BURNT OUT

 

She made her way briskly through the throng. Watching her from a distance, she looked as one walking towards a purpose as she maneuvered her way around the human traffic. One walking towards a purpose, not away from it. She had just come from a job interview where one guy on the panel tried to paint her as a liar and all because she had told the truth. She had been asked where she saw herself in five years and she had answered saying she sees herself with her post grad. Degree. Of course, the guy had argued that since it hasn’t happened yet, she was technically lying. Who does that? Who puts intelligent people like that on panels? Was she interviewing to be a lawyer or something? She had thought. She knew he had just been trying to rile her to see what she was made of, considering the position she applied for involved lots of ‘people business’. Still, it got under her skin anytime someone called her a liar. She made the best out of a sticky situation and hoped she gets the job but she wasn’t holding her breath. Her demeanor never gave the outside world a clue to the crushed spirit within the carefree soul.

It was the time of day when the hopeful and enthusiastic smiles of people had started looking drawn and forced. The sweltering heat brought about by the unsympathetic sun as it attacked everyone’s head and exposed skin wasn’t helping matters any. Cool and collected, she made her way to the trotro station to board a bus home. Home. Home where she had her share of bills to pay and a boyfriend’s ego to stroke. Just before she turned a corner, she heard someone let out some insults; ony3 soormmi. The expletive was probably coming from a male porter somewhere. Yes, tensions were definitely high. She felt a clammy hand grab her right wrist. Stifling the need to sigh out loud, she turned to come face to face with a man in his mid-thirties, in a suit with a briefcase. The briefcase wasn’t what set out the ‘you-are-not-going-to-like-this’ alarm in her head though. It was the Bible the man held in his hand, which he was struggling to do, now that he had one hand gripping her wrist. Why would a person be holding a bible in his hands when he has a briefcase which can do that for him, if not for show? She reasoned. She plastered her best cryptic smile on her face and gently but firmly, tugged her wrist free. She so badly wanted to take out her handkerchief and rub away the feeling of foreign sweat on her wrist but didn’t know how to do it without offending the ‘man of God’.

“Listen young lady, I don’t know you from anywhere but I feel in my spirit to talk to you.” He began with the accent and demeanor of one from the Ashanti region.

Yep! I am definitely not going to like this. She thought.

“I wish you had spiritual eyes to see with me what I see in the spirit about you. Are you married?”

Biting her tongue was all she could do to keep from asking why he couldn’t see that in the ‘spirit’.

“No, I am not.” Because fake or not, she had been brought up to respect ‘men of God’ and she didn’t plan on being rude unless it was totally necessary.

“Do you know you are really blessed?”

She didn’t feel like she was considering her current job situation but she knew for a fact that she was so she just kept looking at the man.

“I see the kind of favour queen Esther had on you. What is your name, dear.”

Esther. She mentally shook her head. She almost laughed out loud. Good job on coincidentally hitting a mark, man of God, but no chance am I going to give you that name to fan your spiritual delusion. She thought gleefully to herself.

“My name is Nana Abena Amponsah.”

Make a date with me on my next post as I bring to you what happens next.

**********************HAPPY NEW YEAR********************