Single mothers and Oranges (1)

By: Rose Olabode

For Queen, it was nice to be back home after exams, trying not to get drunk on Pepsi and

Coca-cola until feelings of hatred for a neighbouring landlady resurfaced, coursing through her body like the bitter agbo her grandmother always coaxed her into drinking from time to time.

To Grandma, who also went by the nickname Omoge, Queen earned the right to bottles of Coca-Cola after taking gulps of the brown liquid she boiled in her special Saki pot. She swore it was the secret to her youthful appearance at 75, but without the Cola though.

Now her grandmother was dead, and instead of the bitter agbo she had no interest in preparing - even if she knew how to, Queen resorted to taking fresh fruit juice every day.

Unfortunately, the orange trees at the back of the three-bedroom flat that was automatically her mother’s since Omoge died were no longer producing fruit as they had been during the lengthy ASUU strike. She only lived in the house because of the memories with Omoge. And now, the memories were being sullied by the neighbouring landlady.

The draining dialogue she had with the pompous neighbour at an orange tree flashed in her memory, threatening to be regurgitated like undigested food, accompanied by other eww-worthy

stories she’d heard of the woman over the years. The woman took the opportunity to ask her

questions that she wouldn’t have answers to in a million light years to come.

“Shey Queen ni yen?” The lightweight woman she spitefully nicknamed Efufulele called from

the short fence that divides her house from Omoge’s.

“Ehn, Queen ni,” She replied in her soft voice, trying not to get into trouble. Coincidentally, she

had been told by Omoge never to get offended by Efufulele if she ever got provoked by her.

“You’re fat, is that why you’ve decided to take the oranges? You were never interested in them.”

She inquired as though it was her business. She was a grandma Queen never called 'grandma'.

Omoge was on another level of grandma-ism. She was at least 20 years older than Efufulele.

Efufulele was one inconsiderate neighbour who thought she was better than everybody else. Her

house was the first to get aluminium windows in the area…like that was a big deal. She begged

for Omoge’s coconuts even when she obviously wasn’t on good terms with her neighbours.

So, when she poked her nose into Queen’s privacy like everyone who thinks their eyes are there

so their mouths can trumpet everything they see, Queen went pffffff like an antenna glitch on a

white and black television.

“Is it ASUU?”

To be continued...