Flawed Perfection

Chapter Three: Naked mysery

12th January, 2007.
Abuja, Nigeria.

Abdullah cascaded down the spacious staircase of their mansion on a bright Thursday morning in January. The overly familiar lights that hung above, illuminated the stark_white painted walls and made them shimmer.

He caught sight of his view in the long_ wooden console mirror that stood, facing the staircase. He easily recognized the mystery that welled in the depths that hung by each sides of his nose and created deep_shimmering brown orbs. He could almost percieve the poignant confidence that made itself known from the way his well built nose stood and shadowed svelte brown lips that complemented his caramel skinned face with subtleness.

His creator had gifted him a face that graciously owned his title. Abdullah had always doubted his presence against magazine walls had much to do with business_ although he was undeniably good at what he did too.

He was a devoted thirty_three year old architect who's success had little to do with working under a world_recognized_family owned construction company. Maybe more, but all thesame Abdullah had sudored most of his life into every design until it became worthy of being an exception.

Exception, It rolled off the tongue like the easiest thing to be, the easiest trait to find but Abdullah knew better, thirty three years into his life and he could not read through it with a face lifted in a smile. Despite all the wealth, the fame and the name_ his name, his life had never worked well enough for him, neither had any of his choices worked well enough for his family.

He still had responsibilities to nurse, he still needed to be the son his parents anticipated him to be, the elder brother all the six_ siblings he had looked up to. He still needed to know the right thing to do and when to do it but until when would he strive to be all that he hadn't been for all his life?

He had already lost every of his youth, searching to be and find something exceptionally beautiful yet_ at the same time, mysterious. Something that owned a story that wasn't just as visible as an expensive perfume and maybe existed far beyond a name could define. Something that dared break boundaries.

Perhaps it was the feeling he buried underneath every design, it was what pushed him to the women he chased_ the mystery he hoped to uncover.

He had constantly scoured through every woman of his cline, the most à la mode to thier time, women with bodies and skin that spoke glasses and silk yet found 'nothing to write home about.' They were all thesame_ beautiful. Then they got annoying. The routine knackered him out and always left him with wounded expectations.

Then therecame his uncle_ Baba Musa, with an ill mannered girl locked in a cage with little to no insight about life. A plain graduate of industrial designs from an ordinary public university, raised with mastered ideas about hard glares and cold_ unwelcoming words. It hadn't paused at that, the decision had been made, Baba Musa even casually called her 'Abdullah's soon_to_be wife', like she was as simple as his sugar_free milkshake.

Abdullah knew better, she claimed she was destruction_ from every nook of it. But where did that leave him? He was no saint either, he was responsible for sins great enough to end a woman of Aisha's age.

He looked up to stare at the light bulbs and realized there where days when doing what he had just done made raw wounds numb. On days when he toppled from heights and sustained injuries, Hajiya or Baba would always turn on light switches then turn them off out of fear that he might stare for too long.

Like every other gesture, it was simple. Albeit, even then, it fed Abdullah the warmth of both love and protection.

The familiar clanging of pots and clatter of a knife against a surface pulled Abdullah out of his reverie. Taking the corner that led to the kitchen, he looked through the glass door of the kitchen and_ as expected, caught sight of his mother's standing frame above the sun_kissed kitchen sink, ever fairly and supple. He leaned on the wall facing the kitchen, It was a radient morning afterall, there was no harm in staring at his mother for a while.