It all began on Facebook. On that app, I usually express my views on a wide range of issues.
While some of my comments trigger commendations, others draw me into conflicts and sometimes prolonged but healthy debates.
The influx of mixed reactions only affirm the old proverbial saying that, ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison’; and that further underscores the beauty of democracy isn’t it? … Well, now let’s talk about Anita.
Anita was one of those who couldn’t hide her emotions under a post I made. Apart from expressing her delight in the comment section, she proceeded to my chat space to convey her ‘admiration’ as well.
“Hello! Schandorf, How are you doing? You’re really a good writer. I like how you play with words. Keep it up”, she said; ending it with two smiling emojis.
Now it is normal to feel good when your efforts are met with such positive feedback. Either you smile at them or express some form of gratitude. In this instance, I did both.
Subsequently, I returned her message with a smiling emoji plus a brief line of appreciation as well.
“Thank you for the kind words, Anita. God bless you. Do have a great day”, I replied. All of this happened before lunch time; somewhere between 9am and 10am in the morning.
Later in the evening when I had closed from work, Anita reached out to me again. This time around, it wasn’t to compliment my craft or anything of that sort. She came with a request in hand; a request for us to be ‘friends’.
“Why not?”, I replied. As a general policy, I’m usually opened to everybody until I find compelling reason (s) to detach. So I gladly obliged to Anita’s request without any hesitation.
She then requested for us to exchange contacts and migrate the engagements to WhatsApp. Her explanation was that, she was not very consistent on the Messenger app. This too made a lot of sense and I’ll explain why.
All throughout my chat with Anita, she was texting very fluently. Her choice of words were precise and her diction was refined.
It appeared to me that Anita was also an avid reader who had a thing for language. Given my liking for language, I hastily typed out my contact to her. She sent hers as well, but I didn’t save it.
“Thanks Schandorf, we’ll talk later”, she replied. And that’s how our conversation finally ended on our first day of meeting.
About three days later, I woke up to a lot of pictures from an unknown number on WhatsApp. The texter did not identify herself and so I was momentarily at a loss. All the same, I downloaded all the pictures.
If I have never been able to understand the meaning of ‘beauty’, the pictures I downloaded were enough to help me appreciate the import of that word immediately. Whaaaatttt !!! Every single picture I downloaded was drop-dead gorgeous! “Who could this be?”, I thought to myself.
Now due to how a lot of scammers and cyber fraudsters use appealing photos of others to lure their victims into all sorts of dubious transactions, I presumed that this could be one of those clever manipulations.
In the first place, the texter didn’t have a name on her WhatsApp profile; except for two love emojis. Secondly, the account didn’t have a profile picture.
Everything at that point smacked of a scam and so despite my initial admiration of the photos, I left the chat without saying a word.
A few hours later, a text read, “Heya! It’s me … Anita. How’re you? I took your number from Facebook yesterday”.
Anita? Well, on her Facebook profile, she had no photos of herself. It was a very dormant account so to speak, and perhaps that’s why I couldn’t relate it with the earlier WhatsApp pictures. Moreover, I had not stored her number.
“Oww okay. That’s fine. I didn’t know you were the one. How’re you?”, a conversation ensued.
In response, she sent a voice note; narrating how her day had started badly, and how she was looking at the possibility of going to the beach to clear her mind. Now here was where I discovered another element of attraction.
Her voice was as sleek as a professional voice over artiste. Her inflections were just perfect and her choice of words, yet again, hit a certain spot in me. It was a two-minute voice note and I had to listen twice!
“I really wish I could speak to someone you know”, she added to the voice note.
Now, here’s where the humanness in me finally took over. First, this stranger had shown her dexterity in texting in our initial engagements on Facebook.
Secondly, her ravishing pictures had piqued my interest for obvious reasons; her alluring physique, her resplendent face, gallant height and of course, her well-toned skin.
And now much recently, her voice; with all of its silkiness.
Don’t forget that she had requested for us to be friends earlier, and given the fact that friends look out for each other in moments of difficulties, I deemed her request to be a fine opportunity to show how much of a good friend I could be.
Meanhwile, at the back of yours truly‘s mind, other motivations were beginning to emerge. A mild feeling of liking sprang up in me, but I was determined to keep it in check. Because after all, the deal was only ‘friendship’, isn’t it? Good.
Fast forward, I agreed to meet Anita to share in the challenges of this my new friend. Her choice of a meeting place was however slightly uncomfortable.
For someone who had indicated she was depressed and wanted to visit the beach, I thought a date in an open arena would have been a perfect idea. But it was otherwise.
“See erh … The way I’m feeling right now, I really don’t want to even go out. My hair is also messy. Can you come to my apartment at Kwabenya? I can pay for your fare if you don’t mind”, Anita suggested.
At that moment, every discerning person in my shoes would have been able to sense something strange and in my case, I perceived the awkwardness as well. But for once, I decided to be very trusting and optimistic, despite the obvious threats I inferred.
“What if she’s a ritualist? What if she’s a fake identity? What if going to Kwabenya would mean doom for me?
“What if she’s actually a man hiding behind a female collaborator to land me in some form of scandal or death trap?”, my mind hazarded some guesses around these areas.
But while my contemplation continued, an alert hit my phone. It was a deposit of GH¢2000, with the reference ‘Transportation to my world’, with the sender’s name being Anita. Damn it! I was shocked to the bone !!!
With that gesture, I became convinced that Anita was truly and desperately yearning to have an audience with someone. Otherwise, why would she send me GH¢2000 to cater for my trip to her place? How many people do that in the current economic crisis?
I quickly called her to confirm if indeed she was the one who effected the transaction. She replied in the affirmative, but that wasn’t the only thing I noticed during the call. She was sobbing as well, and it was obvious something was truly bothering my new ‘friend’.
It is pertinent to indicate that all this while, I was still hesitant about going to meet her, especially in her private apartment.
However, I didn’t also want to come off as too paranoid so despite all my uneasy reflections, I decided to wear the helmet of adventurousness for once. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?
“Don’t worry, Anita. I’ll be with you in the next one hour”, I texted after the call with her.
All throughout the journey, my mind was not at peace. I felt I was being reckless by accepting to embark on the journey. My instincts for the first time, were however not clear.
While I felt an urge to continue the journey, something else kept telling me to return and send back her money to her.
I was unsettled in my thoughts until I finally arrived in front of her gate. Seeing the magnificence of the house, a part of my fears suddenly disappeared and now I was eager to enter the walls of this luxurious edifice at Kwabenya.
Just before I could call her to say I had arrived, she opened the gate and motioned to me. Oh boy! Anita was such a sparkling glass of water! Jesus Christ! Such beauty!
Her feet were completely spotless. There was no dent or glitch on her legs. Moving upwards, her thighs, like I had seen in her pictures were slightly thick; ascending into hips that no one can say isn’t curvy.
Her belly was also flat and hanging on top of them were her boobs.
Let me skip the descriptions for now, but like I had earlier indicated, Anita’s looks were on the moon; elegant, inviting and sweet.
My shy and uneasy self couldn’t look straight into her face when I alighted, but noting my seeming discomfort, she drew closer and eased the tension.
We walked into a compound that had a fleet of luxurious vehicles packed outside. It wasn’t just the vehicles that caught my attention; the place was unusually quiet.
“Do you live here alone?”, I asked calmy. “Well yes, mum, dad and everyone else is abroad. I’m really lonely”, she replied, bursting into sudden tears.
“Oh sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt”, I calmed her; wrapping my hands around her shoulders. That wrap though, proved to be the starting point of my doom.
Noticing my hands around her shoulders, she broke down into tears and placed her head on my chest, while we were still at the door. My reflex reaction was to pat her on the back in consolation.
That act of care then became the last stroke that broke the camel’s back. She then held on tightly to me and before I realised, we were in her couch in the same posture.
At that point, my third leg had become very agitated and the heavens eventually opened for rain to fall. We did it.
After what was obviously an unplanned intercourse, she requested to go upstairs to check something. This was after she had served me a bottle of juice and water.
While away, I sat in the big hall looking at all the wealth before my eyes. But I noticed my waiting had become a bit too long. About twenty minutes after she had left, there was no sign of her anywhere.
At that point, fear gripped me a little and I became apprehensive. Quickly, I took my phone and dialed her number, since I didn’t think it was wise to follow her upstairs. Anita’s number was not going through.
I called repeatedly but to no avail. Consumed with fear, I reached for the door and opened to see if perhaps she went outside! Alas! That was when I realised that I was in the middle of nowhere! All I saw was a field of grass, with epitaphs on it. The image I saw was similar to the picture below.
Photo Credit: willed.com.au
At that juncture, I jumped out of my skin and yelled on top of my voice! Presuming the door I opened earlier was still there, I turned to it. But to my dismay, it had vanished; leaving me standing on the epitaph of Anita.
Jeez !!! You can imagine how I felt at that point. I started running to nowhere in particular; yelling at a high pitch. The entire place was hazy, and it didn’t look like there was an end in sight.
Suddenly, Anita came from nowhere and stood in front of me. That was when I screamed my biggest; which finally woke me up from sleep. Apparently, it was all a dream!
Opening my eyes, I realised I was still panting and sweatly profusely. It is not safe to jump out of bed immediately when you wake up and so, though I wanted to walk out of my door to grab some fresh air, I decided to wait a little in bed; still immersed in fear.
Minutes later, I became calmer and sat quietly on my bed pondering over the weird dream. Two things came to mind. Either to delete my Facebook app or go off social media completely.
Both options though, I felt were too hasty and so I considered none. What rather dawned on me strongly was the fact that, not everything is what it is.
The pleasant Anita I had seen in my dreams was not real after all. So I thought, “how many more Anita’s are out there in reality? … how many more evil spirits have disguised themselves into men and wreaking havoc in the lives of people?”.
Dear reader, the world in its present state is full of uncertainties and many weird occurrences. Not everything that meets the eye is true, and not every good thing is real.
At all times, we must be vigilant and widely awake with the people we interact with, the friends we make and the associations we keep. The truth however is that, it is very difficult to distinguish good from evil.
However, despite our human limitations in assessing issues, there’s always an entity that sees and knows all things! That entity is Jesus Christ; working through the Holy Spirit, who abides with us.
A deep relationship with Him can help you to escape the Anita’s of this world.
Meanwhile, the only thing I wished was true about the Anita experience was the GH¢2000 she sent. If I had a way to go back to that dream, I would have returned with it (lol). In the meantime, please stay woke!
Till we meet again, my name is Derrick Schandorf Ayirebi-Acquah; popularly known as ‘Paa Kwesi Schandorf’. I’m a writer, a corporate MC and a journalist, currently with The Multimedia Group.
