.
Femi woke up facing the grey roof again. It was the up tenth time in just two weeks and right now with a tame ray of the sun making a direct contact with his blanket and slightly with his left cheek through the open window of the motorhome. He knew the huge risk it was for him to have kept the windows open throughout the night, at least it would have been too easy for a group of scavenging teenagers to have sneaked in, beat him to a pulp and tie him like festive goat to the only couch in the room before making away with whatever is left of his valuables, which seemed even more golden being surrounded by the quite mountains and woods, but since he had already tried many times in previous weeks to end his own life, any harm done to him by any other human being would seem fair to him. Even now, after being awaken into such bright morning he still wanted to die, and anyway, he was still really going to die anytime soon.
.
Despite the sun, it felt a bit cold under the blanket and he knew it will be colder outside. The best time to live in the woods is never in mid January, at least not in this tropical woods of Akure, which even without the harmattan is forever exposed to the excess of nature and now to the extreme of harmattan. But he loved it. Every bit of it.
.
He had always imagined how great the new year would be. Becoming a newly wedded and successful young man; going out every morning with the kiss and grace of his love and coming back in the evening to the same lover's embrace; being treated like a king in his own house; the pride of being someone else's husband; the rock of a new home; his company's director and oh sweet Lord knows how much he had tossed for long, late on his bed three months earlier thinking about how wonderful the whole year would be but just then, the deed was done, leaving him with numerous unanswered questions.
.
His fiancée had died in an auto crash along the Lagos -Ibadan high way just three days before their wedding and to him, everything can't just get right or how else or why will it? He can't even put himself to think anything good anymore and this cold, yeah the tropical harmattan is what seem best for him at least that was what God, if not even worse, seemed to want for him as well.....
TO BE CONTINUED.
