Loose Ends (III)- another short story

Start the story from here.

Karo

Fear switches off the supercomputer part of one’s brain and puts the primitive part in charge. For Karo, the moment she saw the calabash right in front of her door, she took the next available bike to the church auditorium. The same one she hadn’t stepped foot in 2years. She wasn’t even dressed for Sunday service, but it didn’t matter that morning. Nothing was more important than her safety.

She hadn’t cared to look at the picture she had taken that morning and posted on Instagram, just so she could gloat on the number of likes it garnered. It wasn’t as important as her peace of mind.

If she had offended someone already, then she would need a spiritually fortified person to cleanse the spell around her apartment before she dared spend another night in there.

She was a lowly student who was only trying to get by. A feeling of dread crept up from the pit of her stomach as she feared for her life.

She had called her boyfriend’s number twice, while she was on the bike to church. It rang unanswered both times. He had warned her never to call on Sundays when he was likely spending time with his wife and children.

Their next rendezvous was for his birthday celebration in four days. He had promised they would spend the night at a beach house on the Lekki peninsula. She wasn’t sure she could wait that long to see him.

“This is an emergency” she pleaded within herself, hoping he would at least call back.

She didn’t know where else to go but to see her former pastor. She joined the second service as it neared its end and spent the whole time waiting on her knees and praying in a loud voice.

“God, please forgive me for all the sins I have ever committed. I am so sorry, please forgive me.” Her emotional prayer came with tears and a contrite heart.

“I will never sin again!”

After the service, two of the young deacons were instructed to accompany her to her apartment to pray with her and to secure her apartment spiritually.

By the time they arrived at her door, there was a small curious crowd of young kids huddled around the calabash and its strange contents. They were in an animated conversation about something Karo couldn’t figure out.

“What is the hullabaloo about?” she wondered.

In the calabash was an odd mix of pieces of unpeeled yam, a slurry of palm oil with what looked like a bloodied menstruation pad soaked inside it. There was also a piece of paper taped on the side of the calabash facing her door.

It read;

“Fatbabygirl”

********

Tobechukwu

Mr. Briggs was a man of his words, and he made good his threat. Tobe got the letter of suspension duly signed by the Head, human resources that same afternoon. She was asked to leave the office immediately. She would be gone for a full month without pay.

She had cried her eyes sore while she waited for the outcome of Mr. Briggs’ engagement with the executive management. He had called an emergency meeting and she lost hope the moment her colleagues at the office started to avoid her like she had an infectious ailment.

When she was handed the envelop, she pleaded with him again and again. There was nothing else she could imagine doing. She simply wept and pleaded in futility.

She cried so badly that her make-up was ruined by the trails of tears and smeared as she wiped them off at intervals.

The security unit had retrieved her ID card and laptop before walking her out of the office premise to the parking lot where her Honda Accord was nicely tucked.

“What a horrible way to start the week” she sniffed.

But it only just got worse!

Her two front tires had been completely deflated to the rim. Her car looked like it was leaning to the front as the engine weight tilted it forward.

“Unbelievable!” She sighed shaking her head in exasperation.

Tossing her handbag into the back seat, she could no longer stifle a scream as she slid down, bringing her knees up to her chest on the side curb.

“What have I done to deserve this?”

Dara

These walls of her house could not hold the stench that oozed from the festering sewage disguised as pizza that she received. Her neighbors started to ask if her toilet water trap was broken. One neighbor walked around the building sniffing like a police inspector in search of the source of the putrid smell. It was awful.

Since the delivery, questions she had no answers to, drowned her thoughts and confusion scattered the few answers she could think of.

“Why would anyone go through all the trouble to deliver such a disgusting package to her?”

“Who is fatbabygirl? Could that be the bitch that delivered the package?” Her eyes wandered about her house as though the answer was within sight.

“But, she came with a POS tablet and she was decently dressed. Could there have been a mistake somehow?” the whiff of the feces reminded her quickly that it was no mistake as her nose twitched in acknowledgement.

“Yes, she was slightly on the big side, gracefully so, but certainly not FAT. And she spoke decent English. Could she have known what was in the package?”

That moment was when her phone rang out loud, piercing the silence that was begging for answers. When she checked the caller, it was the pizza company calling to confirm that her order was already in transit.

“What the hell, someone is messing with me” Dara concluded.

She dialed her boyfriend’s number for the umpteenth time that afternoon. It rang unanswered. He hadn’t replied her messages too. He was always busy on Tuesdays and barely had time to answer calls until late in the evening on his way home to his wife and kids.

A strange email notification flashed on her phone. It was strange because, not only was the message in red colored prints, but it was also from a now familiar pseudo name that seemed to be her albatross that afternoon –Fatbabygirl

It read, “This is just the beginning!”

Her doorbell startled her when it rang. Irritation danced around her now oily face, as the stress of the last 20minutes had taken its toll on her mental health.

It was the pizza delivery man with her much-awaited lunch.

***********

Sarah was cleaning her biker boots. She sat on a low wooden stool, popularly called apoti, right outside at the back of the house. She spent the evening carefully picking and chalking away bits and bits of mud caked and stuck between the soles of her boot. Now it looked as clean as new.

Until the day before, she hadn’t worn it since her research days as an undergraduate at University of Oxford, England. It reminded her of the first night she met Sammy at the Radcliffe Camera, which was a few minutes’ walk from her faculty building. It was love at first sight. He was the charming gentleman she met often in her dreams, but now in flesh and even better.

The shrill sound of her phone brought her through time back into the present. It was her driver.

“Madame. I am ready”

Sarah knew it was time to go.

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