It’s 5:43pm and William is waiting at the bus station for a ski (ski is the Gen-z name for troski by the way) back home. There is a long queue, and frustration and desperation are catching up with the young 9-5’er. Thoughts of one day owning his own car run through his mind as he waits in this queue, and all of a sudden, a pretty, petite young lady walks up to him.
“Where are you headed?” the lady asks William.
“I’m going towards Spintex,” he answers.
“I figured,” she says. “I’ve been seeing you here for some time now. I am also going towards that direction. Do you mind us ordering an Uber and splitting the cost?”
William, in his desperation, decides to agree to the offer. “I don’t have enough cash, but I think there is something in my Momo or bank account,” he thinks. He was wrong, so wrong.
Fast forward, they order the Uber and get going. It is a long ride because of the usual end-of-day traffic in Accra, so he starts a conversation with the lady.
“You mentioned you’ve seen me around a couple of times. Honestly, this is my first time noticing you,” he says.
The lady replies, “Oh, I am usually at the back of the queue. I don’t leave the office early most of the time. Today I was just lucky,” she says jokingly.
“Where do you work?” he asks.
“I work at GFA. I’m a PA to the branch head.”
The conversation goes on from here, jokes and subtle flirts flying around here and there. Finally, they are getting closer and closer to William’s location (his location is the first stop), and it is time for him to send the money to this “new friend” he has made. The only issue is, his Momo and bank account, which he once thought were ripe with cash, both fall below his payment threshold. He is broke. He has to think fast.
“How about we continue this conversation at your place? It’s a Friday night after all,” says William.
To his surprise, the girl agrees, so they get to the girl’s place, and he asks the girl to pay because his phone is off (it genuinely is by the way). She pays, and they head into the lady’s apartment. He is greeted by two solid cars, and he asks,
“Why are you in a troski queue when you have these two bad boys gathering dust in your compound?”
“You’ll find out soon” is all she says as they walk through the door.
He gets comfy on the sofa after he is offered a seat, and she goes to the kitchen to get him some water. She is back with the water, and he brings up the car conversation again because he is genuinely curious.
“I can’t move the cars until I get a man to drive me to my malam’s shrine” she says with the most serious face and tone. No smirks, just raw seriousness.
William is shocked for a moment and asks with a laugh, “You’re joking right?”
No response from the lady. Dead silence fills the air. Weird energy engulfs the atmosphere. William becomes so uncomfortable and decides to leave.
“But the catch is, after I’m back from the malam’s shrine, you get the car for free with no strings attached. After all, I can always buy a new one. You need it more than I do after all”
William gives it some thought, and he asks skeptically, “How do I know you’re not lying?”
She proceeds to take out her phone to make a phone call. It is a “victim” she is calling, so he clears William’s doubts. William ends the call with this “victim” but still isn’t convinced.
“Why does a man need to drive you to the shrine? What are the terms you made with the madam that led to this arrangement?”
“That’s confidential, but I promise you there are no strings attached. Nothing is going to happen to you.”
“Fine” William agrees. Let’s do this. I have the chance to stick to my morals and go home carless and in debt to a random lady I met in a troski queue, or I can just drop her at a random spiritualist’s shrine and get a free car. What’s the worst that can happen? William thinks. She has promised there aren’t any consequences, so that’s fine, right?
So they get some rest and depart early the following morning for this strange escapade. Fast forward, they return from their escapade, and she hands over the car keys to him, and he drives off. He never speaks to her again.
A few months pass, and he is still waiting for the consequences of his actions, at the same time, wondering what would have happened if he didn’t take this chance. Was this free will at play? Or just sheer recklessness?
He’s snapped back into reality after he is aggressively nudged by a friend who is also in the queue with him.
“Chale the car go lef we o where your mind dey? Make we go masa”
They finally get in the car and he is getting trolled by his boys for being a man and having time to daydream instead of getting his bread up. Still lost in thought, all he hears in the background is “Oh chale free Will free Will he day beg”