#BlogFest #50DaysCountDownTo2015 – Day 01. Written by Adewoyin Joseph A.

A soft voice reached me from a distance, though not strong enough to bother me. I was in a state that felt great, but I couldn’t describe it. The voice got louder and harsher as a masculine voice chipped in an inglorious roughness, dragging me from my unknown state to what I later realized was consciousness.

“Damn! I did it again.”Two days earlier I had slept off in a car en route to work. The driver I told my destination upon getting on-board had taken me several bus stops away from my stop, making excuses that he asked me but I didn’t answer. I believe people reason and talk in their sleep in his village.I sat up as my tired eyes fixated on the source of my disturbance-cum-saving grace. The last time I checked, I was in a bus with five passengers. I must have dozed for so long, for the bus had filled up and almost at my destination.”Madam, take it easy.“A man likely in his forties said calmly, in an apparent attempt to settle the ongoing vituperative exchange between a woman and another man; a well suit-ed man for that matter.I wasn’t interested. I’d experienced a lot to last a lifetime in bus rides—from terror-voiced singing passenger to four full hours of chronic beansy farts endurance from an obvious source, to a preaching driver who paused intermittently to call for passengers, etc. Experience has taught me that such dramas are often not worth the effort of thinking them through. They are best enjoyed than understood.

I turned from them, but the Judas Iscariot ears I possess wouldn’t turn with me.

“Stupid woman! You have no respect. I wonder what you do to your husband at home…” He vented.

“I wonder what unfortunate woman married an insane man like you. Tragedy!” She parried.

I didn’t look back but I knew her counter crawled up his spine and sunk into his brain. A rough scuffle ensued, but a familiar calm voice came in again.”You two should stop this. You’re grown-ups. Woman…” he called with a bit of an elevated pitch, like he had some control over her, “…it’s time you kept quiet for good. I mean it.”

It worked like magic; I almost requested for a bit of the juju. She muted, but her fellow-in-dispute took it as the beginning of his victory. I had a feeling doom lurked in the boot for him, but he spilled more invectives like it was expedient for a promotion at work. He raved and dropped the thick one that broke the proverbial camel’s back—or nose.

“Woman, I’m not so worried about your insanity. From all you’ve been saying I’m sure you married someone like you;  someone equally supercilious and condescending.” He paused, probably in admiration of his vocabulary. I wondered what the matter had to do with the husband. “Get home soon, woman, and let your irresponsible numbskull of a husband know how sick you are.”She broke her silence and replied curtly, in an unbelievable low voice, “You can tell him yourself.”Action flew first class.Something cracked. It was more of a snap. It seemed as though the human nose is plastic like people say after all. Much as I tried to think otherwise, I knew it wasn’t just a crack of the calm mediator’s phalanges upon his fisty impact on someone else’s face—the face of a familiar man in suit. Something else definitely got broken.I missed the action, but not everything it left in its wake.Blood trickled down the nose of a corporately dressed owner even as he attempted to help his distressed organ with his hands, letting out grunts of pain. His vituperation-laden mouth contorted with confusion. I pondered as the dots connected before me.Mediator was madam’s numbskull.**********Adewoyin Joseph A.

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