Grace sat at the extreme of the only chair in her room tired. She took a sachet water from its bag resting against the cracked wall of her room. She belched after drinking, this got her upset and she hissed.

"As if I ate something good" She silently hissed a second time.

She sat silently with a noisy mind. After travelling that long distance on her usual job hunting, she felt really exhausted today than the other days because she had to walk on her sole - bare, though with her shoes on.

Grace recalled the ugly incident in her mind with a sour expression written all over her face -
She was all sweaty but all smiles after sighting the gate of the company she decided to try her luck today

when the soles of her pair of shoes removed simultaneously without flagging any warning to their owner. Grace cursed her shoes for they acted as the architect who designed her doom today.

"You damn shoe! Why now? Why? Can't you wait a little longer before you crumble my hopes down?"

Even with a shattered hope, Grace decided to reach out to her goal. For if she misses this one and failed to secure it like the previous ones, then, she has a score to settle with her pair of shoes.

She walked slowly towards the company's entrance enduring the pains that comes from the hot ground.
Grace knocked gently on the gate to announce her presence to the security man at the gate.

"Good afternoon sir. I saw the vacancy post and I'm here to get interviewed for the managerial post"

"Wonders shall never cease. You, manager? Look at yourself. Just take a look at you. Have you managed yourself yet? You want to manage someone else's company to look so damaged like you?

The gateman scoofed and gave a loud laugh when he saw one of Grace's toe shooting its head out.

Grace felt embarrassed and even disgusted when she looked in the direction of the gateman's gaze.
'Oh no!' All of her toes are now in the open! She tried to shrink her toes back in but it was a futile effort.

"Piiin!" A horn from an incoming vehicle stopped the gateman from throwing more insults at Grace.

"Hey! Coperate mad-woman, shift to one side. My Ogas want to enter" He addressed.
Grace obediently yielded and stood at a side.
She was stunned when she saw the driver's face.

Ann was more than stunned by the face she just saw now. She looked shocked to her other friends.

"Ann, what's the problem. You looked like you just saw a ghost" One of her three friends inquired.
"Girls, what I saw is more than a ghost. I mean, I just saw a living ghost!" She exclaimed.

"How come I didn't see this ghost, at least we both are seated at the front" Another of her friends queried.

"You were busy with your phone" Ann pointed out.
"Oh! So, who's this living ghost?" Asked her friends.
"Let's get down first, we shall see this together" Ann kept them in suspense.

The girls alighted from the vehicle and walked towards the gateman.

"Sanni, who is this?" Ann queried acting as though she does not know Grace while her other friends looked shocked upon seeing Grace. They also pretended when they heard Ann question.

"Yes, who is she? What does she want?" The girls asked in unison.

"Ann, Faith, Lilian and Tasha don't pretend you don't know me. It's Grace. We were classmates...
The girls laughed and their laughter dissuaded Grace from introducing herself further.

"How interesting! So, we are your classmates now? You can call our names so humbly now and even refer to us as your classmate? We should be happy right? That the almighty Grace recognises us now" Ann said.

"What happened to 'You girls are not my equal. We just happened to be in the same class. You are too dull and cannot make it in life. Look at me, I'm brilliant and will get job in the twinkle of an eye' " Faith recalled.

"Look at us now and look at you, who's the Unequal?
We or you?" Lilian added.

"And which of your previous statements is now true? That you'll get a job? None! For we girls are not ready to give you one. Get lost now before we chase you with dogs" Tasha pestered.

Grace was too embarrassed to defend her pompous lifestyle then in school. She thought she and the other girls were not of the same status because she was more brilliant than them. Hence, her pride.

She quietly left the company and the first thing she did was to throw her damaged shoes away after hitting them on the ground several times and she dejectedly walked home barefooted.

"I am now the Unequal one among my peers" She thought.

Dying silently on the chair she laid, Grace recalled all of these and at the last thought, her breathe was taken away as she never got to wake up again - Grace committed suicide to hide her shame.

The truth is, the reason Grace belched earlier was because she used the sachet water to gulp down a poisonous drug which she begged money to buy on her way home.

© Merci A. Mujidat