19/01/2023
My Midnight Thought in Retrospect
Beneath the beauty of a woman lies some underlying factors that cements something you feel for her. It does not just start with beauty and will never end in the mere face she carries about all day starting from the usual gaze at any of those mirrors in the corners of her house or that which she is constantly mobile with -- stuck inside her bag.
Something must definitely be responsible for that craving a man would have in a woman before he starts off a relationship with her. Even where it is infatuation, yes, that is enough to start off a tango that might not last beyond the flash of a lightning in the dark cloud before the wet season. Such relationships are characterised by extreme economy of expressions or omission of superfluous elements that carries any sort of feelings strong enough to rouse the the god of love; cupid from his great slumber.
It is sometimes easy for a woman to think that she has finally sealed the heart of a man with whatever she calls love but that is not always so as many men are experts in playing a lead role of deceit in every of these hide and seek games to the disadvantage of the supposed queen of their hearts.
Veronica was a beautiful woman I got to know from a distant observation, she was assisted by nature to have that ephemeral looks of youth's transient beauty that attracts all sorts of men to sit around her arguing over football and politics, sitting before them the very choicest wines intermittently sipped to gain her attention. Vero, a sufficiently fat lady with a pleasing fullness of figure with a fair skin that glitters in the sun just arrived Ore from Abuja. Because of her chubby looks, it would be very difficult to determine her age but a guess work will put her age at 30 or 32 years.
In those days, I was just a struggling youth whose main aim was to break even in the commodities market. With my mean resources, I was in the midst of men and older women whose main priority is to outwit you in everything and knock you off in a line of business that is more of envious competition and rivalry. To be in the business, you must have enough money to run the business which includes sales and supplies of salt, sugar, beans, rice and other stuffs that are needed by one's customers.
At the middle of every week or on Saturdays, Vero would come to meet a certain Rufus who also trades on our similar line of business. Sometimes, I will observe that when an argument starts brewing forth between Vero and Rufus, other men who used to flock Rufus shop where Veronica constantly comes to would excuse them to iron matters out in their rapid but hushed voices. Perhaps every other person within might know the bone of contention of their constant arguments but I am always in the dark but would usually wonder what on earth might be responsible for this ceremonious rancour.
It was just recently that I got to know of the misfortunate circumstances that made Vero to argue constantly with Rufus those years in passing. I cannot remember the exact year it was when I first met Vero in the above explained circumstance but it was not less than the year 2006. Just in 2021 when I saw Vero, she looks pathetic in her piteous and pitiful looks as she appeals for help to sustain herself.
She told me without me prying to know of what it was that transformed her to her current looks that seems to have lost those currents that easily ignites and magnets men to seek her attention. In this current state, I was baffled what could make this once upon a time beauty to have her beauty in flight. Without masking it, I intended to satisfy my curiosity without appearing offensively inquisitive. Perhaps seeing me in wonderment, she helped by divulging those information that helped me to unravel the mystery behind the arguments made in hushed tones between her and Rufus years ago.
According to her, she was a daughter of a certain prophet in her village. Her father used to help so many people with their spiritual problems and other matters. A certain rich man came down to their village, and was somehow helped out of a problem which I did not bother to know its details. At the end of the day, the rich man proposed a relationship with her. Because of the man's wealth and her aspiration to live in the city of Abuja, she eventually was married to the man. Not long afterward, the man died leaving behind a lot of money which amounts to millions of naira and other properties in the choicest place in Abuja. I didn't ask her if the man has other wives and children but it appears her marriage with the man was not blessed with any child. If the money she brought to Ore then which ran into several millions of naira was her only share from the wills or whatever of the late rich man, I do not know but I came to realize that most of the money she brought from Abuja was used to run the business of Rufus and all those choice wines and behind the scene parties that they all attended then were run by her millions which in the long run did not realise any worthwhile returns of her share of the surplus she once swam in.
She became allowed herself to become a tool in the hands of Rufus who obtained her financially and otherwise. At that time, Rufus was married and is still married to a beautiful woman who was doing so well for herself. They had two children then. A boy and a girl and thereafter had another boy.
Veronica on her part lost everything to Rufus and perhaps to other men who may have been reminding her of how beautiful she was while plotting their ulterior motives. A close look into her eyes the last time she came to seek assistance from me for a job exposed the weight of pains and regrets she might have been suppressing under that face that once radiates beauty, valour and youthfulness.
It is so unfortunate that Veronica who was bequeathed with all that beauty lacked the substance and brain that helped so many women like her to climb up the rudder of wealth and independence with little or so much buck of wads as it happened in her case.
Abounding in numbers today are women and men who do not know what they want out of life. Women and men whose main goal in life is to expend all they earn or are bequeathed in inheritance to excessive enjoyments that bleeds their accounts and savings to mortality until they become wretched, hungry and angry and at the mercy of those they once despised or look down upon.
I have seen so many influential and affluence men whose wives are not near beauties but when these women speaks, you will see the outstanding heights of their beautiful intelligence which helps to cement their relationship with their husbands and help to safeguard the family wealth. On the other hands, there exists so many beautiful women whose beauty is unnecessarily responsible for the nosedive of their family wealth and steeped financial indebtedness.
Today, so many men are looking for such kind not so beautiful women who are always there to goad them to clinch success while many among the so-called beauties are being milked by the rapacious men among us whose living is supported by preying on beautiful women. Men who in their pastime has insatiable vulturine taste like of offal when such women so present themselves on a platter of gold.
