Story Berry VIII- Thank God It's Frinay

Shalewa Marquis stepped into her day grumpy. It was an auspicious day: the sky was azure with the sun glowing in its belly, friendly and full; the palm trees on the far left corner of her apartment swayed their praises; the muddy puddle on the pathway from her house rippled around the insects that darted across its surface- her mother had always warned her as a child never to step in such dirty waters. She claimed her toes would rot if she did. She grew with a dread for water bodies and though she was now grown and wise enough to know that was untrue, a tiny pack of cells in her brain rattled in warning as she drew closer to the puddle-; and most of all it was a Friday morning. Friday was her happiest day of the week. It was the day that ushered everyone out of five endless days of toil into a period of reward, albeit short-lived and there was also a new episode of something from her favorite YouTube channel, Ndani TV. But today, the TGIF euphoria eluded her for a reason she didn’t know. This Friday just wasn’t the typical Friyay!, it seemed instead to be a Frinay.
She wasn’t on her period. She had a wonderful quiet time that morning. She hadn’t had an argument with her fiancé, Tofunmi. What then?
She decided to take her mind off her mood, and set it on Christ. She would not let her emotions control her.
“Shalewa you are not obliged to live according to the dictates of your flesh. You live a life led by the Spirit” She whispered to herself.
Talking to herself was a habit she needed to stop. When Tare said it made her appear like a lunatic she had flown off the handle. Why would she compare her to mad person? But the day she saw someone else saunter on the road having a conversation with himself, she knew Tare had only said the truth. Seeing the pot-bellied, stout bottle of a man do what she often did made her wonder what she actually looked like every time she did the same thing. Did she come across to everyone as weird?
She looked around, self-aware and sighed when she saw no one staring in her direction.
****
When the driver of the bus Shalewa boarded on her way to work turned off the road to an unfamiliar route, Shalewa was alarmed. She looked around and she seemed to have been the only person bothered. The bespectacled guy to her left was buried in his phone, the portly woman directly in front of her was dozing, and the lady beside her was disgusted at the way the woman’s head drooped into her shoulder every now and again. Everyone just seemed to be occupied with something. Too occupied to see that the driver was taking a detour. The suited man to her left was staring through the windshield but he didn’t seem perturbed. But she was.
“Driver, why are you turning here?”
Her words seemed to have snapped everyone back to the present. Everyone started questioning the driver at once.
“There’s traffic ahead. I’m taking a shorter route” The driver responded crisply.
She thought he was too articulate for a driver. The suited man by her left sat ramrod straight, still staring through the windscreen.
Shalewa’s heart jackhammered.
The vehicle moved through a sub urban neighbourhood and along a narrow path flanked by bushes. The bus angled and jounced on the rough roads, eliciting sighs and groans from disgruntled passengers.
“I want to drop here” She said, clutching her hand bag.
The driver ignored her until the man sitting next to him shouted, “You no hear? Person wan drop here”
The driver raised a protest. She said she was going to drop at Palmgroove, why would she drop along the way? With every passing second, the alarm bells in her head rang louder. She started praying in tongues under her breath.
The suited man glowered at her before he spoke: “Let her get down”
The driver stopped the bus. The minute the conductor opened the door, Shalewa opened her mouth, defying her brain.
“Everyone get out of this vehicle now!”
She jumped out and took to her heels immediately, flinging her heels into the bush; but not before she saw the man in suit unsheathe a knife and the conductor pull out a gun. As she ran, screaming at the top of her lungs, she heard screams, a deafening gun shot. More screams. Hurried footfalls in all directions.
She could hear the driver bark ever so crisply, “Everyone get back in the car!”
Shalewa didn’t look back, she kept running in the bush. She heard more gun shots, one sounded so close, a bullet wheezed right past her face into a tree. She heard more yelps, more belting of orders. She didn’t stop running when her feet became sore, didn’t stop when she stepped on a thorn, she didn’t stop when her lungs burned and begged for air. Shalewa Marquis only stopped when she saw a house with moulds and cracks on its wall, and a woman with a wrapper cinch over her towering breasts.
“Help me” Shalewa uttered inaudibly, giving herself over to gravity.
****
With the precarious state of security in this nation, we as believers repose our faith in his promises. He that watches over Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers. We are safe in the hollow of his hands.
Let’s keep at interceding for our beloved nation. We should not be discouraged. God still hears prayers and God cares about Nigeria