flight – Eureka Naija

Good People

Published by Osemhen

I noticed when you joined the queue, you both wore suits and I wondered if you were married. I wondered where you worked. Idle thoughts, I was more concerned with getting a seat on the 7pm Aero flight to Lagos. It was the last flight out of Port Harcourt with free seats. My heart sank when, after almost 20 minutes on the queue, the Aero teller announced that the POS machine wasn’t working. I’d have to pay cash. I didn’t have any cash . I heard you mutter that you didn’t have any cash either. This was 5:20. I made my way to the ATM, to the queues that dragged. I was number 7 on one queue; fifteen minutes later, you joined the other queue. My GTB card did not work. 20 minutes on the ATM queue, and my card did not work. I stepped off the queue. You asked me what the problem was. I replied that I needed to transfer money to my First Bank card so I could use it. You got …

Flight.

Published by Osemhen

K: I’ll pick you from the airport. Me: No, thanks. 10 hours later, I wonder how I’ll find my way from the airport. What if “Something” happens? What if my flight gets delayed and I take a taxi to my destination late at night and I get robbed or Something because I’m this petite, light-skinned woman (read: easy mark)? It’s impossible that I could be strong, you see. No one thinks you can be, not when you’re fair and petite and female. I should have taken K’s offer. Why do women like to be chased? Airport. The boarding announcement comes on and we all shuffle to the tarmac. All of us will be dead in 100 years. And it should evoke some sort of camaraderie, shouldn’t it? But it doesn’t. We are ignoring one another. It’s strange, considering that we could be deathday mates. What if? What if our plane, this plane that Arik has christened “Michael” were to fall out of the sky? We would die together. Approach the pearly gates together. Our families …