10 Enough (1/2)

A pen in one hand and a cigarette in the other, that's how Ayu worked every night. Writing and smoking into the small, grey hours of dawn.

Abigail, the whisper of a girl who typed up his nightly scrawls, would find him slumped across his desk in corpse-like slumber every morning; cigarette b.u.t.ts, ash and crumpled sheets of paper all over the floor. She would sweep them up and straighten the room up before waking him. When he woke she would have his whiskeyed tea waiting. He always threw it back in one large gulp, as scalding hot as it was, without looking up at her.

One day he did. 'You have cut your hair,' he drawled, disinterest weighing down his tongue.

'Yes, sir,' she said. She had cut it six months ago; it had barely grown past a week-old stubble. He stared at her head, his eyes waiting for an explanation.

'My husband died,' she said. She read the further questions in his eyes, and continued. 'The shaved head is a mark of mourning in our culture.'

'You were married?'

As if this sudden discovery of her marriage is an insult. 'Yes, sir,' she says, apologetic-like.

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'To who?'

'Marcus. Marcus Igbinovia.'

He caught the break in her voice. 'You are not going to cry, are you,' he said, like a warning.

Her well of tears had dried. There was only that black bottomless hole of pain left; it echoed with the dullness of stale grief whenever his name was mentioned . . . She shook her head, 'No.'

'How did he die?' Ayu asked, sitting back in his chair like one about to relish the delicacy of beautiful narration.

She waited for him to settle properly into his seat – legs crossed at the ankles, palms under his head, face melted.

'Like an animal,' she answered, gravely.