GLASSHOUSE

Here's to a Sunday fun day ... Enjoy! 😉

#Jeremiah

He got there and an immense feeling of nostalgia grasped every part of his being.
The smell was as he left it, the houses and people, same save for Hajia Fati who had boosted her Tuo Zaafi’ business from just a little container to a building in the Nti plaza.

"Business must be good "he muttered to himself.

Everything was the same, yet everything had changed.

"Had she changed too? " he wondered.

They say for each person, there is the 'one'. You know the one that makes you smile in your darkest days; makes you feel like you are the only homo sapien in the entire infinite number of Universes.

 For Jeremiah Korsah, that 'one' had been Anna Boakye and he had loved her for a while until when it came down to choosing between an opportunity of a lifetime to work for the BBC in the UK and Anna, he had chosen the latter.

Anna had not been very much pleased about that and till date they had not spoken, but that was all about to change.  Jeremiah had dated a few women during his sojourn in the UK.

There was a Caroline Ntim who loved to spend his hard-earned pounds, Sarfowaa Anowa (what a clichéd name... He still didn't know why some African parents chose only African names for their children all in the name of Afrocentrism and later went to buy white people's cast-away for their kids... Hypocrites! ) who always drove him to a state of utter boredom with her 'girl power' rantings (You are a feminist...we get it!), Elizabeth Day, a white female was the only one who almost made the cut but her folks were passive-aggressive racists as hell!


So after all these tragic missteps, he had resolved to come back to Ghana and Adenta for that matter to win back Anna. She was married now "but who cares? " he thought. The kind of love they shared was cancerous and love like that although in remission was always eagerly waiting to return...

#Kofi

"Don't worry.... Every little thing, is gonna be alright" Bob Marley's voice blasted out of the radio in the Trotro van he was travelling in.

"Gosh! "he bit his lips in anguish. He hated the song that was playing. He hated the passengers who nodded in response to the soothing rhythm of the song. He hated the people who did not understand that the song that was playing at the moment sucked... Well, for him at least.

He waged war within himself to keep his emotions in check. He failed and snapped at the young guy who sat beside him when he had 'accidentally ' stepped on his shoes for the umpteenth time.

 "Hey! Are you blind!? "he blared as his fingers balled up into fists.

"sorry oh masa... I know see am... Aswear" the guy uttered apologetically.

"Are your eyes situated at the back of your head?! "as these words escaped his mouth, he saw himself and the scowl he wore on his face in the driver's rear view mirror and hated the man he was becoming, angry and bitter. His mind presently drifted to what had happened in the morning.

At 4:30 am at dawn he had woken up and had positively affirmed to himself in the mirror a number of times that were too numerous for him to remember that; he was invincible, great worker, and that he was going to have an awesome job interview which will culminate in him getting employed.

 He envisioned how he was going to wow the hiring panel with his impeccable English and great ideas that they would pick him up and hail him as they do a newly installed king. His little reverie was cut short when the body lying in the bed behind him twitched. The body was his wife's,Anna.

Lately everything he did seemed to infuriate her ...or maybe he was just really irritating. Who could blame him though?
He had worked for the Telecom company for eleven years and yet they terminated his employment like all those years were nothing.

He had tried to remain positive after. He had applied for other jobs but all proved futile. And then he had become dejected and bitter. Once, he had gone out with a couple of his friends and after they made some crude jokes about him having no job and so he should go home because he can't afford the drinks, he got into a drinking frenzy and spent a lot of cash buying drinks for not only his friends but also for everybody in the bar.

The cash he used came from the savings account he held together with his spouse.
Anna had confronted him about this fact and they had fought seriously. They seemed to do that a lot lately.  It was this that had gingered him to get up early today to get to the job interview his mother had lined up for him far on the other side of town.

He had failed to mention this to Anna and had slipped out without even taking their car...well, the car she had bought and she fueled. He had gotten to where the interview was to be held aboard a Taxi. For some weird reason, he only gave the wrong answer to every question they had asked and he hated himself for that.

He had not gotten the job and that was even worse. He had boarded a Trotro back and that brought us to our current present. The Trotro immediately halted for an old man to alight.

 The old man strained with every step he took and Kofi wondered which one of them had it worse... The old man with bad hips or him going back home to meet an angry wife?... "Definitely me. "he thought, as the Trotro moved on leaving behind a thick screen of smoke large enough to form clouds that could  create a century-worth of rain.

#Anna

Love is a strange thing. Give someone a little, then they'll say you are heartless... Shower them with a lot, then they call you a sucker. Anna knew she was neither... A lover, yes...but no sucker. Lately it seemed like her marriage was falling apart.

Everything she did seemed to spark some form of dissension between her and her better half, Kofi.  Her very breath irritated him. Last night, they had fought vigorously and she resolved that she had had enough and was going to divorce him but her ego got ahold of her and counseled her against such an action.

"What would your friends say?... You ain't getting any younger you know? oh the people at work... What vile things shall they whisper behind your back? " her conscience prodded her till finally, she gave up on that decision.

 She was going to fight for her marriage. Mornings have a way of giving you clarity that you can never get in the other times of the day. This morning's clarity was colossal.... the solution to fixing her marriage had come simply to her.

 All she needed was a getaway or a huge event that she and Kofi could go to. There, they will fall in love, kiss and make up and everything would go back to the previous state of bliss. There was one thing that was missing from her plan though, Kofi!
He had not been there when she woke up today.

She thought he might have gone for a jog as he was wont to but by 10 A.m. she had begun to get worried when he had not got back home.  She had called his cell a couple of times but he had not answered, then she had tried his sister, Felicity's phone and she had let it spill that he had gone for a job interview.

"I'm sorry, I thought you knew" Felicity offered guiltily when she noticed a change in Annas tone. Goodbyes had been said after that and the call, ended.
Anger welled up in her, but she fought to quell it. She decided that now was not the time for them to fight.

Today was her day off from work . After waiting anxiously for what seemed like an eternity for Kofi to return, a soul rang the bell to the house and she thinking it was Kofi went to answer the door in great haste.  It was but her friend Aba's nephew, Fiifi.

 Fiifi had come to give Anna her invitation to his aunt's upcoming engagement party. Anna had almost forgotten about that. A few professions of goodbyes and goodwill saw Fiifi out the door. She went and sat on a sofa in their red carpeted living room and returned to her previous state of apprehension.

She gazed at the invitation that laid on the center piece and while she was thinking it was a paragon of the opportunity she and her husband needed to fix their marriage, the door screeched open and Kofi entered.
Before she could part her lips to accost him, he rushed and kissed her passionately on the lips. He enunciated his apologies effusively and she, resolved to give their marriage a second chance, accepted.

All seemed to have worked out well but as we all know and are used to in our little lives, when everything seems perfect, someone or something always shows up to mess it up.

It's one of the peculiarities of life and it is such a peculiarity that found itself... Or should I say... Himself at the door of the Koomsons at 8:00pm that evening. He was six foot five, perfectly built and spoke with a British accent no soul could ascertain how he had acquired.

"Hello... Good evening mate... Is this where Anna Boakye lives? " he hummed heartily when Kofi answered the door after hearing the bell ring.

"Yes please"

"could you please tell her... "

"Jeremiah! " Anna cut him off before he could complete his sentence. Her unassuming face did very little to hide the displeasure she harbored for the intruder at the door.
"What are you doing here?" Anna queried him as particles in the atmosphere hit each other. Things were getting charged up...(to be continued)

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