Babs

"What? No No no no no, no, you said that the last time, Kwame, no, NO you are not going to do this to me.!  I have already made reservations, this is very last minute! She what? So cancel i dont care, you will not leave me hanging tonight, not again! God! why do I put up with your shit? Argh!. If Kwame was the giant glass door way at the office entrance right now, she knew her yelling would have him cracked in a million non-recognizable pieces.  She banged the phone in its set several times  until it broke her well-manicured nail. She only managed to topple it over the office glass table and onto the floor.  She screamed some more... until her screams become hardly audible sobs. She didn't care if there was anybody in office that could hear her. She just didn't care. In any case it was well past  working hours, there couldn't be anyone significant around.  She felt strength seep out of her very soul, with every strangled cry "I can't.. I just can't..." She felt despair, helplessness as she sank to the Gray carpeted floor of her  office.

Through her tears and  mascara stained face, she looked round her office.. the pictures of her laughing with college  friends which were on the shelf, whom now seem to belong to a faint somewhat happy time in an old story. this was peculiar since she finished college just three years ago....
"Barbara smile for the cameras! it's your last day in college!" the chatter, the love, the hope, yes the hope... it was all they held on to.. there was a mixture of fear and excitement, that came with the thrills of the unknown. Who would be the first to marry? who would have the high earning job? the richest, the weakest, the famous?

Barbara was just as motivated and ready.. She had a lot to prove.  Being the first to get to college without a baby or two in the way. Mama.. well, her mother didn't think much of her.. As far as as she was concerned,  Barbara... or Babs ( she hated that name) thought too highly of herself. Just like her father.. Babs knew her mother would have been happier if her daughter had  messed up just a little bit. Caused a few more riots, had a few abortions, drank too much, smoked a John once in a while, anything... a little struggle that would have remotely reminded her that she was indeed her own blood..Sadly all her mother saw was a stranger when she looked at Babs. Although there was love, but she felt more disdain. How perfect Babs was.. Barbera always seemed to have it all  together. Never a strand of hair out of place. She never lost her cool, just like the upright never-could-do-no-wrong Colonel Kusi.. the man she loved, but never was worthy of.. Barbara's father... well mum, she thought ruefully, a grim smile on her wet face, guess we are alike after all...

She was LOSING it. It was all because of this MAN.

Here she was, three years down the line, in love with a man that was not hers. Disgust could not begin to describe the turmoil that brewed in her every night.  Every night, when he took her.. on the office table, in women's bathroom, in her car,everywhere. Did it matter? Did it matter that he did not belong to her? Should it not matter that she was in love. Was she to apologise for that?. She knew these defiant thoughts were only fuelled by the anger that was caused by her loneliness. Kwame's warmth lasted only for a while. It was priceless but short-lived. It could not be contained no matter how hard she tried.
She sighed, feeling very tired.  She knew she should have never accepted the job.but Kay insisted. "She always insists.. why does she do that shit?" 

The whistling of the wind, a rustle of the leaves from the opened window behind her desk, shook her from her deep thoughts. she was suddenly aware again of her tear-stained face and her crouched body on the office carpet floor..Everyone had left. She didn't want to move but she knew she had to get home....