During that evening, the air in Lagos was full of roasted corn and petrol smell. The molten sun was slowly setting over the Third Mainland Bridge, and tinting the lagoon gold. Through the window of the danfo bus, I was able to see people heading every which way, some laughing, some arguing with the conductors, and some lost in thought. I was one of the latter.
I was going to Murtala Muhammed Airport and each rotation of the wheels caused me chest pain. This was the last night Tola was going.
We both came into contact four years ago at a technology convention in Yaba. She wore a mustard-yellow dress and now possesses that sort of composure that makes people desire to hear what she says. I came to do networking; she came to transform the world.
It was somehow our world that crashed on this day over a dispute of whether artificial intelligence can ever convince the human emotion. She said it could. I said it couldn’t. When we woke up to find how long we had been conversing the hall was nearly empty.
Since then Tola has been a part of my world and I of hers. We collaborated, created a small startup start-to-finish, and spent many late nights coding, excessively consuming coffee, and discussing everything, including software bugs and music. Amidst all that messiness we fell in love but none of us ever said it aloud.
Now, she was moving to Canada.
As I came to the airport she was already there, with her suit-case packed, passport in hand, and in the same mustard-yellow colour in which she had appeared when I first saw her.
"You are late," she said smiling faintly.
"Two conductors and a traffic warden had to fight with me to get here. You ought to thank me," I said, and made a forced grin.
She chuckled to herself, the sound which I had got used to hearing more than any playlist. Then a silence followed, no clumsy silence, but the oppressive one that nothing can say.
“So, this is it,” I said finally.
She nodded. “Yeah. I guess this is it.”
"You may take your mind up, you know. We could make it work here.”
She gazed at me, she gazed at me and I can discern the battle in her eye. "I had thought so, you know I had thought that, she said. Well, this I must do. I can’t explain it fully. I just… need to go.”
I swallowed hard. “And us?”
She smiled again, but her eyes were glittering. "You will forever be my best memory, Dayo."
The call of her flight rang all around the terminal. Then she looked at the gate, and back at me. A long second passed and she made no movement. then she reached into her bag and took out a small brown notebook the one we used to write down the ideas of our startup. She pressed it into my hand.
"On the days thou shalt forget what we made," she said. "All the things that are important are there."
I opened my mouth and could not say a word. I stood by and saw her make her way towards the gate with her yellow dress swinging like sunshine on a swing. Half way she turned and waved.
"You bring good memories, thank you," I said, I can hear your voice shaking.
And then she was gone.
I was outside the airport and the night air struck me in its damp, heavy, noisy way. I was sitting on a low concrete barrier and opened the notebook. The first page was a sketch of a couple of cups of coffee and a line that she had drawn several months earlier in one of our late-night work shifts.
"It is sometimes the only backup we are going to have of memories."
I smiled on the first occasion of the evening. Not the type that conceals pain, but the one that receives it. I felt alive in the city as people shouted, cars honked, and the life of the city was alive.
And there I found silence in that noise.
I knew somewhere, in another city, perhaps, under another sort of sunset, Tola might be thinking about me, not sad but thankful.
And that was all I knew was enough.
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A beautifully written piece that carries both pain and love while perfectly capturing the bittersweet truth. I love how it does not end in despair.
Thanks for sharing.
💯♥️💯