Must Read: Paradox Of Abel - Season 1 - Episode 2

7 years ago

Must Read: Paradox Of Abel - Season 1 - Episode 2

The morning was cold––cold! Although there wasn’t any rain during the earlier hours of the morning, the air was misty; every image beyond stood out among white clouds. Daniel pulled up the collar of his coat as he walked briskly towards the bus-stop. As he walked, he stared at passers-by. Several collided against him, going in the same direction but walking much faster. Several others were heading south, he noticed the strange behaviour of a man in his expensively cut suit, and he smiled. The man was walking with a certain kind of swagger; apparently because he saw himself as the most striking in appearance that morning, but the man was quite ugly. Large and small vehicles sped superbly by as they blew off the cloudy particles of the mist that had engulfed virtually everywhere, the smokes from these vehicles mingled with the cold raw air of the mist––giving stultifying, and almost suffocating feelings to the awaiting passengers.
Daniel thought with revulsion, what a morning––what a foul morning!
The initial beauty of Rivers––its shops, its restaurants, its well-dressed attractive women––had faded. He saw it now as a glittering world meant for Eskimos.

He felt like being back in Lagos now––he felt a quick pang of homesickness. Sunshine, blue skies––gardens of flowers in the streets, and not the leafless stems he was seeing all around here in Port-Harcourt. Dirt, grime and endless incessant crowds––moving, hurrying, jostling. Busy ants running industriously about their ant-hills. For a moment, he wished he hadn’t chosen Liberation. Then he remembered his purpose––he had come here to train as a professional footballer. But the former excitement he had had about life in Port-Harcourt had waned. He now longed to see his family again––Abigail, Richard, Antonia, Juliet, Silas, his mom and dad––and Hakeem, especially Hakeem. He would love to see that brilliant Hausa boy again; his particular fondness for Hakeem, he could not describe. The boy was just too much. How old would he be by now? Seventeen––it had been three years since the case of Cain. To Daniel, the events of that night still felt like yesterday. Most times, his mind would drift to Lot––that extraordinary detective. Daniel knew that he would at least had been subjected to a court’s hearing had Lot not cast his eyes away on that day of confession. When he thought about the shot that had sounded from the pulled trigger, and the gruesome effect it had unleashed thereafter; his body shivered in revulsion. He believed that a particular innocence in him had been diminished––and all had been Cain’s fault. Cain had forced him to cross a line of which he could not possibly cross back, he thought.

Then a momentary reluctance occurred to him, a sudden questioning of himself as he stood at the bus station: “Why? Is it worth it? Why dwell on the past? Why not wipe out the whole thing from memory? It’s been three years for heaven’s sake!”––things had changed within this space of time––he was no more that twenty-four year old police officer, he was now a twenty-seven year old footballer, but still without a girlfriend. His days of staying at checkpoints, collecting bribes, stopping a bullet in the shoulder, investigating a crime––were all over. But he still missed working with Lot.
A vehicle stopped, the conductor poked his snout out from the slit of the window and shouted where the vehicle was heading as if he were in Noah’s ark and the Biblical rain was doomed to fall at any moment. There were only enough space for three passengers, because the vehicle was already almost filled up from the previous bus-stops. Among about twenty people jostling to get on a vehicle that could hold not more than three, Daniel was lucky to get his own seat beside a girl sitting by the window. He was particularly annoyed at this struggle––and he seriously felt like being in Lagos, where he grew up, as if the South Western state was any better in passengers’ struggle to get on buses. Christmas was already approaching, he knew he had just about a week left before they were permitted holiday at the stadium––and his heart rejoiced with each passing second.

Daniel looked distastefully at the crowded interior of the vehicle. People! Incessant, innumerable people! And all so odd looking! Those that hadn’t got faces like sheep looked like cows, some even like apes, he thought. Some of them chattered and fussed. Even the ladies, older and younger––some bleached and looking like pigs, some dark and looking like owls. They were also of depressing uniformity.

He sighed with a sudden longing of a good appearance of the opposite s*x––it had been long since he had found a striking lady in this part of the country––

And then, suddenly, he caught his breath, looking right beside him. This girl was different. Black hair, rich creamy skin––eyes with the depth and darkness of night in them. She was succulent and fairly-complexioned. Her face was painted with a matching colour that made it glisten. Her black hair was crispy and curly and conditioned. Her belly in the black shirt from the chest cavity slipped in and joined the waist portion, even in her sitting position her upper body curved naturally in a unique agreement with her lower body. The grapes on her chest were full and jiggling erotically. Daniel was quite certain that the Miss World conglomerates would be falling over heads to get her had they set their eyes on her. Whether beauty was in the eyes of the beholder or not, Daniel firmly believed that some ladies were only facially beautiful. Some possessed only stature. Whilst some either had only magnetism or any two of the three. This one, sitting by the window, could easily be singled out among millions. She did not only possess all, she had something extra: she was full of alluring seductive qualities that made her, to him, an irresistible lady. She sat down there as quietly as the stillness of midnight and as peaceful as a dove. It was all wrong and awkward that this immensely pretty girl should be sitting in this vehicle among these dull drab looking people––all very wrong. She should be in a more exotic car, flipping the pages of a glossy magazine like Ovation, City People or Genevieve. She should be somewhere splendid, not sq££zed into the corner of a battering old vehicle.
Daniel was an observant man, a few days with Lot three years ago had taught him that. He did not fail to note the shabbiness of her little black top and skirt, the cheap quality of the necklace around her neck, the flimsy shoes and the defiant note of her small handbag. Nevertheless, splendor was the quality he associated with her. She appeared not more than twenty years old, but Daniel had also learnt not to trust his intuitions when it came to guessing the age of ladies––his elder sister had taught him that, too. This lady beside him was splendid, fine, exotic––she was entirely what a man’s taste would really crave. Everything about this lady saturated his mind. Daniel found himself thinking, “I’ve got to know her––I’ve got to know her––I must know her!”
Then the hardest problem occurred to him––the problem of how to talk to her.

Even with the coldness, Daniel found himself sweating.