So I was talking with this vulcanizer one evening and he boasted while he fixed my tire.
“Praises, there is nothing I have not seen in this life. No kind of enjoyment anyone can show me. Nothing. Is it drinks? I drank my soul away. What I can drink in a day, ten people can’t. Is it money? Ask around. I had money. I lavished money around. I drove cars. Is it woman? I saw women. I had five girlfriends at once. Women fought for me. Fat, slim, tall, short. They fought for my love. For me to marry them.”
Then he paused.
As if he had remembered something.
Then said to me.
“But there is this woman I truly loved at that time o. But lack of focus in my life made me lose that woman. I swear. No one needs to tell me I messed up. Deep down in me I messed up.”
I looked at him.
He had told me several times he was a graduate. And had to start life as a Vulcanizer again after he suddenly went broke. A job he told me he had done when he was a child.
“So where is she now?”
“The girl? Hmm, I don’t know. She blocked my line and moved out of Jos. She used to stay in Dadin Kowa that time with her family. Then she lost her dad and her mum had to move out of Jos back to the village. I love that girl o. Wallahi. But I no fit go back to her.”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“When I didn’t have money, guy she stood by me. She saw me become rich. She stayed with me. Even when I was chasing all those small small girls. That babe was still there. Then she caught me cheating and decided it was the last she could take. Omoh she left o. Pride did not even allow me to chase her. It was after a week, that my sense came back. By then it was too late.”
I heaved a sigh and we switched conversation.
That night I went home thinking about life.
How God sends us certain good people into our lives, yet we pay no attention to them. Instead, we spend our life chasing the wind, until we lose that which we have in our hands.
That night while I slept, I had a dream. It was a terrible dream. In my dream, I saw the Vulcanizer swimming in a pool of hot boiling water, and a young fine woman sitting by the pool with a long spoon for soup, steering the water. The Vulcanizer was in pain, naked, yet could not come out of it. In my dream just before I woke up, I heard him shout “Mary” and my eyes opened.
I knew at that moment, that something wasn’t right. I didn’t know who Mary was. But I knew that lady was someone he knew in the past. I knew that the hot water signifies a terrible situation. Maybe his life or something around him. And the young lady could be from his past relationships with women.
The following day I drove over to see him. I told him I had something to tell him and that it was about a dream I had about him.
He offered me a chair to sit and I asked.
“Brother, do you know Mary.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he stood up and…
To be continued…
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My name is Praises Chidera Obiora and I am the best at what I do.
