Emeka, The Writer and The SSO

Chapter One

After a couple of minutes of hard scribbling into my journal, I finally put my pencil down. I had been half listening to what the official was saying, he had been rambling for the past half hour about how we hated to complete our daily quota and how we would be severely punished if we didn't finish this one, on top of the one he had given us yesterday. Nothing I hadn't heard before.

The bell rang ending that session and the official stepped down from the podium and walked of to the elevator, giving us a few minutes to rest before the next official came in. I cleared my techni-pad, not bothering to even save, a habit I had developed since I left Early SO. I leaned back in my chair and turned to face Ikenna, the person sitting beside me.

"Ikenna,"I called."What was he saying, what's today quota?"

Ikenna sighed. "Emeka why you no dey listen? He said that if we don't complete all our outstanding quotas we would spend 30 minutes with him in the box."

I considered this carefully, what he would say next would determine whether or not I would do it.

"Ehen," I inquired. " What about today's quota? How much is it?"

"He said we should make 300 G-Pen design diagrams."

"Ahn ahn, plus the 230 S-Car diagrams?" I cried, Ikenna nodded.

"But that's too much na." I hissed. "This man should gree me, abeg. Anyone I give him he should accept."

Ikenna looked at me dumbfounded. He shook his head.

"Omo, guy you get liver. 30 minutes in the box with that man, tufiakwa." He rebuked. " I no fit try that kind thing."

The sharp vibration of my techni-pad informed me, fortunately that today's session would end soon. That meant we won't be visited by any other official today. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was already running on empty having been up all night for the past three nights trying to complete all my map making quotas, thankfully I was finally done. Some times I wonder, why do officials give quotas like their life depends on it? In a single day we could get up to a thousand quotas per discipline, and that was on an average day.

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes and let my mind wonder, how I  was going to do the quotas given to me. 300 quotas and that was only from the diagram sub-discipline. I almost sighed aloud.

I must have dozed off at some point, because the next thing I know the ending bell is ringing and I'm shuffling along with everybody else into the Middle SO elevators, trying to get out of the building as fast as they could. As I descended past the Early SOs my mind went back to my Early SO days and I felt nostalgic. But that didn't last long, we zoomed past and soon the elevator reached the exit floor.

I stood in front the SSO building waiting for my taxi to arrive, the sun setting to my right. It was almost time for the building lights to come on and for the real work to begin. Soon the Late SOs would trickle in from other places. Their homes, abroad, secret cult hide outs and begin to work till sunrise, then they'll leave again. Nobody knew exactly what went on up there, except maybe the Late SOs and the officials, who themselves are Late SO. But rumors spread like wildfire.

They pulled into the SSO garage, each one sporting a different car or vehicle, showing off their different tastes and levels of wealth. Wealth it had taken most of them their lives to get. I didn't envy them, it was their lives after all, they did with it what they wanted. I was content with the work I did and what I got from it.

For some unknown reason I caught the attention of a Late SO, driving a sleek black car. He broke off from the line of vehicles and drove slowly towards me. The heavily tinted glass slowly wound down and the man behind the wheel beamed me a smile.

"Hey brother," he called out to me from his air conditioned car,"Why haven't you began to head inside yet?" He looked at me expecting an answer.

"I'm sorry but I think you've mistaken me for someone else." I had to admit, I had never gone this late before. I glanced at my watch, 8:17. But I knew some people who had and this didn't match up with their stories. I watched the man as he considered what I said. Then he turned back to me.

"If you're not who I think you are, then who are you?" He seemed happy with himself for coming up with that. He smiled again.

"I'm a Middle SO."

He laughed at my answer. "I don't mean your level, I meant your name. I'm Abioye." He stretched out his hand to shake it. I considered it for a short before I shook. There was no harm in making a friend. "I'm Emeka."

"So Emeka, what's supping? What are you waiting for?" 

"I called taxi how many minutes ago, but up till now he still hasn't arrived." He considered it a while.

"How about I drive you home?" I laughed. 

"Are you sure you want to do that? From here to my house is like journey."

"How far can it be? Enter let me drive you there."

"It is a two hour journey." 

That spoiled his good mood. The soft hum of his car was barely audible over the silence that was in the air and the headlights casted a beautiful light on the stark black wall of the SSO building, it's orange lights flowing up.

"A whole two hours?" He exclaimed." Where do you live? Calabar village?" 

I did in fact live in Calabar village not because there were no available buildings nearby, but because of the quiet bush surrounding that section of the city. It had a calming effect on my soul after after a hard day of fraying in the SSO machanism. Sure it was a real pain going from home to work and then back, the calm and quiet I was rewarded with everytime I came back was enough to make the journey worth while. I nodded.

"Well the meeting's not going to start for another 3 or 4 hours. And even if it does, I'm no stranger to going late. Get in the car let's go."

I tentatively got into the seat beside him and shut the door. He revved the car and backed out of the compound before he shot off in the direction of Calabar village.

A/N: I know the last two stories were a bust, but I promise this one will have an end. Also please don't forget to vote and comment and share.

e0f975f902418140eec367d1c4af772a

I'm serializing this work on Webnovel. Head over to Webnovel for the other chapter updates! https://www.webnovel.com