Photo Credit: Dreamstime
The Distance of Water
The first time Lamide heard the Lagos lagoon breathe, she imagined it was whispering a name she had spent three years avoiding.
“Felix,” it sighed, or maybe she only heard what she wished.
The wind tasted of salt, diesel, and roasted corn from the road. Fishermen hauled their nets in slow, heavy arcs, their bodies bending as if bowing to an invisible god. Above them, birds circled and cried over the day’s last light.
It was the kind of evening that reminded you of what you had forgotten.
Lamide sat on the stone edge near the ferry terminal, knees tucked to her chest. Her phone vibrated for the third time that hour. She ignored it. Daddy would call again, then send a voice note that sounded like a lecture wrapped in prayer.
She didn’t want prayers. She wanted direction.
She wanted Felix.
But wanting did not change the fact that he was in Canada, in Saskatchewan, of all places, where winter was a kind of punishment and daylight had no manners.
Their relationship had begun quietly, as if they were trying not to disturb the city. Two shy smiles in the British Council library, one shared joke over faulty air-conditioning, then the slow unfolding of stories and playlists and dreams. Before long, they were meeting after Lamide’s acting classes and before Félix’s architecture internship, speaking in a language with no volume but full of tension.
When Félix got the fully funded scholarship, prestigious, stamped with God’s favour and visa approval, their goodbye felt too small for what it carried.
“We’ll make it work,” Félix had promised.
But distance was a stubborn country, and love sometimes required visas no embassy could stamp.
At first, it was calls long, breathless ones that tasted like hope. Then voice notes. Then texts. Then weeks of nothing buffered by guilty apologies. Then the silence that didn’t announce itself just settled and made permanent residence.
By the second year, silence won.
Now, three years later, her cousin Ifeoma was getting married. The family group chat: ten aunts, four uncles, one grandfather with unpredictable audio buzzing like it was the wedding of the century. Lamide was Maid of Honour, which meant she would be on full display while cousins and aunties asked, “So when is your own?”
Lamide hated that question. It made romance feel like an exam with deadlines.
The ferry beeped, startling her back to the present. She stood, brushed sand from her denim skirt, and walked toward her Bolt driver. She almost missed the text that blinked across her screen.
Unknown Number: Are you free?
Her breath stumbled. She stared at the message as if it might change meaning.
Unknown Number: This is Felix.
Her heart slammed once, hard enough that she pressed her palm against her chest.
She typed, erased, typed again. Finally:
Lamide: I’m free.
Three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then reappeared, like hesitation wearing a digital costume.
Felix: I’m in Lagos. Can we meet?
Lamide closed her eyes. The lagoon still sighed behind her. For a moment, she wondered if time was playing tricks.
Then again, Lagos had always been a city that held old ghosts in its back pocket.
They met at a small café in Yaba, the kind with books on the wall and cinnamon in the air. Felix arrived first. He was taller than she remembered, beard fuller, eyes tired in a familiar way.
When he saw her, he stood too quickly, banging his knee against the table. Lamide almost laughed. Almost.
“You cut your hair,” he said.
“You grew yours,” she replied.
They sat. Between them sat three years of unasked questions.
Felix stirred his tea without drinking. “I didn’t know how to start.”
Lamide smiled, soft and tired. “There shouldn’t always have to be a perfect start.”
He looked up. His eyes still carried warmth, but there was an apology behind them. “Canada was… lonely. Harder than I expected. I kept thinking I’d adjust. Then weeks passed. Then months. I kept meaning to call but….”
“You didn’t,” she finished gently.
“No,” he breathed. “I didn’t.”
Lamide looked at the books instead of him. “I waited. I tried not to, but I did.”
The café hummed with quiet chatter and clinking cups. Outside, students argued about politics as if the world hinged on their opinions.
“Why now?” Lamide asked finally.
Félix inhaled, and the answer came out slowly. “Because I realized I wasn’t searching for Canada or success or whatever I thought the world wanted from me. I was searching for peace. And I only ever had that with you.”
The words were heavy but tender. They settled on her skin like rain.
She didn’t reply immediately. Three years of thoughts had piled up, and she couldn’t choose which mattered most.
“I’m not who I was then,” she said quietly.
“I know,” Felix whispered. “Neither am I.”
They walked out of the café and into the warm Lagos night. Félix insisted on following her to the bus stop even though she was taking a Bolt, as if the old manners had survived distance better than their love.
“Are you staying long?” she asked.
“A month. My mom’s surgery.” He paused. “I came alone.”
Lamide nodded. Felix’s mother had always been gentle, always hugging Lamide too tight and calling her my daughter even before they were anything official. The memory softened her stomach.
“So what now?” Felix asked.
The question was too big, so Lamide looked away. “I don’t know.”
He laughed, sad. “Me neither.”
A car horn interrupted them. Her Bolt had arrived.
“Tomorrow?” Felix asked, hope threading through the single word.
“We’ll see,” she said, and it was honest.
He didn’t reach for her. He didn’t hug her. He didn’t ask for more than she could give. He only waited until the car merged into traffic before turning back.
Lamide watched him shrink into the night, surrounded by the sound of Lagos – okadas, hawkers, generators, and dreams slapped against reality.
The wedding came fast. Colours everywhere. Music everywhere. Aunties everywhere. Lamide moved through it all in satin and powder and the practiced smile of someone performing joy.
When Ifeoma finally walked down the aisle, Lamide’s throat tightened. Love had a way of looking simple from the outside.
During the reception, between Yoruba love songs and champagne corks, Lamide slipped out to breathe. The hotel’s balcony overlooked the street, dress rustling in the wind.
Her phone buzzed.
Felix: Thinking of you.
She typed back before fear could stop her.
Lamide: I’m at a wedding. Thinking of you, too.
There was no three-year silence between those two sentences. Only honesty.
When the party finally dissolved into tired feet and glittering wrappers, Lamide returned home to a city that refused to sleep. The lagoon breeze was softer tonight. Or maybe she was.
The next week, Felix showed up with suya and malt and the familiar awkwardness of someone trying to earn forgiveness without demanding it.
They talked. Sometimes laughed. Sometimes didn’t speak at all. The silence between them became a bridge instead of a border.
On Felix’s last Sunday in Lagos, they sat on the same stones by the lagoon, watching fishermen repeat the ritual of nets and hope.
“When I leave,” Felix said, “I’ll call. Not as a promise. As a habit.”
Lamide smiled at that. Promises felt like glass, beautiful until broken. Habits felt more human.
“And if I don’t wait?” she asked, voice light but not empty.
“Then I’ll understand,” he said. “Love doesn’t always reward waiting.”
She nodded. It was true and painful and freeing.
Felix looked at her then, really looked, as if memorizing the moment into a continent he refused to lose again.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“For letting me search my way back. Even if I don’t get to stay.”
Lamide leaned against him in acknowledgement.
The lagoon breathed. The wind murmured. Lagos continued its stubborn heartbeat.
And for the first time in years, Lamide felt peace, not because she had found what she was searching for, but because she finally understood what she was yearning for.
The first time Lamide heard the Lagos lagoon breathe, she imagined it was whispering a name she had spent three years avoiding.
“Felix,” it sighed, or maybe she only heard what she wished.
The wind tasted of salt, diesel, and roasted corn from the road. Fishermen hauled their nets in slow, heavy arcs, their bodies bending as if bowing to an invisible god. Above them, birds circled and cried over the day’s last light.
It was the kind of evening that remembered what you forgot.
Lamide sat on the stone edge near the ferry terminal, knees tucked to her chest. Her phone vibrated for the third time that hour. She ignored it. Daddy would call again, then send a voice note that sounded like a lecture wrapped in prayer.
She didn’t want prayers. She wanted direction.
She wanted Felix.
But wanting did not change the fact that he was in Canada, Saskatchewan of all places, where winter was a kind of punishment and daylight had no manners.
Their relationship had begun quietly, as if they were trying not to disturb the city. Two shy smiles in the British Council library, one shared joke over faulty air-conditioning, then the slow unfolding of stories and playlists and dreams. Before long, they were meeting after Lamide’s acting classes and before Félix’s architecture internship, speaking in a language without volume but full of tension.
When Félix got the scholarship, fully funded, prestigious, stamped with God’s favour and visa approval, their goodbye felt too small for what it carried.
“We’ll make it work,” Félix had promised.
But distance was a stubborn country, and love sometimes required visas no embassy could stamp.
At first it was calls long, breathless ones that tasted like hope. Then voice notes. Then texts. Then weeks of nothing buffered by guilty apologies. Then silence that didn’t announce itself, just settled and made permanent residence.
By the second year, silence won.
Now, three years later, her cousin Ifeoma was getting married. The family group chat:ten aunties, four uncles, one grandfather with unpredictable audio buzzed like it was the wedding of the century. Lamide was Maid of Honour, which meant she would be on full display while cousins and aunties asked, “So when is your own?”
Lamide hated that question. It made romance feel like an exam with deadlines.
The ferry beeped, startling her back to the present. She stood, brushed sand from her denim skirt, and walked toward her Bolt driver. She almost missed the text that blinked across her screen.
Unknown Number: Are you free?
Her breath stumbled. She stared at the message like it might change meaning.
Unknown Number: This is Felix.
Her heart slammed once, hard enough that she pressed her palm against her chest.
She typed, erased, typed again. Finally:
Lamide: I’m free.
Three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared again, like hesitation wearing a digital costume.
Felix: I’m in Lagos. Can we meet?
Lamide closed her eyes. The lagoon still sighed behind her. For a moment, she wondered if time was playing tricks.
Then again, Lagos had always been a city that held old ghosts in its back pocket.
They met at a small café in Yaba, the kind with books on the wall and cinnamon in the air. Felix arrived first. He was taller than she remembered, beard fuller, eyes tired in a familiar way.
When he saw her, he stood too quickly, banging his knee against the table. Lamide almost laughed. Almost.
“You cut your hair,” he said.
“You grew yours,” she replied.
They sat. Between them sat three years of unasked questions.
Felix stirred his tea without drinking it. “I didn’t know how to start.”
Lamide smiled, soft and tired. “There shouldn’t always have to be a perfect start.”
He looked up. His eyes still carried warmth, but there was apology behind it. “Canada was… lonely. Harder than I expected. I kept thinking I’d adjust. Then weeks passed. Then months. I kept meaning to call but….”
“You didn’t,” she finished gently.
“No,” he breathed. “I didn’t.”
Lamide looked at the books instead of him. “I waited. I tried not to, but I did.”
The café hummed with quiet chatter and clinking cups. Outside, students argued about politics like the world hinged on their opinions.
“Why now?” Lamide asked finally.
Félix inhaled, and the answer came out slow. “Because I realized I wasn’t searching for Canada or success or whatever I thought the world wanted from me. I was searching for peace. And I only ever had that with you.”
The words were heavy but tender. They settled on her skin like rain.
She didn’t reply immediately. Three years of thoughts had piled up, and she couldn’t choose which mattered most.
“I’m not who I was then,” she said quietly.
“I know,” Felix whispered. “Neither am I.”
They walked out of the café and into the warm Lagos night. Félix insisted on following her to the bus stop even though she was taking a Bolt, as if the old manners had survived distance better than their love.
“Are you staying long?” she asked.
“A month. My mom’s surgery.” He paused. “I came alone.”
Lamide nodded. Felix’s mother had always been gentle, always hugging Lamide too tight and calling her my daughter even before they were anything official. The memory softened her stomach.
“So what now?” Felix asked.
The question was too big, so Lamide looked away. “I don’t know.”
He laughed, sad. “Me neither.”
A car horn interrupted them. Her Bolt had arrived.
“Tomorrow?” Felix asked, hope threading through the single word.
“We’ll see,” she said, and it was honest.
He didn’t reach for her. He didn’t hug her. He didn’t ask for more than she could give. He only waited until the car merged into traffic before turning back.
Lamide watched him shrink into the night, surrounded by the sound of Lagos – okadas, hawkers, generators, dreams slapped against reality.
The wedding came fast. Colours everywhere. Music everywhere. Aunties everywhere. Lamide moved through it all in satin and powder and the practiced smile of someone performing joy.
When Ifeoma finally walked down the aisle, Lamide’s throat tightened. Love had a way of looking simple from the outside.
During the reception, between Yoruba love songs and champagne corks, Lamide slipped out to breathe. The hotel’s balcony overlooked the street, dress rustling in the wind.
Her phone buzzed.
Felix: Thinking of you.
She typed back before fear could stop her.
Lamide: I’m at a wedding. Thinking of you too.
There was no three-year silence between those two sentences. Only honesty.
When the party finally dissolved into tired feet and glittering wrappers, Lamide returned home to a city that refused to sleep. The lagoon breeze was softer tonight. Or maybe she was.
The next week, Felix showed up with suya and malt and the familiar awkwardness of someone trying to earn forgiveness without demanding it.
They talked. Sometimes laughed. Sometimes didn’t speak at all. The silence between them became a bridge instead of a border.
On Felix’s last Sunday in Lagos, they sat on the same stones by the lagoon, watching fishermen repeat the ritual of nets and hope.
“When I leave,” Felix said, “I’ll call. Not as a promise. As a habit.”
Lamide smiled at that. Promises felt like glass, beautiful until broken. Habits felt more human.
“And if I don’t wait?” she asked, voice light but not empty.
“Then I’ll understand,” he said. “Love doesn’t always reward waiting.”
She nodded. It was true and painful and freeing.
Felix looked at her then, really looked, as if memorizing the moment into a continent he refused to lose again.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“For letting me search my way back. Even if I don’t get to stay.”
Lamide leaned against him, in acknowledgement.
The lagoon breathed. The wind murmured. Lagos continued its stubborn heartbeat.
And for the first time in years, Lamide felt peace, not because she had found what she was searching for, but because she finally understood what she was yearning for.
Contributor’s Bio
Gift Aaron Shuna is a poet whose words explore the depths of human emotion and experience. Her work has been featured in Herlore Magazine and YACS Foundation, recognized as a top writer by Blue Star Publication, and published as a co-author with Blue Cloud Publishers. She also emerged in the top 20 poets in YEMIPOET December poetry contest 2025. A 300-level Mining Engineering student, Shunanummah blends the precision of her scientific studies with the lyrical beauty of her poetry, crafting pieces that resonate with both heart and mind.
