Heavy Load Off

You alight the bus on Saturday evening carrying the heavy load of textbooks from a class you take on weekends and memories of a bad afternoon date. But you notice someone else is bearing a bigger burden than you. A young lady is half-lifting, half-dragging a heavy bag.

Since you haven’t used up your one random good deed for the week you decide to help. There are other unrelated reasons you want to help, like the tightness of her jeans and the parched patch you are currently enduring (it is March and it hasn’t rained yet, for you it’s the second March since it last ‘rained’). But that’s not in important, is it?
So you greet her and offer to help. She is so relieved that she gives you the warmest smile ever. Not that anyone ever smiles at you, anyway.

One heave and a lift later, you almost regret helping. The luggage weighs more than a packet of cement. What’s this you’re carrying? You wonder, loudly and breathlessly. It’s her mother who had brought her food and other stuff all the way from Iten. She would have delivered to her house, but she was rushing someone to the hospital. A sister, or cousin, or someone else. You weren’t really listening.

You reach her house thankful you didn’t buckle under the weight of her luggage. Your dignity is still intact. You plan to off-load it at her door then bid her goodbye. The bad tasting juice you took during your horrible date is fighting to be released, so you must leave immediately. But she insists you have been too kind to her so she must prepare something for you. You oblige. Big mistake.

The something she prepares for you turns out to be tea and the most delectable toast you’ve ever taken. It’s a tiny studio apartment so you see the entire preparation process as you chat. You discover you have similar interests. Literature, travel, technology. You have similar tastes in music. She insists she doesn’t talk much, but the evidence against that is overwhelming. So you listen to her chatter endlessly. You enjoy it nonetheless. Before you notice it, it’s 9 and she insists she should fix dinner. Again you agree. You’re not used to turning down food offers.

Meanwhile, the cup of tea you took has now joined his comrade, bad juice, to demand to be let loose from the prison of the bladder. You’ve kazad so hard that a jasho nene is trickling down your back. You wonder whether she can smell the jasho. To complicate matters further, the toast has somehow already worked itself to, ahem, the other end and it is also pushing for its release. Violently!

That’s the first time in your life you did not enjoy a meal of chicken.

Long story short. The moment you said goodbye to the heavy load girl, you urinated by the roadside, a gushing jet that formed a frothing white foam as you joyfully farted loudly. You’ve never felt more relieved in your life.

Heavy load off.