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A SCATTERED JIGSAW YOU ARE ENOUGH. PUZZLE BY NICOLE HEROUX WILLIAMS I PHOTOS BY NSP STUDIO BY OMENESA ORUMA AKOMOLAFE
is 2:16am. I just finished tidying my room. You should have seen it before now. My panties were on the floor. My work uniform was rumbled on the floor. My books, purse, papers, were all scattered on the floor. It seemed like I lived on the floor. My dresser was cluttered with an unopened bags of white bread, slices that I hadn’t touched. There were lunch boxes on there too(these ones were clean, thank God). My sachets of tea and chocolate cream, were all on this same dresser. My tooth paste, my devotional book, my tracts, my wig, cups, vitamins, ranch dressing and of course Mom’s picture graced the mirror. She was the only thing that made sense in this nonsense. My shoes were neatly arranged, and that’s because this weather has had me wearing only 2 shoes(Work shoes and Tennis shoes). Meanwhile, the bed was covered with pencils, crayons, books, journals, more panties, braziers, pictures, old mail, new mail, clothes, my pink journal, an old remote control to a tv I own in Nigeria. Chargers and Headphones, mom’s funeral notes, a stroller, my cds, and many other things that I had been looking for, they were all on this bed. Okay! Maybe that’s not a problem. Afterall, I justifiably work an ants schedule. 340
ROCHESTER WOMAN ONLINE : JUNE EDITION 2022
When I come home, I crash. So it’s not a problem. Do you know what the problem is, or was?
junk to the side, and continued to sleep, this time for about 15 minutes. Hunger pangs woke me up.
I got home yesterday evening from work, and I laid myself on this disheveled unkempt mess. At first I laid on top of all that jargon, talked
Did I tell you I had a gallon of apple cider on the dresser? Well, I took the apple cider into the kitchen and sleepily got some ice to drink with it, and ate 2 Jamaican crackers. As I laid back in the bed and talked on the phone for a few minutes, my friend insisted that I sleep. I kept telling him that I was no longer sleepy. I honestly didn’t understand why the sleep had suddenly cleared from my eyes, but he got off the phone to sleep, be ause that’s what normal people do at such hours of the night. This was the problem. I was not fazed by this tornado in my room. It seemed normal to me. But not for long.
on the phone for a while, laughed and even allowed a friend into the room. I was not embarassed at this embarrassment. It was okay to me. After she stepped out. I continued my conversation on the phone, until I fell asleep. In the middle of my nightmare(because I couldn’t be comfortable being cushioned by crap), I used my tired legs to shift all the
As soon as I got off the phone, I put on my piano tones on pandora, to help ease the melatonin. I turned off the light, I still couldn’t sleep. Then from no where, I heard myself utter these words, “GET UP AND CLEAN THIS ROOM NOW.” I spoke to myself as if I was my mother. I then got up and said it again, but this time, I sounded like a Captain on a ship. “CLEAN UP THIS ROOM RIGHT NOW.”