SHORT STORY 1

Love Your Neighbour, But Watch And Pray.

Lanre runs a gas retail business at Aga in Ikorodu, and seems to be doing
well. He shares a tenement room with a friend, Tunde, at Odogunyan, a
distance of about 6 kilometres from his shop. So he commutes to and from
shop every day, leaving home about 7 oclock in the morning and getting
back around 9 oclock in the evening. Because the business involves a lot of
shifting and lifting, he gets home completely exhausted.
Usually, he buys and eats his meals at the shop and does not bother to cook
at home. So when he gets home, in his state of complete exhaustion, all he
does is throw his money bag on the table, kick his shoes off and slump into
bed.
Tunde would wait for a few minutes and then call, Lanre! Lanre! not for
any meaningful purpose, but just to be sure that the latter is actually asleep.
Even if Lanre hears him faintly from his half sleep, he ignores him, but wakes
up the following morning to discover that something is missing from his
purse, sometimes, as much as N2000. Unfortunately, it is difficult to make
accusations since nobody has been caught in the act, but the sad feeling is
real.
One particular day, however, Lanre had cause to leave home urgently to
attend to a customers request. In his mad haste, he left his purse behind
and had gone quite some distance before realizing it. As he hurried back to
the house and into the room, lo and behold, there was his trusted friend,
Tunde, with his hand in the till, buried deep inside Lanres purse. The police
are now handling the matter.