Operation: Un-Marry Ekwene

The scent of stale coffee and desperation hung heavy in Mr. Abernathy’s office. It was a smell I’d become intimately familiar with, a perfumed bouquet of my own spectacular failures. Today, however, was supposed to be different. Today, we were enacting Operation: Un-Marry Ekwene. This, I reasoned, was the logical next step. If two wives were the problem, then surely one wife was… well, half the problem. And half the problem, in my convoluted logic, was significantly more manageable than the whole.

“So, Mr. Nguetsop,” Mr. Abernathy began, his voice a weary sigh that seemed to have been honed over decades of dealing with men like me, men who walked into his office with the bright-eyed optimism of a toddler about to paint the walls. “You wish to initiate divorce proceedings. Again.” He didn’t ask. He stated it, as if relaying a particularly grim weather forecast.

I straightened my tie, a futile attempt at projecting an authority I absolutely did not possess. “Yes, Mr. Abernathy. This time, it’s… definitive.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Definitive. You used that word last time, Mr. Nguetsop. And the time before that, when you wanted to ‘renegotiate the terms of our… arrangement.’ Which, I might add, was already a rather unconventional arrangement.”

“This is different,” I insisted, my voice a little too high. “Ekwene and I… we’ve grown apart. Fundamentally. Like two ships passing in the night, but one of them is a rusty barge and the other is… well, also a rusty barge, but with more barnacles.” I winced internally. My metaphors were not my strong suit.

Mr. Abernathy just stared. His eyes, usually darting around his cluttered desk as if searching for an escape route, were now fixed on me, a mixture of pity and profound bewilderment swirling within them. “Mr. Nguetsop, your wife, Ekwene, is… quite a formidable woman. She has a very specific way of… interpreting things.”

“Exactly!” I seized on his words, a flicker of hope igniting in my chest. “She’s… particular. And I, Mr. Abernathy, am no longer able to meet her… particular expectations.” This was good. This was subtle. This was the language of sensible people divorcing.

He sighed again, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of every legal precedent and every marital dispute in the history of the civilized world. “Very well. We’ll proceed. Grounds?”

This was the tricky part. I couldn’t very well tell him the truth: “Because I’ve secretly married another woman and am trying to salvage my sanity and my finances from the wreckage of my own poor decisions.” So, I’d prepared a carefully curated list of… inconveniences.

“Incompatibility,” I declared, puffing out my chest. “Irreconcilable differences. She… she snores. Loudly. And she has a peculiar habit of rearranging the spice rack alphabetically. At 3 AM.”

Mr. Abernathy blinked. “Alphabetically? At 3 AM?”

“It’s a deeply unsettling trait, Mr. Abernathy. It speaks to a fundamental disharmony. A lack of shared rhythm. My sleep is… fractured. My very soul feels… alphabetized.” I was on a roll. I could feel it. Ekwene would be so relieved, I thought, so free from my own alphabetizing tendencies.

“Right,” he said, scribbling furiously. “Alphabetical snoring and spice rack reordering. Got it. And has she… agreed to this separation?”

“Agreed?” I scoffed. “Why would she agree? She’s perfectly content! It’s *I* who cannot bear it any longer. The sheer… alphabetical nature of it all.”

Mr. Abernathy put down his pen. He leaned back in his chair, a slow, deliberate movement that felt like the prelude to a truly epic lecture. “Mr. Nguetsop,” he began, his voice dangerously calm. “Let me remind you of our last conversation. You came in here, same office, same slightly musty smell, and told me you wanted to divorce Ekwene because she was ‘too much.’ You wanted ‘peace.’ And then, two weeks later, you were back, asking to reinstate the marriage, claiming you’d ‘misunderstood’ her snoring.”

“That was a different phase!” I protested weakly. “A phase of… re-alphabetization. I was trying to understand her system.”

“And then,” he continued, his voice gaining a dangerous edge, “you came back *again*, wanting to divorce her because you claimed she was ‘spending too much on artisanal soaps.’ And now, it’s the spice rack. Mr. Nguetsop, are you quite certain you haven’t simply forgotten how to be married?”

My face flushed. “It’s not that! It’s… complicated.”

“Life is complicated, Mr. Nguetsop,” he said, his gaze unwavering. “Divorce, however, is meant to simplify things. Or at least, that’s the theory. Your attempts, however, seem to achieve the opposite.”

He picked up a thick file, its cover bearing the faded inscription: “NGUETSOP, Tiamoh – Divorce Case #3.” My stomach did a nervous flip. “This is the third attempt, Mr. Nguetsop. The *third*. My paralegal is starting to develop a nervous twitch every time she sees your name. The judge is considering issuing a restraining order against you, not from your wife, but from the courtroom itself.”

“But the grounds are solid this time!” I insisted, my voice cracking. “The alphabetical snoring! The 3 AM spice rack!”

Mr. Abernathy leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “Mr. Nguetsop, I have a feeling that if we serve Ekwene with papers citing ‘alphabetical snoring’ and ‘disruptive spice rack organization,’ she will not respond with quiet resignation. She will respond with… something else. Something involving a very loud voice, a very sharp tongue, and possibly a rolling pin.”

He was right, of course. Ekwene, bless her perpetually critical heart, was not one to go down without a fight. Or a lecture. Or a thoroughly detailed analysis of my failings, delivered at a volume that could shatter glass.

The summons was delivered that afternoon. I watched from behind my curtains, a knot of dread tightening in my stomach, as the uniformed man handed Ekwene the crisp envelope. She took it with her usual air of mild annoyance, as if it were just another bill or a poorly written grocery list. She didn’t open it immediately. Instead, she gave the man a look that could curdle milk, and then turned her attention to a rogue weed in her prize-winning petunias, as if the legal document were merely an inconvenience to her horticultural pursuits.

Later that evening, the storm broke. I was attempting to enjoy a quiet dinner – a solitary affair, as Yolande was visiting her mother in Douala – when the doorbell rang with the insistent urgency of an impending apocalypse. It was Ekwene. Her hair, usually impeccably styled, was slightly askew, and her eyes, those sharp, intelligent eyes, blazed with a fury that was both terrifying and, I had to admit, a little bit exhilarating.

“Tiamoh,” she began, her voice dangerously low, “what is the meaning of this?” She held up the summons. The words “Irreconcilable Differences” and “Alphabetical Snoring” seemed to leap off the page.

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “Ekwene, my dear. I… I was just about to have dinner.”

“Dinner?” she scoffed, stepping into the living room, her gaze sweeping over the meticulously tidy space. “You think I’m here for dinner? Tiamoh, you are attempting to divorce me because I snore and I like my spices organized?”

“It’s a matter of… marital harmony,” I stammered, backing away. “The alphabetical nature of your… organizational prowess is, shall we say, disruptive to my delicate sensibilities.”

She let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Delicate sensibilities? Tiamoh, your sensibilities are so delicate, they’d wilt in a mild breeze! You think this is about the spices? You think this is about a snore? You’ve been acting like a man with a guilty conscience for weeks, sneaking around, muttering to yourself, and disappearing for hours. And *now* you want to divorce me because I’m too tidy?”

My blood ran cold. Had she… had she seen something? Had she found out? But how? Yolande was in Douala. I’d been so careful.

“What are you talking about, Ekwene?” I asked, my voice a little too innocent. “Sneaking around? I’ve been working late. And my muttering is just… internal monologue. Working through complex… spice-related issues.”

She stepped closer, her eyes boring into mine. “Complex spice-related issues? Tiamoh, I found a receipt. A receipt for a rather expensive necklace. Purchased last Tuesday. You were supposed to be at a ‘seminar on sustainable farming practices’ that day. Unless the farmers in your seminar are suddenly sporting expensive jewelry, I think we have a problem.”

My mind raced. The necklace. For Yolande. I’d bought it to appease her after I’d missed her birthday dinner because Ekwene had unexpectedly decided we needed to alphabetize the entire pantry, from the rice to the dried beans. I’d told her it was a business expense, a gift for a particularly difficult client. Apparently, Ekwene had a knack for sniffing out lies, much like she had a knack for identifying the precise moment to start alphabetically arranging the paprika.

“That… that was for you, Ekwene!” I blurted out, the lie tasting like ash in my mouth. “A surprise! For… for your birthday. Which I remembered. And I was going to give it to you tonight, but then you… you came here, and… and I panicked.”

She tilted her head, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across her face. “My birthday? Tiamoh, my birthday was three months ago. And you gave me a new set of oven mitts. Which, incidentally, you then complained were ‘too cheerful’ and ‘disruptive to the kitchen’s aesthetic.’ So, who is this necklace *really* for, Tiamoh?”

The jig was up. The carefully constructed edifice of my double life was beginning to crumble, and the first brick had just been dislodged by a misplaced receipt and a strategically placed question about my marital fidelity. I stood there, exposed and pathetic, the scent of stale coffee from Mr. Abernathy’s office replaced by the acrid tang of impending doom. Operation: Un-Marry Ekwene had not just failed; it had backfired spectacularly, leaving me more entangled than ever, and with a very, very angry wife holding a summons that was rapidly becoming obsolete. The only thing definitively being divorced in this situation, I realized with a sinking heart, was my own sanity.