The Fine Line Between Love and Hate
Finally Hitched
"I'm getting married," Nichos said simply.
"Okay, cool," said Omar as he returned his attention to the game between Chelsea FC and Arsenal FC.
Nichos smiled and kept quiet. The two friends understood each other very well. As an unspoken rule, Nichos never spoke to Omar while there is a life soccer match showing on the TV. In the same vein, if they were both talking and walking along the street and suddenly, a beautiful girl passed by, Omar would observe what he liked to call A Moment of Silence. It took Omar way too long to realize it, but after several arguments with Nichos, that things Omar said to his friend in those moments, were never said, he learned to observe these moments in silence. He didn't seem to be aware of it but Nichos enters a kind of trance in the presence of a beautiful girl.
Omar always wondered what Nichos would be like in a room filled with more than a hundred beautiful women. The match ended.
"I'm getting married!," Nichos said.
"Really? You male harlot! How are you going to manage that?" Omar asked, giggling.
"I tell you, I'm done. I shall travel home to Nigeria this Christmas and make an honest woman out of her."
"And who is going to make an honest man out of you? Hahahaha. I know home is far from the UK but I must see the woman that has captured this philandering heart of yours,” Omar teased.
It was a day of camaraderie, pageantry and colourful celebration. Both families had met a few times before that day to fulfill several traditional rites. The day was for the solemnization of holy matrimony by the Church. It was arranged such that the wedding party would hold concurrently with the traditional wedding.
Zara was dressed in a pink wrapper with pink blouse. Her hair was decorated with a brick-red bead. She made a beautiful bride. Omar thought she was 10/10 on a scale of 1 to 10 in beauty. Her family and friends thought her to have been very fortunate in marriage and she was truly happy. She did not think twice about quitting her job and leaving everything behind.
The new couple had to return to the UK soon after the wedding. In the UK, she found that her husband's career was doing very well indeed. He worked as a cardiologist at Edmund Memorial Hospital in Leicester. Zara could not work yet because she did not have the papers but she needed not worry about that because her husband provided all her needs.
Within a short space of four months, she began to notice that her opinions did not matter in the marriage. Nichos did whatever he thought best and did not apologise when she complained. The situation escalated quickly to violence. Zara never thought she would be facing this kind of problem especially in such a young marriage. She hoped that things would improve.
Such hopes were shattered when she learned that Nichos had fathered several children with different women in the UK. He would, sometimes bring these women home. The pain was unbearable for Zara but she felt trapped because she had no immigration papers to live independently in the UK and she had nothing to go back to in Nigeria. So, she held on hoping that even if the marriage did not improve, she would be able to leave the marriage when she has her papers.
The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was the day Zara decided to leave her husband's home to a nearby country where she would be visiting with an old friend. The intention of the journey was to find a way to forget some of her troubles. Her husband did not approve of this and the result of disobeying him was that he removed her from his visas list. As a result, Zara was flagged by immigration and deported to Nigeria with nothing but a single suitcase.
She was broken into pieces and vowed to have her revenge, in this life or the next. But first, she has to pick up the pieces. She did not have enough money to go home from the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos. Luckily, she was able to reach an old friend, Clarissa, who drove to the airport to pick her up. The shame, the humiliation led her to decide that she would rather stay with Clarissa until she had recovered some her dignity back. The thought of returning home to her parents was more than she could handle.
First, she had to find a job. One, two, three month passed but nothing came up. She felt that her vengeful thoughts would have left her by then but she could think of nothing else.
Meanwhile, Nichos continued living as if nothing had changed. He never called to find out how things were with his wife. He did not realize that his wife had crossed that thin line between love and hate.
Death in the Family
It was a Tuesday morning when Nichos received a call from home: His mother was very sick. While he made arrangements to convey her to the UK for a specialist to treat her, she died. He never thought that her last visit to Nigeria would be the last time he saw his mother alive. Mrs. Grace Ideh was only 58 years old.
Zara received the news of Mrs. Ideh’s demise with mixed feelings. She was a nice woman. As far as she could tell, the woman did everything to ease Zara’s entry into her new family. However, having the chance to finally do something about the man that walked into her life and turned it into hell, was to something she had dreamed of for way too long.
She started making plans of how to pay him back when he returns.
Authored by @churchboy
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Note from the editor: We've posted an old post by accident yesterday and replaced it today by the new one. This is the story that was supposed to be posted. Please excuse us. That crazy time of the year... :)