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There isn’t anyone in this world without a problem. So when you dedicate time solving other people’s own, you must have understood the real law of happiness.

Wisdom!

Some people will simply define it as the application of acquired knowledge but I won’t totally agree with that ‘cos I’ve seen knowledgeable people run into disaster even in that area of their specialization just because of the lack of wisdom. The problems you are bound to go through and the avoidable challenges you are bound to run into without wisdom are innumerable.

If wisdom was like knowledge, what a really cool place to live in, this world would’ve been? Cos many people with the acquired knowledge on something walk around with raised shoulders and a very stupid smile on their faces, thinking (or knowing) they’re wiser than others. Some even mistake wisdom for cleverness. That might just be the topic for my next article, except something tells me its either going to be a waste of time and writing resources, or I’m going to receive more hate mails than I’ve ever done from some bunch of readers who I’ll have succeeded in confusing, rather than convincing on the separation of the various counterfeited definitions of wisdom and the separating line between wisdom and knowledge.

I picked up my phone and scrolled through my call log.

“Who exactly do I call first?” I thought to myself. “Lizzy who I’m supposed to have acknowledged the reception of her text, notifying me of our hangout plans and see if I can excuse myself since I have a few deadlines to meet up with, or Titi to apologize and either tell her I don’t know what she’s talking about by mincing and juicing words, using my intellectual and conversation powers to bamboozle her here and there; and exonerate myself or come plain and expose ‘believe’ and his secrets; including his present plan to make sure his secrets are kept secret or Kate the undercover agent to give her new directions to her assignment in hastily devising a pit to lead her new friend into, so as to clear the air and restore decorum and harmony while everyone gets back to the way their lives were before the start of all this twisted tale.

Interestingly, I was beginning to admire Kate’s seriousness or over-seriousness about this whole ‘mission’ thingy. That was either because she left me no choice or because I’ve realized that time is of the essence and her kind of seriousness might just be what exactly was needed to strategically journey out of the black tunnel. After all, I think I’ll just call the man behind the reason we’re in this dark tunnel in the first place. The man who was bold enough to flex a few hours of sex with his ex and the next thing is chickening out of the resulting stress and headache without even the courage to confront his fiancée and tell her what went down and what’s going to be the way forward.

“Stay away from your ex as far away as you can.” I once read from an article online but I would say if you’re wise enough to handle your emotional person and you’ve successfully trained yourself with quality self-control, staying away might just be equal to going the extra mile. It might not even be necessary, well, depending on what the cause of the breakup was in the first place ‘cos three out of every ten broken relationships didn’t end up in a rift. Also, one out of those three has the possibility of coming back together. Facts there, according to research. Don’t ask me whose.

I dialed Dave’s number.

“Howfar Jay?” The unusual huskiness of his voice made him sound like he just woke up or something was wrong with him.

“Sup bro?… Are you ok?” I asked expecting him to say he’s fine.

“I’m fine boss. How’s work?… Any new article or topic on your forum for me to feast my mind?”

“Hold on. I’ll call you back in less than a minute.”

I hung up and immediately forwarded Titi’s text to him, waited a few seconds for him to call me back and he did.

“Ha!… What do I do now?” He exclaimed and I could see his very worried look from his picture in my mind.

“What you should’ve done a long time ago to save yourself from this kinda drama. You simply wanted to eat your cake and have it and you should know it’s gonna puke you. I told you to confront this situation like a man. Worst case scenario is Titi breaking up with you.”

“That’s exactly what I’ll like to avoid. Don’t you get? Believe me, Titi breaking up with me would just be the beginning of a whole lot of chain of events that I can trade the world to avoid.”

“You don’t have much of a choice now do you?”

“I guess I don’t.” He sounded very cold and calm “I’ll face the music. I’ll tell her as soon as she comes back from where she went to. Funny thing is she sent that message to you, without even showing any sign to me. I guess she wanted to catch me unawares. Thanks Jay, you are a friend indeed”.

“Do what you have to do sir.” I didn’t have time to absorb pleasantries

I hung up feeling a bit relieved and a bit skeptical. Dave won’t be saying he’ll confess for the first time, I just hope this time, it’s for real.

I would’ve been in this same situation, had I given in to Titi’s promiscuous antics and seductive anticipation. Emotionally, men are pawns on the chess board and women are the queens ‘cos they have been given the lion share of the power to take the emotional pathway into a man’s head. My mum would say: “When sex related issues are concerned, a man could be smaller than a fly in the hands of a woman.”

I’ve never really come to the full understanding of that statement but how could sex make a full grown man smaller than a fly?… How could sex make a fragile creature that powerful and authoritative? Whatever it meant, I won’t want to be the descriptive specimen.

I dialed Kate’s number.

“Whatssup Jay?”

The calmness and unusual chill in Kate’s voice was a bit more disturbing than the way Dave’s voice sounded initially. Immediately, in a split second, I tried weighing up options of what could’ve gone wrong but couldn’t set my pointer down on any option.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes sir… Just observing my once in blue moon siesta. I’m sorry for sleeping on duty.”

“Oh… No problem” I breathed a sigh of relief, since it wasn’t more than sleepy voice. Although my instincts told me to make the conversation as brief as possible. “I just said I should check on you and know how well the mission is going”

“Everything is in shape. She told me she should be traveling anytime from tomorrow.”

“Good… Alright. Take care.”

“Wait!” She cut in just as I was about to hang up.

“Yes?”

“Who’s the lady we’re doing this for?… I mean who is Dave’s fiancée?”

My heart skipped a bit. This was the very question I was happy that she didn’t ask all along. Kate must never know she was working to save Titi’s relationship. It would mean the end of the mission.

“Errr… Ehmm… Don’t worry about that. When you meet Dave, which is pretty soon, you’ll meet her too”.

“There won’t be any need for that Jay. I know who it is and why you never wanted to tell me.”

I swallowed air for a few seconds while I frantically stopped my voice from fading out. I succeeded.

“Sorry. I thought…”

“It’s cool though. I don’t live on the past. Whatever happened is gone, and it is not even like I’m proud of what I did back then. June was talking about her and I kinda went deeper and found out it was her. I’m not the kind of person that’ll allow past differences affect my present status. More so, it might be a chance at being able to apologize for the trouble I caused her back then. You get?”

“Yea. I get.” I replied calmly.

“So is there any update to the mission or I can carry on sir.” She sounded brighter and better than when she picked up the phone

“Errr… No but update coming in soon. In the meantime, well done agent. Thumbs up!”

I hung up, feeling like a heavy weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t know if I should feel sad for Kate ‘cos of what she just said or to feel happy ‘cos there’s no problem of hiding anything from her anymore.

“Well, its all good.” I said to myself, as I shrugged and grabbed my phone again.

I dialed Lizzy’s number.

“Are you a wizard Jay?… I was just about calling you.” Even with the seemingly receptive sentence, Lizzy’s voice sounded like she was about sleeping or tired.

“Oh really?… Sorry I’m just calling you. Are you okay dear?”

“Hmm… Yea. I just finished some chores and I also had to put some things in place for… No. I’ve said too much. When are you coming?… Or aren’t we going out again?”

“Errmm…” I thought of the best way to put it that I won’t be able to make time for any outing due to my deadlines.

“Pleaseeeeeeee?!”

“Ok I’ll be on my way in a quarter. I’ll be over there soon.” She did that thing with her voice again.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” She sounded so excited like she had something up her sleeves and that further fueled my curiosity. I made my way to the bathroom and in less than a quarter of an hour, I was already in my car, ready to find out what was getting her all worked up and agitated.

                          ****************

The surroundings oozed a very fresh air and the level of serenity was always something I wished I could put in my car anytime I was leaving the estate Lizzy lived in. I pressed the doorbell again and the door opened.

“How are you?” I looked down to meet Dorothy’s gaze with a broad smile on my face and before she could reply, I lifted her up in my arms, walked in and shut the door behind me.

“I’m fine uncle Jay.” I felt a cold chill run down my spine at the realization that Tammy was wearing a white round neck, jean short and white slips. Just what she wore in the nasty dream I had.

I smiled.

“Where’s your mummy?”

“She’s having her bath. She’s coming. She said we’re going out & me I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want to miss spongebob”

“Where did she say we are going to, dear?”

“I don’t know for her o. I’m just not going”

I sat down and Dorothy quickly went to fetch her painting book. I called it “jargon book” in my mind and as was her habit, she began taking me through her album of painting. Her diagrams sucked but the colours amazed me. I was enjoying her fluent flow and the way she had no trouble in carrying me along – she always had a story line for all her drawings. A hand came from behind and covered my eyes in the typical “guess who” fashion.

“Tammy I know it’s you. You can remove your hands now before your mum comes here and gets jealous”

Liz couldn’t hold her laughter and she punched me on my shoulder. We exchanged compliments, she gave me a quick and slight kiss and told Tammy to go return her drawing book and take her clutch bag.

“We’re going somewhere different today. Kudos to my creativity.” She said, all smiles.

“Where are we going and why does it have to…”

Before I could finish the sentence, Lizzy grabbed my hand and led me out of the house, towards her car and we made straight for the trunk. She opened it and the contents really disturbed me – Food flasks, Cooler, two bottles of wine, desserts, a transparent dish containing small chops and a mat at the extreme end of the trunk.

“Tada!… We’re going for a picnic.” She smiled.

I staggered backwards, slammed the trunk lid shot and immediately felt kind of dizzy.

“Its not gonna happen.” I murmured.

The moment you realize that all the people in your life have a role to play – both good and bad, you’ll understand that happiness was never about getting a person. They are only a help-mate towards achieving your life mission.