In the space of time - Episode 8

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14th July 2006

It was Sunday.  Odogwu was in church.  Christ church chapel. Service was over already.  He waited for the the youth leader,  Mr Paul.  He had asked Odogwu to see him,  Odogwu wondered why. Mr Paul had taken over from Pastor Kalu,  when he graduated.  He missed Pastor Kalu.  He was the one  who had comforted Odogwu when he was going hay wire,  he was the one who had led Odogwu to Church in his second level.  Up till now his final year, Pastor Kalu still called him to check up on his well being.  Odogwu called the next youth leader,  Mr because he felt the guy wasn't his age mate at all.  He wasn't a student,  he was a staff.  He had just gotten married last December,  to a lady from the choir department. He respected Mr Paul because he had proved himself worthy.  He wasdiligent and ready to serve.  The whole church could see it.  Odogwu had made up his mind to be useful in anyway he could in the house.  That was why Mr Paul trusted him with certain tasks,  like handing over students to him to coach.  Mostly males though.  The last time,  Mr Paul, had asked him to wait behind,  it was to coach a 200 level engineering student who was on the verge of dropping out.  The boy,  Collins was about to switch to Geology because he wasn't doing well,  but Odogwu had encouraged him that if he had joined engineering team for passion,  he just needed to put in more work and he would  recover from his fall.  Collins had done really well after taking tutorials from Odogwu.  He had moved from a 2.6 GPA to a 3.8 the next semester.  Mr Paul waved and gestured for Odogwu to come.  Odogwu went back into the Church to where Mr Paul was standing beside the technical stand.  He was talking to some ladies.  Odogwu exercised patience,  even though he had a bunch of assignments to do that day.  He just hoped that whatever It was that Mr Paul wanted him to do wouldn't take time . "Good morning sir",  Mr Paul smiled,  "Chuma,  you and this your sir,  na you sabi",  he gestured for him to come closer.  "Come,  for your final year dinner,  there's a girl I want to help you with the spoken words".  Oh.  Odogwu had totally forgotten about that.  He was in charge of the presentation of certain things that day.  He was supposed to MC the program.  Which was a minor thing for him,  he had just figured he would get someone from the other units to write a couple of words for them.  "Meet Adaugo,  she's the perfect person for the job".  Stunned was not the perfect word to describe how Odogwu felt at that particular moment.  He was beyoind shocked.  Hello destiny?  Nice play.  And thank you, he thought while wearing a big smile.  


EIGHT
19th February, 2019
Odogwu smiled as he ushered in the flag commanding officer, central naval command into the newly built hospital inside the barracks

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. The project was a huge one, and Odogwu had been the one to oversee the project. He was the team leader. This was one of the biggest projects that year and so he had invested a lot in it, a lot of time and energy. He was glad the building was finally completed. Now the transfer letter that he sent to the headquarters could be acknowledged. He hoped. ‘’Commander Chuma, this is a really good job, I must say, impressive’’, Odogwu smiled. It was indeed a good job, he was thankful to the team for always being there to work and the hard work they had put in. ‘’Honestly, this wouldn’t have been possible without the team, my team’’, he stated still smiling. The opening ceremony was next week. When they would cut the ribbon and officially open the hospital for use. It was already being equipped with hospital materials. He could only go home after the opening ceremony was completed. His smile suddenly disappeared as he saw the person greeting the Rear Admiral. It was ‘’Chituru, lieutenant Chituru’’, Odogwu was now his senior. Chituru and Odogwu had been colleagues and friends while they were together at the Nigerian navy engineering college, sapele, during Odogwu’s training days. This was until Odogwu discovered how cheap Chituru was. Whenever they were assigned a project, Chituru would order for the least quality of building materials and pocket the rest. Odogwu warned him severally after noticing this but Chituru was too greedy to take to corrections. He had given Odogwu several reasons why he needed the money urgently, it was either his sister or his aunt needed the money for an operation. 
Odogwu had grown to known better, Chituru lavished the money on cars and girls, Odogwu often wondered why nobody had caught him, that was until Odogwu found out that Chituru had deceived many about the status of his family. He had told many of the other colleagues and even juniors that he (Chituru) was affiliated with the famous ‘’Chukuemeka Godswill’’’, the oil mogul and one of the wealthiest men in the country, this was definitely a lie, Chituru had told him this himself, once while they were alone. Odogwu didn’t want that kind of person as a friend, a liar and a thief. In fact, he didn’t want anything to do with Chituru at all, so he applied for a transfer. That was the first time he ever applied for a transfer, this was briefly after he got married to Ada. This also was part of the reasons he wanted Ada to stay home. She had just given birth to Somtochukwu then and because of his transfer from Sapele, delta state he was sent to port Harcourt for two years. Odogwu knew it wasn’t easy for Ada, taking care of the kids on her own most of the time but he didn’t have much of a choice. When he had joined the navy, he had signed up for all their transfers and missions. He hadn’t expected it to be all rosy and it hadn’t been that bad. Good/stable income, and he loved his job. He was doing what he had passion for, engineering beautiful buildings just like the one in front of him. 
‘’Morning sir!’’, Odogwu turned to his right. It was Chituru, his former friend. ‘’yes, Lieutenant, how are you?’’, Odogwu was keeping it formal, he didn’t want to make unnecessary comments, he would catch up with Chituru later. Apparently, Chituru had just been transferred to Abuja from Lagos, he looked good, he was probably doing alright. After that the Rear Admiral left, Odogwu went back to his quarters. It was a two bedroom apartment in the barracks. Another good thing that came with being in the navy was that it came with an apartment and an official car, free health services and subsidized school fees for your wards in the military school. He remembered arguing last year with Ada on the school to send Somto to. Left to Odogwu he wanted Chuma to attend the federal secondary school and learn how to be a strong man to face crisis well. He didn’t wasn’t Somto to turn out like a crybaby. He suddenly remembered Odinaka, his childhood and university friend, they were still friends till now, but hung out less. Odinaka used to cry for little things back in school. Of course, they were not little things to him, but to Odogwu, they were ‘’little things’’. Odogwu guessed he had that kind of mentality because of the circumstances that surrounded his growing up. He knew it was because he had to be a man for his family right from secondary school days. 
Nevertheless, Odogwu believed the circumstances he had faced had shaped him into the person he currently was, he was proud of his achievements and he wanted his children to grow up strong too, but without facing the kind of tragedies that he faced. Ada had declined anyway. She said Somto was too small to be subjected to that ‘kind of treatment’ and since they could afford the private schools, she wasn’t taking her chances on her son, ‘’I mean he’s nine, not five’’, Odogwu had said replying her, but Ada was really serious about it, she made it clear that she wasn’t joking with her son . In fact, Odogwu believed it was Ada who was the cry baby and soft one. But she was his cry baby. He remembered how she would burst into tears on so many occasions. Ada was the kind of person that would cry if she was looking for her purse, or cry when she when she watched a movie with a sad ending. Before he married her, he had taken her to the cinemas there in Enugu, to see a movie. Ada went in smiling an rejoicing but left the movie theatre cleaning and wiping her eyes with his, note the word, ‘his’ his handkerchief. He had laughed hard when she said, ‘that kind of treatment’, the training given to secondary school students was nothing, like nothing at all compared to the training they given to the adults at the professional level. She made it sound like they were going to be trained in prison or something. Maybe Ada was soft because of the way she grew up, but then again, just how did she grow up? He knew she didn’t exactly live the princess life because of the kind of maltreatment she got from her stepmum. Odogwu often wondered what her father did while his wife beat up his daughter. Why would a father turn blind eye to something as terrible as that?  He  remembrered the scar on Ada’s right wrist, and the one on her back too. The one on her right wrist was gotten when she was in Jss2, Ada’s step mum had told her to dip her hands in hot water because she had failed to return from school early. She blamed Ada and reported to her husband that she had been going out with boys at such a young age. What kind of father lets his daughter suffer that kind of treatment yet Ada loved him very much. Apparently, Mr Nwachukwu did not know his daughter well, Adaugo was a virtuous woman, Odogwu had married her as a virgin and he believed nothing about her the story her step mother had cooked up, the only thing he was sure of was that they were lies and he hated lies.

*****************************
26th February, 2019
Today was Tuesday, the opening ceremony for the hospital, after this Odogwu could finally go home. The ceremony had ended though, and they were now at the dinner. The afternoon event had gone well. Whenever the navy had an opening ceremony, in fact any kind of ceremony at all, it was always a big deal. So many bullets would be shot in the air and parades will be done to begin and end the ceremony. Odogwu was tired. While it was raining in Enugu it was seriously hot in Abuja. Odogwu couldn’t wait for all the work to come to an end so he’d finally go home. He was given two weeks of given two weeks leave before starting work again. There had been so much work in the past few months, overseeing the building of the hospital, he wanted to really rest well, with no worries for the project or anything. ‘’hello’’, he looked at the direction of the voice. It was a young lady in a skimpy dress, he about to reply when she moved to sit on his laps?  What was wrong with her? ‘’excuse me?’’, he said pushing her off his laps. He was at a dinner and there were many girls who would probably be around looking for suitors but that didn’t mean they should behave uncivilized about it, ‘’ouuuchh, my head’’, the girl said looking like she was in pain. ‘’are you okay?, do you need to go to the hospital?’’, Odogwu asked holding her head, she just bent down and didn’t reply.

Read " When two hearts collide " by the same author ( Ijeoma Okorie )

. What was wrong with her?‘’thank God the hospital was nearby, what kind of wahala was this? this wouldn’t have happened if Odogwu had just sat with his colleagues after mingling with them, but no, ;he had decided to come sit in a separate corner. See what his melancholic nature had caused now. ‘
‘’If you’d take me, I’d go, I could follow you anywhere, just name it’’, she said this holding on to Odogwu’s tie. Odogwu had known better now. She was a prostitute, what was a prostitute doing at an official dinner? ‘’I’m sorry to disappoint you dear, but I don’t deal with prostitute’’, he replied taking her hands off his tie. Her expression changed. Was this sadness or disappointment? Whatever it was he didn’t care.  He just wanted her to disappear from his sight.  "I'm not a prostitute, how would you even think that I'm a prostitute,  I'm am officer like you",  she said in defense.  Oh wow.  Really?  "You're an officer?",  he asked lifting a brow and finding it hard to believe. "Like an officer for the navy,  officer? ", he added in complete disbelief. The lady just hissed and took a sip from a drink which she was now holding.  "No o,  an officer for the police officier",  she was obviously  angry now.  "I apologize for the wrong assumption",  Odogwu said.  He was actually sorry.  "But I'm married"  he said raising his ring finger.  
"There's no ring on it" she said.  But Odogwu didn't hear her.  The DJ had increased the volume of the music playing in the background.  "What did you say?" He asked also increasing the volume of his voice.  Then she pointed to his finger and muttered the words,  "no ring" she lifted her hands in the air then faced her iPhone to check something.  Odogwu didn't know what it was,  not like he cared though,  he just didn't want to be involved in anything that would damage his integrity as a man.  He had removed his wedding ring to dress up earlier and had apparently left it on the bed side table.  Sometimes he did this,  it wasn't intentional but it just happened.  "You know,  if you don't find me attractive you could just say it" She thought he was lying now.  He had been married for ten years,  did he seem that young?  "No you're very beautiful,  but I'm actually married",  he says this lifting his hand up again then remembering his ring wasn't on it.  He dropped his hand and says,  "I love my wife and I can't cheat on her,  I'm sorry",  she looked like she didn't care.  "Is your wife here?" She asked. 
 "What? " Odogwu asks replying her question with another question as though he hadn't heard her the first time.  "Your wife,  is she here? " she asked again,  using the hand which held her drink to gesture round the room.  "No, but still I can't cheat.  I'm  a Christian,  I fear God",  she does something that amazes him.  She laughs.  "Yeah right".  What was that?  What was the world turning into?  How can a young lady outrighty ask a married man to sleep with her?  Because he was sure that that was exactly what she was initiating.  She moved to his ear and said, "its loud,  should we go outside,  more privacy perhaps? ".  This was it.  Odogwu knew it was his queue to leave.  "That wouldn't be necessary" he said getting  up and heading for the exit.  On his way,  he bumps into someone.  "Oh,  I'm so sorry",  he knew that voice,  it was Chituru.  Oh,  "Odogwu" he says,  calling him by his name. Of course Odogwu knew that all those "Sir Sir" he was forming earlier in the day was because they were in the midst of other officers.  "You didn't like Alexa? " he asked looking in the direction Odogwu was just sitting.  What?  Chituru had sent her?  It was just so typical of Chituru to do this. He knew  Odogwu was married but still he sent him ladies to flirt and do whatever with.  Another reason he cut Chituru off from his life.  That was indeed one of the greatest decisions he had ever made.  

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