Becky Niwagaba
“Once we get out of the town traffic, he’ll engage gear 1 and 2 and we’ll be on our way”
Never have those words sounded as sexy to my ears as they did that evening.
This dull evening, I am rushing home to do absolutely nothing, really just wanted to get out of the bustle of town. So I jump into this taxi, and it fills up pretty fast. I am oblivious of all that’s going on around me, I don’t even notice when my neighbor takes his seat next to me let alone throw a glance in his direction. And then we’re off on our merry way. However ten minutes into the crazy traffic, the engine starts to cough like any minute it’ll die out and not want to resurrect. I’m getting panicky real fast because in this fast and furious city, the conductor starts to collect the fare soon as the car starts to move, and it’s a pain trying to get it back from him, also we’re in the city centre now where it’d be almost impossible to get another taxi without going back to the very first stage.
My heart is sinking slowly and for some reason I don’t understand, maybe because now I can’t get home as fast as I’d wanted, to do nothing, I’m getting more troubled as each second ticks by and the car keeps on coughs endlessly. It’s literally out of car breath now. I’m wondering why the other passengers are not up in arms protesting against being left stranded helplessly in the middle of town which I know will be happening any minute now. I mutter what I think is under my breath but apparently loud enough for my neighbor to hear, that we’ll never make it out of town in this taxi.
Then he said the words. Words that would ordinarily mean nothing in my world, but now they were a light bulb, complete with a “ting” in my mind. A number of things were brought to my attention right then;
My neighbor was a man;
My neighbor was a man that knew stuff about cars that I had no idea about;
My man neighbors knowledge about cars brought a calm over me that I needed in this time of distress.
Suddenly he seemed the most attractive man that I’d come across in a while, considering I would never have given him a second glance in a million years, because I’m not one to look for potentials in a taxi. Now I just wanted to crawl onto and sit on his lap and hear him tell me all about car engines and himself and anything that’d keep him talking. It didn’t help that he had a nice voice and wasn’t bad looking.
So, here I am pondering on my senseless and irresponsible attraction to this man, when we do get out of town and just like he said, the taxi is up and running smoothly, its typhoid all gone. Thereafter, shamelessly, though I should probably be ashamed of this, I felt every little touch of our bodies when the car swayed, I could hear him breathing, in my mind we started a family and had three little ones driving us crazy.
Then he fell asleep, which ordinarily I can’t stand in public transport, people drooling and snoring right in your ear. This time however, I just wanted to get his head and place it on my shoulder and say,” rest here my darling, rest your beautiful head over here.” I was going crazy!!!! At his stop which came before mine, I almost reached out my hand to him and said, “Don’t go. Don’t leave me, please”. But when the universe is not for you, it’s really not for you and I was dragged back into my lonely taxi ride, ignoring everyone else once again.
Moral of the story: A woman is attracted to a man that will protect her, tell her something she doesn’t know, but should know, make her feel safe and better if she is in a situation that requires such. Most importantly, the timing and surrounding circumstances matter. If my beautiful stranger had come up to me in a restaurant and started to tell me about engines and cars, I would have thrown him such a dirty look it’d send him off before he could say jeez.
Is that really a moral? Oh well….
