Choices in Eden's Garden

Night. The sun had long retired in the west. Kosiodo, as you were lovingly known and called, you were sitting on a motorcycle parked in front of its owner's shop. Sheff is a well known artist and painter in the area and far beyond. The veranda of Sheff's shop was spacious and ever kept tidy; and the shop itself well furnished with aluminum glasses that made it glister. From outside people could watch any programme televised on the TV in the shop, or watch a movie which Sheff himself or any of his apprentices had played and was also watching that moment.

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A garden.

Young men, boys, were sitting across the road, barely four or so steps from Sheff's shop. That part of the road vehicles scarcely passed because of the failed portion of it, and it had been turned into a sort of mechanic village--- panel beaters, welders were there.

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The boys together with you were discussing sundry issues as usual when you all met at that same spot. Your phone rang, and you excused yourself from your friends, from their rowdy crowd, with an apology to answer the caller. It wasn't the number you knew that called you, but immediately you heard the voice you knew whom the caller was by her voice. It was Fola, your lover.

       "Hi, baby, what's up?" you asked.       "Yes....." You kept mute thereafter and was only listening to her at the other end. When the talks were over you went back to the rowdy gathering of your friends; but now your countenance changed, in a different mood, you became another kind of person unknown before the call came in. And throughout all the ongoing conversations of your friends, all their arguments and counterarguments, your mind was bitter, bitter with anger, you didn't add a single word to their discourses--- from football to politics, and other matters that came up. One of your friends, having noticed your mood, sought to ascertain what had transpired all of a sudden.

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       "Gee, which one you dey? Wetin happen wey your face no kon straight again? Kilo nshele?" your friend, Lukman, also called Luku for short, asked.

          "No worry, I go yarn you later when we dey go house," you replied, and added,"So na me this girl insult like that abi? OK."

.

  TWO

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All the while Fola lurked somewhere when she called and stayed there, too, watching them quietly at that corner, behind a container shop made by our local welders. A few minutes now past eleven P.M. The clusters of people that dotted the road at that time had begun to disappear gradually, but not the suya spot of Mallam Sanusi and the tea joint of Mallam Sabo, also called mai shayi, both adjacent. That was the peak of business, and was usually busy till well past 1 A.M.

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On their way home Fola was walking behind them, but, at first, at the other side of the dual carriageway in the estate, the failed portion of it, before she crossed to their own lane.

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She walked very fast to catch up with them, and when she was quite closer to them she reduced her pace, walked past both of them and sighed contemptuously. The sound of the 'sighing' which she made startled them like a frightened cat, behind their right hand side, and made them turned their faces, right over their shoulders, simultaneously, like in a military parade to hear where such a sound came from. Seeing her, Kosiodo estranged her, feigning ignorance of seeing her but later gawk at her as she was going ahead of them.

       "Guy," you said,"E be like say make I just go wipe'am better slap now for face."    

        "No. Guy chill, na woman. Just leavam make she dey go like that. Make she just dey go. That's all. She dey vex," Lukman said. "Wetin you say happen that time sef? Oya, yarn me." Lukman asked, looking straight their direction.

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     "She call me that time, you know, that time wey I excuse una, eh eh," you began, "As I kon pick the call, as I hear voice, sharp sharp nai I no say na she dey talk. Instead of answering my greeting firs of all,  she kon dey ass me nonsense, yeye question again. She say:"Shee na Kosiodo be that? I say ''Yes''. I kon askam say:"Baby wetin dey shele?--you no know my voice again?--- the next thing she kon begin to dey insult me for phone! Omo the thing surprise me! I just leavam make she talk dey go. When she kon tire, or boya her credit finish, the phone cut," you said.

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Lukman was just listening and then asked,"Guy tell me the koko thing wey lead to that insult. Na'im I wan hear." You knew inwardly that Fola was now aware of your relationship with her own biological sister, her elder sister Kemi. And to cap it all you were still going after their pretty friend again, Thelma. It was Thelma that objected the intended relationship between you and her, knowing that you are already Fola's lover ( but not knowing that of Kemi), and then disclosed the matter to her friends, the two sisters. She didn't want to be a daughter of Judas Iscariot, a romantic Judas this should be.

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THREE

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The whole thing boomeranged at home. The two sisters were at loggerheads, peace at home was breached. Kemi, Fola's elder sister and Kosiodo had known each other a while a bit before they fell in love, and had kept the love on a platonic level before Fola surfaced and Kosiodo jilted Kemi for her, but secretly, and Fola didn't know about that of her elder sister and she was really neck-deep in love with Kosiodo. It was during the squabbles in the house that Kemi revealed the matter. "Betrayer", was what she had called her younger sister.

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As a matter of fact, it didn't require much debate-- if at all anyone would come up with it-- to say that Fola was far much prettier than her elder sister. Her skin, ebony in complexion-- but looked like a blend of Milo diluted with milk-- made it shone like well sandpapered and thinnered wood. And her height, which was normal of a woman, and her moderate body in terms of size, made her balance well and gave her body attractive curves. Her nose looked like the tip of an ogene, or gong, and stood firmly on her round face. She was an extrovert, likes to laugh with people, always appearing cheerful, and whenever she laughed her light pair of lips, finely cut, and pinkish-looking would make people expect her to be laughing nonstop.

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Lukman had kept mute all this while listening.   "Guy," he said, "you fuck up. Big fuck up. You don cause wahala between the two sisters now. You don put fire for their house."

         "Guy, no be like that. That Thelma dey craze for head. Before I approach Thelma, i been think say Kemi no serious," you said.

          "Fola nko?" Lukman asked.

         "Guy leave that side," you said.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The case between the two sisters was sorted by their friends. At least Fola was unaware that her elder sister was having an affair with Kosiodo, not knowing that both of them were quite so close as that before.

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Nothing had really happened before she stepped into Kosiodo's life to stay, shutting her elder sister outdoor. At times people don't say,"I love you", before the love happens. Naturally most people fall in love and carry on like that, and naturally, too, everything will fall in place. Love at times grips most people like a terrible fever, people who are intemperate about it.

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Kosiodo got to know Fola in years of their Teachers Training College (TTC). Both sisters were in the same school but not in the same class, and he had never met both of them before together anywhere. Perhaps he would have known his steps. Kemi had heard about Kosiodo's relationship with her prettier younger sister from her girlfriend, Lucky, but wanted it, the rumour, to manifest itself with evident evidence. And that was it.

 * * * * * * * * * *  * * *  * * *

FOUR

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Kemi kept her cool all the while. She didn't open up until that day of the friction in the house. The next day Fola had enquired from Kosiodo about it and he explained everything to her quite frankly.

        "Actually, I started with Kemi; I was in love with her but I thought she wasn't then serious, and we were always together at times. We have gone far before I met you," you said.

You knew that you had to defend yourself, anyhow, not just to give in cheaply. You are a play boy, always winning women like a trophy, and no more to be seen after everything-- like a hit-and-run driver.

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Fola discussed the matter with her friends. She was really in love with you, or better to say, madly, and was reluctant to let you vamoose from her life, from that part of her life that discovered many compatibilities with you.

       "Do you love him?," one of the girls, a friend amongst them, asked Fola.

         "Yes," she replied.

         "Then ride on babe."

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The matter was still generating furore at home and lingering malice between the two sisters. Both of them were condemned to lust.

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     "Haba! Which kind wahala be this sef? Kosiodo should have stayed with his 'shokoto', not going to 'Sokoto' again," a friend in their midst, Ije, said. Jealousy and the feeling of insecurity are also a product of lust, not only a product of inferiority complex, as a lot of people think.

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"See me," Ije said, staring at Fola,"I ruined my own relationship with Steve with my own mouth. I was in his house that day; in the evening his phone rang and I saw the name MY LOVE on the screen and without hearing first to know whom the caller was, I started pouring abusive words on her. Guess who the person was?--- my prospective mother in-law!

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If she wasn't learned enough I'd have told a big lie to my oga and cover up my tracks. But this one, the whole thing 'gbosa' on my head, my sister. All the abeg wey i beg, no way! Left to my Steve, no wahala, but the Mama, laye laye, she no gree, his mother didn't agree (shuddered her shoulders); she say I go insultam for her pikin house when I come in fully. That was how we parted," she said, making a wry face, and at times beating her laps that they sounded like splashed mud.

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Ije said she couldn't imagine her foolishness, just because the name that showed on the phone screen was addressed a female, and she didn't even permit the person to introduce herself, or talk, and she started warning and cursing her. And, in fact, she really insulted her. She remembered Oscar Wilde that:"One should always play fair when one has the winning cards." That was how everything ended but she still loved Steve and ever grieving the loss. But as for Fola it is up to her.......

Akunna Akunna Jr, is from Abia State.
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