Rain pelts loose earth around Jerry as he returns to the flat. He pulls his thin jacket tighter around himself as he trudges through the flooded streets, his shoes squelching with each step. Rivulets of water run down the sides of buildings, gurgling as they pour into the overflowing gutters. Life in Accra is tough, but unlike some, he has a home to return to – a moss-covered house with shoddy wiring and plumbing issues. It was the only affordable house they could find after graduation, and the landlord, needing cash to pay off a debt, signed the lease immediately.

As he walks past the wild, overgrown garden in front of their house, he is struck by the abundant signs of life teeming all around the filth and stench. In the undergrowth, a rat rubs itself against a glistening stone, while frogs cruise the potholes, their songs loud enough to echo through the heavens. He hears Jemima talking when he reaches the door. “So, I’m sitting there,” she begins, “barbecue sauce on my titties–”
“Jesus Christ, Jemima! It’s too early for this,” Chris exclaimed.
“Early for what?!”
“To be hearing your titty jokes.”
“No, it’s actually the perfect time. The sky is even crying because she wants to hear about my breasts and how it can save the world.”
Jerry pauses in the doorway contemplating between going back into the rain or walking into whatever discussion was going on that involves Jemima’s boobs. It’s 9 am according to his watch, and he is walking into his home to meet his family. He doesn’t know it but he is very, very close to experiencing the happiest moment of his life.

The key turns in the lock, and he steps into the cosy chaos of their shared apartment. The living room is a patchwork of mismatched furniture, each piece telling its own story of second-hand market finds and Makola market debauchery. Sunlight streams through the large windows, catching dust motes in its golden beams and illuminating the colourful tapestry of their lives hung on every wall.
“Look what the cat licked, stroked, exfoliated and dragged in!” Jemima calls from the kitchen, her wild locs barely contained by a bonnet. The scent of freshly brewed coffee wafts through the air, mingling with the lingering aroma of fried eggs and toast.
Alex emerges from his room, glasses perched precariously on his nose, a book still in hand. “So, how was he?” he asks “I want details” he continues, a teasing glint in his eye.
Jerry collapses dramatically onto the worn leather couch, groaning, “Awful. Absolutely awful.”
Chris, sprawled on the floor surrounded by paint brushes and a big canvas, looks up with interest, “Yes, spill the tea, honey. What happened this time?”

“Well,” he begins, accepting the steaming mug Jemima offers him, “first, he showed up twenty minutes late. Then, he spent the entire dinner talking about his ex and then when we were doing the do, he kept on biting my nipples. I don’t know if he thought it was a grape fruit or something.” His friends exchange knowing glances, poorly suppressing their amusement. “Oh, but it gets better,” he continues, warming to his audience. “It was small, the pic he sent wasn’t his. It was so small.” The room erupts in laughter, Chris nearly knocking over his paints as he doubles over.
“This is almost as bad as the girl who brought her mother to your coffee date,” Alex chuckles, wiping tears from his eyes.
“Or the guy who asked if you’d be willing to shave your head for the ‘aesthetic’ of his Instagram,” Jemima adds.
“I thought being bisexual was supposed to be a Buffet of both sexes. Why are you so unlucky?” Chris asks
“I have no idea, the universe doesn’t like me.” Jerry replies. As the laughter subsides, he looks around at his friends, their faces flushed with mirth, eyes sparkling with shared joy. He’s home.

 

The happiest moment of his life so far, besides the one he’s about to experience, was when he met Chris – the first of the four. It was supposed to be a date, arranged by a friend from book club who knew Chris and thought they were a perfect match. He had arrived ready for romance, his heart a fluttering bird in a cage of anticipation. Instead, he found something far more precious: a kindred spirit. When he pulled up to pick Chris up for their date at a queer art exhibition, he found not just Chris, but also Alex and Jemima waiting in front of the mall. “Hope you don’t mind,” Chris said, a sheepish grin playing on his lips. “I mentioned the exhibition to Alex and Jemima, and they were dying to come.” He remembers thinking, as they piled into his car, that disappointment should have been his primary emotion. Instead, he felt an inexplicable sense of rightness, as they all screamed the lyrics to Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton.

At the exhibition, amidst swirls of colour and avant-garde installations, they found themselves huddled in a corner, deep in conversation.
“Did you read Zadie Smith’s latest?” Alex asked, eyes alight with literary passion.
“God, yes,” he replied. “That line about the nature of time? I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”
Chris turned to him, “Alex is obsessed with Zadie Smith.”
“I am not!” Alex replied. “
“Thats what you said about Kobby Ben Ben’s debut novel and what did I see you doing?”
Alex scratched his head, “Nothing.”
Chris turns to Jerry, “He was stalking the poor guy on Instagram.”
“Everyone stalks author’s on instagram, I’m not the first and i certainly wont be the last.”
Jemima chimed in, “Speaking of Instagram, have you guys seen that guy that just walked in. With a crop top, I’ve been following him on Insta since last month. He’s mine.” And so it went, their words weaving a tapestry of shared interests and complementary perspectives. By the time they left the gallery, the sun setting in a blaze of orange and pink, he knew he had found his people.

Their friendship blossomed like a time-lapse video of a flower opening its petals. There were late-night drinking sessions, game nights, philosophy discussions in 24-hour diners where Alex filled them with facts and references as if he was Google in human form, impromptu dance parties in their living room, and countless moments of laughter that left them gasping for air.

He recalls one particular night at a club, where Fiifi – the final piece of their puzzle who joined a few months later – got spectacularly drunk. “I’m going to kiss the stars,” he had declared, before promptly tripping over his own feet. They piled into an Uber, Fiifi sandwiched between them, still singing “Stars Dance” by Selena Gomez. The driver, a young man with kind eyes, kept glancing at them in the rearview mirror, clearly amused. As they neared their destination, Fiifi leaned forward, his words slurring. “You, sir,” he addressed the driver, “have the most kissable nose I’ve ever seen.” Before anyone could react, he had planted a sloppy kiss on the poor man’s nose. The car erupted in a chaos of apologies and uncontrollable laughter.
“Well,” the driver said, touching his nose with a bemused expression, “you guys are lucky I’m not homophobic, that’s certainly a first.”

Then there was Chris’s birthday, a weekend that glimmers in his memory like a mirage of perfect happiness. They had pooled their meagre resources to rent an Airbnb by the beach, a ramshackle cottage that smelled of sea salt and palm nut trees. On the last evening, as they sat by the sea, Chris raised his bottle in a toast, “To found family,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “To the people who choose us, and who we choose in return.” As the flames danced, casting flickering shadows on their faces, he looked around at these four people who had become his world. In that moment, he felt a sense of belonging so profound it brought tears to his eyes. Little did he know, as he recalls these memories, that the happiest moment of his life is yet to come. It’s waiting for him, just beyond the threshold of his apartment door.

 

He glances across the table at Chris, who’s attempting to paint what’s allegedly a mountain. Chris’s brow rests on his muscular forearms, his left hand loosely balled into a fist. From this angle, he’s undeniably the world’s most good-looking man. The memory of their recent musical argument bubbles to the surface, a playful discord that had filled the room just hours ago before he had left. “Look,” Chris had said, gesturing emphatically with a paintbrush, “Beyoncé is the queen for a reason. Renaissance is a masterpiece of musical innovation.”
He’d rolled his eyes, unable to suppress a grin, “Please. Taylor Swift’s Midnights is a lyrical journey through time and emotion. It’s pure storytelling genius.”
“Storytelling? Have you ever listened to “Alien Superstar”? That’s storytelling!”
“Oh, come on! “Anti-Hero” is basically a therapy session set to music. You can’t beat that!”
“This is a Beyoncé household!” Their voices had risen, a cacophony of passionate defence for their respective musical icons.
“Boys!” Jemima had finally interjected, her voice cutting through their debate like a knife. “It’s midnight, and some of us have work in the morning. Besides, you’re both wrong.” They’d turned to her, eyebrows raised in unison.
“Wrong?” Chris had echoed.
“Yes, wrong,” Jemima had said, a smirk playing on her lips. “You’re sitting here arguing about American pop stars when you haven’t even given Ghanaian music a proper chance. Have you listened to Amaarae? Or Kwesi Arthur? No? Then kindly shut up and go to sleep.” The room had fallen silent for a moment.
“Fine, fine,” he’d conceded, hands raised in mock surrender. “We’ll continue this debate another time. When we’re all better educated in Ghanaian pop, apparently.” Now, as he watches Chris doze over his unfinished painting, he can’t help but smile.

Soon the house is alive with activity, each of his friends scattered in different corners, occupied with their own tasks. From the kitchen, he can see Jemima, laughing as she chops vegetables for lunch. The smell of garlic and onions wafts through the air, making his stomach growl slightly. Outside, through the living room window, Jerry catches sight of Alex. He’s drenched, standing in the rain with buckets, trying to fetch as much water as possible. His t-shirt clinging to his body, and his hair, wet and dripping, but there is a determined grin on his face. Fiifi, and Chris on the other hand, are standing by the window upstairs, their gaze fixed on Alex outside. Their laughter echoes through the hallway as they watch their friend’s antics. “You look ridiculous!” Fiifi calls out, his voice muffled by the glass, Alex just waves him off, too focused on his task to care. When he’s done filling the buckets, he comes inside to dry himself. He pours everyone shots of tequila.

They finish the bottle in an hour, eat the noodles Jemima prepared and then before they can go to bed, Alex turns to his friends, “Guys, I’ve been thinking… I want to dye my hair blonde.”
“Blonde?” Chris asked, turning to look at Alex like he had grown a second head. “Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know, man. I just feel like it’s time for a change,” Alex shrugged, running his hand through his damp hair.
Jemima giggled from the front seat, “You really want to do this now?”
“Yes, now!”
“Okay, bathroom. Now,” she replied.

Jemima took charge once they arrived upstairs to their shared bathroom. finding an old box of dye that had been lying around. “I think this should work,” she said, examining the packaging.
“Let’s do it!” Alex grinned, sitting down on the edge of the bathtub. He looked at himself in the mirror, trying to imagine how he’d look with blonde hair. As Jemima began applying the dye to Alex’s hair, the guys lounged around the bathroom, talking and laughing.
“Man, I had this one Grindr hookup that went completely wrong,” Chris begins, shaking his head. “We met up, and he was nothing like his pictures. I mean, catfished to the extreme. I bailed so fast.”
Fiifi snorts, “I remember one time, the guy was cool, but he brought his boyfriend with him to the date. Didn’t even tell me beforehand that he had a boyfriend. We were supposed to grab coffee, and suddenly it was a three-person awkward fest.”
“Dating is shit, hookups are a gamble,” Jerry added with a laugh, “but, hey, sometimes you get lucky.”
“That’s if it’s not a micro penis.”

As they chat, Jemima works quickly, meticulously covering every strand of Alex’s hair. After what seemed like forever, she steps back, satisfied with her work. “All done!” she announces.
Alex jumps up, eager to see his new look. He turns to the mirror, but his excited expression quickly turns to one of horror, “What the…? It’s blue!”
The bathroom falls into stunned silence as everyone stares at Alex’s reflection. Instead of the bright blonde he had envisioned, his hair is a vibrant, electric blue.
“I grabbed the wrong box!” Jemima gasps, her hand flying to her mouth. “I’m so sorry, Alex! I thought it was blonde!”
Alex let out a scream, “BLUE?! I can’t walk around with blue hair!” But before anyone could respond, Jerry burst out laughing. It starts as a snicker, but quickly grows into uncontrollable laughter. He doubles over, clutching his sides. The others stare at Jerry, then at each other, before they all join in. The whole bathroom echoing with laughter, their voices mixing with Alex’s groans of disbelief. Jerry can’t stop laughing. He realises, in this moment, that this is one of the happiest moments he’s had in a long time. The spontaneity, the absurdity of it all – it was perfect.

In thirty minutes from now, Chris will almost burn down the house trying to fry eggs. He will be banned from cooking in the house and will not touch a cooking utensil till the day he moves out. Jemima will match with a man named Craig on Tinder. In three months from now, Jemima will call him the love of her life. They will break up and she will move on with another. In two years, she will meet the love of her life. In about five years, Jemima would be married to a lawyer expecting her first child. She will call them every day complaining about how much pregnancy sucks. Fiifi would be a professor about to receive tenure. He will be celebrating his third anniversary with his husband. Alex would be on his first world tour. Chris would have moved to America and probably published his third novel, receiving worldwide recognition. Jerry will get the job of his dreams, move to the UK. A year later he will bump into sugar on the subway. He will be married by fall of the next year. Everyone will be there. They won’t see each other often after the sixth year but they will stay in contact, planning vacations and trips together. And whenever Jerry closes my eyes, he will think of the happiest day of his life, in that old apartment surrounded by love life and colour.

Blue hair and tequila shots will always remind him of home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Mohammad Mahdi Samei on Unsplash