"I know we dreamt of these things, but now it seems like your standards are too high."
Adira Archibong wants to be a supermodel, but as she steps into a world of money, fame, and sex, she learns that the only people she can trust are her friends.
...
"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another." - Ernest Hemingway.
When Adira was far below the average height, about two feet and a few inches, she watched a fellow human being torture and kill one of its own. It was one of the scariest things she'd ever seen in her life. Her mother had warned her about it. Her mother warned her about a lot of things but as usual, she never listened. She couldn't bring herself to sleep for days and when she finally did, she had nightmares.
They didn't make movies like that anymore.
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It was a hot Saturday afternoon, but then, if Adira recalled, there wasn't a cold one. There were breezy some days, but not cold. And though it was a rainy season, when the sun came out, it felt as if it was the dry season all over again.
The sun was almost skinning her alive, burning into her skin as she protected her face with the palm of her hand. It was 10:00 AM and she was heading to the market.
She waited patiently under a mango tree for a bus, since it took her straight to her location.
"Mile one! Mile one! Mile one!" a bus conductor wailed frantically, pounding the body of the bus rhythmically.
Adira waved her hand at the incoming bus and it immediately came to a halt. She climbed steadily into it, greeting every older passenger her eyes rested on.
She found a seat close to the window and rested her small body on it. After then, she retrieved her market list to see if she got everything she and her family needed on the piece of paper. Being content with what she had read, she pushed the paper into her trouser pocket and rested her head on the window frame.
The breeze that blew on her ears was hot and devouring. The only good thing it brought was the unabridged silence that matched the refreshing sound and voice of Eddy Grant as his song Hope played on the radio.
Minutes after minutes the bus conductor rasped the top of the bus twice to either collect move or to remove passengers. When it was her turned, she collected five hundred naira note from her purse and handed it to the man. He eyed her genuinely then grinned. She returned the smile.
Port Harcourt was a very beautiful place and the very market she arrived at brought back so many memories. The memory of wanting to grow up so fast, the memory of freedom, and self-experience.
When Adira was a teenager, she had an inevitable longing for freedom and adventure, but being the only child (at that time), her parents protected her so much that sometimes she forgot how to be alive. One day she dared herself to be adventurous even if it was for one day.
It was like one of those pagan love that was only read about in novels that were so dangerous and hopeless. It was like a love that was bound to never even exist, but the protagonist still took faith in it.
