STICK IN THE VINE

Chapter 3

It is morning, Shawty walks down the stairs, sleek on a black skirt, orange button down short sleeves and black stiletto heels, clasping her red BWF in hand. She clanks on the low stairs that leads to the dinning room- not kike a room but an extension of the sitting room, while I wait in the large sitting room, watching Shawty's mum water the tulips in vases, lining the base of the large glass wall that opens the whole garden to view. Flora helps her out by hoping and waggling her tail beside her.She hums softly, pouring water into those beautiful plants as steady as she held the camera. Shawty comes in with a half eaten apple. Shawty walks towards her, I follow.Flora draws her ears backwards, her teeth bare, showing her canine .The hair on her back rises in a thick a thick brush, growling.

" What is it Flora dear?" Shawty says, arching towards her. Flora bolts away toward the kitchen.

"Morning mum"Shawty says, kissing her mum on the cheek. Mrs Rawlings responds with equal enthusiasm. Alice comes out on her apron,greets Shawty. Shawty leaves instructions and leaves the house outside. Carl had parked the white Rolls Royce on the path of the drive way where Shawty dropped off yesterday. Carl greets her and asks about she's feeling.He helps Shawty with the door, but Shawty stops short before entering, brings out her phone from the Bwf, clicks on it and raises it before her.

"Morning everyone! It's a wonderful Tuesday isn't it? I read something about the human mind yesterday , from one of my favourite authors, Napoleon Hill. In his book Golden Rule Of Success,he said, the only way to develop any quality of the mind is to concentrate upon it a thought established in it is like a seed planted in the ground that brings back a crop after its kind. I pondered on this and this is what I came up with. The human mind has benefitted little from pleasure as compared to suffering. The mind gets really good at whatever you concentrate it on over time. If you focus it on football, you'll turn out great at football. At music, you'll turn out great at it. Name it, basketball, politics, writing, over an equal amount of time, you'll turn out great at it.

On the other hand, if you focus your mind at complaining, you'll turn out a great complainer . If you focus it on doing nothing, you'll be great at doing nothing. The quintessence of what I'm saying is , to become great at anything, both something and nothing, it requires the same time of subjecting the mind to some degree of suffering. My advise to anyone out there that needs a change in life is to convert your suffering into something worth it."Shawty slides into the car and Carl throttles out. Carl slows down for a car that has been honking for more than fifty metres now. It catches up and now drives side by side. It's a white Rolls Royce just as Shawty's and I can tell with certainty who's in it. The company winds down, Bill Goldberg shows off lopsided mouth, one hand on the steering wheel, the other curve out out of the window. He faces Shawty with his big dark sun glasses.

" Morning Shawty."

"Hey Bill, morning"

" Yesterday was buzz, Park shutdown everything,yeah-saw your i********: post this morning. It made lot of sense, convert ,you know, your suffering. It was cool. " He says, licking his lips

" That's great, good you had fun and thanks for the compliment"

"Yeah, can we hang out like tonight? "

" I'm so sorry , I got meetings this evening, don't know when I'll bw free, don't want to keep you waiting, another say, Bill"

" okay, I understand, have a great day, will hit you up later, bye". He winds up his tinted window and drives past. Bill looks really familiar, has he done something for me before?Nora Joins the car. Shawty sees a dog poster then musses something about Flora.

"What?"Nora says

"Nothing, Flora is been acting strange lately, she barks at..Nevermind"Sahwty says.

"Dogs see things"Nora says.

"Like what?"

" Uh, I don't know,Ghosts"

Busted!! Flora isn't seeing me.Common, am I the only strange being around? Don't go looking around for ghost hunters, I'm not going anywhere.

"What?! That's creepy" Shawty says.

we get to the office to be welcomed by a bunch of Paps. Holding cameras and microphones jostling to speak to Shawty. Nora tries create a passage amidst the cacophony, one hand on shawty, the other clearing the path. She's joined by two guard company.Shawty leads the train up the first step of the office building then faces them. About twenty microphones bear towards her mouth, cameras sizzling.

"Shawty, you donated twenty million dollars to the earthquake victims in Mexico, how do you feel about that and what motivated you to do it?..." another journalist voices up,

"Convert your Suffering hashtag has been trending since you uploaded it this morning,the question this brings is, how are those doing nothing actually suffering? They're doing nothing so expending no energy"

Another journalist speaks up.

" There are criticisms about your use of suffering in place of endurance. Since people have to endure to get to whatever position they'd like to be instead of suffering. What do you have to say about that?"

" Thank you. About the earthquake victims, it's the normal thing to do. Just the way you have a duty to your loved ones. It could happen to anyone, so it's a point of duty for anyone with the means to help out.Twenty million dollars is a bit of effort when compared to the combined effort in cash and kind of our family at Elfash to other people all over the world. The donation is cushion the effect till they can get stabilised."

She pauses a little" You spend more doing nothing. You have to fight with doubt, inferiority, envy, aggression. These are psychological forms of suffering. You should channel it into something you'll spend equal amount of pains in, but yield greater and better results . The post was directed to those who really wanted to change. To an average struggling person that sees Floyd Mayweather, Micheal Jordan, Stephen King, Rihanna, Micheal Phelps practise, their minds generally term it as despicable.Seeing the body sweat, strain of muscles , croaked voice.

What they do not know is they are going through the same thing in a more passive and dreadful form. Suffering. Those guys are also suffering but with an active and positive form of energy. Let everyone simply convert your suffering. "

"Shawty, Nert securities president. Bill Goldberg, has been seen hanging around with you lately, is there something going on?"

Shawty smiles " Bill is someone that loves delivering his compliments in person , that's all"

" What are we expecting after the huge success of the BWF ?I mean, orders coming in all over the world, is there something you'll like the world to know?"

"My team has been working really hard, relentless, day and night. I think a break is necessary for now as we work on reviews we'd received. Thank you" Shawty says and backs the crowd , Nora and I follow,climbing the steps to the building." The press crew charging behind us, the Security officers, about eight of them trying to control and ask them to leave.

We burst into the building, people raise heads from what they're busy with, claps started from a pair of hands, then from another till it begins to rain from all sides of the building.Everyone start down from the gallery , those in the offices came out , clapping behind Shawty.Men in deep voices saying yes, some placing their fingers in their mouths to give long quick whistle sound.

This is touching, other people caring so much about one, other than friends and family. I stare at them as we walk through , there's a genuine expression of satisfaction towards Shawty on their faces. Maybe they're friends that care even more than I do, I can't just remember how the feeling was when I was them.Shawty walks up to podium where a woman in shoulder length hair stands, clapping. They hug each other's embrace.

"Thanks Rachael" Shawty says

Racheal stands aside as the crowd surround the podium. Shawty gestures with her hands and the clapping begins to subside. I sit to watch her command the tune of the audience .

"Yes, we did it !Six million units of the BWF ordered in five days.This is a result of collective effort."

"Yes!" The crowd echoed, people nodding, folding their arms in attentiveness.

"The bond that tied us together when things got really difficult never severed.We never lost sight of the reason we'd spent extra hours doing what seemed at that moment mundane."

"Yes!"

Shawty moves in small circles, gesticulating with energy in both arms at the crowd" We all shared our pint of sweat and blood to see the vision we originally had still remained fresh and relevant through every stage and process of production. We all enjoyed the pain and never lost sight of the why"

She looks into the crowd

" paul?, why do you clean the floor everyday at Elfash?"

All eyes train on the boy, with a mopstick at hand, almost chesting out, screams"To feed fifty thousand school children". "Brian?" He twitches alittle, obviously unhappy about the yesterday's arbitration " why do you sleep off in your office when you could have had the best night in your bed?"

" To support a thousand orphanage homes" he says

" I can't hear you"

" To support a thousand orphanage homes" his raises his voice a little

"I can't hear you!!!"

"To support a thousand orphanage homes" he cries out.

"Good! You and I , all of us, have dreams we sweat without breaking. It isn't selfish, it is impersonal. Nobody, I say?" Lifting her hand to her ear

"Nobody!" The crowd thundered.

"Nobody ,I say?"

"Nobody!" The crowd thundered again. Shawty clamps her hand to stomach, pressing gently on it

"Nobody can steal these dreams away from us" she says. The struggle in her voice didn't go unnoticed by me, even if it did for others.

"Yes!" The crowd shouted, clapping hands as Shawty leaves the podium. Everyone disbands, Nora and Racheal walk beside Shawty nudging for the office upstairs. Shawty stops at the threshold of the office clutching her hand against her stomach, resting her head against the door frame.No! Not here, Nora quickly reaches for 9Shawty's BWF and helps her into the office before other staffs notice. Racheal stares, beffudled,panicky and fighting the urge to disobey Nora who has been hushing her not to call for help.Shawty brings out the Heliverdazine tablet from the BWF, Nora rushes to get water.Shawty swallows and within seconds, she lets free of her stomach, and rests her head against the couch. My memory about this ever happening to Shawty is bleak, I just know it'd happened before.

Shawty lowers her eyes at the work space on her table, a gold fish swims in a vase,a red squeeze ball sits on a mould of papers, two flower vases flank the edge of the table. Racheal peppering Shawty with questions, Nora sits beside her notching her palm softly.

"Can we go now?" Nora says

"Go where? " Rachel prompts.

Shawty shakes her head,

" To see Attorney Cornwell and no, not yet, got work to do" Shawty lies, rolling her eyes at Nora.

"Nora can tell him you're not feeling well, he'll understand."

Shawty pivots up, tucks in her shirt properly and walks to her table.

" Racheal can you see to it that those CAD chips are properly tested ? And,Benjamin and Brain planned out something I'd like us to look into later on, Okay?." Shawty says smiling at Racheal, her chin resting on her knotted hands, elbows on the table. Racheal, looking confused raises her hand over her shoulder, points at the door.

"Yes, I can do that" She says amd walks out of the door.

Nora, leaves the couch and hobbles towards Shawty. I think we both agree on this, Shawty needs to give urgent attention to herself. Nora sits on one of the chairs opposite Shawty, I sit on the other.Nora stretches her hands to cup on Shawty's, I place mine to complete the bond.

" You need to to see.."

"It's not public business" Shawty cuts in, looking down at her table Shawty you need to listen to her . I walk to her side of the table, bend to look at her face, patting her .Rim of tears is starting to form her forehead going crimson. It's okay, it's okay. She picks her handkerchief and wipes it off before it sweeps down, sniffling.

"It's okay Shawty, its okay" Nora says.

Shawty nods

"We will leave when I'm done with these " Shawty says, nudging at the files on the table.