Title: Soft Life, Hard Choices
Episode 1: I Wasn’t Looking for Love
I did not have time for love.
Not in the poetic sense. In the real sense. The kind shaped by alarm clocks that rang too early and bills that refused to wait. I was young, Nigerian, and permanently tired. Work stress stayed with me like background noise. Family expectations sat quietly but heavily on my shoulders.
Love felt irresponsible.
Nigeria does not reward softness. It rewards focus. And I was focused on surviving.
The bus stop was already loud. Conductors shouting destinations. Horns blaring. People pushing forward with the urgency of those who could not afford to be late. I stood there, sweating slightly, mentally rearranging my excuses for work.
“Dayo!”
I turned. It was my neighbour, already half inside a danfo, waving like we had planned this meeting. “You’re going to be late again o.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. As if I needed the reminder.
I stepped forward, and that was when he spoke.
“Is this bus going to CMS?”
I answered without really looking at him. Yes. He nodded and went quiet.
Ordinary.
We stood side by side because the crowd pushed us together. No conversation. No curiosity. Just two strangers waiting for transport in the same heat.
When the bus finally came, we ended up sitting opposite each other. The silence was thick. Not awkward. Just heavy with Lagos stress. I noticed something then.
He was calm.
Not the distracted kind. The settled kind. Like someone who had decided that the chaos was not worth fighting.
Our eyes met briefly. Nothing dramatic. No spark. Just recognition. Two people existing in the same city, fighting their own battles.
He got down before me. No goodbye. No name exchange. Just another stranger swallowed by traffic.
That should have been the end.
But later that day, while staring at my screen at work and pretending to care about emails, his face drifted into my thoughts. Not sharply. Just quietly. That annoyed me.
I do not dwell on strangers. I do not read meaning into bus stops.
Love is a distraction, I reminded myself.
Nigeria is hard enough already.
That night, as I lay in bed listening to generators hum in the distance, one thought refused to leave.
I could not remember his face clearly.
But I remembered his calm.
And that was unsettling.