Basma likes Fendi

3 | Nightmare On Biyaji Street

•Bashir

I had to pretend the network was unstable to avoid exhausting my credit balance as it was only #50 I had left.

It was already raining so it was only believeable that it was the weather that was the cause of our 'man-made' problems.

Today was rather odd. After five years of irreverential friendship, I and soldierboy suddenly became best friends. He promised to give me a job as his personal assistant and get me out of the peripheral part of town that I live in.

I've known him since my university days. We were in different departments but his sister brought us together. One of my course mates was trying to take advantage of her behind the engineering building so I saved her and since then we'd been friends.

Normally, I had to be the one to make the calls and do the visiting since he was doing better than me financially. I tried to get close to him so we could become business partners in the future but he just turned a blind eye.

Two weeks ago, I even called him to ask for some money but he didn't answer my call. Since last week though, he has taken a slight interest in a friendship with me. He was even the person that sent me a part of the #150,000 I ended up spending on Basma.

I'm confused and delighted at the sudden changes in my life. My dreams could come true. Maybe Bash.Empires was meant to happen, eventually.

"Abeg Fareed pass the bowl make I soak my garri." I said to one of my flatmates.

"Aaah you no go take us go chop for restaurant?" He asked, confused.

All four of the inhabitants of this flat solely depend on me to feed. The only thing they provide is part of our rent.

I went ahead to fetch a few spoons of the garri into the ceramic bowl. I stretched for a sachet of pure water and ripped the left top corner with my teeth before pouring it's contents into the bowl.

Repeatedly, I did it, Fareed took a bowl from the kitchen and joined as well since he was  also just coming back from somewhere, then poured out the debris left on top before I poured a little more water, sugar and lastly, some nuts.

"Which restaurant? I don't have money. I took one girl to eat at a restaurant."

They didn't know that I had used the last #1000 I had to buy a bushel of garri, half a bushel of sugar, a few cups of nuts and a pure water bag that'll take us a few days, just before they get paid their salaries and I, the money my sister promised to send a few days from now.

He laughed, "You'll never change ko? Sha how far our rent na?"

"You no dey hear?! I no get money. Na beg I go beg landlord make him give use two weeks." I threw a spoonful of the garri into my mouth.

"Abeg tell the man that it's four weeks we need."

"You dey craze." I chuckled, "To even get two weeks was hard. Don't make him take his words back."

We ate in silence for the rest of the time till Kamal, Al-Hassan and Salman bursted in laughing, bringing an end to our blissful solitude. They were the noisiest of the group.

Kamal worked in the finance department of a private company that sold furniture. He had two wives in the village who didn't know he wasn't only in Abuja to look for money to take care of them but also to scout for other women he'd bring to the flat everytime. It'd have been worse if we didn't stop him.

Al-Hassan is the party god; he named his self that by the way.  He was a secretary in a secondary school. A very hard-working man but could be a monster during the weekend. It was as if he had a Hyde of his own that only appeared during the weekends. He would usually end up sleeping at a club and coming back early in the morning the next day or stay at his friends house till Sunday afternoon.