There was a time Desire could keep her thoughts in her head, unbothered about wanting to speak to anyone. Now, she was used to sharing her deepest concerns with Remilekun, who now spent most of her days with Mr. America. Desire, for a second, thought of calling Basira and asking her about the miscarriage she spoke of and maybe discussing Prof and Ireti. She pushed the thought from her mind and walked into the street, although people were around her, she was oblivious to them.
A young man in a suit and an unknotted tie jumped in front of her. His shirt was unbuttoned.
‘Have a great day,’ he said. She was startled.
‘Smile. The day is bright.’ He placed his hand on his waist and said, ‘Smile, I’m waiting.’
As much as she hated how the young man laughed at her cheerily and with some familiarity, it all felt like a dream. Still, she wanted to tell him to get away from her because the day was not bright. She wanted to tell him to look up at the sky where the sun stayed behind the clouds and gave a dull ambience to the environment. Instead, she took two hurried steps away from him.
He ran up to her, ‘I won’t leave you until you smile for me.’
‘Smile for you?’ Desire was going to say something else, but there was this distant brightness in his eyes. She tried to force a smile, but she could not. She hurried ahead and crossed to the other side of the road, when she heard a sharp scream from the same man who had just greeted her. He was screaming as he pulled off all his clothing. He pulled down his boxers and wriggled his waist at any woman who walked past him. Desire found herself unable to look away, while his suit, shirt, singlet, trousers and boxers lay on the ground, not far from where he now stood, laughing and pointing at the skies. He turned towards Desire and she saw the dry chest and pancake abdomen, which were a contrast to an unusually long penis that swung like the pendulum of a clock as he flounced onward with his briefcase. Desire slowed down as the man reached her and walked past, without recognising their earlier encounter. She looked at him as he flashed that impersonal smile which he was offering everyone who stared at him, like he knew something they did not. She stood on the spot with her mouth agape, her legs wobbling, and her heart beating like rain against a corrugated roof. It was one of those moments when words seemed inadequate to question the absurdity of such things. She was trying to understand what could have happened in those few minutes. Would her smile have saved him from whatever made him pull off his clothes? She thought of her mother and she felt a little fear creep up on her. Desire hurried to board the bus that arrived at the bus stop. She jumped on and it was only when she was seated that she asked where it was going.
On the bus, there was a talkative man who sat two seats away from her, who started a discussion on how bad the road was and how one day the potholes would become so big they would become gaps that would swallow them.
‘See, see, everywhere…’ The other passengers on the bus ignored him. It seemed there was a mutual agreement that it was too early in the day to join in bus conversations, until he declared, ‘I just want all of us to wake up one day and die.’
At first, there was silence, and then a rising murmur with one noticeably loud voice—a woman who responded, ‘Abi, this one has gone mad?’
As the woman mentioned the word ‘mad’ Desire felt her head swirl. She wanted to scream at the man to stop talking. Instead, she simply hoped that her eyes conveyed her irritation. He turned to her, ‘Aunty, you look like a learned somebody. The way you are looking at me, I see you understand my talk.’ He smiled, ‘Se, you are getting me?’
Desire looked up at the man. She wondered how to tell him how his tanned afro and the folded flesh around his cheeks made her angry. She sighed, dipped her hand in her bag and brought out a book. She bent over it, flipped to a page and pretended to read.