
It’s a rainy Saturday. I am in my room spending some considerable time online, WhatsApp to be specific. I am lying on my lovely duvet that has seen me through many seasons (I’ll save its story for later). I hit up my friend, Tosin, online but she doesn’t respond. I decide to give her a call.
‘Hi Tosin,’ I sound like a tired rabbit during mating. Seriously, I wouldn’t know how a rabbit sounds while having sex, but I don’t care.
‘Ope baby, what’s up?’ Tosin is in a high mood judging from the sound of her voice. It could be for several reasons, but my deep well of a mind will only hold on to one reason. It is related to… ah, I’m not telling.
‘I’m fine. Are you at home? I want to come over.’
‘I’m at home o. I was about to call you actually. Come over quickly, I have something for you.’
I bolt up from my horizontal position. ‘Give me the gist now!’
Tosin laughs and tells me to come over quickly, if I want to hear anything. I am not impatient by nature. I just have a terrible craving for gist. Sue me.
In fifteen minutes I arrive at Tosin’s place regardless of the drizzle outside. Not to bore you with our dialogue; after exchanging pleasantries, Tosin regales me with tales I’ll rather not explicate. I am already comfortable listening to her delicious tales woven with no specialty. Little do I know that she is whetting my appetite for the real deal. While talking, she walks into her kitchen and comes back out with a plate of poundo yam and egusi soup. My eyes almost pop out of its socket with surprise. I drool shamelessly and I practically dance a jig.
‘Really, Tosin? You had to prepare the way like that so effortlessly?’ She laughs and tells me that the truth all along is she wanted me to come over because of the food. She also knows I am a sucker for stories and if stories are going to be my undoing, I do not care. And if this food is going to be my undoing, I am prepared to go all the way. And so I do. With each swallow, each mound of poundo yam, each lick of the soup, I am transported back in time. I don’t know which time exactly, but it is a euphoric time. It spells magic, contentment, peace, joy and incomprehensible faith in humanity. I eat the food with a sense of satisfaction and love that even the jaws of death cannot catch me were the food jinxed. That is how terrific I feel. Afterwards I experience a release in my soul; it is orgasmic. A surge of bliss encapsulates me and I know that this experience must be written with the ink of love.
