Inside AA mall, a world class shopping mall, busting sounds of costumers echoed inside the building as they made their way into different isles picking their daily necessities. Some other workers restocked empty shelves, while other attended to customers who were having a hard time choosing between products.
Lauren is among those who helped customers, showing them the varieties of products spread across the isles to choose from.
Lauren, full name: Lauren Ikojie is a 27 years old lady who graduated from the X University, two years ago. Orphaned from a young age, she lived on her mother's savings and also worked other minimal jobs till she graduated from school and has since been unable to secure a white collar job.
Her father died when she was just one year old and her mother, she passed away when she was eleven years old. After her mother's passing, she neither knew any of her parent's relatives except for her grandmother on her maternal side that moved in to take care of her.
Few years later, her grandmother passed away when she'd just finished secondary school. So, she really had it rough growing up without parents. Coming across job opportunities, she would attend interviews with the hope of getting the job but instead, she would walk out rejected. But that didn't stop her from searching for other opportunities. few months later, after searching long and hard, she finally gets recruited to bc a salesperson at AA mall, one of the largest shopping malls in the heart of X city.
After the day's work; Lauren convince outside the mall with her other co- workers and they head home. She would return to her two bedroom apartment, the only piece of possession she has in her mothers name.
Once inside, she observed her usual routine. This included; freshening up, having her dinner, watching a movie or reading a book and finally retiring to sleep. In tact she lived a pretty simple lite. But little did she know that her simple life was about to be shaken forever.
Days later...
On a sunny afternoon inside the mall, two little kids, both between the ages of 5 to 6 snuck inside the mart, running from isle to isle playing tag.
At the same time outside the supermarket, a black Maserati rolled to a stop parking right beside the mart. The driver of the vehicle climbed out, walking into inside to purchase some goods inside the supermarket.
Lauren's attention is drawn to the giggling sounds she heard coming from between the isles, so she got up from where she stood at thee counter peering along isles, in search of where the noise is coming from.
Hey kids! Don't play in here. Go somewhere else!" She said when she found them in the snack isle playing around.
However, the children simply chose to ignore her and continue playing.
It was when Lauren said, "Hey! Are you two listening to what I'm saying?" that the children stopped and turned to her momentarily, both of them staring at her cross eyed.
No. we want to play here!" One of the kids answered, in a rude tone whilst he fan around.
Why do I have to deal with these little kids who judging from the way they spoke lacked manners? She wondered glaring at the children, as one of them Jumped around almost knocking down a cart that was filled with sachets of cheese balls.
I'm warning you, you kids better leave now before I do something rash."
You can try... we don't care what an old woman like you does.
Hearing them call her old, she raised an eyebrow giving them the 'what' look as he was taken aback by the thought that such little kids, who looked so innocent, could actually utter such words.
She remembered when she was little, her mother used to smack her whenever she did something wrong. It got to a point where she wondered if her mother loved her at all and she would cry and tell her she is not her mother. But her mother would in turn try to make her understand that it was her duty to make sure Lauren knew about respect and obedience.
She taught her that no matter what she faced, she shouldn't let all the values she'd taught her leave her. And so, thanks to her mother's training, she'd grown up to be the woman her mum wanted her to be. So seeing the way these children behaved had her wondering if their parents even teach them not to disrespect people? Thinking that, she refused to back down and quickly countered them.
"This isn't a playground! Leave this place right now She ordered with a stern expression.
To be continued.
