PERFECTION IS A FLAW

I didn’t believe I was the same person she was talking to. It has not always been like this. Christie has always been a darling girlfriend. It was close to me proposing to her. I took her from the gutters in her pains into the memorable success which she is today and all I can get from her was this humiliation I saw today. 

I was walking down the street whilst publicly chanting to disturb the neighbourhood if anyone wanted my services as a housekeeper. I made an average of N600 a day. My works ranged from cleaning to babysitting, washing of clothes and clearing of grasses. In short I was a GRA (general running around). I was diligent in this work and I prayed one day I would make it so well that my children wouldn’t suffer the same stead which I suffered. It was an unbearable pain for me at first but after a while I got used to it.  Christie was sighted after cleaning chief’s house beside a gutter crying profusely and I wondered what a little girl like her is doing there. I walked towards her and asked what was wrong. She told me her story and the pains in me grew stronger. She had lost all senses of identity as I escorted her to bury her mum a couple of days later. She was all Christie had and now she was gone. There was nothing else. The house was practically empty thus I made a promise to her which I fulfilled. I told her I would sponsor her through school and from the proceeds of my hard work; my first responsibility started.

She moved into my house and I had to be a father and brother to her. It was her senior secondary school days and in two years she was writing her SSCE. I paid and when the result came out she graduated the best in her school. The pains and blisters showed up as the best thing in her result. I prayed and thanked God for giving me the opportunity to be able to partner in her success. It was time for university admission and we did together also. She never joined me in the labour of days that produced the first school fees and resumption in the university seems the hardest thing for me to do. I borrowed money from friends which took me months to pay back but the matriculation was awesome. The glamour of that day was a blessing I would never forget. Days passed and months before she came back home as the first semester has ended. When she came back, she was looking different. Emotion arose within me and I pushed a little towards her for a relationship that would last a lifetime. To me now it was an investment. The day I disvirgined her, we both cried and promised ourselves heaven on earth. Which she also did. The whole aroma of love was scented in the air and the blessing that followed was when someone gave me a car to be using as a taxi. My income increased and taking care of her was easier. Days passed and months passed also and the final exams period started.

My daily contributions was collected and without stress she was about to graduate and I know my first success could now be pronounced. She came out with a 2^nd class upper thus after youth service it was easy for her to get a job. It was at this moment that Christie changed. The sexual part of the whole relationship stopped. Quarrels were easy for her to build and in seconds she reminded me in names calling that I was an illiterate. It was always painful and one faithful she brought a guy home. I was furious when I entered and I saw her sitting on the guys lap with their tongues twisted in each other. I snapped and raised my voice on her. To my surprise, the same good girl I saw sitting beside the gutter the first day I saw her shouted back at me and called me names. She rushed into the room and parked her things. She wrote a cheque of 200,000 naira as a departing gift and that I should never contact her again.

Her final words were “I should look for my mate” …………. Victor I can’t marry an illiterate like you.

So funny how life treats us sometimes and I looked at myself in pains and anguish as tears dropped from my eyes. All my life efforts are gone and God permitted it. Please is it fair what she did to me?