My love for water in reverse.

My neighbor requested that I follow her to the pool on Sunday. It was an honest request, especially when she is a drop-dead gorgeous young lady with bright future. But her request had come not to interest me and she noticed almost immediately.

I stared at her scornfully and she was a burden of confusion.
“You don’t want to go with me?” She had asked? Yes, she thought that she was offering me an olive branch and a chance for us to get to acquaint ourselves with each other and live honorably as neighbors, perhaps with benefits. But the benefits can always come without the things that terrify.

Yes, on the surface, there was nothing wrong with that and I know that too. In her understanding, it was a good thing for a guy to be invited to the pool by a lady. However, she does not understand that there are different types of guys with different attitudes to things.

My neighbor is fine and with a body shape that most girls would die for and with a shadow of brilliance cast over her. It will be a mortal sin, disregarding this her irregular invitation.

Irresistible as it seems, it will lead to a very unhappy ending with little recourse for pity.

I hate water and I equally hate to admit that I hate water. No, I hate the idea of a large body of water, not the ones that help me digest whatever I have eaten or helps me to remain clean.

I will do almost every thing in the world to avoid it and many people have come to fully understand my aversion to it. So I shook my head at her request and told her that if the water is not a plastic bucket inside the bathroom, I don’t touch it.

It is not my fault actually that the water grew bigger and sometimes, I will be mandated to cross them. I have always looked for other alternative to the problems of water.

As a kid, I grew up in a public yard of about 8 different families. It was a barracks of some sort and we did things together. Mothers incessant quarrels spiced up our growing up. We’d start playing together again moments they had bad-mouthed each other on our behalf.

If there is anything that I learned with my coming of age, it is the ability of time to take care of certain things. But not my aversion to water.

We bathed in public bathrooms. Nothing was personal save your soap and clothes and as kids, the boys bathed together while improvising some of the things life was unfair to us with.

Shower was one of them. We’d hang the bucked with a rope to the bathroom ceiling and put a hose to it and draw water with our mouth. Once the water ran constantly, we began to shower. It was an experience.

However, I noticed that the water chokes my breath each time and I would channel the hose to the neck to maintain the feeling.

During my freshman year in the University, we were mandated to take swimming courses. It was important for the environment.

Studying in the University of Port Harcourt exposed one to many things. I currently reside in the town and I dread visiting those riverine areas because of my love for water in reverse.

During the course which was a practical one, we were mandated to jump into an Olympic size swimming pool in the University sports complex. Some people did. Others couldn’t. People like us saw it like jumping into a lake of fire but it was just water, ordinary water. I can easily catch a bullet that finds myself inside that water.
Those who couldn’t, relied on the theory only so as to scale through, people like yours truly.

During one of the many senseless ASUU strikes, I had visited one of cousins in Lagos. He had shops on the island and I became a temporal businessman managing one of the shops at one of the numerous plazas dotting the island.

Lagos is twice as good, save for the mindless traffic and the of course, the water.

On a cool evening, a friend had requested that I escort him to a place in Magodo. The only problem was that we will take a ferry as the traffic seemed unflinching. I thought about it for a while and without playing to the gallery of those who might call one names, agreed to follow him.

Well, that was tragic in a way that was no longer possible because, that was the last time I ever tried such resistible nonsense.

In the middle of the Atlantic ocean, can you believe that the useless ferry developed faults and stopped moving? Well, that was terror and mountain of restlessness.

Most people in the ferry seemed unperturbed by the development except a man who was equally terrified. He had called his wife and told her where he hid his treasures while he kept praying loudly for a miracle.

Water current was moving the ferry. I didn’t know what to do, so I just observed the seaweeds as the water current ferried them to the bank of the ocean and wished I was that useful.

Many things went through my mind. They would have said that my cousin has used me for money ritual even when he had no knowledge of my movement. He was outside the country at the time.

Well, the driver did some magic and the ferry roared to life and took us to our destination and that was the end of my being woke when it comes to water.

My neighbor is still waiting for me to dress up and follow her to the pool.