“Hey! Where are you going? Foolish boy, come over here!”

Fifteen year-old Nii Sodjah winced as his hand lay on the doorknob of the front door. He turned to face the one who just spat that venom at him.

With a sneer on her face and the overpowering scent of alcohol on her breath, his mother looked him in the eye with a vicious glare.

A glare that had been poring through his soul for a while now. Fuelled by a crime he had no hand in.

“Idiot boy! You are as useless as your father, do you hear me?” Madam Okailey barked as her hands swung in her boy’s direction.

Nii Sodjah’s face crumbled as he swerved those flailing hands. Not again.

Just when he had hoped he could sneak out and make his way to school without the trauma of this woman’s morning toxicity, here she was, dishing out her horrible, alcohol-fuelled words and slaps on him.

“Herh, where do you think you’re going? Come back here!” she yelled as he sprung away from the door and ran back to the dining room. “Get back here with your foolish face! Kwasia boy!”

Nii Sodjah whimpered as he rushed to the head chair of the small dining table just outside the small living room of the house they were in. This was just so tiring. Why did she feel the need to torment him like this every single day? He wasn’t the cause of her woes, for goodness’ sake!

“Foolish boy! Get back here! Sia, do you know the rubbish that useless fool has put me through?” she snapped as she lunged toward him. He jumped out of the way just in time, leaving the chair in her path, which caused her to stumble on it and lose her balance for a few seconds.

Just enough time bought for him to make his escape.

He sped towards the door and quickly opened and sped out.

“HERH! YOU THIS BOY! IF YOU ARE A MAN, COME BACK HOME! YOU’LL SEE WHAT I’LL DO TO YOU! USELESS SON OF A USELESS FATHER! IDIOTS!”

He could hear those words loud and clear as he ran away from the house, tears streaming down his face. Yes, he had escaped without any slap or knock on the head. But that respite was only for the day; he’d have to deal with her that evening.

Standing a distance away, taking a moment to wipe the tears off his face, he took out his phone and opened his message app.

Time to tell Mr. Wayne Smith how bad things were.

***

“Yes, so Mr. Nartey, he’s been sworn in, and his witness statement has been adopted as his evidence-in-chief. Now you can ask questions from the witness statement you’re holding.”

It was business as usual in the courtroom. This was one of those cases where no lawyers were involved, so the litigants were to handle the matter on their own, with the help of the court. Elias had just sworn the witness in, and led him to have his written statement adopted. Now it was time to cross-examine.

Two minutes in, and what the court workers had expected came to pass.

An out-of-sorts cross-examination, where the litigant doing the questioning was reacting to his opponent’s answers a little too much. Despite the constant reminders from Elias to Mr. Nartey to focus on asking questions instead of reacting to the answers, the man just was not getting the memo.

As he asked one question, and the witness in the box gave another answer he was displeased with, he immediately turned to Justice Paul and protested.

“My Lord, what he’s saying is not true! It’s not true! Before the God of heaven and earth…”

Justice Takyi immediately put up a hand. “Hey, hey, hey, hey, my friend, stop that! Don’t come and be using God to say you are telling the truth. Please!”

The man went silent.

“You people think we are moved by those statements? The way some of you can come and take the Bible and repeat that oath, then you’ll be spewing all sorts of lies into our ears… please, spare me!”

Wayne, who was seated next to Elias and Divine, couldn’t help but snicker at the judge’s statement. Indeed, they had witnessed many trials and knew too well that many a witness only recited the oath for swearing sake; they had no intentions of telling the truth, and touching a Bible, cross or Quran wasn’t going to change that.

“Please, Mr. Nartey, continue with your questions, and be quick about it,” Justice Takyi ordered.

As the litigant looked through the document he held to find more questions, Wayne took a look at his phone. He noticed a text message.

From Nii Sodjah. The young boy he had met a couple of weeks ago, with issues at home.

He quickly picked it and opened the message.

Mr. Smith, she’s at it again. She attacked me this morning.

Wayne shook his head as he read it. “Poor boy,” he muttered to himself. “This is just bad.”

He quickly sent a text back. Flash me when you see this msg. madam and I will meet with you tonight at Zachary’s Corner.

He then opened WhatsApp and immediately went straight to the chat for ‘My Fat-Assed Queen’.

He snickered lightly to himself, shaking his head. Alayaa and her craziness, saving her number with that insane title for the week.

He sent her a text. My love, Nii Sodjah just got in touch with me. His mother’s started again. I’ll come pick you up early, then we’ll meet him at Z’s place, okay.

A few minutes later, she responded.

Again? Oh no! Alright, honey. Well noted.

***

Naphtali was seated at his workstation, busily making entries as he kept his eye on the time. He could not wait to get home and get some rest; it had been one of those very busy days in the bank.

Of course, he also needed to meet with Natalie, so they could officially begin planning out their wedding. As he had told the guys, he wasn’t in the mood for anything mega or expensive; something simple but very memorable would be great.

“So what hashtag would be nice?” he briefly wondered to himself, taking a minute off to think about it. “OH-NA-NA? Hmmm… wouldn’t be bad. Would this my girl agree, though? Hehe… or NaftyNat23? Well…”

His phone buzzed. He picked it up and saw a message from Natalie.

Hey Nafty! So I just contacted Glorious Day Events and asked for a quote for the day. They just sent it. Lemme know your thoughts…

He looked at the message, puzzled. Glorious Day Events? Wasn’t that the super famous wedding planner who recently set up the wedding of the President’s first daughter? That was a super expensive choice of wedding planner; they dealt with the creme de la creme of society. Definitely not one for the average banker living within his means.

“Ei, na Glorious Day Events diɛɛ, that’s for the higher class ooo,” he murmured. “We the middle-class squad diɛɛ, we no be dema target market. Where from this?”

As the words came out of his mouth, a pdf file of the said quote appeared on his screen.

“Ah, but Nat too,” he wondered to himself, opening the file out of curiosity.

What he read through in less than a minute had him stunned. Indeed, these wedding planners were not cheap in the least.

“WHAT THE HELL!” he exclaimed. “Ei, but Nat too, what is she thinking? I can’t accept this. No way!”

He immediately typed in a gentle response. Yes, he wasn’t pleased, but of course, he wasn’t going to swipe the paw at his darling like that.

Umm, babe, so I’ve looked through it, and tbh, don’t you think this is super costly?

He looked at it, nodded in satisfaction, and hit the send button. He then turned his attention back to the laptop screen for a few minutes. Then a buzz from his phone had him turning back. Natalie had responded.

What do you mean ‘super costly’?

Naphtali’s eyes narrowed. The tone behind that response felt quite demanding, and he was not very appreciative of that. He typed. I mean it’s too expensive. Glorious Day diɛɛ, they’re not for us.

A reply followed. Ah, but aren’t we doing it big? Isn’t that what we saved for?

Confusion took over. Doing it big? Where did she get that idea from?

He responded. Uhh, no. We said we wanna do something memorable. That doesn’t necessarily mean big.

Ah. But if it’s not big, how is it memorable? What are you saying?

Naphtali could not believe what he was seeing. “Ah, but what the hell is she on about?” he muttered to himself. “What does she mean doing something big? That was never in the pipeline, per my memory. And who said only big weddings are memorable?”

He typed. I dunno where this is coming from, but I’m busy right now. We’ll talk about this later, because I don’t remember us saying we’ll do anything big. Even if we do, not this type of big. We have a future to think about.

He tossed his phone aside, the irritation in his chest growing wider by the minute. The phone buzzed again, and he checked.

Smh. You cannot be serious. So you want us to do some cheap yawa wedding? Ah!

His eyes brushed through that message, and the irritation in his chest exploded into annoyance.

“Ah, na Natalie too, what’s wrong with her?”

***

“Ah, na Nafty too, what’s wrong with him?” Natalie muttered to herself, her eyebrows angrily furrowed as she waited for her computer to shut down. It was near four o’clock, her closing time, and she was ready to head home and relax for a bit before meeting her husband-to-be later in the evening. Their WhatsApp conversation, however, was not setting the tone for a nice meeting.

How in the world was he now talking about not doing anything big? Where in God’s name was that coming from? Wasn’t a grand and memorable wedding the reason he had been saving up? So what was that all about?

“I hope he’s just pulling my leg,” she murmured as she picked up her bag. “He had better be. Because if he’s serious about this, it’s not going to be pretty. At all.”

Uh-oh. Looks like Naphtali and Natalie are gonna have some clashes on this. And the young boy too, he’s suffering, isn’t he?