“I know you’re angry right now...” Elvis began in a futile attempt to pacify his friend who just kept on walking in front of him without saying a word. “I know you are angry right now...” he tried again but this time Igho turned on his heels and gave him a fierce look which lasted about 3 seconds. 3 seconds that seemed like an eternity. A look that spoke volumes. A million words said in a 3-second stare through blood-shot eyes. Elvis looked back but couldn’t find a placating stare to match the words that had just come out of his mouth. He didn’t know which was worse. Not having the right words to calm down his friend in his time of anger and grief or not having the right physical emotions and timbre of voice to match the words that were coming out of his mouth. He felt as though Igho could sense that he was just playing the role of being a friend in time of grief and not really sharing in the grief. Igho had kept on walking towards the car and was about to open the doors when Elvis suddenly realised he had to stop him. He was in no condition to drive on the back of what had just happened. He picked up his pace and caught him just as he was about to open the door to the driver’s side. Igho gave him that look again, only this time Elvis had seen it before and was prepared.
“You can’t...drive...in this....condition”, Elvis finally had the courage to say. Anger, like every other emotion, has a little window open all the time where reason can find some space to express itself and even perhaps take over. In this situation, and knowing Igho, Elvis knew all he might have may be a few seconds. And as soon as he felt the grip on Igho’s hands loosen, he gently retrieved the keys to the starlet and eased Igho’s fingers from the door. There was a brief pause. Another eternity. Some light breathing. Time seemed to stop and suddenly it didn’t seem so warm outside. The air felt eerily chilly...the kind of chill that you like to be under, like room temperature brought about by the perfect settings on a split air-conditioning unit with an in-built air purifiying system. The two young men rested their backs on the hatch-back petite automobile, thoughts racing, thoughts wandering, reasoning occupying more and more space, displacing anger. Someone sniffed. Someone heaved. Or was it the same person. It didn’t matter. They couldn’t be bothered. Then, like a precious diamond coming out of the rough cut the next set of words that came defined the next moment and made it seem a man’s heart had not almost been ripped out of his chest a few moments ago. It changed everything. A new chapter wasn’t created. The old book was burnt beyond ashes and from the nothing, only a leaflet remained.
Staring into nothing, Igho said, “I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat”
******************************************************************************************************
“I neva finish nah. Abeg, lee de water” the not so gentle man was saying to the stewardess two tables away. A common stewardess’s error at your neighbourhood cafeteria? Or a subtle message to the customer to hurry up and make space for prospective customers who - peeking into the poorly lit wooden enclosure - are put off by the lack of sitting space and as such walk-on by. Igho and Elvis were under no such pressure of being relieved of their hand-wash bowls of water. First, they had ordered plates of rice and not swallows. Two: they had just ordered. And finally, they were not regulars and as such had not crossed that line from being “guests” to being “oh, it’s you again”. The food was crap but it didn’t seem to matter because all that secretion of bile and adrenaline had somehow vapourised what little energy Igho had left. Elvis, on the other hand, kept his “good friend” routine. This shack was no different from the others most especially in odour. It had that characteristic smell of stew made from “weak” pepper and tomatoes. Add some body odour from the road-side auto-mechanics who are the regular customers and the smell of over preserved and re-fried meat and fish and you have that distinct smell which your brain tends to tune away from because of the hunger pangs that are high up in the pecking order of priorities for your brain.
“Auntie” Elvis calls out to the stewardess, “wey our minerals nah?”
“I dey come”, she answers without looking up from whatever it Is she was doing on the other side of the kitchen.
“Na wa o”, Elvis says under his breath but a little audible to be heard almost across the room.
“If de mineral no come before we finish dis food, I swear to God we no ‘o gi you money”, Igho says in between mouthfuls - no facial expression, no emotion and not looking at anyone in particular. It seemed like a threat, but Elvis knew his friend was serious, especially in light of what had just happened. It was at that point Elvis knew the phoenix had risen from the ashes. The book was back. He needed to light a match and re-create that leaflet. He needed to create a distraction in the present - a distraction that will probably last a lifetime. “Anger is good”, Elvis began. “What you do with it and how you use it to your advantage is what matters”. He had just swallowed a spoonful of white rice and stew and was staring at Igho who was seating across the table. Feeling the pressure of Elvis’ eyes on him, Igho looks up from his meal. There was something in Elvis’ eyes this time that wasn’t there earlier. “Maybe it’s Providence’s way of helping you not make a mistake in future”, Elvis continued. Igho was about to snap and say something about Providence minding his or her business, but he knew better. He knew Elvis was in some parts right. He knew his friend always has his back - right from primary school. Now they are university undergraduates with only a few days left to graduation. He knew he had to keep it together and be focused on the rest of his life. He knew he couldn’t afford to be distracted at this point of his life. Perhaps it was all just for the excitement and experience of the feeling - feeling needed, feeling wanted, feeling loved. You have not lived until you love someone and they love you back in return. He was perhaps one of the privileged few on earth to have experienced the feeling and now it was gone. It had been truncated. It had been cut-off and taken away from him and it hurts. But life’s like that and we’ll feel like this for a long while. Igho sat up on the bench without a back-rest. He looked at his friend. He felt sorry for himself. He felt embarrassed. He felt betrayed. He felt angry. Somehow, his circle of thought and reasoning under the circumstances always returned to him being angry. “If this is the by-product of what you get on the other side, then perhaps I don’t ever want to feel the initial bliss anymore.”
“Bros, I don’t think that’s what you really want”
“I know what I want”
“The bliss - from my understanding - seems to be good. It’s what we all want. It’s what heaven approves. It’s the infrequent anger and disappointments that creeps in sometimes we - you - don’t want to feel....right now”
While Igho was trying to process all his friend of over 20 years was saying, Elvis continued his new found theories on managing the infrequent anger and disappointments:
“There’s nothing perfect in life. Bliss? It’s just an imagination - an illusion that can never be attained in perpetuity for as long as we live on this earth...in this container called flesh. We have to be able to deal with the things that come as they come per time.” He stops briefly and then continues; “All I’m saying is, keep that anger locked in somewhere in your subconscious. Let it be a reminder that this is how it feels when it all goes awry. Be prepared for it while you also enjoy the bliss when it comes... so that you never will have to feel like this again. People will offend you throughout the course of your life. They will do worse things to you out of spite, hatred....or a warped sense of...love....and even out of the genuine kind. You need this experience to remember and say to yourself, ‘I’ve been here before...and this is how I successfully dealt with it then, and I can do the same now’”.
His friend was right. He knew it and hard as it was, he had to accept it. He kept thinking how it will feel from here on. What people will say. Those who would be glad. Those who would be empathically heart-broken. Those who would sneer. He had to shut it all out and deal with it. He has to handle it.
He returned to reality over the words of Elvis. “Bros, I say make you chop your meat. We don dey too tay for here”
Igho looked at his plate. In between their discussion, someone had placed an opened bottle of sprite beside his plate. He hadn’t noticed. Elvis’ bottle was empty.
*******************************************************************************************************
