Chapter 4 The journey of survival

MPD- Chapter Four

"My Priceless Diamond''

Waking up the following day in a night-bus , Mimi could not help reflecting on the events of the previous day. Events in life, she thought, had a way of sorting themselves out. Her journey to Azuma-city had taken through roads, bridges, rivers, bus terminals and through satellite towns with narrow lanes that emerged into wider ones until she found herself in a labyrinth of six-lane highways, high-rise concrete structures, glass houses, neon-signs, street and traffic lights all around her. Flashy cars and streams of gaily dressed passers-by were threatening to suffocate her.... to drown her. She had seen the towers, roofs and statues from afar off as the luxury bus approached steadily towards them, eating up the distance. Her heart skipped some beats with sheer nostalgia as she realized that she was actually in the city and not viewing it from a distance.

For several minutes, Mimi stood motionless, her initial excitement beginning to give way to a feeling of despair. Jack never mentioned the noise, the sickening feeling of being on your own. As things were, she was becoming half-dead from the whirlpool of noise - hustlers and hawkers competing for attention; music and sound effects from video shops close by; men and women talking on their cellular phones and gesticulating as though the world was coming to an end and they needed to call up some familiar angels high up for possible reservations; two drivers leaning out of their cars and exchanging groundbreaking invectives; two men haggling over one thing or the other, and two youngsters meeting for the first time, after a long while, cackling and caterwauling like frivolous chatter boxes. The entire scenario was like no man's business.

In near-panic , it dawned on Millicent that all around her, in spite of the apparent confusion, every other person, knew where they were going to, except her. Their faces radiated with confidence, their voices high or low as the mood dictated. Nobody was not oblivious of her presence. If she had arrived after a long and energy-sapping journey from Roye-city or where ever, nobody showed the slightest interest to know. She was in the middle of nowhere, no friends, let alone relatives. Why, she might stand there guessing, gazing and gazing on the scenes until death or rapture claimed her. " And should it be the former,'' she muttered breathlessly, " I haven't the slightest doubt that my remains would be shoveled away into the heap of refuse that 'adorn' one of the street corners.''

" Come on, don't stand here bemoaning your fate," she said firmly, gripping her light luggage with ferocious tenacity that made her knuckles crack audibly. She would look for a modest hotel that would not demean her and take a room for the night. The following day, she would set about sorting out her priorities and the next move. " Azuma-city, here I come!" she said half to herself and to the surrounding hustle and bustle. A tinge of her receding self-assurance was taxiing back to base at a cruise ; no doubt. Surely, the temporary inconveniences and premonitions of the long hard trip belonged to the past now. "And the future? I can only cross my fingers and wait. Thank God for fingers!"

After about two or three turns, and what looked like eternity, a promisingly magnificent set of two-storey buildings announced on its gargantuan bill board, lit by flashes from the headlamps of passing cars, ' Pleasure base'. Mimi had never been inside such places before, but from stories, the place was obviously a hotel and a modest one at that . Mind made up, she walked towards it, praying and hoping to find, at least, comfort for the night. The pleasure could wait.

She was almost at the entrance of a section that had at the lintel, the golden inscription , ' Reception' when an athletic built young man , with bulging muscles that pushed and pulled against his heaving chest like ferocious blood hounds straining against the leash, stood in her way with blood-shot hooded eyes reduced to slits.

" No call girls, no hookers or ladies of the night,' he intoned with counterfeit formality.

" I want a room for the night.'' she halted, mustering all the confidence in her and, at the same time, imagining what a fine athlete he would have turned out were he not a bouncer. What with the acrid smell of ' burst grass ' blending suffocatingly with stale sweat and, then , the scar running down his left ear to the corner of his mouth. He was handsome though, but in a thuggish sort of way.

" We don't have rooms for single females- " he began, but she would not let him continue.

" I can pay for it; I have enough on me!" she interjected, looking around quickly in security consciousness.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she could make out pockets of by-standers listening in without appearing to be doing so.

" Do you have an ID?" The bouncer asked.

" I mean to get one, that is, when I get a job," she responded, hope rising.

"Get a job, you said?" The bouncer inquired confusedly.

"Yes," she replied confused as well.

"You need a job!" said the bouncer.

" I guess so," she wondered where all these were leading to.

" Alone?"

" Yes, alone, " she replied coolly, fighting hard to restrain herself from spitting into his sneering face.

" And you've got no ID, you said?" The bouncer restated.

" Eem! I think I've one," she said quickly, unbuckling her late mother's hand bag slung over her left shoulder. Rummaging through the content, she produced her student's ID card.

" Of course, they are all always 'students': young, sweet and innocent... until... ha...ha...haa!..." Said the bouncer.

" Until what?" she heard her voice as from a distance shouting, almost hysterical.

" My friends, stop! Can't you see she's not used to grilling. At least, not from bouncers who can't afford a 'decent' lady for a one-night stand."

This was coming from a uniformed security personnel MPD- Chapter One

"My priceless Diamond".

Nature bestowed on her long luxuriant jet black hair that fell down almost to her high waist line. Coupled with a pair of honey-coloured pearls of attentive grey eyes that caress and unmask you both at the same time in a chequered sort of way. Her overwhelming power over the other sex, which she surprisingly was not aware of, was something out of this world. When she left her city, Roye in the stone-mixed red soil in the mountainous range that straddle Gama and Asuna zones for the prospect of a respectable means of livelihood in Azuma city; her father, had remarked that she was of those from on-high treading planet earth and carrying their fate in their eyes. Before long, another man was to see beneath her tender sweetness something unimaginable; so powerful that on contact, it surged through one threatening to sweep one off one's feet as it often does.

Now that she was twenty-one, the times appeared to zoom past as deftly as flying boats zig-zagging their ways through the waves on the river. Sometimes, Millicent or Mimi, as she was fondly called by her friends especially, by her boyfriend Jack, who loved her so passionately beyond human description, even more than the memory of his own late mother; titled her head side-ways, lost in thought of how to assist her family's poor financial state as she gazed at them. The thought of her late mother often disturbed her peace of mind. And once she enquired from her father on the cause of her mom's death.... She often got this as a reply;

"She had poured out the residue of her motherly strength to push out into the world and life from her protruding belly before giving up the ghost just an hour later with her palms put together as though in perpetual supplication". That had been a sad period with tombs springing up like poisonous mushrooms dotting the landscape. The Lasa Fever epidemic had taken a huge toll on the population of Roye-city boosting the coffin trade, which your mother fell victim of.. ''The cause of her death was as a result of my financial incapacitated state. I could not save your mother..... I'm very sorry for failing you and your brother" Her father said sadly on tears.

"Rest in peace my best mum,' she always feel guilty for her death.... The both cried bitterly and embarrassed each other in comfort...Even in their silence, they were disturbed as these memories could mean nothing but sadness.....

As usual , Mimi gone out to meet Jack her boyfriend, who just returned from Azuma-city two days ago, after a very long time he left Roye city with no means of communication till now.

"So this is you? Mimi asked with a displeasant gesture.... Quickly, Jack tried everything humanly possible to exonerate himself...

" My love is not what you think! But please I'm very, very sorry for stressing your emotions towards me. I felt hell without hearing your voice, your tender touches, smiles.....is a long story. I was scammed and bankrupted that I had to start life from zero-level. I sold all my valuable property and started a new life from the scratch. All means of communication were shot-down due to my incapacitated state as at then, simply because, I was robbed of all my assets by fraudster in an online business......... "I felt like dying, countlessly. Reckoned! I won't last much longer in your absence. Uncontrollably tears often forced out of my eyes, down my cheeks in thought of a sweet Angel wonderfully put together with a near-olive skin that made you the cinosseur of all eyes; just like the Rose among flowers." Jack said gloomily. Jack thought she was the prettiest creature that walked the earth. To him, for her to be born into this world, heaven must be missing an angel.

"You won't ever pass on. Remember your promise to live forever for me!" Millicent replied with a clouded face of tears. Her love for Jack always forced tears out of her eyes anytime he is sad. This time she tries to checkmate her emotions as she proceeded with a gentle questions.

" How is Azuma-city and her citizens ?" Millicent asked .....

"My journey took me as far as Azuma-city to Mawa town ," Jack said, and his eyes took on a gleam that suggested he was reflecting on far-gone spectacles in the dim corridors of the past.

" Very wonderful experience, I suppose?" Fantastic, he almost exclaimed as the familiar mood of the past seemed to envelope his whole being".

"Sky scrapers as high as the mountains, bright-eyed ladies with alluring smiles on their faces, their hands in your wallet. Giggling girls in hot gowns and skirts promising so much but revealing little. Men with grim faces, others with smiles that oscillated between a grin and a grimace. Their laughter? As rancorous and mirthless as ever. Great crowds moving back and forth in droves. All seeming in a hurry , pushing, shoving and heaving in all directions. With cacophony in the air, the hustle and bustle reached fever pitch during the rush hours. And little children 'talking' English and Pidgin faster than weaver birds. At the bureau de villa, you meet smooth-talking gentlemen in caftans, gold chains and golden teeth. With long hard faces with facial marks, it made them look like wild cats each time they made a great show of trying to smile with flashing eyes that beamed like miniature twin headlamps, they sized you up on how best to cheat you of your dollar, or rather, how best to stick a- knife into your guts if you dared swindle them."

" You left out their women," she reminded.

" Those one...ha...haa! With oily faces half-hidden behind veils, they perched like vultures ready to devour the carcass."..... Though, there are series of temptations that tried to contradict my love and fidelity to you......... Unknown to me! some girls had been monitoring me, my activities and vowed to get me down on bed. So they tried being friendly with me , sitting beside me during lectures and invited me to parties and their gatherings in order to draw my attention. They even showered me with gifts just to buy over my mind. All these I accepted without second thought, except believing in myself that nothing would happen. After all, I did not ask for them. They brought them willingly.... I remembered it as if it were only yesterday memories of how my shameless friend, Stanley got me drunk as to lure me into indulging in sexual immorality, so because of that, I packed out of his house to be myself, perhaps start life a new before I lose my sanity,".

" The thought of your absence made me uncomfortable each nights before going to bed; and in the morning, it perfected my endeavors......... Even in your absence I had been so faithful for a day to meet my princess. Ever since of staying in Azuma-city, I did not indulge in any form of sexual immorality nor relationship of any sort because of your presence in my heart". Jack said emotionally on tears.

The spontaneous outflow of emotions recollected in tranquility was manifested as Mimi hugged Jack so tightly, with a gentle continuous kisses that expelled the sorrows in Jack life.

who had just emerged from a corner, holding a baton on his right hand, and tapping the father tip on the open palm of his left.