The Script: Chapter one

“Ladies and Gentlemen, David Igwe” said the MC leaving the podium.
David is standing before a mammoth audience, much larger than the one he addressed barely eighteen months ago as he received the award for the best soap of the year for the second time in a row. His wife of five years is in the crowd but he easily spots her, she always stands out in any crowd. She’s an artwork. His eyes dart off to Jude, his friend and producer of his two award winning soaps, the script and class; seated among the big bulls in the industry where he belongs. He had never seen Jude this quiet; he's usually vocal, always very cheerfully taking people through the terrains of intellectual mysteries and ideologies. He has the amazing ability to hold any audience spell-bound with his many unorthodox philosophies. Yet today he is wearing a long face and saying nothing.

The more David looks at the faces familiar to him and the situation at hand the more perplexed he gets. Comparing Jude’s normal countenance with his present mood further convinced him of the dicey nature of the situation. He remembers the chubby fellow that held his fellow ‘Jambites’ entranced with so many tales that he distantly wondered if he really had anything left to write during the examination with all the talking. David had nobody in X so after their interactions, Jude invited him to stay with him in his cousin’s room. Four months later, they met again in the registration section of the department of theatre arts and became inseparable since then.
Just when he was beginning to get his acts together, he turned to his left and met an army of reporters all ready to be the first to air whatever news that David Igwe had called them out for. Each reporter apart from having their company branded microphones sticking out to David like a loaded rifle ready to fire and their various camera crews all aiming their gadgets at him also had a pad and pen set to scribble whatever he had to say.
Had he made the wrong decision? Was this a selfish move? Ought he not to have considered all the stake holders in the matter? He returned to his dilemma.
Jude was always mischievous with a tongue that can get him in and out of trouble. Most of the lecturers and students way back in school were fond of him, the former for his brilliance and the later for his ability to captivate. His colleagues jokingly taunt him that what he lacked in height, he made up for with his tongue yet today is unlike any he had ever seen and the situation unlike any he had come against before.
Yetunde is David’s wife. Born to a Nigerian father and an Australian mother, she is exceptionally built, she has perfectly shaped almond eyes “that sparkle when she smiles” as David would always teased. She has a well sculptured face that will make any man turn to look at her repeatedly, a hip and legs that intimidate other ladies. David's mother always called her onu gbagie boys because hardly did a man pass her without turning to look at her many times. Aside her impeccable physic she is also a very brilliant lady, she was able to secure a lucrative job few months after school from which she supported David through his years of many failures.
Standing before this crowd, contemplating which version of his speech he would deliver. He could recollect all the events that this moment culminates. He remembers it like it was just yesterday; his travails, all his other works before the award winning script, works that ended up in the shredding machine or the trash even the few that were performed ended up costing the companies more than it made. They say when you're about to die, your life flashes before you; I think it happens a lot more often than that. David's life was flashing right before him.
Everybody in the auditorium had their eyes fixed on him yet no words were coming out of his mouth. He looked down to the paper in front of him; the paper containing his speech prepared by him, his manager’s speech and the old man’s speech; the words appear blurred. He's spotting the same suit, same pair of shoes, same bow tie; his favourite tie bought for him by Yetunde on February 16th, his 28th birthday. Everything was the same as with his last speech after the award but the occasion was very much different. He lacks the confidence, where would he start, what exactly should he say?
The expression on Yetunde’s face is one David knew only too well; her panic face (give a better description). It was the same look he had seen on her face when his mother had her first cardiac arrest. He could swear her fingers were crossed and her palms sweaty though he couldn’t see them, another of her panic reflexes. If only he could hold her hand and assure her that everything would be alright. His mind went off to where it started; the honeymoon in the Gambia.
Let’s go back to where it all really started; the day he met Yetunde.