Fiction : Least you forget!

“Least you forget. You found me when I was only sweet sixteen. I was an angel then but now fifteen years down the line you are treating me like a rug!” shouted an agitated Wavinya to Chindulu her husband. “What is it that you are now trying to show me you goblin of a man?” Wavinya asked. Chindulu sat in the couch with both hands on his chin wearing a gloomy and disappointed face while his wife was standing in front of him breathing fire and talking deafeningly. Chindulu had just arrived from work at around nine at night. He, as is his custom, came home after consuming some strong concoction only to find Wavinya ready to unleash her wrath on him. “What the hell is this all about?” Chindulu demanded to know from his wife while stammering from the effect of the brew he had earlier taken. “Pretenders are worse than murderers,” Wavinya shouted back to him. “Why are you pretending not to know what happened during the day while it was all your making?” She retorted. “Can you please get to the point and stop shouting at me like that?” Chindulu implored. Earlier in the day, a young lady had come to their place looking for a one Mr. Chindulu. She sounded as though she knew Mr. Chindulu quite well and did not mince words in describing the kind of man she was looking for. Wavinya was flabbergasted by the turn of events that day. It had never occurred to her that her husband would cheat on her at any one time. She did not even have the patience to give the lady a chance to explain better. On realizing things were getting rough the visiting lady took to her heels. She rudely discovered that the man she had gone to look for was married. Like Wavinya, she was equally shocked. Unknown to both parties, Chindulu’s neighbour had been chatting on the internet with a stranger. He had realized that the lady she was chatting with came from the same locality with him. He deliberately impersonated Chindulu and had given the lady Chindulu’s physical address as his. All this time though, Chindulu’s neighbour was doing this out of fun but the lady she was chatting with had been taking it seriously all along. The neighbour had indicated that he is a bachelor and looking for someone to marry. The kind of the woman he described he needed matched well with the lady he was chatting with. They emailed each other occasionally and had known each others’ likes and dislikes fairly well. Chindulu’s neighbour had mentioned to the lady at one time that he likes surprises. Unknown to Chindulu, the lady planned to give him a surprise visit since she presumably had his physical address. Her visit to Chindulu’s turned out to be chaotic and she wondered why “Chindulu” tricked her. She was unaware the man she was dating over the internet was someone else and not the one she attempted to visit. She cursed him and vowed to use vulgar language next time they would meet at the chatting room. Chindulu had a very difficult time that night as he tried to exonerate himself from the whole saga. Luckily for him, his naughty neighbour was listening to what transpired and decided to step in and douse the fire once and for all. He narrated the whole story and apologized to them. They accepted his apologies but his wife didn’t buy the story though and resolved to rebuff his conjugal rights for an unspecified period of time least he forgets! “It is obviously quite difficult to be no longer loved when we are still in love, but it is incomparably more painful to be loved when we ourselves no longer love.” Georges Courteline skangongoi@yahoo.com