Opana
Madam this is not what you told me when you wanted to rent my room in the first place. Now you want to turn my house into an orphanage by adding some extra people to the four children you first came to the house with.
Eno Bruwa
Opana my landlord, I know but I can’t throw my intestines away and replace it with leaves. Once I have rented this room, I believe I have the authority to accommodate my children. I didn’t come with them initially because they were living on their own but now, they don’t have anywhere to stay ooooo.
Opana
Oh please spare me that madam. If you go to a hotel, it’s only two people who are allowed to share a room and even with that, not persons from the same gender or sex. I gave you my tenancy agreement and regulations papers when you were about to move in. The fact that I didn’t add what you are doing now to the laws doesn’t mean that you can overcrowd yourself in my room. Don’t you know that overcrowding yourself in one small room breeds communicable diseases? You can’t convey all your hometown folks to my expensive house. For your information, the rent you paid expired two months, three weeks ago and I was assuming you will come and see me to settle your bills. If I don’t hear from you by the end of the week…
Eno Bruwa
But landlord it hasn’t gotten to this. Please, you are not thinking of evicting me in the first place, are you?
Opana
See how wretched and pathetic you look. Let me tell you this, I am giving you a grace period of seven days to park out of the room and it starts this very moment. If the time elapses and you are still here, I will pull you out of the room like how a snail is pulled out of its shell.
Eno Bruwa’s Daughter
(screams from the room to find out who was making noise in front of their room before she comes out)
Mama, who is making so much noise over there? Doesn’t the person know it’s too early and that most of us haven’t woken up fully from our beds?
(she sees it’s the landlord)
Eno Bruwa’s Daughter
Oh it’s you Mr. Landlord. I hope all is well and you had a good sleep last night.
Opana
Hmmmmm, God please grant me maximum patience to endure certain things in this house of mine. You have a mouth to talk. Your mates are living in their husband’s house, making babies and raising their families. You are here running your mouth like a commentator at the stadium.
Eno Bruwa’s Daughter
Please Mr landlord, don’t go there at all. God is the giver of marriages and I won’t force myself into a marriage I will regret later. Moreover, your daughters are equally my age mates but none of them has even stepped foot into a man’s house as his wife. At least I have my classmates at your house too.
Opana
Oh shut up before I shut that gutter you call a mouth! How would you get a husband if you run your mouth like that? You see those daughters, I’m grooming them for rich men and white men. I won’t settle for any man who doesn’t own a fleet of cars, mansions and businesses across the globe. Never try to rock shoulders with my beautiful daughters. Even the son of the MP of this constituency proposed to my young daughter but she refused because she wasn’t ready to settle down with the son of a mere MP when the President and his ministers have unmarried sons. If you care to know, those girls are my investment so when you see them, give and accord them with that respect because they can’t and will never be your mates in anything.
Eno Bruwa
Opana my landlord, please it is okay. It’s too early in the morning for you to be arguing with your daughter. Please forgive her. You know these young girls. Youthful exuberance is running through her blood veins.
Opana
Did you say, my daughter? Can she be my daughter? No. Is she that beautiful to be called my daughter? No. Will I exchange her for money? Yes. Will I disown her if she was my daughter? Yes. Can’t you see how pretty my daughters are? They don’t lack anything physically that a woman needs on her body. If they were not my biological daughters, I would have even married one of them.
Eno Bruwa’s Daughter
You think your daughters are so beautiful and deserve higher families to marry into eh? Go and find out for yourself how the young men of the town are playing around in their restricted area. Mama, please talk to this man; I don’t want to say anything that will make him refer to me as a disrespectful person. Even the snake has its lover and even though the monkey isn’t fine, it is loved by its mother. This is the face God saw as appropriate for me so He gave it to me. Look at you! Even with that scary face of yours, you still go around insulting people and calling them ugly.
Opana
Wait oh! Are you referring to me as the one with the scary face? And did you just talk about my beautiful daughters? I don’t blame you. Ugliness has now turned you into a gossipmonger. Don’t you know a man must be ugly and fearful and in most cases smell of alcohol? Why do you think I went in for a very beautiful wife? You don’t respect and that is the reason why I will eject you and your mother when it is raining.
Eno Bruwa
Please sir, it hasn’t gotten to this. I beg you. Please tamper justice with mercy. I am a poor widow who is trying to make ends meet and I have been a good tenant ever since I moved in here. Please have mercy on me.
Eno Bruwa’s Daughter
Mama! Why are you begging him? Does he know the houses you and my late father built in the city and village? Had it not been for the greediness of his brothers and sisters, would we have moved to live in this pigsty? A room that you have to stay awake when it’s raining, do we call that one too a room? If he wants to eject us, he should refund our rent to us and give us some time to pack out from his bad luck room. Ah! Are you the only landlord in this world?
Eno Bruwa
Sylvia, shut up! I say shut up! You talk too much. It’s because of this your loud mouth that you couldn’t stay with my friend in the city. If you care to know, our rent has expired.
Opana
Be there and run your mouth like a fetish priest wife. I know what to do. I’m leaving and when I’m back, we will see who is who. Asualapa. (takes leave)
Eno Bruwa
Hmmmmm! Living in this house is hell. If I had my way, I would have moved out of this house and found a better place to live with my family. It’s true that those who didn’t suffer to get are the ones who bluff to those who don’t have.
Eno Bruwa’s Daughter
What do you mean by saying that those who don’t suffer to get are the ones who bluff to those who don’t have?
Eno Bruwa
My daughter I heard this house belonged to Opana’s late uncle and you know that the Akans practice the matrilineal system of inheritance. So when his uncle died, he took possession of this house leaving his uncles’ children with nothing to depend upon.
Eno Bruwa’s Daughter
Mama if I knew this, I would have told him my peace of mind. Hasn’t he gotten any compassion for his fellow man? I doubt what he told his kind hearted and beautiful wife for her to accept his marriage proposal. Some women are really suffering in life. As for me, if this is the only type of man on earth, I will stay single all my life.
