The letter came in the morning, but Emeka did not read it. Not straight away. He was convinced that whatever it contained would be harmless, nothing that could not wait. An invitation to an official function, maybe. It was not until he was getting ready to go home that evening that he remembered it.
He pushed his chair away from his desk and began to read in a rush, hardly comprehending the words at first. And then he read it again, standing up, as if by that singular act, he could make the contents of the letter disappear; make the whirlwind swirling around him and uprooting him stop. He felt something - tennis ball-shaped and fluffy - lodge itself in his throat, its fuzziness tickling. For the rest of his life, he would associate this feeling with heartbreak.
He wanted to smash things. To fling his computer through the window. He sat down, his head in his hands. He could not go home. He could not carry this news back to Kaitonne, his pregnant wife. Instead, he called his friends and asked if they wanted to meet up for beer and catfish at the popular Best Restaurant. He wanted a moratorium from the news.