Sometimes I wished I possessed magical powers, then I would control my world and make it 'perfect' according to my standards. Stanley first made me wish for this.
Source
After moving out of the apartment I rented during my first year at the university, I decided to move in with my brother for some time before I went house hunting again. I had hired a tricycle to help pack my luggage to my brother's house and was offloading them when power was restored to that vicinity. Shouts of "Up NEPA" rang through the air bringing a smile to my lips, but not for long.
As I took my bags in, I could hear loud music booming from the house directly beside my brother's with a male voice attempting to sing above the music, creating deafening noise. When I took all my bags in, I phoned my brother.
"Treasure, are you home already?" I answered in the affirmative then proceeded to ask if I could knock on his neighbor's door to say he was almost shattering my eardrums. My brother laughed.
"How do you think he's going to hear you over such loud music? My neighbors and I have attempted knocking on his house severally when he's in one of those excited moods but well, he never answers".
I could not believe my ears. Coming from an environment where everyone exchanged only greetings as a form of communication and one hardly knew when the other was at home, I found it quite difficult to settle into the apartment. I only found peace when the power supply was seized again.
Since I went to classes and only stayed at home during the weekends, I never saw Stanley but remembered his existence every time there was a power supply, even at night.
On one of those weekends, I noticed it was oddly quiet as I did my laundry within the compound and since I enjoyed the solitude for some time, I thought I was alone in the compound. I drifted off into the world of imagination, allowing my thoughts to be the only sound filling my head when I suddenly heard someone call "Babygirl!" so loudly, it made my heart stop and then race wildly.
I turned around to see a young man with bloodshot eyes and a haphazard appearance staring at me from the balcony just next to my brother's house.
I was so petrified, I didn't move for an entire minute.
"It seems I have startled you, I've been calling you for some time and you didn't hear that's why I shouted like that." He said in pidgin English.
"Calling me for what?" The words tumbled out before I could control myself. He shrugged never taking his eyes off me for even a second.
"I just wanted to greet you, it seems you're new around here."
I don't know how I didn't explode into an angry fit or why I simply took my empty bucket, walked past him like we were not in the middle of a conversation, and went straight into my brother's apartment, but what I did know was that I had finally met Stanley. And I didn't like him.
I reported the incident to my older brother when he returned from work. Surprisingly, that was when I displayed the rage I felt, ranting and raving like I was going to bring the house down. My brother tried his best to calm me down, then told me to make him understand that I do not appreciate him sneaking up on me or yelling me into frightening consciousness if such an occurrence ever repeated itself. It didn't take long.
I was returning home from school exhausted and famished one evening, the compound was quiet as it usually was when Stanley was sleeping or had gone out...Just as I was about to walk past his apartment to my brother's house, I stopped right in my tracks. Someone had called my name so loudly, that it shook my entire frame.
I whirled around with fury in my eyes and I was sure he saw it before I spoke because the grin he had on his face wiped off immediately I turned to him.
"What is your problem?"
His sudden calmness made me grit my teeth, wishing I could tell him everything I had to say without mincing words.
"Welcome," he said as an afterthought.
"Let me warn you, do not ever yell my name like that again. Ever. Do you know how much you startle me when you do that? I do not appreciate it, especially when you have nothing to say." I felt it was not enough, but my message had been passed so I walked away into my house. My brother was home and had heard everything.
"That guy needs someone to teach him a lesson, I wonder if this is how they behave in their house or if he lost his home training on his way down here," my brother said sympathizing with me.
Stanley and I didn't get to speak again throughout my stay in my brother's house but he didn't relent with his loud music and well, I had to get used to that part.
I do not live in that environment anymore, and I am grateful to have left such a place where you wished that power supply be seized just so you could have peace, read, or do something worthwhile with your mind.