Ex Gratia (#1 EX TRILOGY)

Chapter 2

Akoma was a wedding planner with an exceptional indigenous style that made any of her works a hybrid of Western and African influences. When often asked the reason for her choice, she would simply reply that she just felt being annoying was the most sure way of bringing attention to yourself in the 21st century, and that was true to a very large extent. "Art that gets people taking sides, debating, commenting and expressing their sentiments and perspectives has succeeded in obtaining some recognition effortlessly," she would say.

"Oh I see. That's cool," her recent acquaintance on the phone replied with a chuckle. His name was Rich. Both of them had exchanged contacts after Akoma had done an exquisite wedding for his sister the previous month.
Since that time both of them had been talking a lot and they were getting quite close to each other time after time. Akoma was not the typical lady you could lasso with words in just one meeting and an iPhone 7 and walk away with her like a a trophy. She had spent years weaving a nuisance of a dome around her to keep "scavengers" off (as she mostly called men who pursued her).

Interestingly, this Rich had turned out to be the only male friend who seemed to have effortlessly walked through the dome without breaking the wall, but had just phased through by just keeping her engaged with subjects she was overly enthused about.

"So when am I seeing you?" Akoma asked, and instantly she bit her lip and shut her eyes in shame. 'Oh dear,' she thought. 'He is going to think I'm drooling over him. I hate that.' She sank into her bed and kicked off her heels. The rains had stopped and it had not taken her more than an hour to return to her apartment.

"I don't think you really want to see me soon enough," Rich replied. "You're pulling my legs."

Akoma smirked. "Tickle yourself, Rich. Are you trying to get me to say something you'd like to hear?"

"Humour me. I'd seriously like to find out."

Akoma grinned. Rich had this voice that felt comfortable to listen to, more like an English male voice talent from an SHS English Oral Lessons tape. She felt it was far from charming. "OK. You're making me uncomfortable. Let's change the subject."

"What do you want us to talk about?"

"Eeeerm - let's talk about weddings."

Rich snorted. "We talked about weddings last night till daybreak. You sure about this?"

Akoma looked up at the clock. 7:56pm. She slapped her forehead and rolled over to lie on her belly. She felt Rich was obviously trying to remind her how glued to him she was becoming, but she was not prepared to succumb to that.

"Sly fox", she muttered. "Are you sure we talked all night about just weddings? You talked about something else. That 'thing'."

"What 'thing'?"

"The 'thing' that we were all so excited about. I found it uncomfortable. I mean -" she sat up quickly. "How on earth do we get to talk about such a 'thing' at such an early stage of friendship? Weird."

"Well, the 'thing' is naturally and generally appealing, so it's hard to end a topic like that so abruptly. Trust me."

Akoma sighed. "So you think we should talk about the 'thing' again?"

"Yuck! Cut it. I'm tired of hearing 'distin'. It sounds too -" Rich started to fumble with the best adjective to use.

Akoma stifled a laughter and blurted out "'This thing'?" Both of them burst into laughter.

Akoma heard a silent click sound from the window and paused for a moment to listen. Few seconds later, she realized it was the tick tock of the clock on the wall and shook her head.

"Akoma, are you there?"

"Oh yes, yes. Sorry. I was -" she listened again for the sound and glanced at the windows to find nothing. She shrugged and continued the conversation.

The click sound had come from a camera outside the window, and the person carrying it pushed down the cap over his eyes, replaced the camera into its bag and turned off the digital recorder lying on the windowsill.