Gratuitous Misfortune; or Carelessness?

By Omoseye Bolaji

He was patently delighted to see me; giving a whoop of delight and rushing forward to greet me, his ginormous smile in evidence. But alas, instinctively I was wary and reluctant, though I had not seen him for at least three years.

“Chief!” he said. “It’s me. Don’t say you have forgotten me,” a beatific grin touched his face. “Give me a hug,” But I was still circumspect, unusually for me.

Of course I knew him very well, Evans (not his real name) from west Africa (we need not specify the country here!) I had known him on and off in South Africa for some ten years. Perhaps he can even be described as something of an old friend. Normally I would have been happy to see him, but as human beings there are certain things that influence our sensibilities, making our humane trajectories to recoil, as it were.

Even now as I forced myself to hug him I kept my hands firmly around my pockets, ensuring that my cell phone was there! Perhaps it was both bizarre and eccentric. Though I had not seen him for years, in my mind he would always be associated with the strange disappearance of cell phones as far as I am concerned.

My mind went back to some five years ago. I was with Evans near an ATM centre in the heart of Bloemfontein city where we had been chatting. Right beside him I had used my cell phone at least twice. Then we had parted and as soon as we left each other I noticed my cell phone had disappeared!

Not that I really blamed him at the time. As Oscar Wilde might have said, to lose something once in a certain way might be a misfortune, but twice would border on carelessness! Some three years ago, by a coincidence I was boarding the same train with Evans (we were on our way to Kimberley) we had chatted and joked during the journey and my cell phone was being continually used.

But incredibly, as soon as I said goodbye to him and alighted at Kimberly, the next moment I noticed that my cell phone had disappeared! I could not believe it. Inevitably, my mind had gone back to the incident of years ago when my phone had disappeared whilst I was with Evans again.

Come to think of it, it was unusual, but not out of this world. I had lost two cellphones whilst with Evans. Could it be a co-incidence? Thus I wondered after the second incident. After all, to be fair to Evans, he always had cellphones too, probably better than mine, so why would he steal phones?

Perhaps more important, would he really jeopardize our “friendship” and camaraderie because of a ‘trifle’ like a phone? Was it not just coincidence? It was a poser, enigma, a conundrum all rolled into one, so to speak. I hardly knew the answers. But unfortunately even without me being really conscious of it over the years, it was clear that I had now become circumspect whenever I set eyes on him.

Which was why, right now, after setting eyes on him again after three years, I could only unleash false smiles and keep on ensuring (tapping intermittently at my pocket) that my cellphone was still intact! I did chat with him a bit of course; though inwardly realizing how fragile and tenuous relationships can be.

Now, even after he had departed and left me, I kept on holding on to my phone, almost like a fetish. Ah well…