'SURVIVING SINGLEHOOD' is a series from my NEW BOOK I'd be starting and sharing on here.
It is a Christian fictio book.
Please share and Enjoy.

***

It was 10pm at night and Amaka just got back from school… again.
She has been doing her masters at Unilag.
"Since man nor come nah, make we go school… maybe we go even see the man for there… na the school we dey so."
Amaka hissed as she remembered the conversation with her friend Ugo.

“Babe howfar nah? Any new man on the block?”
“Sssshhh, new man ko? New man ko? No man don look my face in the last six months”.
“But how shall they nah? When the only thing you know to do is go to work and church; your church that has like six male members with five of them married. I can count them on my fingers.
Babe you need to spread out. Either find a new church or let’s do something else to help your matter’
“What can we do?”
“Have you gone on vacation from your office for a while?”
“Yes I have. I took one last Easter and Christmas period too”.
“Okay, have you considered going back to school to do your masters? Most of the fine bobo’s in Lagos go to Unilag to get a fresh certificate so they can scale up in their office. You should try it. It would be like putting you in a fresh sea where the fisher men are looking for fish. Try am babe”.

Just like that the journey started. Her office gave her a study leave and every day when she went to class she would survey the class for one man – just one man who may perhaps be looking for her. The last situation at class had been epic.

Ah!
Le sigh.
“What have my life turned into…”

******
“Ok sir… I will look for how to research and get the files over to you tomorrow…
Yes sir…
Yes sir…
Thank you sir…
Goodnight sir.”

Lara flung her phone across her bed and hissed. It was official. Her boss was deaf and daft!
After all the eye cutting and hand chasing, the man still couldn’t get that she dug him. Ughh! What more could she do to shoot her shot!
She pulled out her phone and called her friend Kate.
“Kate howfar? I thought you said if I bat my eyes and be at his every beck and call he would notice me? I have been working backwards for three weeks and all I get is ‘thanks’. As if it’s every secretary that takes her boss’s clothes to the laundry and brings him lunch she has cooked herself. Why can’t this man see me? I don tire oh”.
Kate took a deep breath. She had suggested Lara work for her boss in the office, not bend over backwards as a wife material.
“Lara I’m in shock. You did what? You are bringing him food cooked from your kitchen? I hope you know that this man is a married man oh?”
“He is separated not married!”
“Ehen, what is the difference? This man still has a wife answering his last name. Can’t you go for other men in your company? What about Ade you told me about?”
“It would take too long for Ade to come up to date and be a husband my family would accept, Kate. Have you forgotten that he came into the company as an intern and was just made a permanent staff last year? With my status as a secretary and him as a level one staff, please tell me what hope would there be for our beginnings? Abeg, I cannot go through that stress”.
“So you decided to go for the oga at the top”.
Lara rolled her eyes on the other side of the phone with no remorse.
‘Yes!
Please I did not call you for a sermon; after all you were the one who told me the strategic keys of work to take, why are you going all pastor-ish on me now? If you don’t have anything better to say, then bye!”
Lara disconnected the call before Kate could say anything on the end. She kicked off her shoes in anger and plopped on the bed. As soon as she did that her eyes strayed to her boss’ clothes lying at the corner of the bed.
“Arrrrghhhh! I’m not doing again!”

****
Lara was sitting beside aunty Kokoro at her younger brother’s introduction party. How she got herself into this sitting arrangement she would forever mourn. She tried to focus on her pounded yam, rolling it in her hands with all the focus and precision of a person sitting at her desk at work. She could feel aunty Kokoro’s eyes on her and from the corner of her eyes; she could see her deadly mouth preparing to open up.
As soon as Aunty Kokoro’s mouth formed the words, “Lara”, Lara deliberately hit her plate and poured her efo riro soup on herself. Anything was better than sitting through the question of ‘where is he?’
“Ah aunty please excuse me, let me wash up the stain from my dress. I will be back”.
Lara hurried away to the bathroom in her room mumbling under her breath.
“Me go back, God forbid”.
She sat on her bed again – this place where she found her only solace.
‘But God wait first oh, what’s up? What’s happening to me? I am happy for Segun oh but play play play play, all my younger siblings are gone oh. I heard Regina saying her fiancé is also coming for her introduction this year. What am I still doing here?”
She counted her age on her hands.
“I have been in this house for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, going on 9 years after my NYSC. What’s up?”
She thought back to her conversation with her friend Priscilla. It was her friend’s opinion that she should check if she had a spirit husband.
“Maybe I should go see the baba she suggested oh. This thing is too much. Before you know it, everybody would leave me in the dust’.
Lara thought for a minute.
“No it’s not that bad nah; I nor fit let marriage matter carry me enter herbalist house nah”.
She thought again for a minute and arrived at a decision:
“God I will give you one year to connect me with my husband. I will go to church, serve in the choir and be a good girl but if you don’t do anything after that one year then I will go bad”.
Content with her decision, Lara prepared to go back to the sitting room armed with the answer of “God go do am” for aunty Kokoro.

****

Episode two to be continued NEXT WEEK MONDAY.

***
DOWNLOAD THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS OF 'SURVIVING SINGLEHOOD' - FREE.:
http://www.hephzibahfrances.com/my-books/?fbclid=IwAR0VhUbXjRKkWHJhH6qmeVUKEinXnPOjPUovmlYajRFAz29tXPCHDuO6vqo

*****

FULL BOOK AVAILABLE ON:

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/…/B01FWA16PU%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scn…

@Okadabooks
https://okadabooks.com/user/frances.okoro

Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HephzibahFrances

I'm also on KoboBooks, just search for Hephzibah Frances

Hephzibah Frances
www.hephzibahfrances.com