A THOUSAND WORDS

You both met on a Friday. Technically, it was on a Wednesday, but since you classified to meet someone and to see someone as two different terms in that, to see someone for the first time meant to notice them; their soft eyes and cherubic dimpled smile. Whereas meeting someone for the first time was to have a conversation with them and discover odd things that you both share in common (e.g., that their phone had also fallen in the loo just as yours had) and information you had no idea what to do with, (e.g., that they had lived in Lagos State for two years, Port-Harcort for five and, Ekiti for two) and have them tell you compliments that made you swoon (e.g., is this your natural hair? It’s so beautiful.)

So, basically, you both met on a Friday. It was at the only branch office of the telecommunication providers that you used in your town. In the tiny ice-cold office of that grim Friday morning, while he retrieved your lost phone number, took your passport, and scanned your fingerprints, you met him.

“I came back out to look for you on Wednesday,” he had said from his cramped work desk immediately. His eyes met yours as you sat in the queue, waiting.

You had sat in front of him the said Wednesday for approximately five minutes while he cross-checked your details from your NIN slip on his desktop and told you to go to a magistrate court to swear an affidavit stating that you had, in fact, lost your SIM card.

 “Oh, I left,” you had replied in a croaky voice. After you returned from the court, you had to wait in line again to be attended to, but you were too exhausted for that, so you went home. On Thursday, you didn’t return, and when you did that Friday, it stunned you that he had remembered.

You watched him as he attended to a customer before it got your turn. He wore a cap, and you wondered why he was wearing one in an office. His denim jacket was customized with the telecommunication’s logos, and when it was time for him to attend to you, you noticed his long tapered fingers and how they were perfectly trimmed and almost white. He was clean, like a model who took his appearance very seriously.

Your conversation with him would never have crossed the staff-customer threshold had his co-worker, the dark, handsome man that shared the same desk with him, not asked for his hotspot password. He refused to share the password and said he would give it to you. You want it, right? He had asked to which you replied. I don’t have a phone–well, a phone that accesses the internet. Why? He asked, and you told him about how your phone had fallen in the toilet bowl months ago, and then, he told you about how he had suffered the same faith. 

That was amongst the first thing you both knew you had in common. You discovered many others in the months that followed. In the evening of that day, you both spoke on the phone for hours. It was a surreal experience for you because just a few days before, he was nothing but a deep breath you were sure never to catch. 

Days turned to weeks and weeks to months. You purchased a new phone at his office, and while he helped you unbox it, you couldn’t keep your eyes away from him. It didn’t matter if there were people in the room; you were both in your own world as you shamelessly flirted with each other.

Feelings were bound to be caught. After all, he called you every morning when he got to work, during work, when he closed from work when he got home, and before he went to bed. Rinse and repeat. You both never ran out of things to talk about. He fascinated you. His voice, his smile, his laughter, and the way he sighed. He was like a well with endless resources that you couldn’t stop drawing from, so you fell hopelessly in love with him.

The first time you exchanged the three little words was over the phone. You both wanted to know what it would sound like coming from each other. He went first. I love you. He said, in the calmest, softest way that it caused goosebumps to wake on every inch of skin on your body. It was magical, so you assumed that this was no ordinary love, that this man could be your greatest love. For months, you floated happily on the clouds of this beautiful illusion. 

You shared your favorite songs and even had a playlist together. You did all those cute little things that have been attributed to people genuinely in love for time immemorial, so where did it all go wrong? Why did saying the three little words suddenly feel like torture to him? Why did the universe present him as a soulmate, only to take him away slowly like a wound that eats itself?

You had your future with him, mapped out in your head–graduate school, serve your country, marry him, leave the country with him, or he goes first and comes back to take you with him. It didn’t matter how you left the country as long as it guaranteed that you would have four kids together, a german shepherd, and live in a small cute house thousands of miles away from your motherland. You had even finally come up with the names for your unborn children and hoped to share them with him when he shared them with you. You would both travel the world and have a YouTube channel together, and at this point, the concept of having children may become skeptical because who says you can’t wing through life without offspring? 

Why was it scarce to achieve a future with the first person you wanted to plan it with? In the meantime, why does searching for the right one seem akin to a child finding the right pair of socks?

So many times, he had promised to show you his star. How would that happen now that he no longer saw a future with you in it? 

It’s a shame that something which seemed like would stand the test of time ended up being summarized in a thousand words.