Must Read: Reset – Episode 6

Sequence 6

 

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© Aaron Ansah-Agyeman

 

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George Williams sipped his coffee and put a piece of toast in his mouth as he watched the young man wolfing down his chicken sandwich.

 

His wallet was still in his hand and he looked at the notes, totalling exactly two hundred cedis. He looked at the screen again and watched as the man who had failed to answer the question sauntered off the platform amidst applause and scattered catcalls from the sizeable crowd.

 

The man came over to their table and glared down at Shalom.

 

“Hey, why don’t you give it a try then, moron!” he said scathingly.

 

The young man promptly put the last bit of his sandwich down and extended both hands towards the man with four fingers crooked and his thumbs pumping.

 

“Onye gbemi!” he said with such passionate intensity and vocal pronunciation that many people who understood the Ga language gasped and turned around with dismay at the profanity. “Onye dunna!”

 

The man stared at the handsome young man with stunned incredulity, and then he cursed and rushed at Shalom. Quick as a cheetah, Mr. Williams stood up and pushed he man back.

 

“Hey, hey, hey, easy, easy!” he said with a placating smile. “He’s sorry man, forget it!”

 

The man still struggled, intent on punching the young man, but two waiters came around and eventually calmed him down. He moved away to join another table still mouthing off expletives.

 

George Williams sat down with sudden unease.

 

“Jesus, my friend, come on!” he said with mild reproach. “You can’t go around saying stuff like that!”

 

“Like what?” Shalom asked as he licked his fingers. “He called me a moron, I called him onye gbemi, onye dunna, onye va.gina! Atika-atika. One-one, draw-draw.”

 

His sandwich was finished now, and then he let out a loud belch followed by a loud flatulence that made people around burst into uncontrollable laughter. George Williams shook his head and sipped his coffee.

 

“So, Shalom, you think you can solve other problems?” The boy looked at him quizzically.

 

 

“How can I solve your problems?” he asked with a giggle. “Am I a magician?” “No, no, no,” George said and pointed to the screen. “I mean another physics problem. You see, you have to pay to try to solve that problem, and if you get the answer right, your money will be doubled!”

 

“But I don’t have money to pay!” Shalom said indignantly. “If I have money, I’ll win all of the physics questions!”

 

George Williams suddenly leaned conspiratorially toward Shalom.

 

“Listen, my friend, I have two hundred cedis here. We can double it, my friend. But if you fail, they’ll take my money and I won’t even be able to pay for this food.”

 

The boy jumped to his feet instantly with an elated grin on his face. “Whoooooheeeee, let’s go play, let’s go play!” he said, jumping lightly and shadow-boxing with excitement.

 

Once again, people looked at him and let off giggles.

 

George Williams smiled weakly to himself.

 

Two hundred cedis!

 

If the boy was as good as he claimed, then if he could answer five questions correctly, with the monies reinvested, he could make two thousand in a few minutes.

 

Mr. George Williams got to his feet suddenly and took the boy’s arm. “Alright, boy, show me what you got!”

 

As they walked toward the screen there was a sudden burst of excited murmuring in the eatery.

 

They mounted the platform and faced the screen, and gentle applause rang out across the room.

 

A young woman dressed in skimpy black skirt and a short white shirt tied below her breasts stood up from behind a table and approached them with a smile on her face.

 

“Welcome, players!” she said excitedly. “Up for some science fun?” “Oh, yes, physics…we choose physics,” Mr. Williams said with a smile. Shalom stared at the beautiful young woman with consternation. “You’re so na.ked!” he said.

 

The girl scowled fractionally.

 

“Well, what will be your pleasure level?” she asked Mr. Williams without minding Shalom.

 

“I can see your bobbies!” Shalom said indignantly. “And your legs are bare! I bet you’re not wearing apantyties!”

 

His voice was loud, and again those who heard it giggled audibly.

 

The girl’s expression was pained now, but she struggled to maintain her smiling face.

 

“Shalom, dammit, man!” Mr. Goerge said earnestly. “Please, leave the girl alone, hm? That’s her uniform. Let’s concentrate here.”

 

“Well, she should change her uniform!” Shalom said indignantly. “I can see her bobbies and her legs and I’m sure her vajayjay is not covered. That’s how the friends of the prostitute who ate my peweewee and put it inside her vajayjay was dreseed.”

 

“You fu.cking bastard!” the girl screamed loudly, losing her cool and trying to slap Shalom. “Burn in hell!”

 

“If I burn in hell where will you burn?” Shalom threw at her immediately. Mr. Williams put a hand across Shalom’s mouth and smiled at the woman placatingly.

 

“Sorry, my dear,” he said gently. “My friend here, he’s a little different, okay?” The girl, almost weeping now, nodded.

 

Mr. Williams looked at Shalom and spoke firmly.

 

“Look, if you make her angry she will not let you play the game, okay?”

 

“I want to play, I want to play!” Shalom said desperately behind George’s hand. “Then don’t make her angry, okay?”

 

“Okay, okay, okay!” Shalom said. “Let’s play, let’s play!”

 

And around that same time Adobea and Kofi Gyan – who had been directed by a man in the hotel foyer who had earlier seen Shalom on the spinning plate being led into the eatery – came into the restaurant and saw the young man on the podium immediately.

 

“Goodness me!” Adobea exclaimed with horror. “What’s he doing there? Gambling? Oh, my God, he’ll run into debts!”

 

“Wait here,” Kofi Gyan said earnestly. “I’ll stop him!”

 

As he walked quickly toward the podium, he saw George Williams handing over

 

his two hundred to the attendant.

 

The girl smiled and shouted.

 

“Challenge accepted! Choose your pleasure!” The crowd applauded again.

 

A series of blinking options came on the touch screen, and Mr. Williams chose ‘DOUBLE STAKES.’

 

“Double your investments in two minutes, righto!” the girl screamed and tapped a spot on the screen.

 

 

Immediately a question appeared, and a timer above it started counting down two minutes.

 

Shalom took the marker, moved to the whiteboard, and then his hands flew so fast that Kofi Gyan paused suddenly with shock. The boy was writing with a smile on his face, obviously enjoying himself, and almost forty seconds later he underlined his answer.

 

“Next, next, next!” he cried.Read more interesting and erotic stories from www.generalloaded.com

 

“Hey, hey, take your time!” Mr. Williams said with sudden fear. “You were too

 

fast! You still have more than a minute left. Go over your answer! If you get it

 

wrong, we lose the money, my boy. My pension money. That’s all I have left!”

 

The boy moved impatiently to the screen and tapped the space to input his answer.

 

He did so fast, tapped on the VERIFY button, and immediately the screen was

 

filled with brilliant sprinkling graffiti!

 

The screen blinked in bold red:

 

CONGRATULATIONS!

 

YOU WON!!!

 

There was rapturous applause from the crowd and Mr. George Williams screamed and jumped with glee, wrapping his arms around Shalom.

 

At the entrance, Adobea put her hands to her trembling lips and shook her head with awe.

 

Kofi Gyan stopped at the foot of the podium and stared with stunned eyes.

 

“I’ll be damned!” he whispered to himself.

 

“Would you want to play again?” the girl asked, her voice excited as she looked the boy with new eyes. She turned and bowed to the crowd in excitement, and as she did so the hem of her skimpy skirt rode up, and the boy saw her buttocks.

 

His eyes went wide with shock and then he began to giggle himself silly as he pointed to her buttocks.

 

“Boodankadunk!’ he screamed as he bent over laughing and slapping his thighs. “I saw her boodankadunk! Did you see it, Mr. Williams? Her two boodankadunk? She’s wearing a rope!”

 

The girl turned and looked at him with fierce eyes.

 

“What’s wrong with you, pervert?” she shouted with rage.

 

“Hey, hey, hey, Shalom, come on, come on!” George Williams said earnestly. “Stop this tomfoolery, boy, please!”

 

But Shalom was still laughing and slapping his thighs.

 

 

“I saw your boodankadunk, I saw your boodankadunk! It is fiaa like my hand!” he said, holding up his hand. “And you’re wearing a rope, not apantyties! And it is inside your crack!”

 

The crowd bellowed loudly at this, and even Kofi Gyan giggled along.

 

The girl moved toward him and gave him a hard shove, sending him toppling and falling flat on the podium.

 

He looked at her, dazed, and stopped laughing immediately.

 

“One fu.cking word more out of your fu.cking mouth and I’ll have you thrown out, you bloody fool!”

 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, miss, please!” George Williams cried as he bent and helped Shalom to his feet. “C’mon, boy, just leave the girl alone and let’s make some money!”

 

“Choose your pleasure!’ the girl said, but not with her usual exuberance. “Cash out now, or invest with principal, or invest profit only?” “Invest with principal!” George Williams cried out.

 

“Challenge accepted! Choose your pleasure!” she screamed.

 

A series of blinking lights came on the screen again.

 

Mr. Williams was reaching out to touch DOUBLE STAKES when Shalom touched his hand.

 

“I want hard questions! Very hard questions!” he said indignantly.

 

“Oh, you do, right?” the girl said with a crafty look on her face. “Then select the five times stakes, my dear! They come with the hardest questions and doubles your money by five for a correct answer! If you lose, you pay the difference!”

 

And before Mr. George Williams could react, Shalom pushed the 5X STAKES button.

 

“Noooooo, noooooo, nooooo!” Mr. Williams screamed with sudden anguish. “What have you done, Shalom? Now I’ll have to pay one thousand, six hundred cedis to them if you lose! Godblast it, boy! What have you done, dammit!”

 

The girl laughed triumphantly as the screen blinked and the question emerged, with three diagrams and multi functions and scary algorithms, and the timer began counting down three minutes.

 

Shalom stared at the question with a deep scowl and just remained standing.

 

The crowd started laughing.

 

“There you are, Mr. Boodanboodan!” the girl screamed with unbridled joy at the consternation on the boy’s face. “There’s your question! Answer it, bastard!” The crowd laughed and jeered, especially the man whom Shalom had laughed at previously.

 

 

Mr. Williams’ shoulders dropped and he scratched his head as great fear gripped him.

 

“You just killed me, kiddo!” he said in a deflated voice. “What the hell was I thinking?”

 

Kofi Gyan turned and looked across the room at Adobea’s horrified gaze. He sighed with great apprehension.

 

Shalom was still gazing at the question with a scowl as the timer hit two minutes. “Two minutes more, Mr. Boodanboodan!” the girl screamed with glee. “Boodankadunk, boodankadunk!” the boy shouted, his voice irritated. “What is this, huh? Didn’t I ask for the difficult questions? Why did you give me this?” And his voice was filled with such disappointment that slowly the noise died down as everyone stared at him with shock.

 

Mr. Williams touched his shoulders.

 

“What did you say, kiddo?” he whispered, not quite sure he had heard right.

 

“I wanted the difficult questions!” Shalom said almost tearfully and stamped his feet. “I want the difficult ones! Stop giving me kooko questions!” “You mean…this question is not difficult?” Mr. George whispered.

 

“One minute thirty seconds!” the girl screamed. “If it is not a hardy, why do you stand there, Mr. Boodondakonk or whatever the hell it is?”

 

And Shalom just stood there looking at the question and fuming.

 

Sweat poured down Mr. George Williams face now as he grinned sickly, his face filled with horror.

 

“Shalom, my boy, if you must act, it is now!” he whispered earnestly. “If you don’t move now you’ll put me in some real shit!”

 

“Bad word, bad word, bad, bad word!” Shalom cried. “Bad shit word! Wash your mouth with perfume!”

 

“One minute!” the girl screamed with almost ecstatic glee.

 

“Stop that shit and answer the damn question, you piece of shit!” Mr. George Williams screamed shrilly, and now his shirt was wet with his sweat.

 

“Thirty seconds!” the girl screamed, laughing so much with happiness that she was almost crying.

 

“Come on, please, come on!” Adobea prayed as her whole body shook.

 

Shalom stepped to the screen and just typed in the answer and pressed VERIFY.

 

And the room exploded into a frenzy when the message blinked through the falling

 

graffiti:

 

CONGRATULATIONS!!

 

YOU WON!!

 

Adobea screamed too and clapped her hands!

 

Kofi Gyan jumped and punched the air!

 

Mr. George Williams simply collapsed against the railing with his hand across his heart.

 

The attendant stared at Shalom as if she had seen a ghost, and she could not speak when Shalom reinvested and hit five times stakes and a new question popped up. “Onye gbemiiiiiii!!” he screamed with disappointment and stamped his foot hard about five times. “Onye dunaaaaaa! I want hard questions, hard questions!” And he walked to the whiteboard and under thirty seconds walked to the screen and put in the answer, verified it, and won again! He had now won ten thousand cedis!

 

“Shit on me! Oh, shit on me! Shit on fu.cking me!” Mr. George Williams said weakly.

 

Shalom, very angry now, was moving on the screen, selecting inputs, and just as the was about to press five times stakes, the attendant rushes forward and pressed DOUBLE STAKES.

 

“Cheato cheat!” Shalom shouted furiously. “Stay away, you cheat!”

 

He looked at the question with disdain and immediately put in the answer.

 

Correct again.

 

Double stakes…twenty thousand cedis!

 

He began working the screen again!

 

The room was death quiet now.

 

The attendant looked around desperately, quite scared now.

 

The other staff watched and licked their lips with increasing doom.

 

“If you don’t stop that bastard he will just stand there and own the whole bloody hotel soon!” the barman said to his perplexed boss standing next to him. Suddenly, the door opened and huge, elderly man in an expensive suit came running toward them.

 

He was perspiring as he raced forward, shaking his arms.

 

“Hey, hey, stop it, stop it now, you bastard!” he screamed.

 

Shalom did not mind him as he did his inputs.

 

The man mounted the podium just as Shalom was reaching out to punch the five times stakes button.

 

The elderly man took hold of the giant screen stand and pushed it!

 

The television moved, toppled sideways and crashed to the floor face down! Electric statics sizzled in the plugs as Shalom jumped back.

 

“Hey!” he shouted at the man furiously. “What was that for? You craze?”

 

 

The man took out a big handkerchief and wiped his face, and then he took a deep breath and looked at Shalom.

 

“Naniaaama!” some people shouted from the crowd.

 

“Otweaaa!” others said amidst great applause.

 

The man extended his hand toward Shalom.

 

“Gentleman, I’m Mr. Opoku Sackey,” he said with a strained smile. “You have won yourself twenty thousand Ghana cedis. Please, go to the accounts office and receive your money.”

 

“No, no, no, you cheato, big cheato cheat!” Shalom cried indignantly. “I want to play!”

 

“Don’t play again!” Mr. Sackey screamed. “It is okay! Look the television is spoilt! Sorry about that! Look, I’ll add five thousand to your winnings, okay? Twenty-five thousand is a lot of money! Go and take it and go home, my friend!” “Cheato, cheato cheat!” Shalom screamed, almost crying, and pushed the man in the chest. “I want to play!”

 

Mr. Sackey lost it.

 

His face was almost apoplectic as he screamed at Shalom.

 

“Go to Google and find physics questions and solve them if you want to solve physics questions, you bastard! I have destroyed the television! You’re banned from coming here, do you hear me? You won’t play anything! Go away!” “Cheato, cheato cheat!” Shalom screamed right back. “Onye gbemi! Onye sorrrrrmi, onye dunaaaaa, onye totooooo!”

 

“Wo Maame twe no bi!” Mr. Sackey screamed furiously, and soon he and Shalom were standing head to head and screaming at each other.

 

Mr. George Williams stepped between them and pushed them aside with a great smile on his face.

 

“Thank you, Mr. Sackey,” he said softly. “We’ll take the twenty-five thousand.” “I’m happy you see reason, my friend,” Mr. Sackey said. “I want to play, I want to play!” Shalom cried painfully.

 

“Don’t worry, my friend,” Mr. Williams said as he turned him away. “We can easily find difficult physics questions for you. Come, let’s go take some money, my friend. Oh, yes, you take fifteen, I take ten. Oh, this is the day the Lord has indeed made!”

 

Shalom saw Kofi Gyan just then, and he stopped suddenly with fear.

 

“Yeiiii!” he cried, looking around desperately for a way to flee. “Kakai man! The kakai man is here! He’s going to hurt me! Hit me!”

 

Kofi Gyan jumped to the podium and fell on his knees.

 

 

“No, no, no, my friend, my brother, I didn’t mean it!” he cried. “I’m so sorry! Forgive me! I’ll never hit you again! I’m not kakai to you, my friend. You can hit me back if you want, if that will make you my friend!”

 

“It would, it would, yes, it would!” Shalom cried excitedly.

 

And before Kofi Gyan could react Shalom slapped him so hard and so massively that he toppled off the podium and crashed to the floor beyond! And the crowd went berserk with applause and laughter!

 

The elderly man beside the barman laughed gently.

 

“This hotel has had some really exciting days in the past,” he said softly. “But today, to see that Sackey bastard running with fear…oh, that boy has just made today the best day I’ve had in this hotel!”

 

“Yes, boss!” the barman said through his giggles. “This is a grand day!” Shalom helped a dazed Kofi Gyan to his feet.

 

“Heerh, my slap was heavier than yours, heerh!” Shalom screamed, laughing without restrain.

 

Kofi Gyan was rubbing his swollen cheek.

 

“It’s okay, my friend.”

 

“Atika-atika!” Shalom said. “And, oh, my name is Shalom now.”

 

“Pleased to meet you, Shalom,” Kofi said and embraced him briefly. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

“Where’s Adobea?” Shalom asked.

 

Kofi pointed out his sister, and Shalom giggled and ran to meet her as the crowd still applauded him and many tried to touch him.

 

Adobea watched him coming, and there was thudding in her heart, and a warm glow spread through her.

 

“Who are you?” she whispered to herself. “Who really are you, stranger?”

 

 

 

RESET

 

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