“I don’t care about climate change!” Without stuttering TT said to me. A little wrinkle appeared on her forehead as she slapped her face gently, attempting to kill a mosquito that had just found a juicy spot on her greasy face.
This was her true opinion, not something she said with pride. Yet I couldn’t associate any shame, guilt or regret as she looked impassively at me. It was just her true opinion! There we sat on one of those uncomfortable iron chairs in the popular Love Garden of Nigeria’s premier university.
“Why should I care?” she asked me, not wanting a response. We both knew we were just having a conversation. No rights, no wrongs. Just opinions. Just views. No one’s view will be corrected, no one’s mind will be change. Nobody will be convinced. We were just listening to what each person had to say.
It was a Saturday morning and we had found this relatively quiet gazebo at the western end of the garden. Relatively quiet, save for a handful of students a few meters away sweating like goats headed to an abattoir as they choreographed themselves to an unpopular music that boomed from a cheap JBL speaker.
TT was sweating and so was I. Not as much as the dancers. I had looked at my phone earlier, it indicated 34 degrees (feels like 45) in Ibadan North. “What comes to mind when you think of climate change?” that was the question I had asked, to which she responded, “I don’t care about climate change!” She wasn’t bluffing she took a few seconds to think before responding.
“Why is that so?” my curiosity could not be gagged…
.
.
.
(Looks like I have the opening chapter of what may end up becoming a short climate change fiction. Who wants to co-author, remind me to continue writing or voluntarily edit the manuscript?)