The Triangle

The Triangle

Seven

Falling in love is like being newly born. It begins innocently and grows into what you can either nurture or that which you cannot handle. It is never an option in your life but a cross you have to carry at a point in your life… – Anonymous…

Adeolu knew he had met his match but really he was unflinching and was more than convinced that this journey with Lola would be one smooth ride. Love was still out of it for him.

After the introductions and the jokes, the duo continued their conversation as the day wore on giving way to the ultimate darkness of the night.

“Having known you now, I am really relaxed and I think the time to go home is coming near and my stay here with you is nearing its end. But before then, I forgot to tell you that the most important man in my life after all the men and women in my family, is called Olayiwola. He is more than a friend and partner-out-of-crime to me. You will get to meet him later sha,”  Adeolu said.

“Really, that is no problem because I think we have known enough for this one night. I also have an important lady who is also coming along with my family. You will meet her and know her name later probably today,” Lola enthused.

The conversation was never dull for a moment as they continued rambling and laughing gingerly over the no-melted ice creams. They surely have had enough and have filled their bellies for the night. Lola especially was more than filled. She laughed the most as Adeolu cracked her up with his stories and tales of his adventures and misadventures during his childhood days.

“Really, children of nowadays are really MIA. They have nothing except computer games and toys to keep them company,” Adeolu began.

“Growing up in the South-Western part of this country was real fun. We really had a smashing childhood with all the games we had and the activities we indulged in. Since you are less than 26, you should know the correlation between a pencil and an audio cassette. Don’t you?” he asked Lola.

The damsel, who has been endlessly revealing her god-given gift of a perfect white set of teeth, continued her laugh. She was really enjoying her evening.

When she finally got herself together, she said, “Why won’t I know the relationship between them? Although I may be young but really it was fun inserting the pencil into one of the holes of the cassette and we start spinning it. It is the fastest forward and rewind I could ever think of. In seconds, the tape is ready to be played.”

“Hmmm! I am really sorry that you knew that. You may either not be in that range of age you claimed or you really had a very sharp and intelligent brain from birth. Really, some of my friends, who were brought up in the ‘super rich’ homes and environments of our generation really don’t know the correlation between them. You are one heck of a lady. I would have blamed my existence if I hadn’t met you before I died.”

“This esa (flattery) is what I really have known that you are gifted in Ade, continue o. my own head is swelling too o.”

“If you get that one, what is the relationship between wet sand and the feet?”

“That is quite simple sir. The wet sand is heaped on the top of the foot and the foot gradually removed to create a home for grasshoppers. The house is always as large as the builder is willing to go and as long as the land allows. The grasshoppers usually don’t stay in the houses and hop out of it as soon as they touch the ground so to keep them in their ‘houses’, the hind limbs, which enables them to hop, are usually removed and they are left with their remaining legs to walk around the house and its usually big compound, which would have been supplied with a generous amount of grasses and leaves.”

“Omo odo agba! (the one who had learnt from the elders). That is really great coming from a butterfish-looking lady like you. One would think you were from this present generation and had a faster development. Really, you will surely remember that those houses and their occupants don’t see the light of the next day. They are either washed away by the rains, or they are crushed by the feet of the passing adults, who never saw the sense in what we were doing then.”

“Surely they don’t but life was simple then and devoid of the present complexities we are faced with daily down here now,” Lola said as she focused her eyes on those of Adeolu. They were travelling several years back from the spot they sat and they were immensely enjoying the time travel.

“But really what I loved most them were the games. The family role-play game, the Suwe game with its different variants, the ten-ten game, the tinko-tinko game , and many others I can’t remember now. The best fun then was the bath in the rain after which we would become ‘white’ and be shivering from the resultant cold.”

Adeolu smiled as he said, “You definitely have forgotten the first Play Station, which was called Table Soccer. I will never forget the way I thrashed my friends and brothers then. There was fun too in the daily bath we had then in our agboole (extended family house). Our mothers would bath us outside with us holding the pail of water as they scrubbed our feet with the local sponge and soap. I really loved Ose Dudu (local black soap). You know there was fun in making earrings with the gummy seeds inside the cherry seeds which makes us look like girls.”

“We can go on and on about those days and really it won’t be boring at all. You know Ade, I remember a song we used to sing in school then when we are about to be flogged. Seriously looking at it now, it was foolish as the song didn’t work rather it made us earn more strokes of the cane,” Lola reminisced.

“What song?” Adeolu asked but he quickly intoned, “Hope it is not the one about fainting after being caned?”

“Yes na,” Lola replied starting her laugh all over again.

With her sonorous and angelic voice, which would make Adele jealous, Lola began to sing,

“Teacher mo de o mo wa j’egba t’emi

Na mi l’owo o

Ma se na mi n’itan

T’itan mi ba be o

Ma lo p’obi mi wa

T’obi mi ba de o

A wa d’ijakadi

O ti ya…

Ijakadi….

(Dear teacher, I have come for my own share of the flogging. Kindly beat me on my palms and not on my thighs because if I suffer a torn thigh, I will call my parents and it will result in the mother of all quarrels).”

Adeolu joined in the laughter as he remembered that he had sang the song many times.

“You know Lola, there was a twist to ours. As we sing the song, we would have banana leaves under our arm pits so that we could really faint. Guess what? It never worked. Till date I still wonder who invented those fables about the leaves and fainting when flogged.”

“I think most of those fables came from the experience of those who were lucky enough to have ‘Ogbanjes’ or other kind of ‘special pupils’ in their classes back then. For example, our class always escaped punishment because we had a girl who was a sickle-cell patient and would always cause trouble in the class. Teachers won’t touch her because of her yellow eyes, pale skin and swollen stomach. She is always either fainting, at the school clinic or absent from school. So when the class is in trouble, we all shout her name and she proudly and slowly walks out to be beaten after accepting she was truly guilty. Hence we escaped many punishment. The girl later died and didn’t finish with us.”

As the two went on and on about their childhood, they never knew that time was far spent. A ring on Adeolu’s phone brought them to the reality that they were better off being at home. The call was from Layi, who had wondered why his friend had been quiet all day. It was after the call that they knew the time was well past eight o’clock.

“Omolola mi, hope you don’t mind that? I think it is time we called it a day, we shall surely continue this over the phone and surely at some other time. Thanks for being my friend at such a short notice and thanks for a day well spent.”

The smiling beauty replied, “Really Ade, I never knew that the time had gone. You really over-made my day. You turned a day which started boringly to one which is ending on a highly-spirited and charged one. Thanks for the Special Cup and thanks for the memories. And really thanks for the Shakespeare lines.”

“You are really welcome Lola. Which way are you headed to?” he asked what he surely knew would come last – her residence. With no reason to hide it anymore, Lola let out her residential address trusting to hear Adeolu’s in return.

“I live very close by – along Allen Avenue precisely. What of you Ade?”

“I stay closer by just like you do. I live around Shangisha. Do you drive Lola?”

“Yes, I do. But I came in a cab. You?”

“Hmmm! That means you are a really big girl. I just learnt how to drive some few days ago o – precisely some 60 months ago. I came with my small car and I hope you won’t mind if I drop you at home before heading my own way.”

“Five years is a few days ago to you? No problem o. I actually wouldn’t mind you dropping me off but my cabman is already outside waiting for me. I use him frequently and we have an agreement spanning the whole of today so it would be penny wise, pound foolish to let the bill run without using it. Thanks for the offer anyways.”

With that, Adeolu accompanied her to the waiting cab, which was parked just outside the gates of the Mall. As she waved him goodbye, Ade could not but laugh at the big fish his playing hook had caught. It was time to go home and tell Layi over the phone what the day had offered him.

He hummed to the tune of his favourite Fatai Rolling Dollars song, Won Kere Si Number Wa as he twirled the keys to his car. He unlocked it, checked if nothing was missing and zoomed off to his beloved home after paying for the parking ticket.