Must Read: The Player

6 years ago

Must Read: The Player

Was Oge’s stomach getting bigger?

I couldn’t tell. We were on our way to drop off Hana in boarding school; it wasn’t far away from the estate. Hanatu hadn’t been spending much time at home since the tenants moved in, she rather stayed with Oge. I had been counting days since I got her the admission. Ugo and Tope were leaving soon too, I was officially alone.

Ezekiel was another issue. He was either Praying, eating or using the toilet whenever he was around.

I thought he was suffering from dysentery but as the weeks went by, I concluded it was something I had to get used to. The sounds that emanated when he was pooing was only eclipsed by his crying when he and the good lord were talking, which they normally did in the middle of the night. Although Kiki was cool with him, he chose days when to talk to her and days when he just ignored her. He always ate her food though…good days and bad.

“How are your new tenants, Oga landlord?” Oge asked as we watched Hanatu dragged a box that was almost bigger than her to her hostel.

“Fine,” I replied.

She was quiet for sometime before she continued.

“Tell me about them, Hanatu said they are two, one girl that wears bum shorts and a guy that dresses and smells funny”.

“If you want to know about them, you should come and meet them”.
She laughed.

“You want me to come to your house so you can break my head?”
I ignored the remark.

When Hanatu came out of her hostel, there were two girls on her wake.

“Who are these lovely ladies?” Oge asked, running her fingers on their head.

Their faces were covered with white powder.
They were both wearing their green hostel wears.

“My new friends, Josephine and Beatrice”, Hana replied.

I gave Hana three thousand naira as pocket money, promised her I would visit her from time to time. I left the so called ‘ladies’ and went to wait for Oge at the gate.

It was more than thirty minutes later when she joined me. Although we were not in the best of terms I knew I was still crazy about her, not even the fact that she was carrying another man’s child was enough to reset my brain. The truth is that I loved her more after she left me.

“I want to go to the market; you want me to get you anything?”

“Nope”
“Fifi, I really think it’s time you let go of this animosity.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

She rolled her eyes, I just wanted her to shut up.

“How far with the preparation for your GCE?”
“You should be more interested with preparation for mother-hood.”

I expected those words to spite her, but she took it well.

“Believe me, I am ready for it. Emzy will make a remarkable father.”
I walked away.

I got into the flat to see Ezekiel waiting for me.
He said he wanted to go for fellowship but had to see me before he left.

“Bros, what is the problem now?”
“Your friend, Tope came around today. I told him you were not around, that he should come back later but he insisted on waiting. There was something about that guy that I wasn’t comfortable with, my spirit led me to go and pray. So I left him in the parlour and went to pray against all evil spirits in the premises.”

“So what seemed to be the problem?”
“After the prayer, I went back to the parlour to see that he had left. I was glad that the Holy Spirit had arrested him. I went to the kitchen to take my beans, beans that I had been keeping so that I would eat it before going for fellowship.”

“Bros Ezekiel, what happened to your beans?”

“Brother Fifi, I soaked my garri, went to my room and was about to eat the food with the love of Christ flowing around, but as I took the first spoon of beans, I had to spit it out.”

I was getting impatient.

“Your friend, Tope, had emptied almost half the volume of salt in its container into my pot of beans.”

“When you were praying about casting out evil and all, was your voice loud, did you mention his name?” I asked

“Maybe once or twice but does it matter?” he shook his head in dismay, “The fight I had with him was spiritual, why did he attack me physically, that’s not fair!”

“But he didn’t attack you, he only attacked your beans.”

“Common brother Fifi, that is just wrong. Since I entered this premises, I have been under attack, either through that immoral girl called Kiki or your friends.”

It was time for me to sleep
“Bros, how can I help you?”

“Tell your friend to give his life to Christ and he should look for a bible believing church. A man’s food is an integral part of his well being, if you can attack his food, you can kill.”

“I will tell him that, anything else, bros?”

“Yes, let us pray.”