Owambe - by Faye🥀

Jumoke treats weddings like a game of chess and she’s always four moves ahead. She rests her back against the wall, spine stiff enough to pass as steel, arms folded like she’s holding the building together with them. The sunglasses are non-negotiable — not because the sun is out( it’s a dim, sweat-soaked hall at 7pm), but because she refuses to let anyone see her cringe when Uncle Bamidele starts his third speech about London. She wonders if his whole existence is a lie too. Her gele is a masterpiece of blue fabric and stubbornness. The lace top? Sweet and simply demure. But she ruins the softness with that raised index finger. She keeps it up to show her exact tolerance level for family nonsense. “Aunty Jumoke looks like she’s about to ask us why we’re still single.” Her cousins whisper as they rush past her. She chuckles because she finds their assumption silly. Jumoke is already planning her escape. She doesn’t hate the culture. She just hates the performance. The room is filled with cheap choking perfume, damp armpits, and a DJ who is actively committing crimes against music. The man couldn’t mix anything other than water and sugar. He has zero rhythm, zero talent, and zero future. Jumoke mentally drafts his resignation letter and sets it on fire because he doesn’t deserve the paper. Aunties are sweating profusely. Uncles are loosening their belts, laughing too loud at jokes that weren’t even funny in the first place. Jumoke watches them— men in borrowed agbadas, women in lace so tight their ribs are begging for air. She’s amused, truly. She observes them like a naturalist at a zoo, the wave of desperate joy, the way everyone throws themselves into the music to prove they’re having a good time. She doesn’t move. She just stands there, mentally irritated by the show playing in front of her. The finger stays up — not to silence them, just to let them know that she sees all of them. The fake love and the fake lifestyles in all glory. Her gele mocks physics.The sunglasses defy common sense.And she defies the entire room by refusing to sweat. Her eyes drift to the center of the dance floor. There he is— some panting, sweaty pot bellied man in a heavily embroidered agbada, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief that she’s sure is pleading for help. His chest heaves. He’s clapping off-beat, smiling like some depererate golden retriever dog who just found a ball. She watches Tunde flail. She feels nothing but mild embarrassment. When the cake finally comes out— right on schedule, 8:14PM, she walks out. No wave. No goodbye. No last glace. The DJ panics. The aunties gasp. Tunde freezes, realizing in that moment that his bride just walked out on him for a better story. There’s no sound anymore apart from the clicking of her heels on the tiled floor. Jumoke doesn’t look back. She always imagined this moment. The power of it. She’d pictured the gasps, the dropped jaws and the chaos she’d leave behind. Tunde was never the target. No. He was the test subject— convenient, eager and always a little pitiful. He’ll be fine. Eventually. Now that everything is over, she allows herself one quite thought: “I absolutely loved that.”

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