She drove down the express leading to her multi million naira mansion on the fast lane,with music blasting from her car stereo,the best she could get. she spares no cost when it comes to luxury.
It was still early hours of the morning at 5:30 am, the road was still quiet free of its usual bustling. She drove on the fast lane exactly the way she lives her life, on the fast lane,taking all possible root as far as it is fast and profitable, no matter how ruthless or risky the venture,she just wanted it fast and quick.
Life had dealt her a bitter hand while growing up, her father had died when she was only eight years old, due to an heart attack that took him at the age of forty two. According to her mother,as she was too young to understand what was happening,her father had made a wrong investment running into millions which all went down the drain. He has borrowed money from the bank with the few landed properties they had as collateral. When all his efforts went down the drain, his weak heart could not take it. He had died and left behind his young wife and two girls.
The mother too didn't stay around for long ,she died exactly eight years after their father. They had lost her to diabetes, a tough war they couldn't say they had a chance to fight. They were as poor as it can be. Barely making a living from the bread and butter their mum sold,so when the sickness started ,they had little or nothing to fight the battle with. She had no memory of a family member coming to look for them either from the father's family or the mother's family.
She could vividly remember when she was fourteen years old, she asked her mum why there was no family seeking their well being. Her mum had simply said that as she had no family as she had grown up in an Orphanage and the father's family wouldn't bother with them because they were girls.
At the age of sixteen,she became an orphan, her younger sister was only twelve. Standing beside her mother's coffin that wet Wednesday in July that year, a coffin co tenants had been gracious enough to help them make with rough wood, she had vowed to take care of her sister and break the jinx of poverty.
Each time she remembered how desperately she begged the pastor in charge of her church to allow bury her mum in the church cemetery that day, it annoys her still.
They rarely went to church,few members knew them, the pastor was afraid of the action of the church committee, her mum doesn't pay tithes, they barely had enough to feed. But with pressure from neighbors and few church members on the church council ,they finally accepted to allow their mother be buried in the church cemetery on that cold Wednesday morning.
As if the farmament knew what had befallen her and her sister,it rained all through that day.
Shaking her head to dispell all the past thought in her head , smiling sheepishly thinking of how far she has come.
Her name is Mirabel her friends call her Mira, in an hour, she will be dead.