"You know, if you are going to be this late, maybe you shouldn't bother coming..."

A familiar voice hits me from ahead just as I enter the lobby. I roll my eyes, knowing exactly what and who I am about to deal with.

"You do know you are not my boss, right?" I shoot back as I swipe my work card over the access control system to get into the lobby.

"Well, let's wait and see what your boss has to say about your attitude," Omolara makes an air quote while stressing the "boss". We both laugh, knowing exactly what she means.

"But seriously though, he asked of you about...", she pauses and takes a timely glance at her watch. "Yeah, exactly thirty minutes ago about some briefing with you," she adds.

Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck! I scream internally and I am sure there is an observable carbon copy of that visible on my face. Omolara sees it. Her mouth twitches as if fighting the impulse to laugh. She is definitely enjoying this.

"Do you happen to know why he is searching for you all over the face of the earth?"

"Yes...yes...he wanted to meet today about this project! God, no..." I pause, clearly lost about what my next action should be. Maybe I shouldn't wait for him to fire me. I should pack and go.

"So...?" She calls my attention, gesturing to prompt me to make my way to our boss' office.

I sprint up the staircase on a start, forgetting the lift is the solution I need given that I want to beat time so badly. I can hear Omolara's boisterous laughter as I run towards my own execution full-on. Typical Omolara. Everything is a way to have fun for her. How does she get the energy to find almost everything funny? I wonder. Sometimes it is hard to know when she is being serious or pulling one of her not-so-funny pranks. I don't know how two beings, so different from each other, could be friends for this long. But I guess we are stuck with each other. And the craziest part is that I have no recollection of when we first got acquainted. If there is anything I still remember, I think it would be the fact that I didn't like her that much when we first met. My initial impressions of her were a little underwhelming, considering how much emphasis she places on making a good first impression.

Then there's the whole Nigerian stereotype.

But more on that later.

Right now, I have to worry about not being thrown out of my boss' window on the fifth floor. It is one thing to be late for work and another to be late for a meeting with him, our boss, the Founder and CEO of SIKA (House of Glam), Stanley Ignis Kwame Adinkra. He has always had a low tolerance level for lateness.

"You are either twenty minutes early or see yourself as very late," he would say, shooting you a terrifying stern.

He is a nice person, very nice. But try getting on his bad side. With my promotion hanging, his bad side is the last place I want to be. I race up the stairs as if my life depends on it. Actually, it does. For a second, I seem to forget that running is one of the things I loathe. Not that I couldn't do it so well if I wanted to. I could ace it if I tried. You just put one leg in front of the other, one at a time. Just like walking but only faster. But I hate it because people always suggest it to me as a way to lose weight, as a way to give up on my body. And it is usually the way they say it. Like my kind of body is some kind of taboo that needs getting rid of ASAP.

Have you tried running? It does help.

I know someone who started running each morning and it helped.

If you want a partner, I can run with you. I was once like you.

The voices are always insistent and irritating.

           I finally make it to the front door of Stanley's office, surprising myself. There you go. Attagirl! Salty droplets stream down my face like I have been beaten by the rain, a salty rain, as I try to regain my breath. That was hard, climbing that many stairs at a go. Anyone at all would be dying after climbing that many stairs. I feel funny. Like something in me, maybe my heart or lung wants to fall out from my widely opened mouth. And part of me wants that to happen. That will be the easiest way to die. Better than facing Stanley. His stern alone can obliterate me. I wipe away the beads of sweat from my brow, gather impetus and mouth: Now, to the hardest part.

I gently open the glass door revealing the paradise that is the boss' office. You can never go wrong with the intricate interior. It is filled with an air of superiority, like the lair of a lion, teeming with power. Intimidating yet comforting. There is a walnut brown bookshelf filled with some of the bestselling books on fashion, magazines, novels and whatever weird stuff he reads, lining the entire left Sidewall. A saddle tan leather sofa with a snow-white fur rug over its back sits not so far away from the shelf. The front wall features a massive art collection from contemporary Ghanaian art gods like Ibrahim Mahama, Serge Attukwei Clottey, Zohra Opoku, Adjo Kisser to Post-Impressionist painters of the western world like Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and everything else in-between. It feels like an art exhibition centre looking at those arts and paintings. How does someone develop that deep appreciation for art?

There is a 58-inch Samsung Android television fixed on the wall to the right which I doubt he ever switches on. His desk is stationed not so far from the back of the significantly-sized room. I can see the sky from his office window, delft-blue and cloudless and so bright it casts a soft illumination that relaxes the eyes. In a different setting, I would have taken the bait and gawked at all that magnificence and let the blue take away my worries. But I am in Stanley's office... shit! I am in Stanley's office!

I swiftly shift my attention from the sky to Stanley's face. I am not surprised by what I see there. He has his signature stern on. He is looking at me in a kind of way that is hard to describe. It is as if he can see through me, see beyond me, see the kind of mess I am inside. I begin to feel anxious. Is he pissed? Does he want to murder me? Oh my God am I about to lose my job? It is hard to tell.

His eyes don't move, his lips are pursed together as he fidgets with a fountain pen. The silence is unnerving. The air around feels arid. I struggle to catch a breath.

"Lemme guess? Traffic?" His voice, very stentorian, penetrates the room, breaking the crackling silence.

"I..." My words fail me.

"When will people realise that traffic is never an excuse for anything? If you know there is traffic? What stops you from setting off five hours before time so no one has to deal with you making excuses for being irresponsible?"

I lower my gaze.

He sighs. Is that his way of calming himself down? A way to stop him from murdering me?

"We have a meeting with PromoTec tomorrow. And since there is no new head for your office yet, you need to be at the boardroom to get down all the details. The time is 8 AM. No lateness", he adds.

"Yes, Sir. Noted."

"You can be on your way out."

That is it? I query (to myself, of course), thinking I had to run up five floors for an emergency briefing that had gotten Stanley himself out of his office to my cubicle in search of me and that was it? I resist the urge to roll my eyes or worse, say something I will regret.

"Is there a reason you are still here, Ekuwa?" His voice pulls me out of my thinking.

"No...no. No, Boss...I mean, Stanley. sorry."

I head out before I become any more blasphemous.

A prolonged sigh escapes my lips the second I get out of the furnace. I thank the Heavens that I made it out alive and still with a job. In the heat of the moment, while I gather my lost composure, my phone rings. I pull it out, roll my eyes when I see the caller.

"Yes?''

"Thank God you are still alive! So what is it? Do you need help packing your cubicle?"

"Omolara, this is no joke at all. I am still recovering from the shock of it all. How does he get to be all that scary?"

She bursts into another of her loud laughs.

"He isn't if you do the right thing."

"Ok, so I am the cause?" I hiss, knowing she could be right.

I indeed play a part in Stanley's behaviour towards me. He is not always horrible to people. He is a cool person. I see how he treats Omolara—the definition of a perfect employee. So I can't blame him that much, really. Personally, I believe I have a talent for being unlovable. Sometimes, it is hard to deal with me. And so it makes sense. I knock myself out of the self-deprecating trance before I go too deep into its trenches.

"Anyway, where are you, Omo? We need to talk."

"Where else?"

"Alright, be there in a sec." I hang up and make my way to the lift.