I’m Being Stalked!

Be on the look out!

‘Hey, mambo?’ She said. Hey, how are you?  I didn’t see her coming. She must have sneaked up on me. I had been busy typing a reply to a text message and all my attention had been drawn to it. I was just leaving work, at around half past seven. When I looked up, she had her hands outstretched for a handshake. 

‘Oh, poa.’ I responded reaching for her hand. Oh, fine. Her palm was soft but her fingers tiny inside mine, felt like I was squeezing life out of them and I let go. 

‘Umetoka mapema sana leo,’ she pressed on,’ungetoka saa tatu.’ You closed work early today, you should have left at 9pm.  She seemed determined to extend the conversation to my dislike. 

‘Niko sawa.’ I scowled, trying to ignore her comment. I’m alright . She forced a plain laugh and then started walking away. 

‘Have a goodnight…Tony!’ She said in a raised voice. With the momental pause before saying my name, I’m sure she was trying to recall it. She wanted to let me know that she knew my name. I wasn’t  impressed by that, she was pushing too hard.

 
That was the first conversation we ever had. After that she developed a wont – passing in front of my shop several times a day. Whenever our eyes meet, she waves. When they don’t and there is no buyer, she comes to shake hands. Now, it’s not that I have never seen her, in fact her face for over a year now but she never did take notice of me or looked at me like she does now, we’ve always been strangers and just conducting our affairs like strangers do. She’s charcoal black – that’s the first thing I ever noticed, darker than I thought I was. And she’s one of the few ladies I would say, are proud to be really African, if you know what I mean. She is slightly above five feet tall, keeps her hair cut to almost an inch above her scalp, with the sides of the head trimmed shorter, mohwak kind of. Her face is… somehow… rectangular. Big white eyes, a small nose, and  brief mouth – with thin lips curled upwards at the ends in a sneer. She has a long neck, which isn’t so bad. Her body is lean, and then she walks her bossom is pushed up as if she were carrying a bucket of water on her head from the river, on a steep slope, and she’s supporting it with both her hands. Bottom line is, she’s not my kind of girl, she doesn’t tickle my fancy.

The other day, I confided in a friend of mine about her wierd and sudden friendliness. His answer was; she has a crush on you. I laughed out loud, really loud. That evening she came to my shop to buy some antihistimine tabs, she did the outstretching-hand thing again, and I took her hand reluctantly. I felt some fear grip my heart making it feel like a clenched fist in my chest. I let my hand slip away and then got her the drug. She was smiling and I was tempted to ask what she was smiling at but I couldn’t. She was about to begin a conversation when my phone began ringin, to my relief. She walked away. When I was done with the phone call, I noticed a piece of paper on the counter top, it hadn’t been there earlier, before she came. Out of curiosity, I picked it up and unfolded it -it was folded once,symmetrically. It was some kind of a note, surprisingly, with my name on it. 

Hello Tony, 

Please I am sorry but it’s really very bad to keep quiet with something that pains. You know what? I am almost even having a wound in my heart because of you. Yesterday was not my first time to see. Since the day I came, I saw you but there was no way of talking to you. 

I am Sharon. Originally I’m a Ugandan. 

Please help me, call 0711 949 ***, or I just come back for my reply. 

Note: I don’t have someone to love me or a fiance nor a child. 

I read the note twice, the more I read it the more comical it sounded. It was so full of errors but I got the message.  Then something made me freeze…originally I’m Ugandan. Now, there’s this belief that the land of  matoke has the most potent love potions. What if she had applied some of it on the note? Then I will be under her spell, following her everywhere like her shadow. If she says I bark like a dog, I would do it without second thoughts. If she says walk on fours like the dog, then I would be on it, I’ll be her puppet. That’s horrible. Just that mere thought got me shaking. I had to do something, real fast. The Bible. Yes, I had to undo it using the Holy Book. Neutralize the power of that potion, should there be any. I reached for the Bible that had been gathering dust inside a box of books. I held it on my palms, not knowing what I should do. The first impulse was to place the note inside the Bible, that’s where it had to be.

I had to keep her away from me. I wasn’t going to let her come back for her reply. What if she decided to chew some of those potions! I decided to give her some feedback through the number she had provided in the note. In the text message, I told her that I am happily married, with a kid. Her reply was: pliz not for sex. Who even talked of sex? I decided I’m not having a conversation on that. She calls when I don’t reply, then Truecaller app installed on my phone gives me one of the most genius suggestion, Block Spam Calls.  I go for it, sit back and try to relax.