A Dreamy Encounter - Part 1

First Published in Roses Aren't Red Anthology

THE FIRST TIME she met Damilare, it was in a place so deserted that the only sounds she heard were the echoes of her own voice as she called out to know if there were other people wandering around like her. Omoronke had no idea how she had gotten there or how to find her way back home. Everywhere looked the same, and no matter how far she walked, her journey never seemed to end. The sun was out but it was not hot; the air was neither stiff nor windy, and for the time that she had been walking, she was not out of breath or sweaty. The atmosphere felt just right, and the air was fresh and devoid of the pollution she was used to in the city of Lagos.

It certainly wasn’t Lagos or anywhere she knew. She stopped walking to take it all in. Beautiful was an inaccurate word to describe the view. The colours were brighter than normal: the blue of the sky, the yellow of the sun, even the brown of the dying grass underneath her feet. The dark chocolate of her skin also merged beautifully into the scenery. The point where the sky met the earth blended seamlessly in blues and whites. The colours all spoke to her or, rather, called to her.

The first thought that came to her mind was that she had somehow died and was now in heaven. But that would require her to believe that heaven existed in the first place. She did believe in hell, though. It would be hard not to, since her life was one. But heaven did not exist. It was just a figment of the imagination of hopeless souls, a respite for all their suffering, a silver lining in the dark cloud that was their lives.

Omoronke was still appraising her surroundings, wishing she could paint it and capture its desolate beauty, when she felt a presence. She looked up and saw him walking towards her. It was almost as if he had materialised out of thin air, and just like her, he looked confused and lost.

His confused gaze settled on her, and he stopped walking. He looked unsure whether to approach her or to turn back, but back to where?

“What is this place?” Omoronke asked before he could make a decision. Her curiosity overtook whatever common sense she was supposed to apply in such situation.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he replied and resumed his walk towards her, apparently deciding that she was harmless.

He is even more beautiful than this mysterious place, Omoronke thought. If this place was a museum, then he was a treasured artefact. He looked like an African warrior, and he dressed the part, too, with his leather kilt, toned bare chest, and a pair of sandals also made out of animal leather. His light skin had a golden glint that made it obvious that he spent a lot of time in the sun. But the most fascinating thing about him were his eyes. They were gold-coloured and dilated like a cat’s.

“Your eyes are quite unusual,” she blurted. Subtlety was not one of her virtues.

He smiled at that and motioned to her, stating in the same tone she had used. “Your clothes are unusual.”

Omoronke looked down at her clothes; she was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a plain black t-shirt, nothing unusual or special about it.

“You don’t seem to be bothered about this place.” She stared at her surroundings. “Do you know where this is?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know where this is. I’ve never been here before, but my people believe that our ancestors send us important messages through dreams.”

“Dreams,” she repeated sceptically.

“This isn’t real. It’s too beautiful to be real and where I’m from, people don’t dress like you,” he said, gesturing to her clothes.

“Well, people don’t dress like you where I’m from either, except they are actors in a play or movie,” she snapped.

“What’s actors?” he asked

“What?”

“You said only actors dress like me where you are from?”

“Ahh, I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t know who an actor is.”

“Where are you from?” he asked her before she could come up with a way to explain what an actor was to him.

“Lagos,” she answered offhandedly.

“Lagos. Is it a large kingdom?”

“Errr…not really. It’s a small, ridiculously overpopulated state in Nigeria.”

“Nigeria?”

“This is frustrating,” she groaned. “Why don’t you tell me about where you are from instead?”

Her question brought a wide smile to his beautiful face. “I’m from the Kingdom of Ire, a peaceful country being watched over by our patron goddesses, the goddess of the river, the goddess of fire and the goddess of earth. They have been protecting us since the dark war where the dark lord was defeated.”

The artist in her was intrigued. “Tell me more about your goddesses,” she said, and his smile broadened.

“The goddesses of Ire, you would have to sit for this one.” He sat on the grass and folded his legs into what her yoga instructor called an easy pose, and she followed suit.

“The goddesses of Ire,” he began enthusiastically. But before he could continue, an unpleasant noise shattered the serenity. Damilare leaped to his feet, looking for the source of the noise and poised to attack if the need arose. Omoronke closed her eyes and tried to block out the noise by covering her ears with her palms but it was to no avail. Frustrated, she opened her eyes and found herself under the cosy comfort of her duvet, in her bed. The irritatingly persistent noise was coming from her alarm clock.

She turned off the alarm and sat up on her bed. What a peculiar dream. She didn’t usually dream and even when she did, she forgot all about it the minute she opened her eyes to the world. But not this one. It was vivid in her mind, like it had just happened yesterday. She glared at the alarm clock. Why did it have to ring just then? It was not as if she had anything to do. The country – the whole world – was on a government-imposed lockdown. The art exhibition she’d been working so passionately on had been postponed indefinitely and she was terribly close to having a mental breakdown because of the increasing number of coronavirus cases. She sighed, threw off the covers and got out of bed without a stitch on. She always slept naked; she had always found clothes too constricting and nudity too fascinating to cover up.

Nudity inspired her art, and it was also one of the various reasons her mother wasn’t speaking to her. Not that the woman needed any other reason not to speak to her after she ditched medicine for creative arts in the university. Their relationship had not survived that blow. It did not matter to her mother that she was now a successful artist. She would always be an ungrateful child and her career as an artist would always be a disgrace.

Omoronke had better things to think about than a mother who could only love her as long as she could control her. As she sat naked in front of her blank canvas, the only thought that occupied her mind was the man with the unusual eyes in a world that could only exist in dreams.

She was just completing the painting after hours of sitting in the same spot, when her doorbell rang. She hissed because she knew there was only one person who could be visiting her even when there was a restriction on movement. She threw on one of the mini dresses lying about in her bedroom and went to answer the door.

“You better have a good reason for disturbing me like this,” she said as she opened the door.

“How many times do I have to tell you to check before opening the door? I could have been an axe-wielding, foul-smelling serial killer,” came the answer as the guest stepped into the house.

“Please shut the door behind you, Mr Axe-wielding, Foul-smelling Serial Killer,” Omoronke said as she sat on the couch and switched on the television.

“This place is a sty, Omoronke. You need to clean up your house.”

“I don’t have the time.”

“Then get a housekeeper.”

“Why do I need one when I already have you?”

“Ah, very funny.”

“Tade, what are you doing in my house at this time of the morning when I could still be sleeping?’ Omoronke said, fixing her gaze on her childhood friend.

“Morning ke? Ronke, it’s seven in the evening.”

“Oh,” Omoronke said as she glanced at the clock. “I was painting.”

“Which means you haven’t had anything to eat all day,” Tade said, lifting the white plastic bags in his hands which finally brought a smile to her face.

“Don’t smile at me like that. You need to start doing your own grocery shopping one of these days,” he said.

“But I have you,” Omoronke answered, making a face at him.

“That is not going to work, however…” Tade didn’t get to finish his sentence because Omoronke grabbed one of the bags and began ransacking it.

He shook his head fondly and smiled. “Are you looking for this?” He asked, waving a bag of plantain chips in her face. She snatched it out of his hands and opened it.

“That thing is unhealthy for you. I don’t know why I keep buying it.”

“It’s because you love me,” Omoronke said as she headed to her bedroom to pick up her phone.

“And that’s the problem,” Tade murmured, carrying the bag of groceries to the kitchen.

To be continued…

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