LOVE BEYOND BORDERS.. By Ewoma

 Chapter One

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Aileen Jones punched the Twitter icon  on her smart phone and her account ID came on the screen. She put in her password and in a few seconds, she had logged into the network. She scrolled through her tweets and perused everyone of them, only stopping briefly to read with interest the ones which caught her fancy. As she read, she felt inspiration well up in her heart as the messages of faith, love and hope seemed to permeate through the screen of her smart phone. These were daily tweets she received from those she followed on the social media network.  Aileen pondered on the short notes and whispered a silent “Amen”, to everyone of them that spoke directly to her heart . After a short while, she noticed she had received a notification about a new follower.  Curious, Aileen looked up the follower’s ID but didn’t find much. All she discovered was the username: Sparrow and a profile photo of a Sparrow too. Aileen smiled knowingly, and concluded that this was one of those ministries of some sort, or probably a minister. Deciding to follow back, she punched the follow icon and logged out of the network. 

The next day, Aileen logged into Twitter again, and noticed she had received a direct message from Sparrow, her new follower. A strange sense of curiosity suddenly engulfed her and she quickly opened her messages. The direct message simply read: “Thanks for following. May God continue to keep you safe in His embrace now and always.”

Encouraged by the simple tone of the message, Aileen didn’t hesitate to reply and sent a DM to Sparrow which read: “Thank you so much for your kind words, and thanks for following too”. 

After pausing for a while to seemingly digest the message she had just seen, Aileen continued to scroll  through other tweets as her custom was first thing in the morning as she got to her desk in her tiny cubicle which characterized her office space. After a short while, she logged out of the social network and settled down to tackle the events of the day eagerly waiting for her undivided attention.

“You can’t believe it, I’ve got two hundred followers already”, Aileen pouted mischievously at her best friend, Emily Payne as they purred over coffee during their lunch break. Aileen was Editor at large of a prestigious magazine named, ‘Woman’s Life ‘ in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. While Emily was the Assistant Editor Of the same magazine. As they drank their coffee, Aileen chatted wildly about her  escapades on the social network. Emily had a mocking surreptitious smile on her face. She had over a thousand Followers already, and here Aileen was, bragging about a mere two hundred! But she dared not laugh or she was going to bear the brunt of Aileen’s anger and moodiness all through the weekend. Emily cleared her throat and tried to look serious and interested in what Aileen was saying. Unfortunately she couldn’t. The corners of her mouth twitched and before long, Emily was chuckling with her shoulders shaking. Aileen stopped in her tracks and looked intently at her. Her eyes narrowing somewhat. 

“What’s so funny?” She demanded as she saw the amusement flicker all over Emily’s face and in her eyes. Aileen watched her features slowly grimace and the contours of her face distort as she roared with laughter. Aileen looked dumbfounded. She wondered what in the world Emily was amused about.

“Emily!”

Emily saw the look of pure horror on her face and just couldn’t stop laughing. Aileen found herself chuckling despite her lack of understanding about the reason why  Emily was amused. She couldn’t help laughing too partly because Emily’s laugh had an infectious side to it. You couldn’t be around Emily and not laugh. For all she knew, she could be laughing at her own self, Aileen thought.  After a while, they both stopped laughing, wiping the tears of mirth from their eyes. 

“Aileen, do you know you are so hilarious?”

“How? Tell me?” Aileen answered, her brows furrowed.

“You are here bragging about two hundred followers on Twitter and there are others hitting 10k followers on the same network, uh?”

“Oh! Is that the reason you’ve been laughing?”

“What did you expect me to do? Applaud you?”

“At least an encouragement would do, Emily. I’m trying, aren’t I?” Aileen pouted.

“Ok, next time, I’ll do just that”, Emily patted her on the arm and they continued their lunch. They were silent for a while as they emptied their cups of coffee. Then Aileen spoke up again.

“That reminds me, I had a new follower send me a DM on Twitter yesterday”. 

“Yep! So what did it say?”

“Mmmh...thanks for following, The Lord keep you safe in His embrace always...something like that”.

“That’s nice”. Emily answered and paused. Aileen looked intently at her for a moment and shook her head in disbelief. 

“What? What are you thinking now? I hope you’re not going to start laughing again. At least not at a message from God, uh?” That’d be very pathetic, Emily!”

Emily smiled again and shrugged. “Now, why would I laugh at that? I’m a Christian and have you forgotten that I’m a Jesus freak?” 

Aileen returned the smile and patted her hand reassuringly. “No, I haven’t forgotten, my dear friend”.

“But tell you what?” Emily said as she poured herself another cup of  coffee after finishing her salad.

“What?” Aileen asked again.

“You are going to encounter something unique on Twitter soon I hope. So, my dear friend, keep the candle burning”.

“Why, Emily, do you speak this way, uh?” 

Emily grimaced as she tapped her cheek with her index finger, deep in thought and she replied. 

“Aileen, your status is going to change very soon”. 

“How do you mean?” She asked again. Aileen knew that Emily could be very funny at times, but when she spoke this way, she didn’t hesitate to take each word seriously. 

“Aileen, just keep that particular conversation going, the one you just talked about now”. 

“Why, do you say so?” Aileen asked seriously again.

“Dunno. It’s just that I have a good feeling about it”.

Aileen shrugged carelessly and replied. “Ok, if you suggest I do so”. 

Just then Aileen’s smart phone beeped. It was another message on Twitter. A slow smile played around her lips and she  looked knowingly at Emily, who was already busy chatting away on her own smart phone. Emily was absolutely right. She definitely will keep this conversation going. 

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