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The Indomie Man<br />
Michael Ogah<br />
My love is sick.<br />
When he needs me, I don’t need him. When I need him, he doesn’t need me. Yet<br />
sometimes, most <strong>of</strong> the time, we need each other.<br />
My love is infected with a virus. I must find a way to cure it.<br />
Today, I go again to see the man. The man who will take all <strong>of</strong> my worries away. He kisses<br />
me on the forehead and asks why it took me so long to come see him. I say nothing. He<br />
asks if I am hungry, and then he makes me some noodles. He chops the onions and red<br />
peppers clad only in his boxers. He mixes them in with one cracked egg. It is dark, from the<br />
usual NEPA wahala, and I lie on his bed, listening to the susurrus <strong>of</strong> the wind in the trees.<br />
He leaves a rechargeable lantern in his room for my use. I rise quietly- so he doesn’t hear<br />
the bed squeak- and walk slowly to the kitchen door to watch him cook. He stands tall and<br />
it feels as if I have only just noticed.<br />
I cannot explain why I come here. Neither am I able to articulate what I hope to find with<br />
him. He loves me. He’s said it to me times without number. And, he said it again when he<br />
kissed my lips. “I only kiss girls I truly love on the lips,” he once told me. That day he asked<br />
that I please say I loved him too, but I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t because I do not feel the same.<br />
To admit otherwise would be sham and chicanery.<br />
I like him. Or I like that I could be with him this way, but love? Love is what I had long ago<br />
90<br />
Tales from the Other Side
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