Your phone says it is 4am. You smell something sweet in your dream. Rolling over half asleep, you dream speak to your partner. ‘That’s bread’. Yes, it is a bakery. The singular notes of vanilla, nutmeg, sugar, margarine, and warmth flying into a pleasant olfactory chord in your nostrils. You are smiling in your sleep. It smells like god is making vanilla flavored custard just for you. You can already taste the divinity as you drift back into sleep. At 4am, toads and crickets outside your window continue a musical competition they started hours ago. They sound exhausted though. Or is it you? You are drifting into nothingness as the croaks and chirps lull you back to slee…….
“Kokorokoooooookooooooooooooooooo!”
“Ahhhhh-laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh-hu- akbar!’
“Kokorokoooooooooo!”
“…laaaaaaaaaa-eee-laaahhh-ah-eeeeee-la-laaaaahhhhhh!”
“Kokorokoooooooooo!”
“Kokorokoooooooooo!”
“Kokorokoooooooooo!”
Three chickens back-to-back??? Goddamn!!! Talk about a rude awakening. The chickens are not usually this aggressively excited to announce the breaking of day. Your head on your partner’s chest, you slowly settle into your woozy reality of being awake. Slow, steady thumping of their heart vibrating through their chest slightly pulsating the skin of your temples.
‘Bap-Bap’ pause ‘Bap-Bap’ pause ‘Bap-Bap’ pause ‘Bap-Bap, Bap-Bap’
The beat of their heart always doubles when they take a deep breath in. It returns to normal syncopation when they breathe normally. The slight occasional squealy sound of their exhalation makes you smile. No matter how many times you hear this, you always smile at how adorable this human who lays next to you sounds when they sleep.
“Ahhhhh-laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh-hu- akbar!’
Gently moving your head from their bare chest to avoid shaking them, you roll gently to sit on the edge of your side of the bed. 5:47am the phone reads. You hit play on your curated morning playlist living on Spotify. Your portable Bluetooth speaker begins to ring out.
‘…when I look at where I’m coming from, looking back at where the journey begun…’
Lila Ike’s voice rings out. Looking over to your partner, they remain sound asleep. Pulling on a robe, you grab the speaker, your phone and make your way to the kitchen. The short walk there feels unreal. It always does. As sounds of aggressive chickens and dedicated imams recede, your eyes make their way to the earth visually waking up. A spherical mosaic of yellowish, whitish, and orangish hues rises from nothingness to wiggle its way into our space to take over. Technically, scientists say we wiggle our way around the mosaic but same difference. Sunrises have always looked magical. Luckily your kitchen windows give you a front row seat to witnessing this magic that never gets old.
Every time you see the sunrise, you ask yourself unanswerable questions about life and existence and cycles and beginnings and ends. All with a smile. The sunrise reminds you that everything that comes down will come up. That makes you feel good. It is a visual reminder that everything is everything and nothing all at once. Catching your flying thoughts, you remember the sound of your partner’s voice joke-roasting you when you’ve expressed these thoughts out loud.
‘Click’ The kettle snaps! As you make yourself a cup of coffee, you cannot help but hear little chatters of the birds you swear are hidden somewhere within your ceiling. These are really chatty birds who have a lot to say. You wonder, do birds have as much drama as people do? Do bad-bitch-birdies go about slay-birding and shit? Are male birdies referred to as scum? Are women birdies stereotyped as nut-diggers? Do birdies have a Tweetagram? What goes on in the bird world? Their chattering makes you imagine the intricacies of their world. A new world. ‘FUCK!’ you laugh out loud. You love your brain but goddamn, its ability to imagine sound-related new worlds????
“It’s one of your many superpowers babe”
Your partner tells you whenever you get insecure about how lost you get in stories imaginatively.
‘Oblllaaaaayyyoooooooo!’
High-pitched sound of the hawker selling oblayo permeates your thoughts. Perfect! ‘Oblayo nyo!” Calling to her through your window hoping she hears and stops by your door. You drop a spoonful of scooped coffee into a mug of boiled water and hurry out. Flapping sounds of your chalewote follow behind as you make your way to unlock the door.
‘…obbblllaaaayoooo!’
You return shortly with a black polythene bag with hot oblayo which you will transfer into a warmer. Making your way to the kitchen your partner looks at you, looking a tad bit out of it. Their sleep-ridden face and the sound of their yawn-drowned “good morning” which actually sounds like “oooooo orrrrrrrrr iiingggg” makes you smile. You walk towards them wrapping them in a hug as you plant a kiss on their cheek and then collar bone. They smell like a day breaking. You get a whiff of their morning breath. Sleepy and all, they had rinsed their mouth.
“I got you Oblayo” seemed to wake them up. They look like a vegan in an organic farm every time they seem to have access to oblayo. Your heart tap dances at their childlike reaction every time you give them oblayo. You swear that is how they get the fortification for the witchcraft they used to make you fall in love with them. You feel warm inside. From the look on their face as they take spoonfuls of the oblayo, and the black coffee moving its way through your belly. Shortly, you feel the effect of black coffee. Like clockwork it does what it needs to do and you excuse yourself to use the bathroom. Your partner laughs at the haste with which you move.
“Enjoy your poo…”
“You know I will!”
The sound of smoothly moving bowels is an underrated pleasurable experience you wish people would speak about more often. How do you know this? You have enough friends who are chronically constipated, and you know of medically induced bowel movements prescribed to people with irregular BM’s. Only if people understood that being full of shit…literally… was the cause of many health conditions.
A last pocket of air follows your last release. You feel soo light. With joy in your heart and gratitude in your soul for the blessing of regular bowel movements, you step into the shower. In an Accra where running water is not guaranteed, opening your shower to running water with good pressure makes you thankful all over again. Whoever said god does not exist should come and hear the sounds of water generously giving from your shower head.
You passed the bedroom to go to the bathroom but you’d passed so fast you missed how organized the room was looking. You walk back into the room after you shower to a neatly made bed, the curtains drawn to let just enough light in. Fuck! This person knows how to turn you on. A clutter free space is something you’ve always been attracted to. Now you’re wet for them. No worries. They should finish eating their oblayo, shower and go to work. You’ll get ready for the errands you must run. You’ll save your horniness for when they get back. When you hear the jingle of their keys close to the door this evening when they return, you’ll meet them at the door. Kiss them and not care if anyone sees. You’ll whisper,
“thank you for being the best”
They’ll be confused. That’s how you like it. You’ll close the door behind you both and blindfold them. Then you’ll whisper,
“Permission to fuck the sense out of you?”
You’ll feel goosebumps on their skin as they mouth,
“Yes…please”
You’ll tell them to,
“…use your words. Tell me how you want me to fuck you”
