Chinaza Ezugwu @china

I took my seat on the bus that was set to take me home, many things about the bus was getting me uncomfortable especially the sound of the engine.
It was going to be a long day, and the road was long and dry. It was 3hr journey to my house.

As we approached a police checkpoint ahead, the bus came to a halt, and my heart sank because they will be waisting more of our time. Instead of conducting a proper check on everybody, they were busy moving their eyes up and down through the passengers, and like a scene from a Nollywood movie, they picked three of us out from the crowd, two women and one guy.

One officer barked that we stepped forward, and then I felt fears running through me. What had we done to deserve this? Was it the way I was dressed? My sunglasses or my jeans? With hesitant steps, we approached them, and truth be told, I was scared.

As we stood by the bus, the officers instructed us to identify our belongings. I felt like a criminal. I slowly pointed at my bag. The officer’s expression was hard as they roughly went through our things, and I couldn’t shake the thought: Will they find something? Something that would turn this moment into a nightmare? Because I had some paracetamol and septrin tablets.

Do you have anything illegal on you?
one officer threw the question at me. I began to stammer but I was able to say no afterwards as I shook my head.

Yesterday was a special day because it was my friend’s birthday.
We all who celebrated her on WhatsApp was invited in the evening, we gathered to eat cake and enjoy the moment with her.

But then, After I ate some cake, I got a terrible stomach ache. At first, I thought it was just a random ache, maybe because I drank too much water at night. I didn’t think much about the cause.

Later, when I met with some other friends who were at the birthday party, They also had stomach aches.
We all started talking about the cake, and that was when we figured it out.

The cake was so sugary There was so much icing sugar on it that we could barely taste the real cake itself. It felt like we were just eating sugar alone.
Is cake sugar?
We enjoyed the sweetness no doubt but the stomach ache😞
I'll have to be more careful about cakes that is coated with icing from now.

My fellow prople come oo, I bought a hotplate with dreams of boiling water, cooking quick meals, and other things especially as an emergency helper if my gas finishes while cookibg.
For the first few days, it was fantastic. I loved how fast it heated up and blah blah blah, all at first!

But then, something lead to another and our street had some electrical issues in the house that lasted about a week or two, I can't rember exactly.
It was best to keep the hot plate unplugged and tucked away until everything was fixed, I put it in a safe area to avoid stories that touches the heart.

This morning I woke up to see light.
Feeling excited , I carried the hotplate from where i kept it to my kitchen.
I plugged it on and then placed a kettle of water on it.

As I watched the water start boiling. I was ready to make my tea. The steam began to rise, and I could see the little bubbles dancing on the boiling water.

I bent to grab my kettle from the hot plate. And that’s when it happened, the kind of shock i received on my hand. After I trembled back, I stood back and still got about 5mins thinking about several things that I can't even mention.

Yesterday our neighborhood experienced a power outage, like everywhere was in darkness, leaving us without light or electricity.
My devices were almost dead before 2am today.

I struggled to find out about the class this morning, only me and God fit talk how far i went just to get to know the class that we were to have this morning and its venue.

During the class, I reached out to a friend to borrow a power bank, but she wasn't available.

I found it difficult to focus in class because I needed to charge my phone, there were just many things that I felt I was missing out on without my phone.

Just when I thought my day couldn't get any better, my friend who I had contacted earlier surprised me by showing up with the power bank. The joy no be here as I collected the life saver.

When the class ended and i wanted to gove it back, she insisted that I keep it for my use at home. That kind gesture truly made my day, it meant a lot.

Today was quite a busy day for me. I spent most of it helping my aunty at the market. She needed to sell some of her goods, and I was there to assist her with packing everything up. It wasn’t easy, but I was glad I could help her out. By the time we were done, I was already feeling exhausted, but happy that I could support her.

When I finally got home, I just wanted to relax. As soon as I switched on the light, fire sparked from the wire on the wall. I was confused for a second because I wasn’t expecting it, but I quickly rushed to the power switch and changed it over. I was so thankful nothing serious happened and that I reacted fast.

After the shock, I realized I couldn’t leave the damaged wire like that, especially with the risk of another fire starting. I didn’t have the skills to fix it myself, so I had to figure out a solution. It was already late in the evening, so I wasn’t sure where to turn for help.

I remembered a good neighbor who’s good with electrical stuff. I gave him a call and explained what happened. To my relief, he agreed to come over and help me out, even though it was already getting late. I felt a bit guilty for calling him at that time, but I didn’t really have a choice.

He came over not long after and quickly got to work. It didn’t take him too long to fix the problem, and by the end of the night, everything was back to normal. I was so grateful for his help and felt really lucky to have such a kind and helpful neighbor. The day had been long and tiring, but it ended on a good note, and I could finally rest easy.

I wanted to talk to my friends, so I decided to make some phone calls. I had not called them for a little while, and I missed their voices.

First, I called my best friend, Patrick. When he answered, he sounded so happy! “Wow! It’s you!” he said. I laughed and told him I missed him. We talked about our games and how school was going. It felt really nice to hear him.

Then, I called all my other friends, one by one. Every time I called, they were surprised and excited. “Is that really you?” they asked. I could hear the smiles in their voices. We shared funny stories and talked about our favorite snacks.

After a while, I looked at my phone and saw that I used 1500 Naira for airtime. That’s a lot of money! But you know what? I didn’t care about the money at all. I was so happy talking to my friends.

I was getting ready to go out and wanted my clothes to look super nice. So, I took out the iron and made it really hot. Just then, my phone rang and It was my friend, Onyinye! I couldng remember the last time that I spoke with her, it's been up to a whole year since we last spoke!

I was so happy to hear her voice that I sat down on the couch to chat with her. While we were talking, I smelled something burning, but I didn’t think much of it because I was having so much fun and I was really excited that I wanted details of every word as we were catching up with gists.

It was until I saw smoke coming from my clothes that I came back to my senses.
I jumped up to look, but to make matters worse, my slippery socks made me fall to the floor but let us leave that story for another day 😌

I quickly grabbed the iron and moved it away from my clothes, but it had already bitten off a lot of chunk from it. I looked at my poor shirt that was all burned and smoking. Onyinye was laughing on the phone.

Even though I felt guilty and thought that I should feel remorseful for losing one of my favorite shirts, I didn't.
It had really been a long time since I spoke with my best friend Onyii.

The music was loud, and everyone was dancing. Obi saw a girl named Ada. She was dancing and smiling, and she looked so happy!
In the spirit of the happiness, Obi decided to move closer, she might as well welcome the lonely man.

Obi wanted to dance with her and have fun together all night long.
So, he walked over to Ada and said, "Can you dance with me?" She smiled and said yes! They started to dance together. It felt really nice.

After dancing for a while, Obi joked with Ada and said, "Can you count to ten?" They both giggled, and it made them feel even closer. But inside, Obi felt a little nervous. He really liked her and wanted to tell her but worried if she would like him back.

Then, Ada looked up at him and said, "Don’t worry! Just be yourself." Obi felt better when he heard that. So instead of being scared, he said, "let’s enjoy this fun night together!"

They kept dancing and laughing, holding hands and forgetting about everything else around them. The bright lights and happy music made them feel like they were in their own special place.

And from there, something grew.
I know love is not found in clubs or its likes, but Obi found his own in that party.

This morning at 5 AM, I looked in the mirror and noticed something I didn’t want to see: I had gained weight. My friends had been saying that I looked heavier, but I didn’t really believe them until I saw my own reflection.

Seeing my body made me realize I needed to change something. I decided to skip meals today, thinking that would help me lose weight. I thought if I didn’t eat, I could get back to how I used to look.

But now, I’m feeling the effects of not eating. My head feels heavy, my legs ache, and my eyes are watery. I’m tired and weak from not having food.

I understand now that skipping meals isn’t the solution.
I never even knew what came over me that I decided to fast.
Make I first chop again.