Foul Mood

She was rarely in a foul mood. One would easily see a unicorn than see Shade in the mood she had been all day. Actually, “foul” was crudely understating her state of mind. And as it often was the case when this “unicorn” was sighted it affected everything and everyone. Without exception. It was unbound by any links of acquaintance or courtesy. It was bad today and getting worse.

Why? Why would…

For the 5th time, her ringing phone interrupted her sour brooding. She frowned that frown that burrowed her forehead, making ridges out of the smooth surface. The call was from her on-again, off-again boyfriend of 2 years, Jide.

“Can’t he just get the message that I’m not in the mood for his evening chitchats?” she hissed to herself, a hiss that could’ve made the most poisonous snake green with envy.

She cut the call with such vexatious aggression, the girl seated next to her in the bus had to turn towards her to look at her face quizzically.

It was a wrong move.

“What?” Shade fired at her, giving her eyeballs that could dissolve ice while shaking her head also to drive home the message that she wasn’t expecting an answer but daring the girl to attempt answering. Then, speaking more to herself than to anyone else but loud enough so the girl could make out the exact words she was saying, she said, “All these busy-body people that will not mind their business. One day, your eye will see what it is looking for.”
She punctuated it with another hiss, though with less venom this time. Then, she went back to asking herself, “Why? Why would…?”

The phone rang again.

It was with unrestrained irritation that Shade dove into her purse, snatched the phone and powered it off. Then, she threw it back into her purse with exasperation.

This time, the girl didn’t dare turn towards her. In fact, she alighted at the next stop.

If she did, however, Shade wouldn’t have noticed. She’d turned her attention to the window to her left, brooding and vexed, asking herself, over and over again, the same “Why” question.

It was the conductor that took the next portion of venom she was disbursing. He’d tapped her shoulder after repeated calls of her bus-stop hadn’t got her attention. “No bi Kingsway junction you say you dey drop?” He’d asked after getting her back from wherever it was her mind went.

The look she chose for him had barb wires and thorns.

“I tell you say I forget where I dey go?” Her voice was maleficent, her eyebrows arched high up. “As you sabi the bus stop pass me, you for just stop der, tell me say you don reach, make I drop. Which one bi di one wey you dey take style dey touch pesin, eh? Sontin dey do you?”

The conductor looked around for help. “Una see me see trouble oo!” he was exclaiming, “If to say I cari you pass now, you for fit shout?”

“Chi chi chi chi chi chi chi,” she fired back, derisively imitating the conductor’s tone of voice. “You for try am na. Na den you for know say fuel cost. Nonsense and ingredients.”

“Come,” the conductor was getting angry himself, “no just use becos say I dey do conductor work com insult me oo!” Then, wanting to pepper her with some tongue-lashing as she’d just done to him, added, “I get your type for house. You dey hear me?”

Laughing with derision, she countered, “I too sure say she no reach, because if she bi my type, she for don upgrade you by now.”

It drew a laugh from a young lady seated at the far back. The conductor felt the sting of that one and didn’t dare look back. Nor did Shade.

The bus slowed.

“We don reach Kingsway oo, make una two just kukuma com down so that we go dey go front jejely.” It was the driver trying to inject some humour into it. It got some of the remaining passengers to laugh.

“At least, your driver get sense pass you,” Shade said, alighting.

Laughing now, the driver began saying, “Thank you oo, sister. Na wetin I don dey tell…” but got “Abeg, abeg, abeg, just carry your load dey go,” from Shade.

She didn’t wait to get a reply, if any.
She burst into her compound. Her neighbour’s children were playing outside and the youngest ran towards Shade, “Aunty, aunty, welcome.”

If Shade heard or saw the small girl, she paid no heed. She turned left into the space between her house and the neighbour’s and walked around it to the other side from whence she got to the front of her own house. It allowed her to avoid seeing anyone or taking any of all those long greetings where you were asked of everyone of your ancestors all the way to Abraham.

Why did she even have to put up with all of those people, sef? She thought.

As she was about to lock her front door, ‘mallam’, the gateman, ran into her view. He had been running to get to her before she went in. He was almost out of breath. But 5 seconds after she launched her penchant “What” at him and he was yet to reply, still trying to catch his breath, she slammed her door.

“Stupid,” she muttered under her breath.

She got a cold drink from the fridge in the kitchen. It usually cooled her off any day she returned from work needing to cool down. Those days were often in the city of Lagos. Today, it didn’t help one bit. She emptied the rest of the contents into the sink and almost slammed the bottle into its slot in the crate next to the gas cylinder.

She walked into the sitting room and dumped herself into the largest upholstered chair. Her favourite. Next to the remote control on the side-stool beside the chair was the casing for the DVD of the TV Series she had watched in the morning while trying to buy time before going out to catch the staff bus headed to the office. It was what caused her foul mood all day.

Why? Why? Why?

It was a Mexican soap of the Telemundo variety – those TV series where the mouths of the actors and actresses continued moving long after the voice-over had finished talking. In her wildest forecasting, she hadn’t conceived that the writers of the drama in the series will commit the unforgiveable crime of killing off her most favourite actor, Girolamo.

“Why on earth?” She wailed. They could’ve killed 20 others who didn’t even deserve to lace Giro’s shoelaces. There was that snake Aleandro, that balding Norma, that pompous Baldi. Why not send those ones off? Or the unrepentant crime lord, Sanz. Even if they had conspired to kill Giro’s brother, Rossi, or the perpetually self-conscious Motta, or the drop-dead gorgeous, sinfully-attractive, wet-dream-inducing El Hijo – it’d have made no difference to her. Why did they pick on Giro? Why? Why?

Her phone rang, rudely breaking into her monotone. She frowned. Did she not turn it off? She then noticed that the ringtone was different. It was her Glo line. The other phone. She got up angrily, picked up the phone from where she left it in anger that morning, next to the TV set and without seeing who it was, cut the call and dropped the phone in anger. It cracked the glass TV stand a little. It was a Nokia phone.

Why? Why? Why Giro? My darling GIROLAMO?

She went back to the chair and sulked some more. She didn’t remember that the last time she ate was last night. She didn’t know that her boyfriend was involved in an accident and narrowly escaped with his life. He had been calling her from the hospital. She didn’t know that the landlord asked the mallam to inform her of rent increase. She didn’t know that that last call was from her colleague in the office, calling to tell her that she left her drawer open and the key was in the lock and that she didn’t shut down her computer. And since their MD saw it, she’d definitely get a query in the morning. This rare occurrence of a foul mood picked the wrong day.

All she cared about was, WHY? WHY GIROLAMO?