Armed With Highlighters

I looked over at my phone. Three missed calls from an unknown number. I don’t know how I did not hear my phone ring. Maybe years of using earphones are finally catching up with me.

“Who’s this?” I thought to myself. As if they heard my thoughts, the strange number called again.

“Hello? Niko hapa nje na vitu zako“

From my desk in the office, I can see outside really well. Technically, I am outside. I looked out of the window and saw a rider. I was very confused. Vitu zangu?

Vitu gani?. It’s not like I had been shopping online.

“Nakuona. Wacha nikuje“

I made my way to the gate.

“Niko na vitu zako kutoka Karen. Ni wewe unalipa ama yeye?”

What on earth is going on?

He must have read the expression on my face – pure confusion.

“Wacha nimpigie nimwambie nimefikisha“

Then he got into the carrier box on his motorcycle and fished out a lovely white gift bag with a multi-coloured interior. Abstract shapes in pink, purple, brown, navy blue…All this melted the confusion and it was immediately replaced with excitement. I was itching to go back to my desk and see what is inside and who it came from. I thanked the rider and walked back in. I was using all my strength to not run.

“Is it your birthday?” A colleague asked as soon as I walked through the door.

“Not yet” I responded. It was exactly two days before my birthday. Who could this be?

I sat down and hands shaking with excitement, I went through the gift bag. The first thing that caught my eye was the book. Bright yellow. A couple of red squares, a silhouette of a plane on the top right corner and what looks like a van or matatu on the bottom right corner on the cover. And in bold and blue, the title “Nearly All The Men in Lagos Are Mad”. A book I had been meaning to get since March 2024 (She used my brother to fish this information from me. Well played.) . On the front page, the words “To a wonderful human being! Happy Birthday Germaine.” Signed by Winnie. She must have used those fancy pens people use to sign cheques. There’s a certain way they write, not like normal pens. It looked like that. I think she has a nice handwriting so it looks even better. Bluish- purplish ink. (I know her handwriting because every single time I post something, she’ll print it out. Then she’ll highlight parts and write comments next to some parts and then she sends me and we talk about it. Like a book club. A blog club. I keep telling but I don’t think she knows how much I look forward to it. I really do. She sees a post and she’s armed with highlighters. I’m curious to see her comments on this post) . There was also a birthday card. A physical birthday card! When is the last time you saw one of those? It made me so happy!! There was a bunch of other things too but I won’t tell you because it was my