One more wedding. That’s what she’d told herself. Her portrait studio was already up and running, and she was done with the traveling and the fourteen-hour days and the family drama. Just one last wedding.

Jacqui checked the time on her phone for the umpteenth time and inhaled deeply. Screw it, the mindful breathing wasn’t cutting it. She caught the bartender’s eye. “Whiskey, please. Neat.”

She normally never drank at weddings–at least not until she clocked off. But this uncertainty was doing her head in.

She shouldn’t have agreed to the job, but it was Celia. Plus the new studio lights were expensive, and the groom was minted. Like, banking-money minted. This wedding was leaking money, from the exclusive manor-hotel venue with its manicured lawns, uniformed staff, open bar, to Celia’s dress, which Jacqui knew had been a gift from the groom’s corporate lawyer father. Celia had whispered that it cost “two months’s rent.” Who knew how much that might mean.

Plus, she’d known Celia since grammar school in Cork. It would be like turning down family; she’d never have heard the end of it.

But then Celia had moved the wedding back two hours, and now Jacqui was screwed. She let the whiskey slide down her throat and its warmth seep up her spine.

How the hell to explain to a bride that you couldn’t take pictures during golden hour because of magic.

She should have cancelled.

The last time Jacqui had shot a wedding at golden hour, the bride’s politician brother had appeared in every picture with a blurred mouth. He was arrested a week later on corruption charges, and every paper in the country had run headlines using the word ‘liar.’ Before that, it had been her own cousin’s university graduation, where he’d appeared transparent around the edges in every photo. A year later he’d abandoned medical school and cut ties with the family. Was now living in New Zealand, a diving instructor.

Jacqui never knew what truth might be revealed, or how cryptic or obvious it would be. She only knew she didn’t want the knowledge.

Curse the golden hour. And curse whichever social media wedding influencer Celia was following who had no doubt insisted the perfect wedding had to have flawless photos taken in the purest light, so her skin would look magazine-cover exquisite.

Oh, this was nuts. Why wasn’t she at home on her couch with Andy and Luna, drinking pinot and watching something benign on telly? Maybe Ted Lasso or even Breaking Bad. Something old. Something with an ending she already knew.

The wedding planner was even now corralling the families towards the manor’s water feature. It would be fine if there was a chance in hell it would take less than twenty minutes to herd them all to one place, but wedding party guests were basically cats when it came to organisation. Even now they were milling around, new ones wandering off as lost ones returned.

Celia appeared on the grass, framed by the pristine white french doors of the bar area, which led onto the lawn. Gorgeous. And sweet. Did not deserve what was coming.

What might be coming? Jacqui liked the revised verb. Surely there had to be a chance that it wouldn’t happen again. Surely. Oh, quit kidding yourself. This had happened too many times to pretend and in too many different contexts. The magic worked on any camera, fancy or plain, expensive or crap.

Out there on the green, Celia was clearly at her wits’ end, searching for wayward relatives. It would be the twenty-somethings. Since they weren’t here at the bar, they were either at the hotel lounge, or in some corner having a sneaky spliff.

The bride looked to her right, just at that moment, still framed beautifully, the golden hour just about to make its glorious appearance and transform the light into magic, figuratively. And literally.

Jacqui raised her water glass and Celia returned an exasperated smile just as Gavin joined her. As the couple spoke, heads bent towards each other, love clear on both faces, Jacqui raised her phone and snapped a shot. Heart pounding, she checked the image.

On the screen, Celia was kissing air. The groom had vanished.

There on the grass, solid and substantial; in the photo, absent.

In the years since this golden hour trouble had started, she’d seen lies, grief, ghosts and once a man whose shadow walked three feet ahead of him. She’d never seen a bride or groom simply disappear.

“Bollocks.”

The bartender raised her eyebrows and tilted her head towards the whiskey, suggesting another drink.

“I wish. But no, thanks.”

 Maybe she could fake a robbery of all her cameras. At least for an hour. She played the scenario out in her head: she’d exit the main bar carrying all her gear, and then come back moments later claiming a theft? Right.

She could feign illness. Some kind of sickness so debilitating that she couldn’t hold out for one hour…like a heart attack? Cue: a lifetime of guilt. Celia’s father had died of a heart attack. No, Jacqui couldn’t take the entire wedding down like that.

There was always the truth. After all, Celia’d grown up in Cork, where every family possessed at least one story nobody could quite explain. But no. This was her husband, and her wedding day.

Perhaps she should check again. Jacqui slid off her barstool and approached the french doors. From the threshold, she snapped a few more of the crowd. Several of Gavin, specifically, who looked perfect in this flood of golden light.

She swiped through. There he was in the ceremony, saying his vows, holding the ring, kissing the bride, and walking up the aisle afterwards. All present and correct. But another swipe and there they all were, the whole wedding party, outside–all but Gavin. The groom was missing. Double bollocks.

Scanning the shots, in case some additional disaster had yet to reveal itself to her, it didn’t appear that any other guests were affected. Thank Hecate for that.

“I know it’s getting late. We’re almost ready, I swear.”

Jacqui jolted. It was Celia, who’d approached on stealthy-bride Manolos.

“Oh–Hey. It’s fine. It’s nothing. Take your time.”

“Is everything alright? Your expression…are the photos okay?”

The eagerness in her bright blue eyes belied the question. Celia didn’t actually believe anything would be wrong with the pictures. This wasn’t even the right camera, just a phone. All the good, important shots would be on the expensive gear. “Totally fine! I was just checking–reading a text. All good.”

Celia nodded. “Honestly, I’m losing my patience. I’m giving them five more minutes and then they just won’t be in the family photos. You know?”

Jacqui stretched her lips into a smile she didn’t feel. Wished for another whiskey to appear in her hand. Why didn’t the magic happen like that? Why with the damn photos?

“Jacqui, you look just like you did on the day Sean Ryan asked you to the Winter Dance. What aren’t you telling me?” Celia stepped closer, with laser focus on Jacqui’s screen. “Those are photos of today. Show me.”

She took the phone and peered at it. Frowned. Swiped. Swiped again, and again. Her frown deepened.

Jacqui winced. “I–”

“Odd.” She swiped further back and paused. “He’s here.”

“Yeah.” “But not here.”

Jacqui shook her head.

“It’s funny…” But Celia didn’t finish the thought. She handed Jacqui the phone and waved at the bartender. “Two whiskeys, please.”

“Bless you.”

“This is–” Celia bit her lip. “Come on.”

She marched to the bar, and Jacqui had no choice but to follow, grasping for something– anything–to say to explain the void.

“Do you know what it means?” Celia handed Jacqui a lowball tumbler.

“No.” She shook her head with more certainty than she felt. “It’s the time of day. Something about this light reveals…something. I can’t even say ‘truth.’ Because I just don’t know.”

Celia sipped her drink, thoughtful, eyes on the lawn on the other side of the french doors, where the wedding planner was gesturing like a demented traffic warden. “They’ll be waiting. I have to go back out there.” She remained seated.

Jacqui tossed back her drink in one gulp. “We have to.” She savored the whiskey’s burn. This wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. Celia was still staring at the scene on the lawn, at Gavin. Maybe he wasn’t the doting fiance Jacqui assumed. Maybe Celia had already suspected that something wasn’t as it should be. An illness. Or an affair. Maybe she’d already spent months imagining a future without him.

“You should go. I’ll grab my gear.”

Celia glided across the room in that Tuula Tatsuki sheath and those Manolo Blahnik stilettos, framed in gold by the light, which was even now changing. Darkening.

Perhaps the Golden Hour had passed. Maybe the danger was over.

Jacqui slipped her phone in her pocket and slung her bag over her shoulder. As she walked towards the lawn, she saw Celia take her place next to her husband, and Gavin look down at her with love. Celia didn’t look back. The light changed to blue.

The warmth of the whiskey evaporated as a chill ran straight up her spine. – Source:reedsy.com

IN every society, there are people who please themselves and do things their own way, whether people will talk about them or not. Check out the man who, by some good fortune, came by some money to purchase a beautiful Benz bus. Instead of becoming a bossy transport owner to whom daily accounts will be rendered, he decides otherwise.

He hires a driver but no driver’s mate. He becomes the mate himself and the bold inscription on the back of the bus is ‘MAN NO FOOL’. Of course, he does not rank himself a fool. He has long observed the way drivers collaborate with mates to play Kwaku Ananse tricks with daily accounts. He is far and above such tricks.

What about the married man who decides to enforce the principles of division of labour? Early one morning, he decreed that he would start doing the daily market shopping all by himself because he suspected that his wife was “tearing chobo”

This domestic tyrant had, a month before this unilateral family decree, arrogated to himself the power of the kitchen ladle. According to him, he was not feeling the chop-money’s worth in his stomach and, therefore, decided to overthrow his wife and establish a new kitchen regime.

He declared himself the chief cook and the wife a steward. He told his enquiring friends that he was forced to take the stringent measure because whenever his wife fetched the soup, his share looked like that of a prisoner although he is the one who “moves the chopmoney”.

He calls his actions “domestic pragmatism” and when the wife completes the cooking, she arranges the plates and bowls and calls out to the chop-money man to come and fetch the soup and allocate the meat.

Also, consider the noble ways of a man and wife who have a kiosk in which they sell their wares. Because they cannot carry their goods home back and forth everyday, and taking care not to be burgled, they decide to sleep in the kiosk every night although they have a house.

Last week Tuesday, they were fast asleep when the rains started. Deep in slumber, each one of them began dreaming he (or she) was dancing in a jamboree. It was indeed a real boogey, but two people side by side and dreaming simultaneously about dancing was too mysterious on a rainy day to be true.

When they came around and opened their eyes they realised that is was not a disco night, after all. The kiosk in which they were sleeping was rather water-borne and was doing the Michael Jackson dance, tossing up and down enroute to the abode of death. The magnificent dream dance turned out to be a Music-For-Your Dancing Kiosk.

Unfortunately, the dream dancers did not die in the floods. They lived to tell their story. They were one of the fortunate ones who escaped death by the skin of their teeth. Others were not so fortunate with water.

Death and Mourning!

It turned out that on that Tuesday, 24 residents of Accra were sentenced to death by water squad. It was a pitiful experience for many when the rains, the heaviest in 59 years, destroyed property, drowned human beings and animals and precipitated the worst traffic jam that ever hit the capital.

I was at home when Radio GAR (no longer GBC FM) announced that the situation was quite precarious and that the flood action was happening live Circle, the Odaw River overflowing, blah, blah, blah! Well, when you live in a planned city like Tema, you see rain but not floods and boogeying kiosks.

Neck Insurance

I had gotten dressed up for work but the announcement made me take off everything and got firmly tucked in bed as the rain drizzled even at about 9:30 a.m. having fallen from 11:00 p.m. the previous day with such intensity that I was surprised Tema was not inundated.

When I got to Circle the next day and saw the extent of damage, I was overawed. I heard people had to transform into human transport, carrying people in waist-deep water across for a fee of ₵500. Luckily I wasn’t around to be carried. I would have been charged ₵1,500 because the carrier would have had to first, insure his poor neck against dislocation since my weight is quite helluva! In any event of injury he would have tossed me into the water, anyway, to save his neck. You joke with your neck and you’ll die young!

When I got to the office on Wednesday, it was a mess. Workers and labourers were carting out soaked material and drying the offices. I had left my office radio on the carpet floor and I guess it did a bit of swimming before it was rescued. When it got dried a bit, I tried it and it cackled to life.

Jesus Christ, the radio must be holy-ghost filled. Perhaps, it walked on the water. I was so glad and tuned in to BBC, hoping something would be said about the floods in Sikaman. Nothing! Only Bosnian Serbs and their atrocities and that kind of boring stuff. People killing themselves and never stopping,

And it came to pass that Mr Nat Nunoo-Amarteifio, the AMA boss, came on the air later on to undertake a post-mortem of the disaster. Among other things, he talked about the level of the sea and lagoon rising to meet the floods. As for that explanation I was not convinced at all, but I won’t comment

You see, one veteran journalist whom I respect so much because of his prophetic genius, is TOM DORKENOO. He is, a man from whom I often take counsel because of his experience in life and journal-ism. Whatever he predicts comes to pass and recently I suggested that he should establish a church so that he could prophesy both day and night.

Uncle Tom as he is fondly known, wrote an article in his column two years ago, enumerating in graphic detail, reasons why Accra is a disaster area as far as floods are concerned, concluding that if the authorities do not take radical steps in tackling the drainage issue and allied problems, we must expect deaths and disaster in all forms and ramifications.

A year later, people died in the floods. The dose was repeated this year with 24 people losing their lives. Many have lost their animals and property and have been thrown into debts they can never redeem.

It is not enough for Nunoo-Amarteifio to come on the air to talk about actions he wants to take concerning the drainage system and unauthorised buildings. He should get down to work and see to it that everything that is contributing to the yearly floods is tackled appropriately.

If he is in doubt, he should look for back copies of the ‘Weekly Spectator’ and scan for Uncle Tom’s article. Tom is a man of the environment. He has talked extensively on floods and earthquakes.

Yes EARTHQUAKES! How prepared are we?

This article was first published on Saturday, July 15, 1995