By Juliana
Francis
Dear Faith,
I
tell you sismi, mad people full Naija, but dem plenty for inside Lag.
If you want to be sure of what I’m saying,
just board a commercial bus. It’s not just the drivers and conductors that are
mad, the passengers are the worst!
Every day my aged, creaking, and
complaining bones wake me from sleep. I go to bed tired and I wake up tired.
I don’t even need to have done anything to
be tired. I’m just tired of being tired.
But here we are; old, tired with creaking
bones. I stand in front of the mirror, and I see wrinkles battling for
ownership of space on my face. I’ve given up on trying to understand the map of
the country being drawn across my face by the vagaries of life and nature.
Getting up from sitting or prone positions,
is now a tug of war. I don’t even want to imagine having sex. The yearning for
sex is rare and far between.
I’m sure my skeleton will fly out of my
body, leaving my boneless body gasping in the orgasm of death if I dare try sex,
let alone an adventurous one.
Phew!
Imagine standing before Baba God in all
your orgasm cascading glory. Wetin I go tell Baba God?
I don’t like deceiving myself. I can’t
wind again on the top of any penis.
My
waist don dieeee!
I stopped dancing makossa on penis years
ago.
These days, if I’m not worrying about my coughing
and rickety bones and waist pains, I’m worried about the children and mounting bills.
Some months ago the price of cooking gas
almost speed landed me in the emergency unit of the hospital.
We
no go see, or hear bad things in Jesus name ohhh!
Bottom-line, this flower is withering…And
falling like leaves dried to brittle by the Harmattan wind.
The children have made war upon these
breasts that once used to stand stubbornly proud and arrogant.
But even with these age indicators tailing
my shadow, some weirdoes will not leave old women alone.
So I boarded this commercial bus and this
guy sat beside me and then probably believing I had traveled to a thought-filled
Island, attempted to touch my boob.
Hiannn!
Yes, the right one… right across here,
closer to this side. I felt it of course and shifted. Such nonsense used to
make me uncomfortable.
Reminds me too much of all those times I
had had to fight off madmen grabbing my breasts while I was still in my bloom.
Sickening I tell you.
The first time was in primary school,
returning from school, trekking home, sun blazing down my poor head…firs the
conductor, then the madman and so on…
Oh, the shame, the humiliation, the
cringing, the impotent anger without an outlet and subsequently flinching
always…till date.
Just madness I tell you, Faith. I gave him
a cold stare. He returned the stare, poker style. Shameless lout! We understood
each other. He had earlier tried to engage me in a useless conversation, but I
was not interested. I buried myself in my thought and then he tried to launch
his imperial act…never!
And he was such a young dude sismi. I
don’t understand it. If I flipped out and bundled out my saggy breasts in the
bus, what will he do? What was he thinking? As I said, madmen everywhere!
Weirdoes and perverts. Things that thrill them are unbelievable. Let him try
the next-door bikonu!
Women who board commercial buses should be
used to these men, and these women clearly know what I’m talking about.
Obviously, age has nothing to do with being a target.
Do you think I should have acted the drama
queen and ‘sand am like we used to say in our Ajegunle Parlance?’
He’s good-looking enough to have his pick
of any girl, but he chose to grope as an old woman; a woman with boobs now as
flappy and draggy as analog telephone wires.
I thought with this age of noodles, tech,
and android phones, groping in commercial buses would have stopped.
I guess some things can never stop. (Shrugs).
Oh! That waist pain again. Abi na jedijedi dey worry me so?
