King of Spades

The Long Night 1

A hall, a large hall shaking its head to a notoriously overblown human reactions and smelling like a conflated Chinese bouquet spoiled by a rain of stinkingly rich Hausa perfumes; oh goodness me, only God knows what that will taste like on the human's sensitive ears. People, a lot of people having a loud yet ludicrously alluring sound feasting on the sensitivities of their earlobes; are here from far and near to witness the Kamu, a Hausa traditional pre-wedding event, of Farid and Farida.

In the midst of it all, a guy; a fairly tall, and what ladies refer to as "chocolate in complexion" guy stands, like a lone wolf shining like a group of stars seen from a well-polished magnifying glass. Salim Suleiman is a household name in Northern Nigeria. He is an MC per excellence, collecting millions to perform at events and earning a great youthful followership that has bought to his idea and that of his childhood friend Jay, a musician, of a "Pussy, Money, Weed" and a "Young, Wild and Free" life.

"... And now with the clock ticking and only a closing prayer from concluding what has been a wonderful time with y'all!"

"This wonderful time is about to get even more wonderful for all the beautiful single ladies here today..."

The youths in the hall cheer without being asked to while the older people look in amusement; this difference of ideals between the young and the older generation is mostly seen whenever Slim, as he is widely called, is performing.

"To all the young ladies here today that want to have a similarly interesting wedding as this one... This is your moment, this is your time to give dem boys a wow moment, this is your time to make a mark on this event, this is your time to get on this floor and make it shine... Let's make it shine, ladies! Come up here, crème de la crème. Come up here... Let's do something for the gram!"

His eyes ferry his controlled spirit to the East and then to the South, then to the West and to the North like an overconfident General moving an overambitious pawn too far away into enemy territory in a game of chess, but out the girls came, almost as if in competition with one another.

"Fine boys like us, we no too dey follow women..."

"Na dem dey rush us! Na dem dey rush us!" The guys in the hall completed his sentence.

They arrange themselves in a curvy line with their backs facing the seated bride and groom and faces smiling to what a younger Salim would say "the scanners below my Eyebrows." The fair, the not so fair, the dark, the not so dark, they came and surely, they will dazzle him or the crowd, or both.

"Ladies and gentlemen! I present to you a Rolls Royce of the finest works of nature, a Rolls Royce of sumptuous beings, a Rolls Royce of Ladies... with me as the driver, of course! We are next in line in doing the getting married thing" he laughs cheekily.

A loud shout of "Kunji direban mata" is heard from among a section of boys seated in the crowd and the hall erupts with laughter and confusion as to what Slim is going to do with the girls.

He sends a dark-skinned girl with a flat chest away then calls her back immediately after she turns and he sees her hips. "Wasa nake miki" he said in an accent that will make you believe he is a white man over-confidently trying to speak a foreign language in the hope of wooing a woman, this is followed by a sheepish grin that depicts a man buried in the gaiety of the moment.

"There is something about females that despite my elephantine experience with them, I still cannot fathom, They came out here on my request and without my help they have managed to form the kind of sight I was praying we will avoid; a rainbow, the kind of which dreams are made of... sparkling and nerve calming."

With his Arab-like face making its way to the centre of this delicacy.

"They are like the physical embodiment of the Nursery Rhyme 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' and guys, Farid has gotten his twinkling star, when are we going to get ours? What are you doing with our lives? Why have you let Slim to carry all the girls even though I don't feel like I can marry them all"