When it was dawn, Pa. Simon knocked at the door of her room, but he was greeted by stillness. He called her name again and again, yet no voice came over to honour his speech. This continued for half a minute before he turned the doorbell and walked in. His mission was to rouse his daughter to all go for the morning worship at the local church, located two streets away.
"Aduke," he tapped her on the leg towards her shoulder. Aduke reclined and again drifted back to sleep with no word spat out of her lips. She likely had not felt his presence, had not seen him. As she fell asleep furthermore, Pa. Simon resolved it was better to let this girl be. He could feel her body craving more sleep because the rain that fell the previous day was heavy and came with deep frostiness. He turned to the entrance of the room and stepped out, closing the door behind him. He picked up his Bible from the round table and called Janet who soon walked out of the room. The couple quickened their steps to the church.
Even as the ardent worshippers clapped their hands from diverse synagogues; as drummers boisterously and coherently beat the drums with drumsticks and with bare hands; as the bells rang, Aduke dozed on. It was still morning, but there was this intense sun in the air, its shadow descending and hovering on the grounds and against the sides of some buildings, adding sparks of the sun to the walls, the windows and to the trees.
"Good afternoon, Papa," Aduke knelt when she was before her father in the sitting room.
"Good what?" Pa. Simon had a surprise blazing in his eyes. He felt the sharp burning of guffaw in his heart. His ribs stood out, and the bones on his neck and cheeks were also sticking out like the old indicators of the old cars. His neck and his throat were wiry, uneven and lopsided like the neck of a tortoise. The kitchen was behind the sitting room's window. It was where Janet had been since she returned from the church. She was busy cooking the morning meal. Her eyes watered and she used the extreme edge of her coloured wrapper to wipe the water away because the kitchen smoke dimmed the facial feature of her eyes.
"Why are you laughing this serious?" The question was weaved for her spouse, but Aduke had halted it halfway as she greeted her mother in the same funny tone.
At that moment, the novelty streaking in Janet's eyes was appeased. She smiled and almost giggled.
"'Has afternoon indeed come yet, my good woman?' Pa. Simon turned to his wife, jumping from the chair as the laughter hit him in the heart like a nail.
His speech forced Aduke to cast a look at the wall clock.
"Oh my God!' she piped, his hands lifting to her scalp and she stood agape for a moment.
"Too much sleep can make one a blockhead, " Pa. Simon teased.
"It was not the sleep that misled me, father. It was the morning rays," she reacted, her mouth tasting sour. She was about to go for her brush and the toothpaste when she heard Papa say: "But you enjoy the sun, don't you?"
"The food is ready," Janet discontinued the talk between her husband and her daughter. And Pa. Simon quickly made his way to the dining table.
He dressed in a white shirt and a pair of ebony trousers. He had a black tie worn on his neck, fitting the wear with a raven, polished pair of shoes. It was distinct, however, that he was prepared for his workplace and had only been delayed for the morning feast because he was such a man who disliked eating outside his house. It was a meal of rice and beans with reddish stew sprinkled on it. On top of the stew was two chunks of meat. Having eaten to his fill, he plastered a kiss on Janet's forehead, picked up his travel bag and followed the entrance that led to the passage of the building.
There creaked a hoot of Okada just outside the bungalow. The jeer was sharp and clear. Aduke strode to the largest window frame of the sitting room and pulled away the purple curtains to know what was amiss. It was Adamu, the Okada man, that often rode her mother to her business centre. Janet was the owner of the supermarket at 9 Babalola Street, where she dealt in the sales of groceries.
"Mom, Bro Adamu is waiting," Aduke called on her mother after the razz sounded one more.
"I will be with him soon. Tell him, I will be with him soon," she replied, made to adjust her headgear.
"She is almost ready," Aduke raised her voice so that it would get to Alamu who was squatting on the bike with a chalk-like helmet pulled to his head.
"Take care of yourself and take care of the house," Janet mumbled on her way to mount the bike.
When the hands of the wall clock had ticked to noon, Aduke busied herself in reading through the letter she engraved the other time. She shook her head in an attempt to position the triangle-shaped letter into an envelope and sealed it. She hid the envelope where nobody would come across it. Even though she was the only one at home, she did not trust her father who might suddenly drive in with a statement that he left stuff behind. Rapidly, she sang a melody to the restroom in the backyard and lingered there for what seemed like the whole day. Beside the loo was the bathroom, Aduke swerved into it, stark naked. Unhurriedly, she scooped the warm water on her soft body, rubbing the soap-smeared sponge from the tip of her hair to the shoot of her toes. Her whole body was now draped in soapy foam, her eyeballs craved for water as the soap stained the corneas. She blindly groped for the bowl with which to scoop the water on her body, but her hand had only gripped a jug that served no purpose in the bathroom. She applied it to pour the water on her body. It flushed the foam away while she whistled and felt so relaxed, so warm.
As soon as she was in the room, she made sure she freshened up in time before the sun would have the sameness of hell. Standing before the bag which tucked her clothing, she specified a purple shirt, wore it and matched it with an ebony skirt. Because her hair was unwoven, she reached out for a scarf and fidgeted with it until the whole of her hair was hidden.
During his final year as a student in secondary school, Adigun was instructed to write a lengthy essay about himself. In his response to the instructor, he had comprised his liking for solitude. Despite that, his life had always been intriguing as long as he spent his leisure in reading didactic books. And by twilight, after dinner had been cooked, he would either be on the field to play football or stay indoors to be entertained by his mother who was a great storyteller.
But on this day, his mother, with a few other residents, was out of the village to grace the burial ceremony of Pa. Ajasco in a distant town. Adigun was in the corridor of their hut, satisfying his brain with 'THINGS FALL APART' by Chinua Achebe. So deep was he in his reading that he did not hear when Aduke whispered his name from a far distance. Then, Aduke clapped her hands so loud to attract his presence. This worked like a magic as his gleaming eyes sped towards her, surprise growing on his face.
"Aduke!" he stood up rapidly, hurled the literature to the end of the bench on which he squatted, marched in her path and swept her off her feet.
No one was staring at them because, at that juncture, the place was stranded since the farmers were on their farmsteads. And traders at the stores.
"Put me down," Aduke pleaded. A smile glinted out of her lips and shortly hung on her face.
"You nearly strangled me, you nearly did," she whispered when Adigun had positioned her on the ground, her voice brimming with awe of this guy raising her.
"Do you care for anything?" Adigun asked, his face full of happiness, "we have pieces of meat in the soup,"
"Then ladle all the meat into a container for me to take home," she kidded, "you should not even try it, lest Mama put a swarm of bees in your bathing water,"
He was cracked up. And when his laughter subsided, he said: "but the punishment is worth it when it involves the person you love,". His prospect of a good reaction from her was met with a blank considering Aduke did not comment.
They stood beside each other quiet. While she honoured the dripping owl with her eyes, the one that almost kidnapped a jet-like chicken, Adigun examined her well-proportioned body. It appeared to him like a dream; he had never reckoned to causally meet Aduke in the front yard of his dwelling. Has she come to give him a yes based on his asking her out? He wondered between validity and suspicion.
"Shall we go there?" he asked, his index finger referring to a shed whose roofs had lines of leaks. It was a vacant building whose backyard was overgrown with weeds. Aduke approved his question and strolled behind him as he led the way.
The place had hibiscus flowers which enhanced the dazzling glamour of the front yard. It was the major road people often passed to see the monarch.
"Aduke," Adigun called when they had landed at the spot, "I have walked a thousand miles in this world, yet I have not come across a sweet, eloquent, elegant and extremely beautiful creature like you. I have a feeling that you have swallowed the most expensive make-up with a can of malt or did my feeling flowed from the well of unwellness?"
Aduke laughed heartily, her set of teeth flashing out, revealing her gap-toothed. Adigun sought to kiss the lip. His wish only ended up in a dustbin.
"Adigun, the succulent bard!" she saluted after her laughter subsided, but she was so determined not to be tamed by his sugar-coated mouth.
"It was you who said your feeling is unwell, but I will only suggest you hospitalise it," she chuckled.
It was not funny, but Adigun laughed backwardly as the lady imagined the contents of the letter she intended to deliver to him. She felt sad, but she did not make her sadness obvious. That she was leaving for school soon added salt to the wound. Adigun probed the East, the West, the North and the South. No human was in sight except the lady who came to visit him. He came across an animal, a cock in particular. It was raising dust higher and almost blew the dust to their side when he picked up a stone and nursed it for a while and threw it at the cock which crowed away. Then, closely, he looked Aduke in the eyes. Their eyes met, however, she hastily withdrew her eyes while Adigun stooped low before her, a stick of the hibiscus flower stood high in between his fingers.
"The goddess of beauty and love,
at your sight, I wallow in thoughts.
Permit me to give you another Yoruba name: Aridunnu!
Is it the sun that sets in your heart or the moon that rises on your feet that flames this heart of mine with love and emotion?
Aduke Aridunnu omo Simon,
your smiles dazzle like a silver lining in the blue sky
and your laughter, a lyric to tame a wild heart.
Aridunnu,
at the very sight of you, I wallow in deep thoughts.
Has Orisa Osun, the goddess of beauty and love, descended in human flesh or just nature in her perfection?
Aridunnu,
every king deserves a Queen,
for a Queen makes a complete king.
Hold my hand, and we shall build a kingdom of love.
I am the slave boy that sedates the king's heart with my flute.
I am the sweet son of the soil that sings your eulogy.
Aridunnu,
I am the unseen hand that caresses you to sleep;
the one that rests a troubled heart
with sweet chants and songs of hope.
Do not despise me in my rags,
for in it, I am content, at least for now.
Do not look for cowries in my pocket,
for penury has left nothing in it but holes.
Give me your beautiful love and see me soar high in the ocean of wealth.
Aridunnu,
look at the freshness of this flower in my hands, that is the freshness and the deepness of my love for you. I love you with all my heart.
I've met a horde of girls on campus at the premier University Of Ibadan, but none of these girls deserves a bit of my precious heart; It craves only one person and that is you. Be mine! Be mine, for your heart, is the haven I crave to forever live.'
The earlier cock had found its way to the same spot, raising dust again. This time around, Adigun flung a stick and suddenly the cock wailed to a far distance. His eulogy, his diction and the sounds of his voice ignited the engine in Aduke that her soul geared and shivered. Her eyes welled up in tears but these were the tears that did not show in her eyes. With time, the tears snailed down her cheeks. Her mind seemed to be tamed because she was so emotional. She reverently acknowledged the hibiscus flower. Adigun was no longer kneeling. He was standing before her.
"I am sorry, Adigun," she began, " I am at a loss for words, but this letter is the answer to placate your curiosity," Aduke wiped her tears with the handkerchief she had in her hand, "You could slit the envelop and read it later. I need to go home now. My parents should be back soon," she smiled and heaved a long sigh. A dimple flashed out on her cheek. As she was ready to leave, she plastered a friendly kiss on his forehead. The kiss gladdened his heart in a way that he believed this girl had succumbed to being his soulmate.
The sun had travelled to its headquarters to rest for the day. It was the time farmers were to return home. They dressed in tattered clothes, hanging matchets and Dane guns across their shoulders. Women and children walked faster like the speed of the sun, carrying basketfuls of crops on their heads. They had to walk too fast because they were thirsty. A few of the villagers, who were unused to farming or those who resolved to rest for the day, raced towards them to help these farmers with their loads.
"I am ready to go!" Aduke announced again. Although, she had said that earlier, her legs had refused to make a move, had refused to do what she wanted. It was interesting to be around this humorous and brilliant youth. Yet she forbade him from going out with her, not even to where the kids were playing a limb ball, for it was a common saying among the villagers that when youths of different genders different parents were seen together for so long, an amorous and unreligious connection existed between them.
"Go well," he muttered.
When she arrived home, she was thankful she entered before her parents. It was also the time to cry and the time to lament about the circumstance that surrounded her. She sobbed bitterly in the corner of her room in the knowledge that a long-distance was about to be drawn between Adigun and herself. She wished she had not written the heartbreaking letter, she wished she was not going a distance, but it was the right thing to do. She sprang from the ground and dried the flow of tears on her cheeks.