A sweet-sour day for both myself and Luqan
Walking to work those days mastered my kind, God won't let suffering matter to us all.
I remember those days when we lived in gutters, slums and canals to get closer to the affluent city, all to work and raise income and to satisfy the affluent people in the modernized area of my country. Lol. Poverty eats Africa. I hope you know that.
Myself and Luqan, a very good friend of mine then lived 4 miles from work so we were kept up as usual at 5:30 - 6:00 am daily. Waking up that fateful day, I called Luqan who stood up immediately and after normal personal hygiene, we stormed the road due to the high rate in transport fare then but as Omo Ogbon ( wise children ) we already knew the route to take to meet up work in an hour instead of three hours.
On a norm, the route we always trek through is a path the early morning fitness workers make use of all the time. We have seen different people jogging through that route in our daily routine.
My friend Luqan, a very strict and just but friendly and jovial person always makes the everyday trekking interesting due to his act of complimenting anyone we saw making use of our daily route on foot.
He has complemented people that got us more jobs and income, he also has put us in trouble so many times.
On that fateful day, it is usual for us to see different modern vehicles on our way, some will zoom past, others will park along the road, put on their canvas and start their routine jugging from there. As we walked through a drive, and bypassed another drive through an estate we usually take.
A new Mercedes G-wagon approached us from the opposite direction. We normally rate any vehicle we see while walking as these are the discussions that will take dialogue out of our time walking to work.
As the new Mercedes G-wagon moved closer, I said: " WAWU!! this vehicle is the real deal, I heard vehicles like this use our salaries as daily fueling fare. I concluded. Then all of a sudden the car stopped and an obese man came out of it with a big belly.
He should be around 50 years old then Luqan shouted: "See belle, sir you see am now, weting you dey look for young age wey your belle come big like this? Well you can still meet up, it is not too late " and still he continued: " poor people don't need exercises, how can we get fat when we do daily fitness to work, but sir 'you no try at all oo' .. Ah!!" he concluded.
I was shocked by the man's reaction to my friend's speech. He looked at us for some seconds, nodded his head in shame, looked at us again then just went on jogging. After he left, I burst into laughter at his reaction and told my friend: " I think you are right that is why the man did not alter a word ". I then reasoned something that the man is rich from our perspective, we don't know who he is and I hope he won't get back at us. I concluded.
Luquan said: " I did nothing wrong now ", I only told him the truth he had wanted to hear, then I intervened and told him that the man never asked for his truth, by then we were at the T-junction. All of a sudden, we saw two Operation Messa vehicles ( OP Messa ).
A military operation patrol team which was feared here in Nigeria because it comprises military police officers ( MP ) the more and we have confirmed that (MPs are a set of soldiers that disciple military men when they wrong the country's oath and etiquette.
We looked at them and saw the Mercedes G-wagon that the fat man my friend finished telling the truth drove. They stopped and twelve soldiers jumped down together.
I shouted: " Luqan!! , na that man dey come with OP Messa!!!.
I do not know when a Nigeria Western proverb burst out of my mouth: " eni ORI yo ODI ile" which means ( if we escape this, we will be met at home ) I wanted to look at my friend and saw he already made use of the right route of the T-junction running like flash, I only saw his skin cut head shining and moving towards disappearance.
I took the left route of the junction and ran my heart and life out. This is a matter of life and death if I was should be caught, then they already racing toward us, eight soldiers racing after Luqan and four after me. I never looked back, I just kept running for my dear life, I entered two closes, jumped out through the fence and burst out at another drive leading to where I work. I could even wait at the apartment where I work as my instinct kept telling me that the soldier would see me enter and follow me which I do not want people to know what had happened.
Luckily for me without knowing, the supervisor saw me as I raced along to the other side of the estate. I manoeuvre different routes to get them lost then I hid in an ATM disposable point around there, due to the tinted glass used to secure the user of the ATM.
I searched my pockets like I kept something there, and after fifteen minutes of intentional perambulating and lamenting as if I lost my ATM card, I was asked to leave the post by the security guards. I went to work and saw Luqan already changed and working, he never said a word.
I quickly changed my outfit too and went to work. After the closing hour, we were summoned by the supervisor who said: "It seems you too don't take your job seriously as you should, I saw you running across the street like a mad man earlier this morning and confirmed Luqan was panting too when he came in this morning too. I suspected you too must have got into a fight on your way to work which is irresponsible of you both.
If this happens again, you will be suspended and I will make sure your salaries are delayed too. He concluded.
Can we go? Luqan asked and the supervisor nodded in agreement and we left for home. We laughed our ribs off that day after we both dialogue about how we both escaped. On our way home, the month's salary credit alert came in and we became extremely happy.
We changed our treking route in other not to see de ja vu. It is a day called Sweet Sour Day.