There’s a din in the next flat. Loud music blares from the speakers, and an amateur has chosen today of all days to practise his poor carpentry skills on the wall.
Your head begins to throb, and you squeeze your eyes shut, willing away the noise and the monstrous headache you feel coming.
“You don work, you don try try,” Kizz Daniel’s voice over the speakers competes with the nail-hammering. “You suppose to dey j’aiye j’aiye.”
You hear the lyrics clearly as if the sound system is right in your bedroom. You want to crawl under the bed, or maybe even a rock. You want to bury yourself in a tub full of water. You want to shut your eyes and slip into a never-ending sleep. You want to disappear or cease to exist. You want to …
“You are stupid!” someone screams suddenly over the music and nail-hammering before you can think of anything else you want to do.
You soon hear the unmistakable sound of open palm against flesh, which is immediately followed by a yelp, “Yee!” You know it is the twins. The neighbour’s twins. Teenage boys who look and sound so identical that you have stopped trying to tell them apart.
You roll your eyes. This singular act takes all the strength you can muster. It now feels like an invisible hand is boring holes in your brain and sticking hot needles in your eyes.
“Let me see you, go low low low, buga wan,” Kizz Daniel sings on, oblivious to the commotion around you, in your head.
Just when you are sure you cannot take anymore, someone decides to belt out the chorus with the singer. Perhaps it is the amateur carpenter now imagining that he is also a musician. You don’t know which is worse, the sound of his singing or nail hammering.
Arrgh! You scream in your head, because you are too weak to scream out loud.
The sound of palm against flesh morphs into a clashing of fists. Ugh, the twins! The last time they were at each other’s throats, one of them had ended up in the emergency ward, rushed by their mother who had returned from wherever to find one pummeling the other as their younger brother stood watching helplessly.
You grab the pillow strewn on the floor and squeeze it tight over your face, hoping that it does one of two things – chokes the air out of you or drowns out the noise. It does neither.
This is my punishment, you feel yourself saying, even feel your lips move, but you do not hear the words, because again, you have only spoken in your head.
You recall your mother’s words to you before leaving for church earlier: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but encouraging one another.” She recited this bible verse to you as she sat uninvited at the edge of your bed. Your mother has a bible verse for every situation. If she catches you in a lie, she is sure to recite the verse, “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.” If you repeat the neighbour’s gossip to her, she reminds you that “a troublemaker plants seeds of strife, and gossip separates the best of friends.” You don’t know how she does it, but she does it.
Now, with the pounding in your head threatening to explode, you wish you had followed her to church. But the church is where Osadolo will be, leading the choir and singing his lungs out, his strong, rich voice blending perfectly with the voices of the other choir members. You cannot stand the thought of seeing him, not now, not ever again, because he is responsible for how you feel.
“I don’t feel too well,” you had told your mother when she asked why you were not dressed for church, after barging into your bedroom, just before quoting that bible verse.
It is true. You do not feel well. Your body aches just as much as your head does. Your mind is also in turmoil, and it is worse than the body and head aches. You sigh, then hiss, before throwing the pillow still in your grasp across the room. It lands with a light thud and in a heap on the floor, right next to your phone. Your phone! You had forgotten all about it. But now, you take a look at it, and you are promptly reminded of the reason you are in this state, the reason your phone is on the floor, where you threw it earlier.
You drag yourself out of bed for the first time today, and as you do so, you perceive a stench that makes you scrunch up your nose. You do not believe it is from you, the stench. But it is, because it is that time of the month, and you do not care to have a bath or change. You scrunch up your nose some more before approaching your phone with trepidation, like it is something to be feared. You stare long and hard at it in dread. Finally, you pick it up and see that it is only the screen guard that is damaged. You don’t know if you should feel relief or sadness. You take a long shuddering breath before switching the phone on. You do not know how your fingers move so fast, but you are on Instagram within a split second, on Osadolo’s page, checking out his post from last night. The same one that had thrown you into a fit of rage, despair and frustration all at once. You watch, over and over again till your eyes start to sting, the video of Osadolo proposing to a woman you do not know. Then your eyes move to the caption, which you read like you are reading for the first time and not for the umpteenth time
She said YES!
I cannot wait to begin forever with you, Muffin.
PS: This is the song we both love.
He calls you muffin too, the bastard. And the restaurant? It’s the same one he took you to on your first date, where he asked you to be his girlfriend. The song they both love, Morgan Wallen‘s “Love Somebody”, playing along with the video, was number one on a playlist you had painstakingly made for him on his last birthday. How dare he? You feel yourself frothing at the mouth, ready to pounce on him, on anyone, on anything at all.
As if on cue, one of the twins shouts, “You fool! You idiot!” And you hear some more clashing of fists through the thin walls, almost drowning out Kizz Daniel’s song playing on repeat on the sound system. The carpenter, whom you are now certain is their brother, continues to drive nails through the wall with a hammer like he is not in the same house and does not hear them. You swear under your breath as you grab your pyjamas and slide your feet into two different left slippers, then leave the room in a huff, with only one goal in mind. Someone will be rushed to the emergency ward yet again; you know that for sure, but it won’t be either of the twins doing the pummeling.
