Two Worlds - Season 1 - Episode 72

4 years ago

Two Worlds - Season 1 - Episode 72

Mama stopped her Volkswagen in front of the white building that matched the description Bakare once gave Ivie. Ivie stepped out and strode to the gate. She peeped through an aperture and scanned for anything that would certify the house belonged to Bakare. His Chevrolet cleared any doubt.

She passed her hand through the aperture and opened the gate. A frightening silence welcomed her. His house was much less than his orchard. Not one cherry tree lived in it, but a fruitless star fruit tree shrivelled at a corner. Red sands dominated the ground, reddening the building’s base. She advanced to the building and pressed the doorbell. Silence answered. It answered again on her second press. She walked to the front window and slid it open, shifted the curtains and gained a half view of his sitting room. She saw him. He was wheeling himself to the door. A wheelchair didn’t fit him, as a gun didn’t fit his hands.

The door crackled and opened. Their gaze hit and she tried a half-smile. It didn’t work. It didn’t add to the length of his lips. He stood at the entrance, fixed to her, as though she was a stranger.

She aimed at his legs. “I’m sorry for your legs.”

He wheeled away from the entrance.
“You have a nice house.” She stepped into the sitting room.
“It belongs to my late grandma.”
The big board painting of him stood at her front, the one she painted. It looked finer on his wall than it was at the gallery. The painting of twins hung above it. Little perfect twins.
“How’s your health?” She sat on an armchair.

“I’m beginning to adapt to the wheels.”
His voice didn’t find a match in her brain. A totally different voice that must have come from the thickest folds of his vocal cords.
“Make yourself comfortable.” He wheeled to the dining and opened the refrigerator.
“I won’t be taking anything.”
“Why? Don’t worry. I can stretch for a drink.” His stretched hand met a bottle of Malta Guinness on the second compartment of the fridge. The bottle opener on the dining table didn’t need stretched arms.
“So you finally decided to come to my place,” he said and wheeled back to the sitting room, holding a bottle and an opener. “It’s painful you met me in this state.” He looked at his toes and set the Malt on a stool beside her. As he pulled off the bottle’s cap, foam bubbled out of the drink, which finally settled into liquid and dripped down the sides of the bottle.
“I’m sorry for your legs.”
“Everybody would be sorry.” He stared at her. “Why are you here?”
“I heard you had been discharged. I thought of paying a visit.”

His lips stretched into something near a smile. “We always see at my orchard. You never come to my house.”
“That’s because events always led to the orchard.”

His overgrown goatee stretched like elastic wires as he fondled it. “What about my proposal?”

She stopped pouring the Malt into the mug, leaving the bottle tilted. “I’ve decided. My answer is yes. I will marry you, Bakare.” She continued pouring and stopped when foam was about to escape from the mug.
A smirk she had never seen in him stretched halfway across his lips, an unreadable smirk. “I love you, Ivie. You should always know that.” A pause happened and his smirk disappeared. “I love the gap in your teeth.”
Her jaw grew heavy, almost falling off her head. “It’s likewise,” she said, happy at herself she could speak.

He rolled himself to the television and turned it on. “So tell me, what are the things you’ve been hearing?”

“I was hoping to hear all from you. What I’ve heard outside doesn’t matter.” Her mug showed her reflection, stretched across its cylindrical body. She lifted the mug and sipped.

“They matter, because they are all true.”
She dropped her mug. Some drops of liquid in it jumped off as it landed on the table. “You actually testified that you were shot by the defendant?”

“I believe the defendant is the Richard found at the orchard with a gun, the manager of that quarry industry.”

“Yes, and he has been in jail for long, partially because of your testimony.”
The TV’s volume increased. It displayed Nollywood actors chattering with loud voices.
“No, not because of my testimony. He’s in jail because he was found with firearms at a crime scene.”
“But your testimony makes him guilty.”