Anónimo I

Miriam looked longingly at the wall socket beside her desk and returned a forlorn gaze to her mobile phone. The LED light was flashing yellow with her battery level showing 5% . In a few minutes, it would inform her that her battery was ‘too low for radio use’.
Why she switched from her trusty Nokia 3310 which could last for days without the constant necessary libation to the ‘recharge battery’ goddess to this useless landline in the body of a blackberry phone was a problem question best left unattempted. She dutifully turned off ‘all alerts’ in a bid to reduce the load on her phone but doubted it would stop her phone from going off.
There were only two wall sockets in the store both of which were thoroughly occupied.
The clock above the entrance to the store indicated the time was eleven forty-five too late to close for breakfast break too early for lunch. She stared at the bell above the door to the store and pouted. It had not jingled since she got in at 7:30am. She was alone in the store and did not think cousin Zogie would be quite pleased if she where to pop in unannounced and discover that she had closed her store midmorning so she could run home and charge her phone. As she caressed her phone lovingly using the last few minutes of its present battery life wisely (changing her personal message – pm to ‘battery low’ and sending a broadcast message) she decided that the designer of the store was a wicked store designer, planner, architect or whatever they called themselves.
Who designs a store with just 2 wall sockets?!
Or could it be she had missed the 3rd one? Was there another socket somewhere? Dropping the phone on the desk she walked around the table and stood in the middle of the store.
Well, almost the middle of the store, there was a partitioned section towards the back that functioned as a storage area. It was basically a gift store with additional odds and ends plus whatever was on sale in the country cousin Zogie found herself in.

Miriam had heard of compulsive liars, cheaters and thieves but for the first time in her life, she realized her cousin was a compulsive traveller.
Zogie could not stay in one place for too long.
If she did not have money to travel, she would sell the tissue of her spine, spleen and even kidney to raise enough money to travel to a place she ‘saw in her dream’.
The arrangement worked out for Miriam though because after about a year and a half of searching for the ‘dream job’, she had all but given up and decided to settle for a bank job or worse only for dear cousin Zogie to ‘reach out to her’.
Without a second thought, she packed up her few worldly possessions, kissed her stupefied but really cool parents goodbye, sent hurried text messages to her siblings and relocated to the garden city, Port Harcourt!

Now while she managed her cousin’s store, interviewed and searched for capable store assistants she was taking an online masters course and remaining focused in the plans to snag her dream job.

Pushing aside the blazers and jackets on display hanging from the rack parallel to the wall, she stuck her head through the gap and surveyed the area.
No socket.
She sighed, stood straight and looked at the clock again. Barely a minute had passed. Time had decided to lounge today of all days. She sighed again. Hopefully, this new girl she hired would be more dedicated than the last. Sadly, she was not due to resume until 2pm.
With the rate of unemployment in Nigeria, she was puzzled as to why more people where not responding to the ‘help wanted’ ads she had been posting on social networks. She padded to the section that housed her favorite things in the whole wide world – books!
She loved books.
Story books, picture books, any book. There was an array of books, magazines and catalogues for sale most of which she had read or was not interested in reading. She exhaled and made a final sweep of the aisle to ensure no book was out of place and stopped. Something towards the end of the shelf caught her attention. Squeezing her face into a frown she walked towards the object and bent into a squat to examine it.
It was a book, a very old book. Picking it up gently, she blew off the dust gathered in front and tried to make out the title.
She had worked in this store for close to three month and could confidently say she knew everything they stocked.
This mangy work of art or fiction was definitely NOT one of theirs.
Curious, she absently made her way back to her desk book in hand the search for wall sockets forgotten and settled into her chair. She flipped past the first page and let out a startled gasp.

For Miriam my love.
Wherever, whenever, I will find you.

- T