The biggest failure of science has to be this: That it cannot tell us where our interactions with other people would lead. Science has given us a lot but that it cannot give us this gift is a shame. How something so far reaching, so powerful can do so many things and fail at this very core is painful. How it can collect our past and predict the future, tell us what we want hear, show us what we want to see, tell us what to buy and where to buy it, tell us when to go out with an umbrella and when to sit still at home in preparation of a disaster but still fail to tell us about the disasters closest to us -People.
If Science had not failed Omotinne, she would have known from the start that Jasper was bad news. Perhaps she knew. She should have known from his bulldog face and eerie presence. She should have known from the gaping holes in his stories but she chose to trust him. To believe him, because that is what all human beings regardless their makeup are good at. Doing something even if it is bad for them.
It is why Omotinne started going out with a man who was 17years older than she was. A man whose act of lovemaking left her sore for days. A man who never paid attention to her needs- at no point whether at the mama put close to his tepid flat where he just ordered whatever he wanted to eat for both of them or whether in bed where he just thrust and thrust until he came and left. A man who had no known blood relatives but so many ‘sisters’. Maybe Omotinne believed they were his sisters since they all looked the same even though they looked nothing like Jasper.
These sisters, they all used to be good looking, jasper was not and he had never been. You could tell when they laughed or smiled but never when they didn’t since something always masked their beauty. Not their makeup. Pain. It always clouded their faces. Especially when they came to Jasper for a favour as they always did and he once again shat on them before rendering whatever help it was they needed at the moment.
Omotinne often wondered why these sisters of his were so dependent on him. They never seemed to be able to do anything on their own. Full grown women they were. Omotinne in particular despised Clara, one of these sisters. She was the most demanding of them all yet the most ungrateful. Omotinne observed with disdain the haughty manner in which she made her demands and the way she never seemed to be able to say thank you. To cap it all the way she looked at Omotinne. With savage glee like Omotinne was going to come upon some misfortune and she would be there to gloat. She did this especially in the presence of other sisters when they cooed about how sexy and hot and pretty Omotinne was.
Omotinne had since lost count of many sisters it was Jasper had. The only thing Jasper seemed to have in common with his sisters was a sojourn abroad. Always somewhere in Europe. They never talked about this but bits of conversation here and there is how Omotinne found this connection. She dismissed it as a traumatic aspect of their lives they didn’t like to talk about because that was what Jasper had told her when she asked him about it. He gave a similarly dismissive response when she asked him how he made his money as well. Something about travel consultancy he had said.
“Morning Dew” ……an exciting and educative piece! With some Harlequin-like wordsmith, enwrought with “Nigerianized” English flavor, Temitope is undoubtedly one of the best budding authors in Nigeria. Keep it burning.
Great Ife!