MUNA

Part 4 : THE MEDIA GIRL

Now that you're an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book. Or maybe you like to eat alone in restaurants and could do without the pitying looks from fellow diners. Or you're told that you're "in your head too much," a phrase that's often deployed against the quiet and cerebral.

Or maybe there's another word for such people: thinkers.

Muna's POV

It was the first week of September, and the city of Lagos was at it again with traffic. Honestly, the city always lives up to its nickname of traffic headquarters in the entire country, and it was said that, if you could survive as a Lagosian, nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible for you anymore.

To complete her one-year National Youth Service, after 3 weeks in camp, all corps members had to mandatorily work for 10 months in the organization you have been posted to.

It was sort of a duty to serve in Nigeria and the certificate you get to be awarded at the end of the service year was one of the required documents for job applications in the country, especially governmental positions.

Muna has been working as an on-air personality for five months now, and even though it was a dream of hers to have the attention of a large audience, especially on national television and radio, the stress of waking up early to prep for work, spending a dreadful 3–4 hours in traffic, and still having to be in a good mood while on air was beginning to make her doubt wanting this working-class lifestyle.

Sometimes suffering is just suffering. It doesn't make you stronger. It doesn't build character. It just hurts. She was in her early 20s but she was damn right overdue for her own ride.

She could drive already. Baby Girl didn't want to be a mechanic; she wanted to be a baller. Lol.

I'm guessing only tiktokers would get the joke in that line.

Anyways, Muna was lucky to have two days off in a week, so she could actually take a chill pill whenever she was off.

She barely let anyone know how much the stress of her work was for her, but it always showed in her countenance whenever she got back home from work.

"How was your show today, Som?"

Her mom would ask as she walked in. She was the only one who called Muna by that name, which is also an abbreviation of Muna's full name, Munachisom.

Her response was always, "Fine but hectic. Can we move back to Lagos now?"

Her mom always gave her the same answer: "Sorry, love. You already know the answer to that. Start adjusting."

"Okay, okay, mom."

Sometimes when her day was worse than it usually is, she would barely say hi to anyone.

"I'm tired of serving my country ah wtaf!"

She would often exclaim and slam her room door as she got in. She loved that she could have her private sad moments in her room, and no one would have access in until she wanted.

On a good day, when she went to her room, she would just fall on the bed and stay there for something that seemed like 30 minutes, before pulling herself together for a bath and then dinner.

Sometimes, when Muna had her bath, she took up to 40mins before she decides to step out into the world and this was because her bathing playlist had about roughly 32 songs in it, and she played at most 12-13 songs through her bathing journey.

That is roughly 3mins and some secs play time length per song, multiplied by 5 and there you have it, do the math.

Her Celine Dion moments in the bathroom were second to none. You had better not count on her to do anything for you before she goes to have her bath. She will fall your hand.

She skipped meals a lot. Ironically, she was always the one who asked her friends if they had eaten in every conversation, while she herself had not eaten.

One thing about Muna that nobody knew, was that she was a hopeless romantic. She was always drowning in the deep of fallacies and mysteries.

In her idle time, she was usually self-indulged in video games, movies and books that don't only portray the hand holding, lip touching, eye gazing, and word magic of love, but those books that caught her fancy reinforced the idea of love and not the reality of love.

As a result, the hopeless romantic stands face-to-face once again with unrequited love and bears the burden of the cycle.

Woe is the heart that burns while it beats and bleeds in the burrows of disbelief.

Unrequited love. Love was only something she could imagine perfectly and despite the unavoidable flaws that come with relationships, she dreaded the wet pillow, dark-soul dependence of unrequited love.

If we were to take the concept of unrequited love deeper, it is actually a really terrible feeling, because no love is ever really fully reciprocated. But what if love is reciprocated but it's not enough?

Would you rather be teased by the hope of getting more of something or have nothing at all? Honestly, Muna thought you have to be supernaturally blessed and divinely favored if you are lucky enough to find a friend who finds no fault and through hope, they find love, and with that love, they can't grow wrong.

Even when they fight, there is a space in their hearts where each of them belongs. With a mindset like this, Muna thought she would forever remain a weirdo and always be perceived as such if she were to explain her thoughts to another soul.

She spent most of her waking evening hours on TikTok, laughing , hearting, and commenting on her favourites. She later does some light reading on her laptop before calling it a day.

Her bedroom was mostly dimly lit and always shut. Her family had to call her if they had any need for her. The girl loved her own company.

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