...continued...
That night, as Okezie lay on his
bed, he couldn’t sleep. He kept seeing pictures of Nkechi in his mind and
wondering how wonderful they would be together. He thought of other ways he
could win her affection but came up with nothing concrete. After a long
thinking, he made up his mind to try what Ebuka had suggested.
“Just this
once,” he said to himself, rolled over on his bed and went to sleep.
The
following day, Okezie was in the office early as usual to clean up the place
before anybody came. There was no one in the office so as he cleaned, he
carefully checked the drawers whether someone had left money there. He did not
have peace of mind as he did it but the thought of Nkechi spurred him on. This made
him spend more time than usual in the cleaning. Soon staff started coming. The first
to enter was the office secretary.
“Good
morning ma,” he greeted her in an uneasy manner.
“Morning
Okezie,” she answered. “You are still cleaning?”
“I..i..”
Okezie didn’t know which excuse to give. He had lost count of time as he was
more focused on the search than on the cleaning.
“It is
okay. I guess you came a bit later than usual today. Just hurry up before our oga comes.”
“Okay ma. Please
don’t tell him.”
“Don’t
worry. I will not do that.”
“Thank you
ma.”
Okezie
heaved a sigh of relief and rushed his cleaning before others came. His plan
did not work that day. As the nature of his job was, he hung around the office
till they close, doing cleaning from time to time. All through that work day,
he still battled with his mind on whether to do or not to do. When he saw how well
they treated him, he decided to forget about it.
The following day, Nkechi was
among the first people to come to the office. She came to see her uncle who
works there. When Okezie said hi, she
responded and walked past him before he could try chatting. He was angry and
the desire to ‘take something’ rose up again. Nkechi did not waste time that
day unlike before when she would hang around the office for a while before
leaving. She barely ansered him as she left.
“She comes
to collect money from her mother’s brother.” He told himself. “If I give her
something, I will get her attention.” He hoped an opportunity would come out
and he would ‘take something’ to impress her. He was alert but throughout that
day no opportunity came up. He hissed and went home.
Days
passed by and no opportunity came up. No body commited lose-guarding. From time
to time, Nkechi came around and stirred up his passion to ‘take something’. Then
one day, an opportunity presented itself.
(...to be continued)
Chinedu Isaac
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