Yanyk Baba Tee
While walking to my new apartment yesterday at 4 pm, after three back-to-back classes plus three hours consulting with students, I mistook building 1014, Island Drive for building 1034 where I am putting up. When I inserted my key into the keyhole of the main door, the first shock I had was that the lock was broken. Anyone could open the door, walk in and walk out.
I stepped in and climbed up the staircase to #106. Second shock: when I placed my key into the keyhole of the apartment, I also realized that the door was not locked. I told myself this could not be. Fabian, my room mate is a diligent person. I stepped into the apartment and received my greatest shock. Everything in the sitting-room was gone. I held my breath.
Things happen. How could this be? Didn’t I pay my rent for November? Did I owe anybody or any corporation? I opened the closet to see if anything was in there. It was empty. I walked into my room and found it bare. I checked my closet. Nothing. The closet on the corridor. Nothing. The bath was bare. Could it be that I was wanted at the estate office or by the police? I wasn’t in the wrong in anything I could remember.
I went into the kitchen. There was nothing. Everything was gone! Now where does one begin to find out and how? There are minor things that you may lose your head over. And there are major things that make you hold back and say anyways. When it pours what else could you do? I smiled and told myself, making a fresh start in life is nothing new to me. What to do? Should I call Fabian and ask? Fabian is in the lab at school busy, I thought. He left the apartment a few minutes before me as I quickened to print a quiz and other material for students.
But if I call, what do I tell him? I’m from Africa, and I am used to living with little. I can lose everything and refocus my mind to start afresh again without worry. Even if it means going back to my continent with little on. What will Fabian say? How will I tell him that I know nothing about what’s happened? Wait a minute, I told myself. I checked the apartment again, the carpet, and realized it was the same but with stains on it that I had not seen before. I walked into the kitchen to look at the cooker which I always make sure it stays bright and stainless. It was just as new. Then I looked at the faucet over the sink – now, there was something wrong. I know our faucet.
This faucet was rusty and the sink was encrusted with food remains. That was when I stepped into the sitting-room to check again. No, it was a very dirty apartment. I knew I had made a mistake. I knew I had stepped into the wrong apartment. I had made that mistake about a week shortly after I moved into 1034. I had unknowingly cut my journey short at 1014, and put my key into the keyhole only for the lock to resist opening. Sometimes the mind runs ahead of the body. And mine always does. Now I walked out of the apartment, shut the door, went downstairs, opened the main door and checked. And a bright smile came over my face. I was happy to discover I was in the wrong apartment. So I shut the door, took to the lawn and hurled my hands up in the air in a show of triumph. I wasn’t worried if anyone saw me go into the building and suspected me. Only later did I realized that if someone in the building had seen or suspected me and called the police, I would have been defenseless.
Being black, who would buy my story? Now, being so lucky, and my memory etched, I am not sure the error would repeat itself again. As I sat on my computer and checked mail in my room minutes later, I found that the Department of African-American and African Studies had sent me a note that I had won a raffle. I have not won a raffle in many years! They had urged me to play it, then offered me a hefty sandwich just before I headed home. Might be it was the sandwich. I’m also fond of losing my way when I don’t take a nap following a good meal:)
