If You Asked Me - PART 1

 

EPILOGUE:

Brother Gary, a young man brought up in a believer’s family and baptized right after primary school is a hard-working devoted Christian full of dreams and a promising career in accountant. Like any other normal young man, he desires to have a good wife and start a family with her. All that seemed to have gotten a boost when he met with a childhood friend Sister Victoria. She appears to be the full complement of what he desires for a wife. But as much she is caring and understanding to him it’s not easy to open up to her, his heart desires. Will she be the asset he acquires or the liability he shuns.

 

PART 1

IF YOU ASKED ME WHY I came to Facebook constantly I would say to read jokes and memes to cool off my misery especially from my tiring work and bachelorhood. I hardly returned texts on messenger on time especially this people who used to text me hi. And if someone texted “God bless you” or “Gbu” for its short form, I would just reply Amen and that would be it unless the person engaged me more. Some of these were so boring in real life because unlike me they could not sustain a conversation without attacking us bachelors or throwing a quote or scripture from nowhere. You be talking about the rain and someone throws a quote from Zacchaeus, the businessman. "These are the kind of people who turn up on a date with the 'Seven Seals' book among other big church books" I often told myself so.

Facebook was one of those boring places which some of us could not keep off because in perusing through you could end up seeing something interesting to excite you for the rest of your day. People poured all manner of memes they forwarded or screenshot from elsewhere. Some showed off their latest dresses, suits or cars. The newly wedded just annoyingly kept posting their wedding photos to get likes and comments and so forth. The preachers could not help posting preaching or lengthy encouragements which many of us were quick to like and type “amen” without caring to read to the very bottom.

Stories like this one of mine am about to share with you which somewhere along the line you we will know if it’s a love story or not are some of the things many could read to the very end and end up with the weird comments of “next” or “following”. Personally posts to do with business and economics are some of the things that fascinated me most of the time. I needed to know what was going in the world of investment regardless of if I was capable to apply the same or not with my current economic state.

One Facebook story caught my eye of a familiar face now light skinned properly maybe because of a good camera. It was of a sister and an old-time friend from childhood. I pressed the like button and commented "beautiful" something I hardly did no matter how beautiful the person I was commenting was. Many took time to appreciate my compliment for reasons best known to them. I am sure it was because they didn’t want to feel like we were into something more than being just Facebook friends.

Prior to liking and commenting “Beautiful” to my old-time friend I had browsed through her profile and seen her amazing photos which articulated her beauty. She had had grown up to a beautiful woman who I had lost in touch with for a long time. Her birthday was on her bio but not the year. I was sure she was just my age or a little bit younger than I was. Her phone number was not showing there too like it did on my other friends on Facebook. Even as I went back to her status to like and appreciate her I knew she would not respond immediately or not respond at all. I was just back in the office on a Sunday afternoon doing some report that was needed urgently the next day Monday.

In a split second a response on my messenger "Thank you bro". I dismissed it and continued with my other stuff. Again, another text came in "wow! Looking great". I thought it was someone else and I quickly pressed the popups on my phone to investigate further. My goodness! She was the one who had sent both. Apparently, she saw my Facebook story as soon as I texted her. You all know messenger can show you the story from the person you are chatting with. It was a cool photo I took at work and as soon as I texted “thank you” she praised my work place. It didn’t take long before I was asking her where she was staying and what she was doing.

Am sure that you all know that when you get in touch with an old friend of someone you used to know the conversation can get endless and interesting as you go on. Learning that she was just in the confines of this city and that she had just moved in even made me get unspeakable joy.

“Did you go to church today?” I found myself texting her.

“No am yet to locate the church here in the city” she replied.

“Would you mind next Sunday if I take you to our church?”

“But I still don’t know this place well. I fear getting lost!”

For sure taking her to church would be the best opportunity to meet her. Even our precious Brother Branham had a friend whom he used to go with to church and it was the best opportunity he could even get of being with her. I felt like a winner already as soon as she accepted my offer to take her to our church though I didn’t know precisely what it was I had won. Even before I asked for her phone number she had sent it already and I called just to confirm it was the one.

“Oops you have a deep base bro!” she couldn’t help complained as soon as I called her. I don’t know what gets into me when I call someone like that for the first time. I tend to get relaxed but mischievous tweaking or deepening my voice. I remember when I was growing up and my voice was breaking in me, I once stood on the road from the market at around 7:30 pm and scared some big girls who were giggling annoyingly on their way home. They took off like Eliud Kipchoge and I didn’t hear them again till they were gone completely down the road.

The call was supposed to take a minute of less because it was just meant to confirm things on the ground. However the call ended taking up to a whole twenty minutes something I could not sustain normally even on this company phone. Our talk just went from small general issues on each other well being to just the real issues. Funny for her she was quick to say the things that were pressing her against the wall something I normally noticed in many ladies. They always put their damn problems before anything so that if you wanted anything from them you had to go through the problem solving first to get them. However for her case, she was clever to make them as a by the way so that it didn’t sound like an emergency case like those of who used to text “I need 5K urgently” regardless of what you told them was your occupation.

By the end of the call I was assured that I was going to kick start our childhood friendship by taking her to church. However I was not making it a sure bet to get any immediate benefits from it because as usual the situation would be different on the ground. You could not be so sure with someone you had not seen for a whole fifteen or more years. A lot could have happened in her life that you would just want to be friends only. But then all the same how I was waiting for the week to end because this was just Monday because something nice was waiting to be done that Sunday morning. I would put on one of my latest suits and wake up early to go to her place pick her and come with her to church. What good thing was there to do to an old female friend like taking her to church after off course knowing where she staying?

As the week progressed our chats relocated from Facebook Messenger to WhatsApp which came very handy in promoting instant texting. She constantly posted her own photos on her status and I could not help screen-shooting them and replying “beautiful” to them. Sometimes she posted the funniest memes I had ever seen for a long time. The captions she posted underneath them also went a long way in putting humor to a whole new level.

In a short while, we had chats on a lot of things more than I had done with my former friend now gone missing after I asked her if we could be more than just friends. Every morning I either was the first to say morning or hi to her or she be first to salute me. At night we chatted till late about anything and say goodnight was often the start of more texts. For once someone was giving me a reason not to be offline for long. She wanted to sleep early so that I am able to wake up early the next day Sunday.

“Please don’t be late to come for me tomorrow!” was the last thing she texted as soon as soon I texted her goodnight that Saturday night.

I looked at my well ironed suit now placed on the sofa and the shoes shining on the shoe rack and smiled. Just then it started to rain outside and in a short while I was in darkness. Kenya Power had been rendered me powerless over darkness. My phone that had been crying to be charged for 2 hours but I kept on ignoring it chatting with her and now it was at five percent. I knew by the time I woke up my phone would be long dead because it always turned off at three percent. The time was 11:45pm.