Love in Due Season (chapter one) Contd
As Kofi sits sedately in midst of the laughter and coarse joking of his friends at their usual evening hangout, present yet thoughts afar off. He reminisces dreamily and with clarity of those times they spent together. Timeless moments! When, he could not get enough of her. Countless nights when instead of boarding commercials bikes, they did rather just walk together hand in hand to preserve the moments through the town with the mud houses clustered together conspiratorially, past the teaching hospital; with the occasional stops at the blacked faced mesuya; always with a lavish smile inviting us to purchase his wares, past the bridge where the meruwas gather with their jerry cans and wheel barrow, chattering away in hausa about the days activities, past the local secondary Schools, Through the dusty and undulating road trail. Till we get to the baobab tree by the stream! Our baobab tree that loomed over us like some sort of guardian, leaves swaying approvingly.
For Kofi she was different! He was drawn magnetically to her. Her clear set eyes, her intelligence, natural wildness and restlessness unlike most ladies that were so caught up with the seriousness of trying to fulfil the demands of their stereotype roles, she was ready to fly. They both shared a love for words and she inspired the poet in him
In her eyes I see loves comely glow
In her voice I hear its sweet note
In her touch I feel it nudge at my hearts sacred
places…
Oshare !!!!! To him she was fire at the same time water, heaven at the same time earth. Yet there was this vulnerability he could sense about her. At times he was scared he wondered whether she was going to be as fleeting as most good things that happened to him. Uncertain about whether to fling himself completely into this or to restrain himself. But more often than not when he was with her, he felt delirious and numb with exctitement as a child that had won a million naira not knowing what the next step should be, that how he felt during their evening strolls.
Kofi left his friends at their hangout; he wasn’t in the mood for the noise. As he walked back home alone his mind drifted to the night of the first kiss at the baobab tree. How can he forget……
Akinwale Babatunde ayorinde
