Mondays are supposed to be the days when my soul supposedly has its day. This Monday and like other Mondays the world hated was different. For years, I had perfected the art of loving my Mondays. Writing out my week goals on a Sunday, going to bed as early as the doctor on duty on a Monday morning. The only difference was that I was not a doctor and could not be one. I barely made it through my biology class. I hoped I could have replaced it with something else. But the schools’ options for science students were limited. It was biology or nothing, not agriculture or economics. I remember sending a letter to my father to ask if I could change my course or maybe not register myself for biology in the final exams. The letter came back to me with a note at the top.
“Do not do anything of that sort”
So, I sat in those classes, unable to appreciate the point of being able to dissect cockroaches or frogs. Why did I have to subject myself to all that tissue and liquid for years to come? On this particular Monday, as I earlier told you, I had gone through my pre-Monday ritual, overcoming the heat wave the weekend had introduced to the week. I made it as early as possible to the office, early meaning the first to walk into the office space I shared with my teammate Abana. I was often the first to get in, for me, it meant, I had taken, somehow control of the day and not submitted myself to the curse of the Monday blues. My colleague, Abana who sat opposite me did not appear after an hour as his regularity had shown me. I took it that, probably, something had gone on at home. Abana had moved in recently with his new girlfriend and could not stop talking about how amazing the experience was, as well as how he wished he lived alone. I attributed it to that, a new attitude to rising up early when you no longer slept in bed alone.
As I leaned back into my desk, I noticed the blinking of the tiny blue light on his computer. It was on and in sleep mode. Surveying the room, I noticed that his blue leather jacket which I saw him leave in, on Friday, hang in the closet space we kept our jackets. That was strange. The weekend had been one of the warmest recorded in the past decade, thus if he had been here during the weekend, it was likely, he would leave his jacket behind. But he has not stepped into the office on a weekend for the past three months since his girlfriend arrived from the Netherlands to live with him. I stood up and surveyed the area he had built into his own office space. I found a pair of men’s leather shoes, nothing I had seen prior. But in the exact space he loved to put his shoes before slipping into the office slippers, he kept in his desk drawer. I drew the chair back to allow some light into the space under the desk and be able to look closely at the shoes and maybe smell them. Abana and I had shared this office space for over five years and if there was anything I used to separate his things from mine it was the smell. I knew my smell and I knew his smell. The moment I touched the shoes I noticed I had stepped into something, thicker, stickier, it was blood. It was fresh. I let the shoe fall and rushed back, moving into the photocopy room to allow myself to breathe and calm down.
Inspired by the writing prompt:
What scares you a little? What do you feel when scared? How do you react?
Thanks to my writing partner – Neelashi for pushing me