I asked her to wait for me at the gate while I checked the kelewele for the third time just to make sure it was the dry type and not ‘patchaa’ as she had put it over the phone. Until a moment ago I didn’t know there were two types of kelewele.

My phone rang, I picked up. She was lost. How can anyone get lost waiting at the gate of Korle-bu Teaching Hospital? Even the dead knew their way around here. This conviction came at the back of a doctor’s encounter with his father in law’s ghost at the cafeteria one evening. The man who was an apparent lover of coffee had made a cup and was sipping it in front of the cafeteria’s 1990 Tv. The doctor had since left campus in fear of another such encounter.

She sounded irritable. She said she was forced to move on because other drivers were honking at her. I proceeded to explain to her that this might have been because an ambulance could come in with an emergency at anytime. This seemed to annoy her even more. ‘Ewuradi…’ I held my head. My Ma warned me against high maintenance girls like this one.

This one was a princess by all standards. She flew Accra Dubai Accra for holiday, drove a Mercedes, and drank only fizzy water. I checked to make sure the water I bought that afternoon was still there. I had to go all the way to Labadi beach hotel to find one. The woman at the store near Mamprobi Post Office gave me a stern look when I told her none of her vast variety of bottled water appealed to me ‘Owula oye ojogbang?’ she asked. I gave a sheepish grin. I didn’t understand a word she had said but I knew she wasn’t telling me how handsome I was.

I found her in front of the ophthalmologist department. I rolled down the windows of my new Hyundai 2001 car. She glared at me and gestured for me to drive ahead. This would be my longest drive any mile. The potholes were wide and deep. Earlier, I had warned her about these manholes but would she let me hear the last of it after we had gotten to my flat? Of course not.

We passed the buckets of water I had fetched that morning. The rusted handle held the hem of her dress pulling the bucket of water down into a big splash. Her attempted flee sent her sprawling on the floor. It was dark; I could hardly see what I was grabbing at. I spent the next few minutes apologizing for pulling at her breasts.

Just when we had dug into the cold kelewele and the wok in I had spent my last fifty cedis on, I heard a click and then the lights went off.

I had decided a while back I wasn’t going to win this princess over with my shabby doctor ‘s life; the ugly oil painted wardrobe, my five short sleeve shirts, the cheap paper weight rag from Melcom, the make shift director’s chair that threatened to cave under her weight, the heavily scratched mismatched cutlery…

I knew by now I was way out of my league but I hadn’t played my last card yet. I had DSTV. After all what was a girless doctor supposed to do after a day at the emergency ward? The Crime Channel was my favorite. I had just switched to ‘I almost got away with it’ when the gods took my last ounce of pride.

I was the only person in the entire complex that had no light. My credit was finished.

She offered to take me to the gate to buy some candles. When my younger brother showed up at the store sweating like a pig and happy with himself that he had pulled his biggest surprise on me yet, I knew this night had come to its natural end. She couldn’t get away from us any faster. As I watched her taillights disappear into the night I knew I had let another cat out of the bag.

My life was nothing like my Ma bragged about in church. I decided to send her a subtle warning. Instead of her endless prayers to God thanking him for letting her son become a respectable doctor, how about she tried another prayer… ‘Dear God please send my son a godamn woman!’

As I read the forwarded message the doctor had sent to my best friend narrating his horrid evening with me, my heart missed a beat. My friend had hooked us up for a possible rendezvous. I was lonely as hell and he was the most attentive man I had ever come across. I was looking forward to seeing him again.

Damn my stupid running stomach. If only I didn’t need to go so badly that evening…

“Thelma Louis” is a new GhanaCelebrities.Com weekly column with no borders on the speed and distance it will take your imagination, while tackling some of our everyday issues—in reality and in fantasy.

All Thelma Louis’ write up will be filed under her name column-Thelma Louis.

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