Synchronized Hearts

Chapter-one

Whoever said life is not a bed of roses must have studied it critically from a broader view and successfully captured the raw factuality in a few words. Life is a chemistry set. Reactions waiting to be discovered, full of experiments and surprises. The mind must take what it is given and make best of it, never losing hope that more beauty will come.

For an organized and consciously meticulous person, I have had my whole life planned out. Graduate at the age of twenty, work and become a millionaire by twenty-three, get married by twenty-five. Have two kids by thirty and tour the whole world with my family. A perfect and organized plan indeed. But not until life decided to strike me with its own trials and tribulations, shatter my extremely thought out plan, leaving me in a puddle of a mess as I try to pick up my pieces.

Not in my twenty-three years of existence did I imagine that within the span of eight months, I would have swept the entire streets of Lagos clean with my feet and worn out my heels all in the name of searching for a job. If someone had prophesied this to me, I would have laughed in their faces and spat on their cheeks in rejection.

I have applied to various media houses. Film industry, advertisement companies, photography, television and radio production, and all I got in response was they will get back to me. When in Jupiter's name do they intend getting back to me?

The last straw that broke the camel's back was when I went for an interview in a media house and they gave me the job to work at a plantain factory? Who does that? When did mass communication ever affiliate with plantain factories? Plain cruelty in my words. Ever since then, I have been on the lookout for jobs in any company with good pay.

I have a mother that keeps pestering me about marriage, a cheating and a lazy boyfriend whose sole responsibility and goal in life is to sleep on all things in skirt before he dies. He eventually ends up apologizing and pleading for forgiveness till I welcome him back in a warm embrace. Quite stupid of me, I know but boyfriend just happens to be the last thing on my mind.

I have a teenage brother who finished high school two years ago and is yet to gain admission to study his dream profession, Law. Because of the fucked up educational system in the country. Nigeria. He is currently depressed and has assumed that he is a failure.

"Tife, when are you leaving? I want you to drop me off at work." My childhood best friend hollered from the living room.

"In the next ten minutes," I replied. She currently has accommodation problems and she is squatting with me. Harriet Unegbu is your regular fashionista with a mouth as blunt as a razor blade. She says things how she sees things without sugar-coating words.

I searched my surroundings frantically trying to ensure I forgot nothing. I once went for an interview two months ago, having sat for three hours, I was finally told to go in and at that moment I realized I forgot my résumé. I did my walk of shame with my head bowed and swore never to make such a mistake ever.

Résumé? Check. Car key? Check. Phones? Check. Wallet? Nowhere to be found.

I rushed to my laundry basket to pick up the wallet I left in my previously worn cocktail gown and left the room.

The time is currently 8am and I plan to beat the usual Monday morning traffic on the mainland. I live in a small bungalow, I inherited from my late dad's property. Isolo-Ikeja, Lagos. And I'm currently heading to a telecommunication company in Surulere, where I have an interview to attend. It is a thirty-minute drive, to be honest, but Monday morning traffic can make one spend two hours on the road.

"Since morning, you should have slept in your room and wait for me to chase you out." Harriet hissed and picked up her designer leather bag as she sashayed towards the garage.