Things We Do For Love

I stare straight ahead through the cream colored veil as I walk down the aisle. I am not hanging on to anyone’s arm. My father left us long ago and I honestly can’t stand the rest of my other male relations.

I am very happy but calm as I stare at my husband to be. Victor. You bring peace to my life. You radiate warmth, goodness, and an inner kindness that only your soul can possess. You were worth it Victor. Worth the expense, the time, the risk.  And you seem so proud of me. I wonder if you would still feel this way if you find out what I did. For you. For us. So we can be happy. But you will not find out. You must never find out.

Shola was a really nice person. Handled me the way a real man should treat his woman. No, I will never forget Shola. I still have a soft spot for him. Even after he threatened to blackmail me when he found out that you had proposed to me. Shola was desperate and jealous. He was so in love with me that he never really got over our breakup. Sex with him was fair enough and we communicated really well. His family and friends were not an issue. I got along with them perfectly. I just got bored with him, that’s all.

But my world seemed to crumble when I received a call from Shola out of the blue. Not like he never used to call me, but there was something about this call… I felt a sense of foreboding as I answered it. When I heard what he wanted to say, I knew my world would indeed come to an end if I didn’t take drastic measures. And a drastic measure I took.

I told him we needed to talk. Catch up on old times. You know? He agreed speedily and i showed up looking sexy. I even came along with a nice bowl of vegetable soup, lightly spiced with a unique ingredient. I left him foaming at the mouth after clearing all evidence or traces of my presence. The autopsy turned up that he had died of food poisoning but we had broken up three years ago, he lived alone and no one could prove that I had visited him so he was given a decent burial which I magnanimously attended.

But I had learned a lesson from Shola. So I went in search of my other exes that could pose a problem, especially those I had once done a sex tape or had orgies with.  Weirdly enough, I was always faithful to my lovers and I hadn’t dated much so they were just two more left. David and Chukwudi.

David was an ass. Always had been. I didn’t want to take any chances so I didn’t even wait for him to find out about my engagement to you before I took ‘care’ of him. Need not outline how I eliminated him but let’s just say it was quite unfortunate that whilst walking along the road one night, he was killed by a hit and run driver that was never identified nor found to this day.

What an evil and mysterious world. LOL.

Chukwudi. A sweetheart.

I almost regret what happened to him but well, when I break up with a guy, the emotions and passionate feelings they had once awoken in me would suddenly run cold. It would die away like a fire that had been rudely put out by a container of water completely disproportionate to its size. It wouldn’t even get a chance to fizzle out. Ashes smolder. Still possess some kind of heat. My love just dies like that. Kpam. The end. And I move on. Very swiftly, like I love to say.

Chukwudi was a sweetheart but a poor sweetheart. Very poor. Chai.  Impoverished. Pauper. Oloshi. He was always very hungry and haggard. My goodness. I once dated someone like that? Must have been juju. Dirty Yoruba juju. That kind where they tell the fat smelly 40something year old woman afraid of losing her fatter 60something year old Yoruba husband to the sassy runs girl with badly drawn eyebrows, to put in her mouth and head straight home without talking to anybody else.

When she gets home she is mandated to dance a jig in front of his portrait and speak authoritatively to it after calling his name thrice. “Bashiru! Bashiru!! Bashiru!!! Bi mo se n pe e ni isin yi, nibi kibi to ba wa, nise ni ko ma gbo simi lenu!” And all that nonsense.

Then in a cheap motel miles away, Bashiru’s penis suddenly goes limp inside Monika the runs girl, his eyeballs spark red ‘koin koin’. That is the sound of his eyes clearing, and his brain falling into his wife’s palm wherever she is.

More nonsense.

Chukwudi was arrested on suspicion of armed robbery, picked up for questioning and unfortunately died in police custody during the severe process of interrogation. Ugh! Drat the Nigerian police and their blasted over-efficiency in carrying out their job!

It’s tough for a girl to lose three exes in less than a year, but hey, life goes on!

And now I’m walking towards the altar.

Walking up to you, My Darling.

You take my hand.

The rites begin.

I listen to them attentively.

But my eyes shine as the priest asks “Do you Chioma Felicia Onyebuchi, take this man Victor Praise Madubuko, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, for better, for worse, till death do you part”?

The ghosts of ex-boyfriends past seem to linger in the air. They whisper to me softly. Shola is missing a hand but his other hand reaches out to caress my neck. I lean lightly into his touch. David is petulant, angry, and jealous. I ignore him. Chukwudi is wistful, sad, and lonely; I look at him and wonder briefly about what might have been. He would have made another woman very happy. I turn away from them all.

Baby, your name might be Victor, but I am the Victor. I conquered them all so we could be together.

Forever.

Yes baby. Till death do us part.

My voice rings out clear, confident and true:

"I do.”

I don’t turn back but the air is no longer freezing cold. The ghosts of ex-boyfriends past have dissipated into thin air.

I have no regrets.