal the most perfect set of white teeth in the world. The voice that conveyed her reply was such that could make you fall asleep;

'Hi'

And so it happened that as we journeyed from campus gate to campus we talked about almost everything.

'So what's your name?'

'I'm Izi'

'You're easy? Seriously?....uhm, well, I love challenges but I'm beginning to believe some good things in life do come easy'

She smiled (oh I love it when she smiles).

'No I mean my name is Izi, as in I-Z-I, Izi'

'Oh, my bad, I'm....

When the bus finally got to bus stop, we exchanged bb pins and said goodbyes. I walked straight to Skye bank. All the sweet thoughts rushed back to my head; the end to my cash drought, the sumptuous meal I was about to have. I hurried my steps and soon I was standing in front of the ATM.
There were very few students on campus so I was the only one at the machine. I inserted my card and tapped my fingers nervously on the machine as I waited for it to respond.

Enter pin

Proceed

Withdrawal

Savings

No

N1000

I continued tapping my hand waiting for the melodious 'counting sound' of the machine.

"INSUFFICIENT FUNDS"

"Do you want to perform another transaction?"
Hell yeah.
I went over the procedure again.

"INSUFFICIENT FUNDS"

"Do you want to perform another transaction?"
Definitely.
This time I checked my account balance.

526.12 NGN

I could not believe my eyes. With shaky hands I reached inside my pocket and slowly brought out my phone. My eyes were already bulging with tears so much that if Noah was still alive, I'm sure God would have immediately instructed him to construct another ark; I was about to cry a flood.
Tears started flowing freely and was dropping on the screen of my phone as I read the supposed credit alert:

Sender: UBA

'Dear Olusegun Adenaike, always use UBA ATMs for your cash withdrawals. Available and accessible 24/7; ATM issues are quickly resolved when you use UBA ATMs'

I was sweating profusely and feeling cold at the same time. My legs turned to jelly and could no longer support the weight of my body. I leaned forward and held the machine for support. I was vibrating from head to toe like a brand new Nokia 3310. At that moment I wished a baby angel would just start playing with the trumpet and mistakingly blow it. I was perplexed, confused, disturbed, worried, broken-hearted, bitter, angry, sad,......and above all I was very hungry.

I felt like I was going to pass out, just then my phone beeped again. It was an sms. I slowly brought the phone close to my face and tried to read the message with my teary eyes;

Sender: UBA





The End.