Tari: A Train Wreck

The best part about traveling is seeing new places, meeting new people and experiencing a new culture. The worst part? There's a long list to pick from but I say it is the initial weirdness that comes from sitting around a bunch of strangers with different problems; sometimes the problems are too much to bear.

Source: pixabay

He seats there, as silent as a meditating monk as the 4hour train ride ride starts from Abuja to Kano. To his left are two mid 40s men having a conversation in their local dialect, he doesn't speak the dialect fluently but manages to filter out that they were talking about how the train used to be in the 90s. In between him and the lady to his right is the walkway. There's a kid walking back and forth and singing nursery rhymes, it is as cute as it is annoying. "Where are your damn parents?" Oh well.

The trip proceeds right on schedule, other than whoever thought it was funny to fart in this airtight coach, everything else has been going swimmingly. Boredom and motion sickness kick in after 30minutes and he decides to stare out the window to distract himself from both but it doesn't work. "Fuck my life" he mutters inwardly and decides to to hit the restroom. The cute baby bumps into him from behind and again he cursed inwardly, "where's your damn parents?" he mutters and pats the boy on the head like a cute puppy.

As he gets closer to the toilet, he notices there's a queue of maybe 8-9 people. "Do they all want to shit?" and the lady in front of him scoffs a low laugh, turns around, looks at him for a millisecond then retorts "Your shit is probably the biggest anyways, fat man".
Him: oh well, lucky you're before me then
Lady: Thank Allah for that.
Then she went back to her neutral mood.

What luck, it was only a millisecond but the glimpse of her echoed through his senses. She was beautiful as she was dark skinned, stood about 5feet 3inches and despite her hijab's best effort, he mentally filtered through the apparel and acknowledged her " Floatation devices".The real issue now is how to spark a conversation without seeming nervous.
In a split second he cooked up different lines;
"Do you always shit in trains?" No that's stupid.
"How about we shit together?" No no. Stay away from shit talk Tari, stay away, he says to himself. He laughs inwardly

He taps her shoulder lightly and introduces himself
Him: so I'm Tari, and who's my colleague in the shit business? (Inwardly; idiot!!!)

Luckily she finds it funny and replies, I'm Shakirat. I quit the shit business and I'm now into piss.

Tari: I hear business is good. I'm actually thinking of switching to vomit later this year.

She also finds that funny and I think I'm winning.
Her: what kind of name is Tari?
Him: It is actually a Belgian name. My great grand parents were migrant slaves who escaped their masters in France and got asylum in Belgium, thus assuming their aliases.

With a shocked look on her face, she replies "wow, are you serious?"

Tari: Nope, I made it all up. It is actually an ijaw name. I'm from Bayelsa state but it would be totally cool if it were true though

She found it funny and this time burst into ostensible laughter. People were looking at them but he didn't care. He was macking on a hottie and she was feeling him.

Shakirat: I think I prefer the first version
Tari: me too. So what about you? Are you related to a certain Columbian dancer responsible for billions of boners because of her belly dancing.

Shakirat: Nah. She's boring. How about we have this conversation later on.

Tari: life is too short.

Her mood changes and she reverts to her previous melancholy state. Worried that he might have offender her, he asks if he said something wrong and she replies "I wish I never met you".

Tari: I'm sorry? What's wrong?

She leaves the toilet queue and walks hastily to her seat on the coach without saying a word or using the toilet. He walks into the restroom to wash his face and process what just happened.
After not making any sense of it, he proceeds to his seat. As he walked slowly to his seat, he caught a glimpse of her sat in the window seat on the right side of the train, adjacent to his position and it was obvious she had just finished crying from the colour of her eyes to the snot she was cleaning from her nose.

He returned to his previous state, fighting the motion sickness and boredom but would look her way sparingly in anticipation of a coincidental locking of eye moments, you know, like in the movies. It sadly wasn't to be because she had her eyes fixed outside the window, staring pensively into the horizon.

The train stopped at a terminal to drop off some commuters and pick up others. Scared that she might drop off and he'll never see her again, he looked her way but she was gone. His fears materialised, she got off the train and was completely out of sight.

The train conductor walked over to his seat and said please who is the Shitman? There's a message for the Shitman and there was no response. He then walks to the seat in front of mine and asks the same question but adds that the message is from Pisswoman.

Tari: I'm the Shitman.

People around either laughed out loudly or muffled their laughter.

Conductor: Okay. There's a note for you.
Then he gives Tari a folded piece of paper.

The message read

"Mr. Shitman. Thank you for saving my life today, I hope we meet again in this life or the next. From your friend who was previously suicidal. Business is good :)"

Tari: I thought I said I was into vomit now, he says out loud then laughs then folds the paper into the right pocket of his jeans.

He checks the time, "ah 40minutes to go" then shuts his eyes for a moment.