In This Place, We Nurse This Chaos Because It Is The Best Form Of Therapy.
Disclaimer: Everything written here is true except for the part that is fictional.
How do you define the Republic’s ambience with its people in frenzied excitement of joy, swinging their waists and weary bodies to the songs of yesterday and today? How do you comprehend the Alley Bar helping people in unwinding the chaos of the week? Give them Afrobeats, some shots of tequila and watch people sweltering as they turn chaos into a melody they dance to. In this place, this chaos is nursed like a newborn because it is always the only scenario where everyone agrees it is the best form of therapy.
It is two month already living in Accra, and I have been finding it hard processing my thought to write. I guess there has not been enough chaos to write about or there were no enough stimuli to write about life in Accra, unlike Lagos, where everything comes to life begrudgingly. But tonight is different, I am writing about life, about people at one of their most indifferent moments; sipping their Champagne and Jameston, and thrusting themselves and their bodies, under neon lights, into the jam of the night — puff! It’s 2 am already — so, I might as well say “into the jam of the morning.”
And like Lagos, when does the world go to sleep here? When does the curtain fade and the light go out? When do husbands go back home to their wife, and father, back to their sons and daughters? When will this place become the place that houses vague memories of acts people will not remember they do? I guess that does not happen here. One moment the Deejay kills the music to let the people lead on with the song, another moment, it is Burna Boy blasting through the speakers dangling across the stuffed room.
In this place, nobody belongs to anybody. One might as well say its where generosity is at its peak. In Alley Bar or the Republic, everything is short-lived; the euphoria, stimuli, and whatnot. In this place people move on to other people to enjoy the moment quite easily without remorse or hard feelings. Pardon my frail mindset, I thought people come to club to also find love [put up a sinister smile here]. But as there might have been people who found love here tonight, there is also someone, me, who is writing about them and other clusters of human who only want to drown in the euphoria of the moment.
On finding love at the club, there was a mildly calm lady who occasionally withdrew into her shell anytime Bob made an attempt to have a dance with her. Jessie, always intimidated by Bob’s broad smile, timid appearance and a luxury countenance, would occasionally give in. A number of times, our gazes met and her face was always the definition of can-we-skip-to-the-good-part of a relationship. Maybe I was overthinking this. Maybe Jessie was just uncomfortable. Maybe she was intimidated by her friend, but no one gets intimidated into partaking in the chaos, or more succinctly, into having fun, right? Again, I might be wrong. Besides, I didn’t define what the-good-part Jessie might be thinking is, did I?
Resisting the urge of a dance is a not a thing of the Alley Bar, but that was not supposedly the case with Denis. How do you rate that nerd in his Freedom hoodie, a pair of glasses that sat calmly on his nose, and a jean crazy at the knee not bulging to a lap dance from Amma? Didn’t they say chaos begets chaos? But why was Denis indifferent about basking in the euphoria of the night? Why would he resist the offer of a chaos from Amma? Denis sipped his cocktail, adjusted his glasses which then had found its way to the tip of his nose, and dismissed Amma with a sinister smile. Poor Amma! She put on a smile and threw herself into the teeming crowd. Tonight is to enjoy, not to nurse indifference from a jerk fidgeting with his phone. That’s what Accra preaches at night — a pretty good life.
Accra comes to life pretty good at night with the free safe roads, the breath of her refreshing air, the teeming Police Officers who return a smile when you wave at them, and the subtle assurance of not taking a road trip to hell when driving at night. As JC drove back from Osu to East Legon, past the exuberant police officers, I rested my head on the headrest, put Post Malone’s Sunflower on repeat and got myself lost into the night. And while Angela, Senior Dev, JC, Mishell, and Sunflower blab about the fun, tiredness and euphoria, I let out a deep sigh, knowing I ended the week in a remarkable way; using chaos to unwind chaos.
Back in my room, jostling between being asleep and awake, I still wonder whether they sell coffee at that Jameston Coffee in Alley Bar or is it just to put up an act? But do people really go to the club to drink coffee? Oh! I forgot that may be for people like me… What a good user experience concept!
