"To be a son of Africa living in the West is to be constantly under siege," Raphael Lugh-Fayose said softly, and the big and tall, caramel-hued young man sighed deeply as he looked out the window. For a moment, Raphael closed his eyes, and a tranquil expression washed over his handsome face. He almost seemed perfectly oblivious to everything and everyone around him. Including the young woman standing faithfully by his side.
When Raphael Lugh-Fayose first set foot in the City of Ottawa, Ontario, he thought he was making a fresh start. He missed his birthplace of London, UK, sorely, but agreed with his parents, Hannah Lugh and Geoffrey Fayose that the City of London had become too dangerous for a young man of his background and temperament. In one of Europe's oldest and most storied cities, racial tension was simmering...
With the demographics of London shifting considerably, fringe groups had begun targeting young minority men, especially the ones of African descent. Raphael and his family watched in alarm as British politicians not only ignored the rise of far-right groups in their midst, but sometimes stoked the fires by pandering to anti-minority and anti-immigrant groups. Raphael's parents feared for their son's safety, and with good reason.
To the Lugh-Fayose family, racial adversity was most definitely nothing new. After all, when Geoffrey Fayose moved to the City of London, UK, from his native Nigeria to study civil engineering at Cambridge University, he felt like a stranger in a strange land. Eventually, he adjusted to his new surroundings and met his future wife, Hannah Lugh. The year was 1993. Back then, it wasn't exactly common for young West African men to date or marry white women. Nevertheless, they stuck it out, and had a son, Raphael, their pride and joy.
Fast forward twenty years, and Raphael Lugh-Fayose, proud son of Geoffrey and Hannah, leads a life like no other. The brother lives in the Canadian Capital while pursuing his MBA. The handsome and ambitious young brother never thought he'd run into many of the same issues that his parents encountered in London, UK, a generation ago. Looks like the world changing for the better is just an illusion we force ourselves to believe in, Raphael thought.
"Raphael, mon prince, what have they done to you?" Sienna Etienne whispered, her voice so low that Raphael did not appear to hear her. Clad in a dark gray suit over a sky-blue silk shirt, burgundy tie, dark gray silk pants and his trademark, all-seasons and all-occasions Black Timberland boots, the six-foot-five, strongly built Afro-British brother cut an imposing yet stylish, downright dashing figure.
"I would never presume to understand what you go through in this society, Raphael, but you are not alone," Sienna said replied, and Raphael opened his eyes, turned from the window and looked at her. From the topmost floor of the Dunton Tower Building at Carleton University, they could see most of the City of Ottawa, Ontario, and some of the outlying areas. Hard to believe that such beauty could hide such malevolence, just beneath the surface...
As a business student at the Sprott School of Business, Raphael often found the view from the top quite soothing. Dunton Tower was one of his favorite spots on campus, along with the Mac Odrum Library. Unfortunately, it was also the spot where one business law professor, Rick Milano decided to deduct him some marks because Raphael had the temerity to prove him wrong. Apparently, even in liberal Canada, bad things are supposed to happen to brothers who challenge those who represent the system...
"Sienna, the professor made the mistake of confusing rendition with extradition, rendition is when a fugitive from California is handed over to the authorities in Texas, extradition is when a fugitive from one country is handed over to the authorities in another country, like America and Canada for example, the prof was wrong and he didn't like being corrected by a young black man, that's all," Raphael said hotly, shaking his head in anger.
Six weeks from graduating from the MBA program at Carleton University, and Raphael's spat with a disgruntled professor threatened everything he'd spent years working for. When Raphael, who saw that his marks in business law weren't what they should be, sought help from the department head, he ran into a bureaucratic nightmare. The school went out of its way to impede his search for justice, and then basically forced him to drop the subject. Only after Raphael threatened legal action did he get a meeting with the dean, and the irate professor in question...
"Don't let this fool get to you, Raphael," Sienna said, and Raphael grinned, and gently laid his hand on her arm. After fighting a war against the Sprott School of Business, his idiot professor and various assorted members of the Powers that Be, it felt good to have her by his side. Raphael and Sienna had been through all manners of hell together, that's for damn sure. The woman stood by him through thick and thin, and then some.
"Hmm, my dearest Sienna, what would I do without you?" Raphael said, and he brushed a stray curl from her forehead, and then poked her nose. Sienna looked at him and batted her eyes, and Raphael laughed and then just like that, they headed for the elevators. As they headed downstairs, Sienna let her thoughts drift to their shared past. Soon, they would graduate, and then move on with their lives. And she wouldn't get to see him anymore...
When Sienna Etienne and Raphael Lugh-Fayose met, it was definitely not love at first sight. Raphael and Sienna got paired up in a class assignment for Business Ethics, in part because nobody else in their thirty-person class could stand to work with them. Sienna was new to Ottawa back then, having moved there from her hometown of Mississauga, Ontario. Sienna, the daughter of hard-working Haitian immigrants, found Raphael impossible to work with, if only because he liked to run his mouth...
"First time I met you I wanted to slap your damn mouth, even though I found you handsome," Sienna said, as they reached the ground floor, and Raphael looked at her and grinned. The Londoner knew that his brash, in-your-face mannerisms had an effect on a lot of Canadians, most of whom had a more reserved, passive-aggressive way of dealing with things.
"Hmm, well, my dearest Sienna, I found your Haitian temper and feistiness hot, too bad you were dating that punk Lance," Raphael replied, referring to Lance Weiss, the red-haired white dude Sienna had been dating two and a half years ago. That relationship fell through, and even though they butted heads at first, Sienna and Raphael remained close friends. Over the years, as Sienna watched Raphael date a whole host of women of all hues, she always wondered what might have happened if...
"You were wondered what might have happened if you hadn't been dating that Lebanese skank after I dumped Lance?" Sienna retorted, and Raphael rolled his eyes, and bit his lip. During his first year at Sprott, Raphael met a Lebanese Christian cutie named Valerie Aoun. The curvy, bronze-skinned and raven-haired Arab gal with the big ass took his breath away, and she rocked in bed. Valerie and Raphael had some good times, but she had a foul mouth and even worse than that, racist relatives. That torpedoed their relationship real quick...
