Monday, March 14, 2011

Chapter 3: Accidents


“It was just for drinks, that was all it was, nothing more. It doesn’t matter if it had been going on for some time now. It’s not like I slept with any of them. Besides, they’re way too old for me to consider that. I can’t believe that Yaw would think of me this way, after all we’ve been through.”
Alberta had just had a fight with her boyfriend over some issue that to her shouldn’t have been an issue at all. Just because she went out more often than he did shouldn’t make him so insecure about what she does. She knows that if they were like any normal couple he should have every reason not to trust her but they weren’t. They were the couple that talked about everything, from what kind of external hard drive he’d like to buy in the next 2 days to what colour of heels she’d like to purchase the next hour.
People didn’t understand how a nerd like Yaw; overprotected and overemotional would be able to land a hot smoking babe like her, not that she’s saying she is but come on, if you’re getting 18 friend’s request on Facebook per day to 3 ‘hi, what’s your name, can I have your number’ almost every 2 hours then either you’re smoking hot or the people are freaking blind and you’re the one with the one eye.
When they met she found him very weird, in the sense that though he hung out with the average, drinking, smoking, partying crowd, he didn’t do any of that. At first it was kinda nice, like a breath of fresh air after being inside an overcrowded pub for over 3 hours and finally stepping out to see a full moon on a cool night. He was like that night with the moon, emphasis on the ‘was’. But things changed.
Last night she met a guy, like every other night but this guy was different. He was very suave and sophisticated. He tried doing the whole, ’oh I’m a gentleman and I’m not trying to hit on you but I am if it’s working’ thing on her and it was entertaining up to the point where he dropped her off at her house and tried to kiss her. Yaw had stayed up late to wait for her and unfortunately saw all that drama. A normal guy would come out and probably punch the guy before going all hill-billy on his girl, but no, not Yaw. He just stayed in the window, made sure she saw him and waited for her to try and fight of the ‘gentleman’s’ attempts before ambushing her at the door and accusing her of cheating and disloyalty. Sometimes it felt like she was in the relationship all by herself, warding of girls and guys, ratio being 1:20. The fight carried on to the morning and she had not being able to concentrate at work. Normally she’d let the driver go and get her lunch but not this time. She needed to get out of the office and clear her mind.
She went to the Accra mall, got something to eat and decided to leg it for a while up the road to the Shangri-La bus stop before getting a cab to the office. She had just had just gotten to the overhead that the railway tracks pass when a truck sped by in an attempt to beat the traffic light. For a minute it looked like it might just make it but with a second look it didn’t seem possible. There was a second truck, smaller than the first, that was about stopping at the light but suddenly started speeding up, as if the two were in a race. What happened afterward was like something out of a Hollywood movie.
The first truck was going too fast to stop at the light and there were people on the pavement shouting at something, presumably the driver. At the rate he was going he would have crashed into a car that had already stopped at the light so he swerved to the right but lost control. Instead of a minimal displacement towards the right, the truck started to tip over due to whatever load the truck was carrying. It looked like it might end up on the pavement where all those people were but something beyond what you’d normally see happened. The second truck rammed into the first causing it to change course into the middle of the road. Due to the impact the second truck also lost control but the driver managed to steer it back into shape. Something flew out of the back of the second truck as it swerved to the right.
The scene was strange, apparently there was someone in the middle of the road that the first truck would have hit had it not being for the second truck ramming into it. The second rammed in just in time for the two to miss the pedestrian who had somehow wandered unto the street. The situation would have been worse had the second not gained control to steer itself back unto the road. Whatever that flew out of the truck seemed pretty heavy because it flew straight at the pedestrian and knocked him out cold.
Blood started oozing from head and people where rushing to the trucks which had both come to a halt, the first being overturned and the second managing to fuse itself into a wall. Alberta began to run towards the scene without knowing why. She was like that; she’d drop whatever she was doing if she felt she had a chance to help someone. She had worked with Red Cross for over 8 years and it was because of this trait that they gave her excellent reference anytime she asked. It was a bit confusing, the scene, because it all happened after the traffic light and vehicles coming from down the road wouldn’t see anything until they get up the road. Luckily, that day most of the vehicles that plowed the road had good drivers who were dodging the mess left and right before pulling to the side of the road to see what they could do to help, except for one.
Just when the pedestrian who had been hit with the object began to gain consciousness and got to his feet that car that wasn’t driving as well as the rest just saw him. Too late to stop and too unprepared to swerve to the left or right. What Alberta saw was a man managing to jump just in time for physics and a speeding car  to help him defy gravity for about 5 seconds before landing face first on the hot asphalt without breaking his neck.
Within seconds Alberta had traversed the distance between she and the man and was beginning to turn him over delicately while whipping out her phone to call the ambulance. As she turned him over she recognized him. He was one of her new friends she’s been hanging out with. He was Charles K. Takyi, the guy running for president.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Chapter 2: We are Friends


“Chale, you fool waa!!” was all he could manage to say as he laughed hysterically at the joke his friend Kwasi had cracked about the lady who tried to cross the road as if it belonged to her. James was a real speed junkie; he would drive anything that had wheels and could do zero to sixty in less than 10 seconds and he was pretty good at it too. People tell him that if Ghana had a proper F1 race track he’d probably be the next Michael Schumacher. He could do things that other drivers thought was mad crazy. To him, it was all about calculation and timing, gears and curves, roads and tires. His motto was “Speed doesn’t kill people, overconfidence does”. He could drive with his knee under the steering wheel and listen to Ray Charles’ famous “hit the road jack” song, doing a mega nineteen-eighty head-bob with his hands all up in the air synchronizing with the bass of the music, pass through a police checkpoint and wouldn’t even flinch. Apparently, the police got tired of stopping him and let him be.
Kwasi was his best-friend. They had not been friends for long but once they got to know each other they stuck like glue. They had both just finished university and had done their national service together. Kwasi was a programmer and a damn good one too. The company he worked for thought it unwise to let him go after his service so they gave him a contract to stay. James wasn’t so lucky, a programmer himself but he loved the media work so he was thrown out. Fortunately, anytime there were some odd jobs available Kwasi would let him know about it and he’d pick it up. To him it wasn’t that bad, at least it beat six months of staying at home with your thumb up your ass.
Kwasi’s company had just landed a deal with the ministry of information to provide software that could actually keep track of the citizens of Ghana without the horrendous task of hiring personnel who would have to go round and collect data from house to house. It sounded impossible but Kwasi thought of a brilliant idea. He came up with the theory that with all the social networks around one could list his family members as far back as he or she could, the software would cross-reference the names and compile them. By the time it was done one would practically have all the names and contacts of the citizens of this beloved country.
The tricky part was getting these social networks to actually allow this plug-in and make people believe that it was confidential at all levels and a matter of national interest. Kwasi had the solution; advertisement to the highest degree. If the Ministry could spend about five million Ghana cedis on archaic methods of information gathering, they could at least spend a quarter of it on advertisement.
Now the company needed someone to transport the computers for the staff training to the development site. He thought it was silly because you don’t really need training on how to use facebook. But hey, who is he to doubt the financial prowess of his company. How else were they gonna make money. Unfortunately for the company, they didn’t have the kind of vehicle that could transport the number of computers needed for the training thus they needed to rent one; Job opportunity.