Revolt

14. Blind Spot

“Our perception could either be our path to nirvana, or an invisible cage that bottles us up.” – Pawan Mishra.

•••

“Damn, I’d say I’m proud of you because I indeed nudged you in this direction, but you’re not my son or anything, and I feel bad for anyone that’s related to you, so…we’d get back to that.”

Sultan snickered, as he paced round Lekan’s office—taking in the entire scenery. Lekan hadn’t gotten a forewarning, his friend would be showing up or else he’d have prepared his mind to tolerate an endless stream of jibes and slurs, but currently he wasn’t exactly in the mood. As Sultan paced round the room, he remained on his feet behind his desk, with his arms folded, monitoring his visitor as if he was a toddler, that could wreak serious damage on the orderliness and things in the room, if not scrutinized.

Sultan was dressed casually in a pale green turtle neck sweater, black slim jeans and gladiator sandals. It was a Friday, so it made sense for the man not to be in his usual corporate kit-up, and since he ran a business—a club that was usually bursting to the seams with activity mostly on the weekends, it made sense for him to look less authoritative, and more casual. His dreads also fell freely to his shoulders, and weren’t packed into a bun as they usually were. If Sultan was any fairer in complexion than he was, he’d look like a half-caste.

“What the hell are you doing here, anyway?” Lekan growled, stepping out of his desk and descending the stairwell to meet his friend on level ground. “We both know you’re not here to provide moral support, or check up on me or something. If your mission, is to come all the way here just to say you were right, and I was wrong—then we might as well get it over with, or postpone it. I have to close up shop soon, because I have somewhere to be.”

“Tsk, Tsk, Tsk. You underestimate the love I have for you.” Sultan replied, his voiced dripping all over in sarcasm. He was now inspecting the wine cabinet, wedged into the wall—behind the left wicker chair in the room. He then attempted to unlock it, causing a smug grin to smear Lekan’s face. There was indeed a pass-code, needed to access the cupboard like a vault. It brought him joy, that his friend wouldn’t be able to have his way with it.

“Really? You lock up the wine in your office?” Sultan shook his head, as he struggled with the handle of the furniture. “What’s the point of having Wine in your office, when you’re hoarding it to yourself and your visitors can’t roam around freely to entertain themselves. It doesn’t help a casual setting, if you make potential business partners that you have over, believe that they have to go through you to get the wine, man.”

Lekan shrugged. “Leave it like that, I’m not complaining. This is an office, not a bar.”

“I feared this would happen. Business has made you less fun.” Sultan sighed, letting his grip dissolve on the shelf, before retracing his steps back to the center table, where Lekan was standing. “God knows that I’d kill for this type of office space in the club, though. And damn, look at this ceiling…”

His friend trailed off, admiring the aesthetic design integrated into the ceiling. “It’s like we’re underwater, as in an underwater world. Atlantis ish.” He paused, and made another 360-degree turn, with his gaze halting on Naade’s station—situated at the entrance. “That’s the desk of the fair chick, that directed me here right? She’s your secretary?”

Lekan shook his head. “Nope, my partner actually. She was doing my job before I got here, and now we’re doing it together. She’d go back to doing it herself, when my dad retires and I take over from him.”

Sultan nodded, and then faced him again. “I’m sure you’re screwing her brains out, already. How many times have you guys gone at it?”

Lekan grunted. “Sultan, please—”