TO BE.

Chapter 1.

All Rights Reserved.

© Xouliana_2022.

Playing: 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton.

Chapter 1.

7:53am

Shit.

Scrambling off the bed, she heard an indistinct pop in her spine reminding her of her terrible sleeping posture, and the reason why she never forgot to stretch each morning.

Guess I'm skipping that...again.

She makes her way to her wardrobe; making a quick and calculated motion of collecting her choice of attire for the day. She'd laid them out the previous night - while hoping she would wake up and laugh at her paranoia of sleeping for way too long - seems she did need it after all.

Racing to the bathroom - against what, she wondered. Probably the taunting words of impeding failure that loomed around her head.

Throwing the towel atop the shower head and assembling her outfit on a nail fixed in the bathroom walls, she closed her eyes and turned on the shower while muttering a quick thanks to God for life and a new day.

A practice she didn't exactly believe in, but one she'd grown accustomed go to from childhood - the only practice she liked in her childhood, she realized.

The frigid cold water hitting her back drew a shrilly and awful sounding, "Amen" from her as the realization dawned on her simultaneously.

Quickly adjusting the temperature of the water to one that didn't seem like it would cause any form of hypothermia for her - considering the weather and her state of living - she worked up a lather and aggressively rubbed the tiny sim-looking soap bar against the tiny green loofah in her hand and quickly began working to cleanse herself of dead skin cells.

After her shower, she walked up to the tiny, poorly constructed cabinet in the bathroom, one she worked exceptionally hard to get fixed in making it an even more pitiable thing that she couldn't fully utilize the left side of it...for reasons best kept to herself.

Pulling it open while burrito-clad in her towel, she reached for her daily "try to look like a human being" tools, as she liked to call it, all the while thanking her stars for the seemingly inhuman speed she seemed to have acquired.

Quickly getting on with the routine she had grown accustomed to with age (brushing her teeth, applying some lotion - so she didn't look like an impoverished person considering the fact that harmattan had come in full force this year – and applying a little bit of lip balm), she tugged on her clothes with full force.

With a stifled curse and a strangled cry for help, she knocked her head on said cupboard completely annoyed at herself for undoing all buttons but the one at the top of the top.

She raised her hand to undo her button without the slightest interest in taking off the shirt completely and re-wearing it. It took a second and she could breathe again – freely anyway – but considering she didn't have the luxury of relishing that second, she started to tug the skirt on too.

It was easier to put the skirt on considering how smooth and tailored it seemed to be, though the correct term would be loose. While a bit stylish, it could still be termed by the locals as a mary-amaka skirt.

Wearing a slim-fit style of a shirt and donning a prestigious and hard to overlook mary-amaka skirt, she sprayed her hair and left the bathroom area; hairbrush in hand.

Pulling at the knots and despising this African heritage for the daily battle she was subjected to, she went through a slow-burn of hair brushing.

Turning her head to her bed and muttering a chain of prayers furtively, she raised her head to the section above the bed and close to the ceiling, she quickly calculated the time on the analog clock and suppressed a shout when she pulled too roughly on her hair.

Throwing her hairbrush toward the bed and roughly taking her bag from the nail hammered into concrete walls, she ran out of the... house.

The clock had read 8:29am.

8:30am

Running back to lock her door, she opened it, took the key out and locked it on the outside. Tucking the key into an inconspicuous part of the bag and throwing a scarf atop her head, she ran past many houses to get to the main gate.

"They probably think I'm crazy; running around the compound", she thought and chuckled slightly to herself – probably reaffirming their thoughts though.

The premonition that started with the words, "I'm late..., I'm late..." kept running around her head in twice as much speed as the pace at which she walked made her more paranoid and doubtful of herself this morning.

☕︎☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎✍︎

☾︎𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐!☽︎

༆ℑ𝔣 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔴𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔩𝔬𝔳𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝔪𝔬𝔯𝔢, 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔫 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞, 🅗︎🅔︎🅛︎🅟︎ 🅜︎🅔︎ 🅞︎🅤︎🅣︎ 🅑︎🅨︎:

ఌ︎𝚅𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐.

ꨄ︎𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐.

❦︎𝙵𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚐!

Thank you .