C3 Sacked!

The cool heavy wind raging outside indicated it was going to storm throughout the whole night. The usual spotlights on the night sky had suddenly been replaced by dark almost black clouds a few hours ago. It wasn't unexpected. It was rainy season and there were bound to be storms almost every night making everywhere always wet and cold but who was I to complain if the Lord had decided to bless us with his piss?

Esther and I were seated on the couch continuously casting curious and unsettling glances at the door expecting Dave or anyone who looked like him to come walking through it. It was past midnight and Dave hadn't returned home after storming out of the house during supper; his behaviour earlier still gave me an uneasy feeling. I looked at Esther and the weary look on her face showed she would be dosing off to the dreamland soon. She was neither a morning person nor a night person. She was an afternoon person though; her noon hyperactivity proved it. I thought of all the possible places Dave could be; any friends he could be with but sadly enough, I didn't know anyone I could label as his acquaintance or friend because just like the rest of us, he didn't keep friends. I tried calling him again, hopefully, this time I would be lucky enough to get through to him but his automated voice directed me to voicemail again.

The roaring of the wind against the windows of the parlours broke me out of my thoughts. The raging wind outside had gone completely ballistic now, threatening to uproot our flat if not tamed. There would be, no doubt, a blackout.

Sighing heavily, I went to the kitchen to drop the now empty cups of tea we had about an hour ago into the basin. I glanced at the wall clock again before heading inside to close the windows in all our rooms. The rooms were already becoming too cold. I walked back to the parlour and found Esther already sleeping in an awkward position.

"Hey," I softly tapped her thigh.

She groaned then cast her bleary eyes upon me.

"Yeah," she groggily whispered.

"You need to get some sleep. You need to be in school tomorrow".

"Is Dave back?"

"No, but I'll let him know you waited up for him hence, he should have a physical and mental preparation for what's coming to him later".

She gave a weak nod and smile before staggering to her room."Goodnight".

"Goodnight and don't let the bed bugs bite".

Definitely not a night person

I relaxed into the couch and closed my eyes, relishing in the cool breeze that blew in through the slightly opened widows. There wasn't a blackout yet which was strange considering the fact that the heavy rain outside which began some minutes ago could float the Titanic.

The door opened and closed revealing a rather sodden Dave who only muttered a ''hi'' to me and made a beeline for his room without doing as much as sparing me a glance.

Did he just ignore me?

I could feel my eyes narrowing and my fists clenching with my whole body vibrating in anger. I jumped off the couch and walked to Dave's room stomping my feet hard on the floor. The door of his room was ajar meaning he was expecting me. He was already shirtless and was about to pull off his trousers when I barged into his room.

"Where the hell have you been mister?" I yelled crossing my arms around my chest and glaring at him.

He sighed softly. "I don't want to talk about it now D".

"Bloody hell Dave! I called your number for hours Dave! Hours! Hell, I almost had a heart attack!" I yelled again which didn't even phase him.

"I just want to sleep D," he said slumping on his bed without even bothering to change out of his wet trousers anymore.

I was angry. Scratch that, I was fuming. I was going berserk. It took a considerable amount of effort to not bang his head against the wall even though I didn't stand a chance and couldn't do that. He knew what riled me up and he did a number of them that night. I always had a mental list of the tortures I'd love to inflict on my victims who made me angry but I wasn't angry at that moment, I was fucking irate. The heat of my rage oozed out through the many pores present in my body. I stood there glaring at his sleeping form.

That was it. I was going to murder him. He would finally die at my hands.

I was up waiting for him. Worried out of my skin and he didn't even think I deserve an explanation?! That I deserved to know where his arse has been?! Yes! I was going to kill him. I was going to murder his arse and throw his body into the lagoon or better still, burn it. It would be a while before his body would be found. I would have fled the city then and perhaps the country.

Should I use my gun, sword, bow and arrow chains, knife or baseball bat?

Maybe I should just throttle him in his sleep instead

I lost track of how long I stood there glaring at him and thinking of ways to kill him until his soft snores filled the room. Feeling no energy left in me to utilise in getting angry, my eyes began to hurt for glaring too hard and for too long. I sighed and slumped my shoulders in defeat

"Twat," I mumbled before heading to my room.

~~~

An evil child's laughter jerked me out of my dreamland. My hand immediately went to the baseball bat I always sleep with setting in position to strike whoever it was that produced the evil sound. It took me just seconds to realise what it was.

What?! I slept like five minutes ago, how is it possible it's already 7 am?!

I glared at the devilish device some fool thought it was wise to invent.

What good is an alarm clock?!

Hissing, I threw my duvet off me and walked aimlessly to the bathroom for my morning routine.

Bathing and getting dressed, I left my room and happily hopped to the kitchen. Esther was already in her school uniform which looked like a prison one by the way but eh, not my cup of tea. She would have looked cute sitting at the dining table like that but she looked like a starved old zombie.

Definitely not a morning person either

David was by the cooker cooking what smelt like beans.

Ah, one of my favourites

"Morning sweet sister," Dave chirped happily whilst I glared at him. He was not going to bribe me. I haven't forgotten how he ignored me hours ago. But as always, my glare meant nothing to him, he only grinned at me like a Cheshire cat.

"Morning sis," Esther mumbled.

"Dear sister!" I gasped dramatically. "What happened to you? Did you fight with anyone in your dreams? I almost thought you were Aunty Lydia!"

She glared at me for comparing her to our dear old yet surprisingly strong aunt who was long dead by the way. Aunty Lydia was our frail, lanky aunty who seemed to wither by the second but surprisingly enough, she made it past her 50th birthday. However, what was inside her couldn't compare to her appearance. She was a witch, or so we thought. Her claws, burnt teeth, garlic breath, screeching voice and evil laugh were wholly adequate to make me traumatised for the rest of my life. She, all the time, looked like a witch caught by an electric wire but to my lovely dad, she looked like an angel. Although she had no pointy hat or nose and didn't fly on brooms, she was still the perfect witch to us.

"I'm tired. I don't feel like going to school today," she mumbled then bringing her palms together, she tried to use her puppy eyes for me. "Can I skip school today please?"

"Most certainly not ma'am". I rolled my eyes at her eliciting a pout from her.

"I made your favourite tea sis," Dave said placing a cup of hot tea in front of me. The sweet pleasant smell of the tea wafted through my nostrils straight to my brain making all the cells stand at alert which annoyingly also prevented me from glaring at Dave.

Nincompoop

Picking the cup up gracefully, I took a sip of my aphrodisiac and immediately, I felt all the organs, muscles, nerves, tissues and cells of my body singing "Hallelujah".

"Food is ready," Dave chirped again placing a plate of the cooked beans in front of me and another plate in front of Esther. I gave him a sceptical look as he walked to the fridge.

"Are you in any way trying to bribe me?"

He turned around to grin at me. "Well is it working?" he asked pulling a big loaf of bread out of the fridge.

"Absolutely not," I replied with a straight face.

Bringing the bread to the table, my eyes widened when I saw what was in his hands

My favourite bread

"So am I forgiven now?" he asked sitting down in his usual seat.

"I'll think about it. Now give me that bread before I pulverise you," I threatened.

He slid the bread on the table toward me then raised his hands in surrender. "It's all yours"

~~~

I stood in front of the wooden door to the archaic building that stood alone at the very end of the street. Although it was old on the outside, the inside was a tad bit better. Lola's parents had sent me a text quite early in the morning asking to see me. Well, they had to write just a single sentence which was, 'We need to discuss something with you and it's very important'. I hated messages of sorts. They rarely meant anything good. Ever since I read the message, my brain, heart, intestines, lungs and every other important thing in my body had been screaming 'bad news' which meant I was not going to like whatever the discussion would be about.

I knocked lightly on the door and moments later, it was opened by a grumpy Lola who immediately grinned upon seeing me.

"D!" she screamed launching herself into my already opened arms.

"I missed you too Lola," I said laughing.

"I don't have a session with you today. Why are you here?" she inquired dragging me into their parlour.

"Daddy and mummy asked to see me, dear. We have something to discuss," I explained to her.

"Daddy, mummy, D is here," Lola called for her parents. A moment passed before I heard some footsteps.

Mr Akanji's pot belly was the first thing I saw before his whole body came into my view. Believe me, he looked like a drum of water that swallowed another five drums of water; pun unintended. Although he was quite tall he was also exceptionally dark, like midnight. He had a fleshy face that seem to always harden into a solid mass with coarse hair covering most of it and his arms. His hairy face and body made him look like a monkey. His eyebrows were like two lines roughly drawn by a two-year-old with two dots of the fingers representing the nose and two angry horizontal stripes as his lips. His long dirty fingernails appeared to have dug about a hundred latrines. His grotesque face was shocking and he looked straight out of a drawing book making it difficult to discern between him smiling and crying.

Mrs Akanji, on the other hand, looked straight out of the magazine. Straight legs, large hips that seem to root out of her small waist with a large bottom to accompany it. Her bosoms were full making them look like a successful milk industry; full pink lips, a set of white teeth and a fair complexion to die for. She was distinctly beautiful. I still couldn't wrap my head around the fact that she married a monkey. Maybe it was true after all that, unlike poles, attract.

"Hello to you ma'am and sir".

"Hello to you too Daphne," Mrs Akanji returned with a smile.

Oh that set of white teeth.

"We called you here because of Lola's treatment," Mr Akanji began. He lacked manners. He didn't even deem it fit to exchange pleasantries. His wife scowled at him before turning to Lola who was sitting between them.

"Could you give us a moment darling?"

"OK mummy". Struggling to gain her balance, she wobbled up to her room leaving the parlour in complete silence.

"So, we want you to stop her treatment," Mr Akanji grunted which to him, might be speaking. His voice reminded me of the scary and crazy rag-stealing masquerades in my village who claimed to be the devil's, right-hand man. Whereas, we all knew they were humans beneath those costumes.

"Pardon? You want me to terminate her treatment?"

"Yes"

"Why? I'm the therapist here and I get to decide if and when her treatment should be terminated." I suppressed the snide remarks that were eager to escape through my lips because honestly, his grunts were starting to piss me off.

"We're relocating," came the curt reply from Mr Akanji.

Dude, did your ugliness rub you off any emotion?

"Daphne," Mrs Akanji finally spoke up– her voice gentle and soothing. "We appreciate what you've done for us. Lola has greatly improved and it's all because of you. Even though we aren't paying you enough, you still agreed to help us because of the love you have for your job".

Awww but I love the money, not the job dear

"We can't afford to live in the city anymore which is why we're moving back to the town," she explained.

"But Lola has to finish her treatment. You can't just stop a cerebral palsy treatment". I tried to convince them. I still needed the money no matter how little it was but it wasn't working.

"We know. We can continue with the little techniques you taught us but we want you to understand us. We can't live here anymore. We can't afford it," Mrs Akanji said softly, her eyes pleading.

"All right then," I eventually replied after a moment of silence.

"We'll pay you whatever we're still owing you," the always grumpy dude spoke again.

"Well, you still have my account number". They weren't expecting me not to collect the salary I worked for. It was little but at least, it footed some bills.

Trust me, nobody hates money

I gently closed the door behind me and set to return to my apartment. Mrs Akanji had been nice enough to force me to have some tea and biscuits with them. A complete opposite of her grumpy husband.

It had been quite a day and the scorching sun was not making it any better. The realisation of my discussion with the Akanjis dawned on me and the only thing playing on my mind was.........

I have just been sacked!