Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Valentine

A good every to everyone and a belated Valentine’s Day to all. I’m in such a good mood today even though I’m at work and am yet to shoot a single scene where my character threatens a poor hapless woman begging for her life. I love being a bad guy. Maybe it’s that quest to know if I’ll be able to eke a living for myself in the underworld should the surface and middle worlds fail me. All those years of day dreaming are finally paying off. I’m high on two very strong cups of coffee and a bottle of Coca Cola and am listening to Enya’s “Now We Are Free”, the soundtrack for the movie Gladiator ; not the best combination for someone who’s trying to keep both feet on the ground. Anyway how was everyone’s day yesterday?

Mine began yesterday with me going out to pick my script up at the Tinsel office and ending up spending four hours on the road for what should have lasted thirty minutes. Valentine. I got there and kissed Blessing, the pretty receptionist happy birthday, got my scripts and ran off before my favourite ladies espied me standing dangerously close to the local tuck shop which was already bursting at the seams with the season’s goodies. Valentine. Determined to have a story to tell you my readers, I went to give myself a treat at Oh La La, a confectionery in the heart of Ikeja, to get some carrot and cheesecakes. Oooh they do make exceedingly good cakes, so much so that my greed overtook me and compelled me to add a Black Forest cake to the loot. Anyway, here’s the interesting bit. I took my shopping over to the counter to pay, and in high spirits, I wished the pretty cashier a happy Valentine’s Day. I must have said it in a low voice because she didn’t seem to hear me so wished her a happy Val’s again, my voice a teeny notch higher. She looked up, smiled sweetly at me and said “Oh thank you sir. Same to you too sir. You didn’t come with your wife sir?” I blinked, then said “Oh, I left her at home.” I promptly paid for my cakes and promptly left. Valentine. E never finish o!

I drove towards home and along the way I remembered that my generating set was a bit low on fuel, so I stopped by a petrol station to put some in the jerry can in Betty’s boot. The petrol attendant at my pump was very effusive and attended to me with gusto. He filled my can up and stowed it in the boot. I thanked him, paid him and made to get into my car when I heard him mumble something ‘to himself’. I opened my door and heard it again, this time a little louder but still incomprehensible. I had by this discerned that he was trying to pass something across to me and asked him to please repeat himself. With some disquiet and with his eyes hovering somewhere below my knees, he blurted out, “Oga (sir), I de wish you happy Falentine! Abi you no love me? Because I no get breast for my chest?” I reached into my pocket and handed him a hundred Naira note. Valentine. The rest of the evening was spent checking out a new drinking joint with my friends Femi and Cheta where we watched a football match and flirted harmlessly with an amiable barmaid. We left at about midnight, got home and I crashed on the couch.

Surprisingly, I woke up at 5am this morning before even my alarm clock did! Now I’m still nervous from the excess caffeine I’ve bolstered myself with. It’s 6pm now and I still have five more scenes before I can leave for home – late night today. It’s okay though, at least you get to know what my Valentine was like – well part of it, because I still have to convince madam that only she was on my mind throughout yesterday. I will survive. Have a great week everyone!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Right in the Middle!

A good week to everybody and an even greater start to a new month to all. To all, I say, because I feel rather excluded from the group right now. I have little to write this week because the little that was there before has been pushed to a far corner somewhere in the back of my head because of that person that calls herself my girlfriend. Does it make sense that someone would travel in the middle of a blizzard to New York of all places and not deem it fit to let one know she’s safely arrived and is warmly ensconced between sheet and duvet?

What haven’t I sent? Text and BB messages, and calls which actually go through to the very annoying mechanical voice message asking me to leave yet another bloody message! How many more should I leave before it makes any effing difference? I swear, the worst place to be in anything at all is to be in the middle, not knowing where you stand. Isn’t that what got the traveller in trouble with the satyr in Aesop’s fables, blowing his freezing hands warm and his hot porridge cool with the same breath? Probably why God hinted that He’d rather we belong to the extremities of heat or cold rather than be trapped in the wilderness of the lukewarm. Two possibilities are raging in my head.

The first, she could be in trouble. Oh, that she landed safely I am in no doubt; she, to my relief sent me a text informing she’d finally landed in NY after hours and hours of delay owing to an impending blizzard. After that her tracks went cold save for the little relief provided by the comforting ringing of her mobile phone. My mind is solely, well partly on that road from the airport to her hotel and the haunting possibility that anything could happen from accidents to breakdowns and being trapped and frozen, to falling prey to those sinister predators lurking under their favourite shroud; cold and darkness. It doesn’t help that I am currently reading Paul Young’s The Shack , a book about a man coping with the murder of his six year old daughter by a serial killer.

The second is the hopeful possibility that (too angry to even call her name) is simply too irresponsible to understand the need to inform loved ones waiting with bated breath for news of her safe arrival so I can give her a treatment worse than that blizzard she’s running from! This is the same person that almost took my ear off right in the middle of the night worrying about her hotel booking and flight details only just the day before. Bloody hell! You see what I mean about being in the middle? Here I am worrying about whatever mishap may have befallen her when she could well be snoring away in her warm bed, blissfully unaware that she may have kept people in waiting in limbo. Or I could be ranting and raving about what sadistic screws I’ll be working in her soul when I find her so she understands what she’s put me through, when she could be trapped in some ditch somewhere. Middle, no absolutes, no certainties, just nowhere and yet spread thinly everywhere! Which kin’ wahala be dis eh?!

God, I pray you keep her safe so I can volunteer to be your rod of chastisement upon her sou- She just answered the phone! See? What did I tell you earlier?! She was flippin’ asleep! She answered with that throaty sexy – She had the temerity to answer me with a very groggy “Hey baby”! Can you imagine? Just come back first, and you’ll see what I’ll do to you! I’m going apply that rod of… correction to you until you beg for mercy – I hope. Nonsense! Thanks guys for lending me a listening ear jare! Let me go and put my house in order as I ponder the difference between this and dealing with a runaway thirteen year old child. Have a great week everyone! As for you, Frieda, come here, I’m not done with you yet!