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I have been working on a short story series which has somewhat grown into this colossal giant on me. It was supposed to be published weeks ago, but now I’m at this place where the protagonist is standing on quick sand in a river, shin-deep, with arrows pointed at her from the shore and crocodiles napping at her ankles and head
This fictional series contains Nigerian slangs and some inappropriate use of diction. This is for the proper portrayal of the character.
The bodies were no longer at the police station. After 56 minutes of chaos, I was directed to a morgue in Ogba. It was a cream-colored bungalow with a small, old brown gate with rusty brown bars. The rain had stopped and the cool air caressed my face, but even in its abundance, I dared not breath easy. He was in there. In a morgue. I drove him into a morgue...
The images on social media are like the case of the Newscaster who sits at his desk, airbrushed, water-based makeup on, perfect hair, tie knotted, shirt crisp. He begins to speak, everything is excellent. Then the director yells, “Cut!” He gets up from his chair, and the truth is revealed—he’s wearing no pants...
For the first time in a long time, I got on my knees and prayed. Leke had been missing for four days; I couldn't go to work; I still didn't know who was sending the videos. It was a mess- a hot mess.
I heard God likes hot messes. He could fix them.
Please bring Leke home.
It was all I could mutter. I laid my head on the bed, whispering those words over and over. Quickly, the bedsheets dampened with warm tears and my sobs, muffled against the soft cotton. If God heard me, he wasn't in a rush to respond. I stayed on my knees until the stiff protrusions of the rug tendrils digging into my knees faded away and I fell asleep. I woke with a start to the vibration of my phone. I squinted at the screen. It was a text message. A strange number...
Leke had vanished. For three days now, I got to hear the annoying, high pitched voice which announced that his phone was off. He wasn’t at the church, neither was he at Pastor Remi’s. He hadn’t spoken to his siblings in six weeks. His mother suspected nothing when I asked if he had called her to say hello, instead she began to talk about grandchildren.
I focused on calling Leke’s phone every ten minutes.
On the evening of the third day of his disappearance, Abigail drove me to the police station and we filed a missing person’s report...
Adulting is like nothing I’ve ever seen! There is the professional ladder climb, work politics, crazy-people management, food portion control, dried raisins and carrots as snacks, self-control exercises—such as cutting up credit cards, dependence on reason and a moral code, the ocassional glass of red or two...hundred(kidding) ...
It was 10.50pm. Leke had fallen asleep after the pastors left. Dinner had been a slow ritual graced by the clinking of cutlery on plates, light chatter, and an uneasy Leke, who chuckled nervously at all their jokes— even the ones that were drier than harmattan-crisp leaves. All night, he waited for the important discussion, but it never came.
I did that—I destroyed his career.
Sure, now I had to tell him. Maybe Jare would do the same—tell his wife. He'd put us out of this misery. That woman. They were the problem—Leke and Jare’s wife. If they could be erased from the picture somehow...
I finally put new batteries in my keyboard and mouse. They have sat staring at me and giving me the look for ages now. They don’t seem to get writer’s block. Lol! Neither do I, frankly.
I love Lani’s story. She’s going through a lot right now, and I hope she can get out of it. If you are feeling graceful, I’m happy to fish her out of the mess for you...
A feeling gnawed at me—the strange feeling that the day would end in chaos or at least end in a state akin. I had deleted the video from Leke’s phone. The pastors were on their way.
Why were they coming? Had they seen the video?....
I waited for the storm, but it never came.
Leke came home, a tired smile on his face as usual. He asked about my day. I had nothing to say. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and the dryness tickled my throat. He smiled, planted a kiss on my forehead and headed into the bathroom to take a shower.
Once the water started running, I scrambled into the room, searching through his discarded clothes. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t under the bed either or in the wardrobe.
Where was it?
I met Jare at Fitness and Soul—the new neighborhood gym. It was a Tuesday evening, a day before Leke and I would mark our fourth year anniversary. I had walked into Fitness and Soul for the first time, completed my registration forms, received my free heart rate monitor and paid an exorbitant fee. The heart rate monitor wasn’t so free after all. I decided on an equipment that looked like an escalator. My thighs started burning almost immediately, my heart fighting not to fall out of my chest. When I was sure my calves would fall out under my knees, I got off the machine. Panting and out of breath, I checked my watch. 6 minutes—that would have to do...
I held on to the headrest of the keke napep driver, as he fell into as many potholes he could wiggle us into. Another five minutes of this pothole-plunging, and I'd be at work. Every other minute, the woman who sat next to me--dressed in the ankara iro and buba, and a matching head-tie towering on her head in a messy, rushed do--would slap the headrest. “Slow down. Napep. Slow down."
The young man seated in front groaned in solidarity. I had hoped for a short nap in the napep.
"Ani, slow down!" The woman slapped the headrest again.
That nap was not to be. I stifled a yawn and let the tears tease out of my kajaled eyelids and mascaraed lashes, careful not to rub my eyes into a vampire eye make-up smudge. I had hardly slept a wink; and by the time Leke got into bed, I realized I was still awake.
Someone had seen us.
Jare and I.
I tightened my grip on the headrest and my free hand poked my phone screen with its thumb. Calling JRK. Jare's phone rang out through my ear plugs. My ninth call.
“We don reach.” The driver called above the rumbling engine. His bony arms maneuvered the napep to a stop.
I unfolded myself out of the three-wheeled wagon, paid the driver and proceeded towards the tall, blue glass building which was Jade Towers, and which housed on the sixth and seventh floor Theta Communications, my place of employment for the last eight years. Just then my phone buzzed in my bag.
My heart skipped a bit. Jare...
Banke and I have talked about many things from flowers, to jobs, to school, to business to marriage, to husbands who like to cook, and to food-processor-made pounded yam. We talk about hair and the care of it. She taught me to have a pair of scissors for my hair; a girl can't use the same pair of scissors to cut up Christmas craft and then trim her hair an hour later, with the same pair. My hair deserved its own pair of scissors, she said. It did? (Don't judge me lol!)...
It has been such a magnificent year. I turned 30, and I matured like a fine bottle of insert your favorite wine.
I met the most charming little boy who lived inside me for months, came out and now laughs and eats and poops. Babies are a mystery to me. I can explain it physiologically of course—the sequence of the birds and the bees...