144…That was the number of ceiling boards in Martin’s room. He had spent the last 2041 seconds counting the 144 asbestos ceiling boards of his elegantly furnished bedroom. While his newly wedded wife lay beside him seemingly a thousand miles away…
His friends had warned him, his elder brother and even his father had hinted something to that effect- these things didn’t always turnout right not in this era anyway. But he had made a solemn promise with Onome when they were 16 to wait until after marriage.
His father was initially proud of him. Such discipline, his father said, was what made a man a man. But after he graduated from the polytechnic and got a job, his father began to worry if his son was really a man. Weren’t they engaged to be married? Hadn’t they been faithful to each other for the past 10 years? Then what was the problem? The poking and prodding ad been relayed through his mother and eventually ended up in uncomfortable confrontations from his father. He solved the problem by moving out of their home.
Then there was the issue of peer pressure. Some of his acquaintances had been disgusted at what they believed to be his childish decision. “What would I be doing with a hot pastor’s daughter for 10years!” they cried. She had not been spared either. Her fellow female choir members had warned, “life is not a fairytale and you don’t even know whether he is impotent sef.” Sometimes, they would exchange the stories and laugh off the tension and even find more strength in themselves in the process.
