28/12/2024
Travelling to London for a job interview, I was running late. It wasn't my intention to, but I had taken a powerful painkiller for my drysocket which knocked me out without my consent.
My train was for 10am. Taxi ride from my house to the train station was 15 minutes. And there I was, at 9:42am, frantically packing my bag and hurriedly lacing my shoes.
If I missed that 10am train, I would miss the interview too. I was first scheduled for the interview a week prior, but because I was in Nigeria having fun at the time, I pleaded that I be rescheduled for the interview, which they graciously did.
This is a prominent organisation in England, and I was looking forward to working with them. Besides, unlike the sighted folks who, whilst waiting for their dream job, can secure menial gigs at will in the mean time, it's always an uphill task getting any jobs at all here as a blind person. Thus I was quite anxious about the possibility of me missing the interview.
I wasn't even done packing yet when the taxi driver called to inform me he was already at my front door. Dashing out of the room, I dragged my rolling suitcase with me, bade everyone a quick goodbye, and tumbled into the taxi.
The driver, relaxed and wholly unaware of my situation, wanted to start asking questions to confirm my identity, but I cut him short, repressing my urge to scream and tell him to f**k off.
I somehow managed to tell him my destination, and that I was running late. Realising the situation I was in, he tried to help by stepping on the gas but that didn't do much in further accelerating the car as there was a speed limit which he had to adhere to or get fined.
It was now 9:53 and I still had a 6-minute to ride in the taxi. I was in distress, and the taxi man knew it. Then my mind suddenly slowed and I realised there was a bigger problem.
In my hurry out of the house, I had left behind my credit card with which I'd pay for my taxi faire. I also didn't have any cash on me. I equally had no disposable collateral on me.
The only option I had for payment was through bank transfer, and most drivers would reject it. And even if mind would accept it, it'd take me a little while, being a screen reader user, to complete the transaction on my phone, a luxury I didn't have at that moment as I was just about to alight from the taxi.
If I hadn't left my card, I'd have simply swiped it on the man's portable POS and the fare would be automatically deducted. And with just a minute left for the train to depart, especially as I now needed to unlock my phone and input the man's sort code, account number, full names, and amount, all whilst listening to my phone talk, my shoulders involunterily slumped as I realised there was no way of me catching up with the train, which was like a 2-minute walk away from us.
Then something occurred to me. My driver, judging by his accented English, is Nigerian. Most likely from the South South region. And wait, didn't we all agree Nigerians are generally kind people?
So, banking on this generalisation, I proposed to the driver to please run with me to the train. I told him he could reel out his account details to me as we run and I would commit them to memory and make the transfer the instant I got on the train.
Now I had just 45 seconds left to either get on the train or miss my interview. But my assumption about Nigerians had come out positive. The man, obviously at a risk of being fined if he left his car unattended, grabbed my suitcase and sprinted with me towards the platform my train stood vibrating.
He was calling out his bank details as we ran, and as a blind person whose memory can be quite retentive for auditory information, I kept all he said in one corner of my mind and focused on making it in time to jump into the train.
Once the door of a national train shuts, the beast moves immediately, at which time no one would be able to board or alight. We were just like 15ft away from the train when its door started sliding shut.
By the time we were like 8ft away, the door had completely slid... "Oh wait", my driver exclaimed! Although we both had stopped running upon sighting the door sliding shut, he tugged on my forearm and started running towards the train again.
It turned out that the door slid open momentarily for reasons we didn't know and was beginning to slide shut again, hence the renewed hope for my driver. By the time I got to the train entrance, the door was about to shut, so I stopped the bastard with my shoes and had it sliding open again as the mechanism was confused by the unexpected obstruction.
Completing its opening routine, the door began to shut again and I felt a gentle shove behind me, which propelled me and my suitcase into the train. Then the door finally completed its shutting process and the train instantly rolled forward.
After catching my breath, I groped around the enclosed space and realised I had entered one of the narrow corridors connecting the coaches. Grinning for the little triumph, I started banging hard on the steel panel in front of me until someone heard the loud bang and came to let me out of there.
Now sat in my chair and with a bottle of water in hand, i typed in the driver's details in my bank app and everything matched. Then in the reference box, I wrote "Thank You" , believing the amount sent, which was the exact taxi fare, will alert him to the sender's identity.
I think Nigerians are inherently kind people, or what do y'all think? 😉
One of my fav writer❤️
Demola Adeleke
