WEDDINGS ARE FOREVER

It was a destination wedding, the wedding of the year, they had called it. People had wrangled invitations quicker than they could print them and she had not known half of the asoebi girls, personally.
Friends of friends of friends, they said, because no girl should have only three bridesmaids and no asoebi girls on her wedding day.
But she knew it was the prospect of luring many of the big boys that were her husband’s friends, that had brought them. After all, it is not everyday that a man belonging to the Reverse Gentlemen Club gets married. And how many times in one existence does one get to attend a three day wedding party on a super yacht off the Amalfi coast?

She pursed her lips in irritation. The vultures had circled and swooped to scavenge, wolves pissing on their territory and hyenas cackling at the thoughts of scandalous trysts at her wedding! And now, barely nine months into forever, he upped and left. 

He hadn’t even done it quietly, no. His departure was a Oscar worthy performance.
The mall, full of people, trying not to stare at them as they walked out of the movies, went from a sleepy hum to a delightful buzz, and then the horde descended!
The steady flash, flash, flash of lightbulbs was blinding, the sound of shutters clicking and paparazzi shoving microphones and recorders in her face was like a distant hum.

She was in shock.
The movies had been his idea and she just stood there, waiting for him to turn back and smile and say, “just kidding!” But, somehow she knew it was over. His ring had landed at the bottom of the fountain with a heart wrenching finality.

She just wanted to know why and so she stood there, in the middle of the ground floor of the mall, waiting for him to come back even as the pictures and videos and hashtags began to trend.
She stood there not seeing nor hearing anything, even when her sister drove right to the front doors of the mall, calling her name, mall security driving everyone out, and then everything turned black.

And here she sat, two weeks later, on the floor of a bedroom that would be easily split into a two room apartment in some parts of Lagos, packing her bags. It was as if she had never been married, she thought as she removed the last of her clothes from the closet. 

The End.

Whew!

I wrote this on a whim in October 2021, not exactly this way. I have tweaked it and developed it further. And here’s the finished product which may undergo further tweaking at a yet unspecified date in the future.

The photo belongs to Junior Karrick DJIKOUNOU on Pexels