His Voice...

The first time Adaora opened her eyes, she thought she was late for work.

She was usually awake in the wee hours of the morning, when the moon still cast its silvery glow to the earth and silence engulfed the atmosphere. Well, Yemi was always up early as well, but she took care not to let the kitchen utensils generate a loud noise. Adaora often used those few hours before dawn to finish up tasks she couldn't complete the day before and then prepare for work. Applying layers of make-up did take up a good percent of those few hours.

But sun rays were stealthily peeping in through the windows, and the brightness of the lights she'd forgotten to turn off the night before pushed violently into her eyes the moment she woke up.

But after she'd blinked several times and adjusted both eyes and mind to her environment, she remembered that for the first time in years, she didn't have to review a document or reply an email first thing in the morning. She didn't have to do anything, nothing at all.

And so she had returned to sleeping a good part of the morning away.

It was almost ten in the morning when she woke up again, hunger driving her to stretch her long arms lazily towards the nightstand where she grabbed the telephone and in a hoarse voice called room service. She lay under the duvet even after the call, and although her body felt warmer than the night before, cold still crippled her toes, and she flexed them continuously before she was able to walk.

It was only after she had eaten that her senses came alive, her mind beginning to function again. The first thought that crept to her mind was the memory of the voice, that soul piercing voice that had sung the night before.

She was curious. Who was he? What were his pains? What had driven him to sing in such a loud voice that late in the night... Or perhaps, so late in the midnight? It was the only thing that occupied her mind even as she poured the contents of her bag in bed and arranged her clothes in the wardrobe.

What was his story?

A thought, creepy and mischievous crept to her mind as soon as she heard the sound of a door being shut just outside her room. Without taking time to think, she abandoned the dress together with the hanger she had in hand, walked briskly towards the door and threw it open...

If she had been expecting a young man to stagger out of the room wearing pain on his slumped shoulders and sadness in his eyes, then she had only opened her door to disappointments. There was a young man alright, but one look at his clothes and she recognised him as a staff. His shirt bore the logo of the hotel, and he carried a trolley-

He turned around quickly, staring at her in confusion. Clearly startled. "Ma'am, is there any problem?" He inquired, quick to overcome his surprise and return to being professional.

Adaora blinked. "Eh...Huh?"

He repeated the question, adding, "Do you need help with anything, ma'am?"

"Oh, no." She only needed help curbing her curiosity.

"Were you looking for sir...?"

Adaora wondered how long this embarrassment would continue. "No. I was looking for you actually, or ehmm, one of you. I want to get my dress ironed." Good thing she wasn't white skinned, or her cheeks would have been tainted with redness.

"You could have just dialled... Of course ma'am, I'll return for the dress as soon I get this downstairs." He feigned a smile, giving her a subtle but critical once over before pushing the trolley and moving down the hallway.

It was only then that Adaora realised what a sight she must have made dressed in a pair of sweats and slacks with her hair in a shower cap and feet completely bare. Dear Lord, he must have thought she was insane.

Muttering a curse beneath her breath, she trotted into the room and slammed the door shut, flushed in embarrassment. Why in the world had she decided to open that door?

As though the day could only get worse, it dawned on her thirty minutes later, after she'd showered that she had never had a vacation on her own, and therefore had no idea what to do. She flipped through the resort magazine again, watching pictures of the swimming pool and the spa, but nothing interested her.

She checked her mail, feeling useless when she saw nothing from Stacey and remembered that she had handed over the duties to her Managing Director. She had spent her twenties working so hard that being without office duties for a day made her feel incapacitated.

Well, the room service young man returned in the midst of her worries, and she ensured that he saw her dressed in fitting gown, with her hair arranged and packed upwards before handing the dress over to him. Even if she only spent four days here, she had a reputation to maintain. She was a public figure in Nigeria, and who knew whom she would come across?

"Thank you." She uttered in an all professional voice as he took the dress, smiling politely. Well, if she had been aiming at correcting his first impression of her, then she failed miserably.

"Yeah, you're welcome. I'll be back with it in a jiffy, ma'am." He almost didn't wait for her to reply before forcing another smile and leaving, eager to be away from her presence. She stared at herself in the gigantic mirror fixed beside the vanity. Well, that hadn't gone as planned.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. She wandered through the hotel, bored out of her mind and in desperate need of something to keep her busy. She explored the swimming pool but ended up getting only her legs in the clear blue waters. She saw a movie in her room and ate in the afternoon, yet she hungered for something seemingly unattainable, something she wasn't yet aware of that would capture her attention and hold her interest captive.

By the time evening came, she was dead tired in her mind and couldn't imagine spending the next three days hurled up in this uninteresting life. It was also a bitter realisation for her that the only thing capable of holding her interest was work.

She decided already, even before it was eight o'clock that she wasn't going to stay in her room anymore. The confined space had begun to eat at her, and she needed fresh air and something... Interesting, different perhaps.

She didn't take her time dressing up, eager to be out of her room and find something, anything that didn't remind her that boredom awaited her for the next three days. Dressed in a simple knee-length gown and flats with her lips covered in lipstick the colour of withering rose, she walked past the expansive hallway and got into the lift, waiting patiently as it descended to the second floor.

She didn't think about the music as she found her way into the restaurant, guided by the descriptions given in the Client's Guide. It had in fact gone far enough from her mind. A waiter in red and white with a Christmas cap on his head met her midway as soon as she walked in, smiling as he greeted her. Perfect, she had been wondering where to seat among the crowd, mostly seated in pairs having dinner.

"Good evening, ma'am. May I see your room card, please?" He asked, maintaining that automated smile every worker seemed to wear with pride. She thought it was creepy that he was asking for her room card, but this was America, and so she said nothing like the 'you don dey craze small small abi?' she would have said on normal circumstances and pulled out her card from a purse the same shade as her footwear.

One glance at it and he continued."Okay ma'am, let me lead you to your seat. Everyone has a seat reserved for them according to their room numbers." He explained, and she was relieved that he didn't collect the card from her. She walked on with him, and muttered 'thanks' when he stopped at a table for two.

"This is for you. You can have a plus one if you wish, or enjoy yourself alone."

"Thank you. But I think I'd rather stay alone. " He nodded and asked for her order, standing a distance away when she picked the thick cover book on the table to look for anything that looked less annoying. All she could see were grilled meat with other things she took as snacks, not food.

"I think I'd go with this." She pointed at a South African food that looked heavy and delicious, wondering if the taste of this strange looking food she couldn't even pronounce would be worth the graphical representation under the name.

"Okay, I'll get it in a jiffy." She spent the short time he was away looking around at the posh restaurant decorated in white and red with colourful ribbons and glittering lights. Oh, Christmas celebrations, same everywhere. She wondered why everybody in the world took it this serious, as though it were their own birthday, rather than the birthday of Jesus.

It didn't take long before she saw him approach with a tray which he placed on her table. She opened the covered plates, and was just about to scoop the watery soup with a spoon- definitely far from what she expected- when someone cleared his throat beside her. She moved in the direction it had come from; the left, and met with jet black eyes. She would remember that moment for as long as her memory didn't falter; the seeming endlessness of those pupils that bored into her like holes.

"I don't think that's a good choice; your order." She knew that voice, that tender mischief quality that neither gave nor asked for anything. It was the same as the one she had heard in her room the night before, the same voice she had fallen asleep dreaming of.