LOVE AND WAR I

IN MY COMFORT ZONE
Those sounds from the cities band across the street woke me up, cleaning my eyes the sounds kept on banging in my ears. I stood up from the bed and did my normal morning routine of ten push-ups (lazy me), then I picked up my phone and called Phillip.
‘Finally, that idiot has being assassinated o’ he laughed, ‘Don’t mind him, his time has finally elapsed you know’.
‘Let us meet by six today, so be at our usual place on time’. And then I hanged up, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and took a quick shower.
The whole neighborhood came back to life once more; people had gone back to their different endeavors after many months of curfew imposed by the government, why did the government impose the curfew? It’s a long story though, a very, very long story. The fear of the deadly virus hasn’t being the only reason why the whole community has being indoor, the rising insurgencies has being another reason why most of us were so scared that we made no contact with the outside world. I had not seen Joy for a long time since the curfew started, I had not talk to her on phone because the telecoms service providers mast has being destroyed, courtesy of the last strike from one of the ET MOVEMENT missiles. I remembered It was kind of terrifying that night.
It was a Friday night, and I always invited Joy over to my place, it was a usual quiet time for us and it helped the relationship grow stronger. We actually did not plan to make out anyway but the moment set itself right and that was it, the emotions drew us closer, with her deep blue eyes staring at mine, it was cold shivers down my spine and at that moment her lips came closer to mine, and love was certainly in control. The Gushing emotions and desires were halted when the ET first missile hit a range rover jeep adjacent my apartment BOOM! It was death at my door step, there was no breathing space to enjoy the moment, it was for better- for worse, and she was all over me. Joy was so scared, very scared. Her hug erased the internal cold in me, they gave me courage. I looked at her once deep blue eyes which were now wet, red hot with flames. Those strikes kept coming, to me I was kind off used to it. The whole place was rowdy; people kept running, trying to pick up one or two things. Even pregnant women ran faster than the single ladies I knew, mother’s trying to save their little children and fathers trying to save some of their valuables. Those strikes came at our happiest moment, at that moment I remembered the strike at Nyanya’s park, this was another ET visitation. I kept on running with her like it was a 100m Olympic race, running to nowhere. The whole place was tensed and we kept on running, running and running, going to nowhere.


IN THE CAVES
‘What is going on in this country? I can’t seem to understand all this strikes on civilians by your people’. She said to me.
‘I don’t want to lose you mike, I am scared of loosing you’. Tears were already dropping down her eyes.
‘you won’t lose me, am not going to die, you are not going to die either’, saying this words I was damn scared I just had to look the part and act the part, make her know that I had the courage, but sincerely I was very weak at heart.
Joy had slept, and I was now alone looking at the rocks with tears dropping down my eyes, I tried looking back at what had gone wrong with this great country. Joy was from the southern part of the EPR and I was from the western region of the EPR, too. The southern part and the western part were at war, they hated one another, they hated each other’s religion, each other’s beliefs, nothing the south did seemed right to the north, and nothing the west did seemed right to the south. Though Joy and I were indigenes of the different parts of the divide, we still did not have that enmity between each other. This hatred was one of the reason we had not tied the conjugal knot because her parents were against it, but what mattered most was that we loved each another and we stayed with each other.
I remembered the day I quarreled with Phillip, he was also against it, he always said to me ‘how can you think of marrying someone from the south’ and I would say ‘there is nothing wrong with that, Phillip, there is nothing wrong with it’.
‘There is nothing wrong with it, yet these same southerners killed your mum, and your siblings. There is nothing wrong with it, yet they destroyed your business, your apartment and every valuable of yours’. And I hated his reminders, sometimes it turned into a serious fight. He always wanted me to marry Felicia-my first crush, but though I loved her, she wasn’t just the right girl for me. Felicia was from the west also, but she died during one of the ET’s strike.  The day it happened I felt down, I thought suicide was the best option to take, I was surprised after all that, later on, I was surprised at my concern for her death, anyway, I was still in love with Joy at that time, I was in the mix of two women at some point till she died.
All I had was Phillip-my friend, my dad, and Joy-the love of my life from the south. I was scared of who I was going to lose next.