Chance

 This is a short story about a typical Lagos girl. I hope you enjoy.


      CHANCE
   Damilola frowns at her work, "It's such a mess", she crumbles it and throws it to the floor. " I'll start on something better tomorrow", she thinks to herself. She walks out into the street and strolls home making sure, she locked the door of the studio behind her. Tomorrow is gonna be better.
   "Traffic is thick", she observes. Getting a bus now will be very difficult, her "Lagos girl" spirit gats take over now o, fine girl no go do anything." Thirty minutes goes by, and shouts of "Ikeja Along, Ikeja Along" alerts her, moving closer, she squeezes and "squazzues" herself into the bus; "Of what use is her small frame, if she can't get in amidst these people?".
    Getting into the bus, she tries to get as comfortable as possible, and the bus takes off " Lagos wahala na die". In order to get her mind off the discomfort, she begins making mental notes about the next day. "I need to work on the drawing Mrs Ara contacted me to make, need to get more charcoal pencils and a fresh canvas", she thought. She feels a gentle touch, thinking to be just bodies brushing each other, she decided to ignore. Again, that touch and she looks up now. Well; her heart stopped momentarily at that moment. She saw a guy with teeth turned brown with tobacco and eyes as red as the light on an MTN mast. Opening her mouth to ask what he wanted, she felt another touch.
     Her heart stopped this time too, but for all the right reasons, the touch came from a good looking guy, tho his hair was little bushy, it added an adventurous dimension to his clean-sheltered boy look. " Please you're crushing my knees " Mr Clean- Sheltered said. Damilola came back to the present. She had been resting her elbow on his knee. Taking off softly, she apologises and he politely introduced himself. Segun Daniels.
      They converse shortly about the traffic and she somehow gets to see his wallpaper. An album art of Jon Bellion;also rearing its head from the open bag on his lap is "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo. A guy that reads Mario Puzo and listens to Bellion definitely is her speck. In a bid to know more, she talks about her two observations and Daniels goes on and on about Don Corleone's character. It's done.
    Damilola relishes the knowledge that she has a new canvas to work on. One that doubles as a pumping device. She'd draw beautiful butterflies and etch them deep into his heart. It's not certain whether it'd be a beautiful drawing or poor but she definitely would give it a try. "I really should come back to reality, a chance meeting doesn't always end in happy ever after" she thinks. At Ogba bus stop, she drops from the bus, waves to Daniels, never to see him again.

    For Gigi

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