Thursday, August 21, 2014

The InSALT of Ill Literates

It was one of those nights. He had just come back to his room from a rough day. For the most part, he’d thought of what he was about to do. He opened the folder where he kept his important papers. They were few. The one he sought was just there on top of everything else in the folder. He sat down on the mattress on the floor and just stared at the paper allowing his mind to wander. Absent to everything around. He shook his head intermittently. As though there were mosquitoes buzzing about his head. But, even if there were, he mightn’t have known. He was now outside that frame of consciousness.

It was his sister that woke him up this morning with a phone call. Knowing her penchant for the dramatic and having lost count of the number of times she’d called him up for the most mundane affairs, it took only one glance and a vexed sigh for him to hit the button that silenced the ringtone. It was just 4 am for all that was holy. Sleepy-eyed, he waited for the buzzer to end. He then switched the phone to “silent mode”, tossed about the bed to the other side that was colder and engaged his gears to “re-establish sleep mode”.

There were 35 calls and 13 text messages waiting for him when he roused himself from sleep to prepare for the day. Alarm bells went off everywhere in his head. Could something untoward have happened? He jumped from the bed. The fingers that struggled to open his phone’s call log were nervy. What ordinarily took him less than 4 seconds lasted about a minute. Most of the calls were from his sister as he feared. Then, he saw his mum had tried to reach him and two of his neighbours. He glanced around his room, ran outside, looking in both directions. Nothing seemed amiss. He dialled his mum. Just as the call began connecting, he remembered the text messages and quickly cut it.

He was vexed when he found out what the brouhaha was all about. SALT. Salt? Now, why should anyone think that this was going to be so important as to be so intent on reaching him before 5 am? His sister, mum, two friends and 3 others whose numbers were not saved on his phone all sent him messages similar only in the advice they gave the recipient. He or she were to bathe in warm water flavoured with salt to prevent the “bather” from the Ebola Virus Disease. It was also suggested that the recipient ingested some of the salt as well and for extra precaution, to rub it all over the body. How extreme! As he went inside the house to dress up for the day, he shook his head aggressively. What utter rubbish.

From the little he’d heard of the virus, they day before, it was not possible that salt could help much. He was eavesdropping the conversation of two passengers that boarded his bus. They seemed quite knowledgeable and everything they said about the virus was confirmed by the report he’d listened to on the radio just before he left the motor park for home. The medical professionals interviewed on radio had said they were working in concert with scientists at home and abroad to get any medication that will help those infected and save their lives. If the cure and preventive medicine was common salt, wouldn’t they have found out since? Now, these oversabi people were forming. He wasn’t even going to reply any of them.

He bathed as normal. In another quarter of an hour, his day was running in full swing. He’d located his driver for the day, agreed on the “commission” and was calling out for passengers when his discussion with a fellow conductor veered into Ebola and salt. That was when he realised his was not a special case. All passengers to a man had been given the suggestion by calls or texts, often from parents and relatives, quite early in the morning so that not a few complied before leaving the house. He watched in shock as people he considered more lettered than himself and who ought to have been better informed as to be able to separate fact from fiction admitted to having followed the advice to the letter. Their excuse? Better comply than be sorry. He couldn’t believe it. He voiced his objection. But the overwhelming support of the salty therapy and the already mounting medical dexterity with which some were already professing its efficacy shut him up.

Bus-load after bus-load, the subject of discussion did not swerve too far from Ebola Salts. Nor did his consternation drop at the vacuity of those who should have known better. These so called literates were just blockheads, he concluded. Was this what education did to people? Was it not supposed to empower you to use your head? To put two and two together and know when it is four, when it is twenty-two and when it is just two in one place and two in another? What was then the purpose of all their schooling? The certificate they tended everywhere? The suits they wore to make them look more than they actually were? Nothing. Empty heads everywhere. He was so engrossed in this thought process, he missed several bus stops, mixed people’s “change” up, and forgot to take money from at least two passengers, one of whom was honest enough to remind him.

He couldn’t even eat though he knew how famished he was. That was only worsened by the news that filtered into the park just before he left for his room. Two people had died from adhering too strictly to the salt therapy. Why not? He couldn’t explain how it’d caused their deaths but he reasoned that their sudden death was only a reprieve to their gullibility. They deserved to have been made to suffer some more, for their eyes to be cleared of their stupidity before they slowly die. He felt no sympathy for them. The last he heard before making his way home was that someone somewhere had apologised for the salt inducements, calling it a prank. He used the opportunity of the distance home to call his mum and sister, both of whom were educated, to never ever bother him with such things again after he’d told them of the deaths and prank. But they had heard already and were repentant.

He looked at the paper in his hand again and tore it to shreds. Then, he burnt the shreds. He’d continue with his “conductor” job, and when he’d save enough money, he’d buy a bus of his own. From that point, God knows how far he’d go. Street smarts were of more use to him than the kind of education they wanted to force on him. If all these educated people were so dense, tearing up that university application form was the best decision he’d taken in a long time.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Life Is Best Lived (Motivational Video)

If this doesn't make you want to just go out there and do exploits, nothing else will.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Elections, Political Parties and Credible Individuals

In response to an advice for Nigerians to desist from promoting political parties and rather vote for only those candidates whose capabilities to lead are evident.

It's rather unfortunate that these candidates yet have to belong to these non-ideological groupings called political parties in this side of the world. Were it possible to have independent candidates put themselves up for election, then your candid advice might be ultimately instructive. But as things currently stand, the politicians here are by-products, largely, of the political platforms upon which they emerge. And when they truly emerge, they have little space do much beyond the demands of these parties. So, in trying to do away with the support of one party or the other, the politician will himself be thrown with that bath water.

What this has resulted to is that those who should have been credible enough to be considered for votes irrespective of what parties they belong, as you're rightly canvassing, see the same rot you have identified in these political platforms masquerading as political parties. It is undesirable, for those averse to political arm-twisting, the high octane politicking that goes on behind the scenes; the horse trading not captured by cameras. And having noticed the putrefaction in these platforms will rather preserve their good names and hard earned integrity by avoiding politics entirely than throw all their dignity to the dogs in a bid to get elected to serve in different capacities in the truest sense of the word, based on elections that require the platform of political parties.

What that leaves the electorate is the dregs of residue, the remnants with sordid histories and with little to nothing of what it means to uphold the noble tenets of democratic principles and with a past that'll make some criminals in saner climes cringe. These are the characters, the dramatis personae that loom larger than life in the vacuous terra firma of our political landscape and enthrone themselves permanently on our political consciousness willfully vying for the toga of "Best Rigger" in any electioneering exercise.

And having won "convincingly", they set into process a strategy, nay they endeavour to leave a deeper hole in the common till, in the National Cake, that those who came before and those who will come after. Any surprises that there's a race to win in 2015 swifter than the race to free the Boko Haram abductees who may have actually become used to their situations now given how we have EBOLA-rised that struggle?

So, granted that we ought to see beyond the political parties to the individuals and vote for the right candidates, it is a struggle harder than trying to extract a dragon's tooth, finding those individuals today.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

It is Well

It had come to this. All his exertions, all the years of toil and effort had come to this time. He stood facing the edifice. It was no mean feat getting here. This was thought out by someone who didn’t take kindly to anyone trying to do him in.
The path to the edifice itself was laced with several sprinklings of security devices that were triggered off by motion sensors which were expertly interwoven across the perimeter of the edifice. When triggered, some gave off toxic gases to choke any intruders; others blew up, spewing shrapnel in all directions while some simply gave off a signal to automatically extensible precision-based sniper rifles. Anyone who managed to scale these hurdles had to contend with four hyena-esque creatures that should not be mistaken for dogs irrespective of the likeness.
However, these were just icing on the cake.
Beyond these, stood the edifice he was now facing which was manned by foreign-based security agents with the appropriate training to keep suicidal nosey miscreants like him off. Permanently. But he knew he wasn’t suicidal. Bleeding from two places, one just above his left rib cage and from the calf of his left leg, he still told himself that he wasn’t suicidal. He had a mission and it was the motivation that kept him going. He owed the higher wound to the shrapnel from one of the devices he unfortunately triggered – he had lost his footing and made a wrong step – while the calf injury was from the claws of one of the carnivores. He hoped it was not going to go gangrenous on him before he was through. Their mangled bodies were behind him now. He had to focus on the agents next. Summoning all his training and tactics for this next step, he dropped from his vantage position from whence he was scanning the area in front of the edifice proper. Contact with the surface below did not even make a sound.
Stealthily, he approached the façade of the structure. As he came close to the illuminated area in front, he wore his night-vision goggles, activated a device that threw the entire structure into pitch blackness and stepped in.
No alarms were raised. Power cuts were as normal as daybreak. Standby supplies of electricity were commonplace. However, by the time the switch to backup was done, five of the eight guard agents were at different stages of death. The sixth, who’d just turned around from switching to the generating sets, was trying to adjust his eyes to the light when the sight of a man in front of him got his adrenaline pumping. Too late. The hand that swiped his throat with a military-issued dagger had passed for all of two seconds before he reached for his weapon. He felt the warm blood seep into his collarbone before he felt the pain. His legs buckled under him as he dropped, crumbling to the floor.
That was the sixth agent and it was all like clockwork. His training suggested that to keep to the anonymity required, he should don the uniform of this last guard to blend with the others. Then, do them in while they were not watching. That never appealed to him. He always felt queasy in other people’s apparels. He thought of knocking the lights out again but knew it’d give them a cause to be suspicious. And the switcher only worked twice and he had cause to believe he could still have need for it. He was also aware that in another five minutes the guards would switch places with each other in their regularised schedule to keep them all attentive and sharp. Time was not his ally. He had to move and keep to the practiced out-of-the light tactics. As he turned to move towards the door leading into the corridor of the edifice, the impact of a blow smashed the side of his head.
The severity of the blow was intended to incapacitate him. But for the turn he’d made, it was to come down squarely on his head. That would have been the end of his intrusion here and there was no hiding the intent as it was delivered with the butt of a sub-machine gun. His slightly bedazzled but attentive mental adroitness had assessed the danger he faced even before he engaged it. The attacker must have chanced upon him at the switch, wanted to take him alive for questioning but did not want to risk a counter attack, thus the severity of the blow. He was not taking any chances. He ducked as the swipe of the gun whooshed past his head, clipping his ear slightly and combing some of his hair. He used that same ducking motion to power a punch which he applied to the assailant’s solar plexus. The speed of his attacker’s motion with the gun and his efficient right hook gave the punch all the force it needed to make the gun wielding agent topple over.
The agent must have sensed the danger he was as this was not just any intruder. Rolling over to allow his pain subside some, the agent released the safety of the gun as he gained balance again. But that was as far as the little fight lasted. He felt the hands on his neck before he saw the blur of motion. His neck snapped. The crunching sound was muffled. His finger on the trigger dropped as the gun fell from his hands. The seventh agent was dead.
This had caused him to lose three minutes. The fourth minute had gained thirteen seconds before he got to the corridor. He knew his way around the edifice with his eyes closed. Even in the dark. He knew where the abductors were being held unable to help themselves. Today was going to be their Day of Liberation. Today was Judgement Day for those who had held them captive for so long benefitting from what should accrue to the abductees, promising them so much yet constantly reneging on the deliverables. All that was going to end today. He had taken it upon himself, prepared for this. If no one was going to, he’d seen it as his mission. His goal. This people had seen too much suffering, he was not going to stand aside just because he was not the one suffering. No, their day for liberation had come and he knew how much they yearned to be free, to be liberated, to be rid of the shackles. Yes. He knew well. And he’d come for this and was going to give them that which they wanted.
A rapid movement at the end of the corridor leading to the stairs caught his attention. It was the last agent. He gave chase. When he gained the space of the reception at the upper floor, he surveyed the expanse of the area. The open door at the right could be a decoy, so he approached it carefully. All the hairs at the nape of his neck must have been erect. His entire frame had become a receptacle waiting to hear any sound, feeling for clues to reveal danger. He heard the motion before he saw it. A thrown dagger. He spurn downwards using his weapon as a shield for his body. Fortunately, his training accounted for the move. The danger was parried as the dagger came in contact with the metal casing of his gun’s barrel and clanked to safety behind the upholstered chairs. He’d had it easy with the other stunned agents he’d silenced but here was one prepped for a showdown. The dagger throw, though intended to be fatal, only disguised the one that followed. A stick attack.
The agent had divested a mop of its handle which had become his weapon of choice. He was beginning to gain his feet to face the agent again after parrying that dagger when the agent delivered three expertly timed stick blows with the handle of the mop that communicated to him the agent’s expertise with hand-held weapons. Another blow to the temple at this time could have been his reward for overthinking but his reflexes were a match for the agent’s deftness. As he swerved to avoid that blow, he smashed his foot down hard on the agent’s left shoe with all his might. Had the shoes been any softer, the toes could have broken but some metal casing at the top of the agent’s shoes softened the blow, jarring his own heel.
He took a blow to the stomach, one on the left wrist (to block his nose) and pushed back his stomach with a lurch back to avoid another timed for his ribs. Only his sharp reflexes were keeping this battle even. Such was the sublimity of his attacker that he could only focus on defending. Each time he thought of attacking, his defence suffered and he got smacked by the wooden weapon. He had a feeling the agent could do this all day until a weakness in his defence were spotted and the killer blow will follow. He’d seen someone bludgeoned to death with the wooden handle of a kitchen knife before, so it was not exactly far-fetched. Once more, he had his training to thank as he came to notice a pattern in the seeming arbitrary mode of the agent’s attacks.
When preparing for any attack, the agent spurn the stick around and as soon as the attack’s decision was made in his mind, he stopped, moved his right foot in front, the left to the back and moved in from the left, supporting the blow with his obviously stronger right arm while wedging his frame with his right leg. This modus operandi meant forcing this agent backwards could either make him drag his feet to keep from falling or force him to counter with his weaker left foot. Both implied the agent’s attention will switch from his skilful stick attacks to maintaining his balance. That temporal loss of attention was all he needed to bring an end to the standoff. He’d take the agent unawares. He bided his time. The stick spurn in slow motion before his eyes as they both sized each other up, waiting on the next move. He calmed his breath. Felt his muscles go taut. The spinning stopped. The agent attacked. He attacked. But the agent had changed his tactic.
This time, the agent’s blow was a direct chest hit which the agent switched, on impact with the chest, to an upper cut follow through. Luckily, he observed the alteration just in time. He changed the direction of the agent’s first strike to his chest which served to minimise the impact of the blow by hitting the stick sideways with his right elbow as it grazed his chest. That forced the stick’s upward swing to miss his chin leaving a thin line of scratch up his face to his left ear. The force of the intended upper cut carried the agent forward and closer to him for the first time allowing him to time his own response to perfection. In a slicing motion, he angled the edge of his palm, with all his might as the blow could carry, down on the intersection of the agent’s neck and shoulder. He heard a crack before the agent crashed into the centre-table and rolled lifelessly unto the marbled tiles. He walked around the sprawled body and bent down to check for pulse. It was faint. Tough one to kill, he acknowledged and buried two bullets in his head. Muffled by a silencer.
Then, he felt all the pains. Head, nose, temple, wrist, ribs, under the ribs, and the entire length of both legs that had taken most of the blows from the agent’s skilled stick. But, he forced his mind to defocus on himself and back on his mission. He found his way around to the back of the house where, far from public view, the people were kept subservient. There was only one part of the mission he did not envisage.
As he rigged the lock open to free these people, it triggered off another set of alarms which were loud enough to wake the dead. Momentarily taken aback, he knew time was of essence and began to methodically unstrap the people he came to free. It took a while before he noticed something was amiss. They were not excited to be freed. There were no jubilations. No happiness nor gratitude for liberation. In fact, they just stood there looking at him, wondering what he was doing.
He was numb. Awestruck. The bedlam around him created by the alarm froze for a fraction of a second as he realised why. If it did not register adequately in his head, the action of some of them told him the full story. They had started putting the shackles he’d unlocked from their bodies back on. These were not people who wanted to be free. These were not people who asked for liberation. They showed no interest in his mission here. He was ON HIS OWN. His eyes widened as reality dawned. They were already retreating into their cells and pulling them back shut. All by themselves without compulsion.
Why had he bothered? Why risk everything? The dangers of explosive devices, toxic fumes and automatic rifles? The date with the mongrels? Those eight guards? Bleeding and sore, he stood transfixed. Try as he might, he couldn’t move a muscle. Too absorbed with what he was experiencing, the movement behind him didn’t register, nor did the people he was staring at signal him to duck as someone knocked him from behind. He rolled with the punch to the floor as his training again kicked in. He feigned unconsciousness to enable him come to grips with his predicament.
The sounds of booted feet and voices screaming commands told him what he needed to know. The alarm had brought in a new cache of guards. They must’ve been close by to have arrived so quickly. It was a strategy for which such a loud alarm was installed. But he knew had these “slaves” been willing, this would not have been too much of an obstacle to scale given their number and his skill set. He was just beginning to hazard a plan of escape when a strong boot met the low of his back with severity. A scream escaped him as he rolled into another boot. Then came the batter of stick blows. What was with these people and sticks?
As he turned around and twisted in agony from the kicks and blows, he opened his eyes and they fell on the sullen looks of those for whom he was being pummelled. Their shackles were not locked, their cages still lay open. Yet, not even a muscle was moved in his defence. They just bore looks of calm disinterest – not even of sympathy. It was a sombre enervation. He could’ve brought himself up to put up some sort of defence but those looks made his desire for his own defence anaemic. The blows were hitting tender spots, causing him to let out involuntary screams when he made up his mind that it was enough. He was not to die with this lost generation. These VOLUNTARY SLAVES. Enough!!!
He hit his switcher. It blacked out the entire edifice for the second and last time. He donned his night-vision goggles, emptied the bullets left in his pistol silently in three of the men who dealt him the toughest blows and was out of the detention area by the time their bodies hit the floor. The time it took for the light to be restored was enough for him to be far from reach. As he made good his escape, he could still hear the words one of the shackled whispered to him before refusing his help – “God dey” It is well.

Monday, August 4, 2014

It Begins at the End – (part two)

Previously on – It Begins at the End – (part one)

When the old man answered his last question sometime after, the effect on him was devastating. Even if his questions were answered, it left him in a worse state of quandary than before. He was told that he was presently in the Right Region. This region was one of the four regions of this country – the others being the Left Region, Uppermost Region and Lowpost Region. Obviously, this novel nomenclature led him to ask if this was not Nigeria. And that was where the real story kicked in. It chilled his blood. Literally.

It Begins at the End – (part two)

Nigeria had ceased to exist.

The country had witnessed her worst state of affairs since her Civil War. Corruption was rife. Embezzlement was commonplace. Accountability was alien. Responsibility, nonexistent. The people failed to recognise their power and were driven roughshod by the government. Near total lack of infrastructural development, absence of social welfare and amenities and a general breakdown of law and order gave way to terrorism and political powerplay masquerading as religious extremism while the people looked on as helpless hapless victims of this scenario. Singing alleluias and hosannas to the point of orgy did not stop the death statistics arriving with each news broadcast. However, at each arrival, the people of the country that was Nigeria grew a thicker skin, developed for one purpose – to endure and endure and endure it all the more. Rather than stand and fight, they prayed on in Long Suffering.

A few groups and unions tried to galvanise action for their benefits. Their actions yielded some fruits but only ephemerally. Strike actions only led to more strike actions. It was in the thick of the strike called by the Nigerian Medical Association that the dreaded Ebola virus, which had been on a tour of several African nations hit Nigeria. One will be pardoned for thinking that the gods had conspired to wreck such havoc on the country so blessed yet so pulverised by everything negative. The weakened economic, political, social and moral fabric of the nation couldn’t withstand such epidemic of pandemic proportions especially in a country not renowned for her hygiene. Some tried to mobilise themselves quickly into action to fight this common enemy, but it was too late. Having never been united enough to stand for anything, it fell out quickly.

The spread was viral. Devastating understated its havoc. In the month that followed, only a fraction of the population wasn’t feverish with telltale symptoms of the virus. It was only a matter of time before it brought about the end to the country. However, those yet uninfected successfully organised themselves into a colony with a survival instinct that was un-Nigerian – they were united in their resolve to stay uninfected. They hacked to death anything living that came within the security perimeter of the colony.

When joined by some others escaping the virus from other parts of the continent and realising they they decided to congregate into a new entity under a representative system but with autonomous component units called Regions (Right, Left, Upper and Low). As one entity, it is called The Coastal Colony.
It was at this point that it struck him what had evaded his grasp thus far. The road on his bus trip was smooth. Not as bumpy a ride as he was used to on “normal” Nigerian roads. Even the bus was neat (“tear-rubber-ish”). Everything seemed new and the environment, neat. It dawned on him now. There was something cleaner and more civil than what he was used to. Yet, questions remained. What happened to him? How did he miss all these? He wanted to ask that question but many more were forming in his head, tumbling over each other, like what year was this (having remembered only 2014) and his family…

Then, he heard, as if from an abyss, his friend’s voice calling his name. He was being poked on the ribs with a sharp elbow. He opened his eyes with a start and was immediately greeted with recognition. Yes, it was the staff bus and as he looked around, he observed that the driver was negotiating the bend that will lead straight to the office on the Island. His mind registered it clearly, almost movie-like – Lagos, Present Day. The bus swerved viciously, first to the right and then to the left, as the driver adeptly dodged two gaping holes on the street, both of which were now puddles of rain water and might have been tricky for a lesser driver. Yes, he nodded in acknowledgment of the swerving, this was more like it. He looked around and saw all the usual suspects – all co-workers at their normal sitting positions. Then, he looked at this friend who had poked him and who was now quizzically staring at his movements and reactions.

He laughed. Cheerily. And having gained some of this composure, he exhaled. Deeply.

As he sat back in a more relaxed mood, he couldn’t help but notice his friend who was still at sixes and sevens. He tried convincing his friend that everything was alright but that did nothing to stop the strange look he was getting from his friend. He told the friend that it was a long story which they may have to go over later since they were now alighting from the staff bus. He then enquired as to why his friend had poked him initially. Without speaking, his friend handed him the day’s newspaper. On it’s front page was the bold headline:

EBOLA KILLS FIRST VICTIM…in Lagos as NMA strike continues.

Chance?

The driver revved the engine. Once. Twice. Then, pretended as if he was about moving off. It was all bluff. Drivers did it to prevent passengers already in the bus from getting too impatient and to make passengers yet to board to hurry up. The “conductor” screamed out stops on the route calling out to passengers to board. “Enter with your ‘change’ oo!!!” was a constant refrain in his calling out chorus. Passengers trickled in.
It was not rush hour this Saturday evening and driver and conductor were in concerted agreement that they’d only move forward when the bus filled up. Two passengers had noted that they had already spent too much time at one spot with the second one advising the driver to move as the bus stood a better chance getting filled up in the junctions up the road. It fell on deaf ears. Yet, all these passed unnoticed to the man seated directly behind the driver.
He was perfectly oblivious of the revving, the conductor’s screaming, the slow-filling up of the bus, nor did he even hear the other passengers’ complaints.
When he’d entered the bus as the first passenger in the “next turn”, the driver was not on seat. He’d picked his most preferred spot next to the window and had proceeded to savour the delicacy of bolle1 with peppered “stew” he’d bought just before he got to the boarding junction. He’d just spent the Saturday at his grandma’s shop downtown as he often did every Sanitation Day. He’d made it his duty, regardless of the countless times she’d prevailed on him not to bother, to keep the area around the small soft-drinks-shop clean. The rainy season had encouraged stubborn weeds to bloom about the area and some neighbouring residents had almost converted a spot on the end of the close to a dumpster.
It’d been gruelling but he always felt rewarded with the sight of how clean the place looked every time he was done. The phone call of gratitude on Mondays when his grannie got to the shop always lifted his spirits. He never was able to keep count of all the “Amens” he said during these calls in response to her prayers. He felt himself smile. Yes, it always felt good to do this. He’d silently prayed over his lunch (at a few minutes to 4pm) and taken a bite off his first bolle when the first passengers after him began to board the bus. He always enjoyed bolle and the pepper added something extra to this one. He knew it’d be until Sunday afternoon before he’d cook again. With this, there’d be no need to enter the kitchen when he got home. He finished the first one and at his first bite of the second one, he noticed the driver enter the bus.
How long he’d switched off from his environment, he couldn’t tell. The conductor’s calling out the penultimate bus stop to his jerked him from his reverie. He could only thank his stars. It was better imagined his reaction if he’d gone past his stop with his eyes wide shut. When he alighted, he felt his steps drag as he walked slowly towards his humble abode. At a point, he stopped. From the moment when he finished his bolle, he’d confronted fully his unemployed status. Enough was enough. He literally had to put his foot down. He’d take up his grandma’s offer and go manage that shop. It’d give him something to do until a job offer was available. If at all. But, more than anything, it’d mean he’d begin to earn something, however little.
As be began to conjure plans he could apply to turn around the shop into something more profitable, he began to feel his spirits lift. For the first time since his eyes fell on something familiar on the paper used to wrap the two small bolle he’d bought, he smiled. Life wasn’t all that bad, after all, he said to himself. Looking at the paper one more time to be sure he’d seen what he’d seen, he squeezed it into a ball and flung it right-handed into the bushy area on the left-hand side of the road to his house.
It was a copy of his CV.

1. 
bolle refers to a locally roasted ripe plantain

Friday, August 1, 2014

It Begins at the End – (part one)

His head felt soggy. If he’d been a drinking man, it would’ve been easy to explain the sogginess. He blinked as consciousness began to penetrate the haze of saturation that made his head heavy. When he tried opening his eyes, the light of the day blinded him for an instance as his eyes adjusted to the brilliance. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs of unconsciousness left. It didn’t help much. He pressed his lids shut, feeling his eyes well up with tears from the pressure. As he raised his hands to wipe the tears, he tried to piece together the fragments of his last memories before this present moment.

Nothing clicked

With his eyes’ adjustments done, he took a glance of his surroundings. Momentarily taken aback, he quickly checked himself lest he startle other passengers. He was on a bus. He blinked hard. Bus? Headed to? His forehead creased as more questions tumbled, one on the other. He forced himself to think, using every will power he could summon. How did he get on a bus, who were those passengers on the bus with him and where was the terminal?

Still, nothing.

How deeply had he slept? Did he pass out so strongly as to momentarily lose his memory? Was the loss of memory permanent? He felt himself begin to panic. The uptick of his heartbeat gave him cause for concern as he tried to bring his emotions under control. He could not afford to lose that now together with his memory.
The bus picked up speed, having gained the fast lane at a T-junction. He did not notice the change in speed. Something kept evading his grasp at the back of his mind. What was it, he thought. He surreptitiously glanced around him. Some passengers were asleep, a few were eating one thing or the other while some, like the one next to him by the window, had their earphones plugged into their ears and were not too conscious of his inspection. He adjusted himself on his seat and tried to recall how he got into this bus. What led to this trip? Where was he headed? Did he have any luggage? He felt his pockets. There was only a hanky in one and a pen in the other. If he thought that was going to help jog his memory, he was utterly mistaken. Another dead end.

He resolved he wasn’t going to keep up with the suspense any longer. It wasn’t doing his heart any favours. Rather ask than die in this ignorance. He proceeded to tap the arm of the young girl by his side. She didn’t hide her irritation at being so disturbed. She reluctantly unplugged her ears and raised an eyebrow with an air of impatience. When he asked her where the bus was headed, she frowned, hissed, plugged back her ears and switched back to her own world. He shrugged. He’d have expressed similar sentiments (maybe not as extreme) if he’d been so questioned. Why would someone on a bus not know his destination? That didn’t get him any further than he was previously. And that nagging elusive thought remained elusive – flirting with his mind’s power to recall. Or the absence thereof.

Seeing as they were approaching a lively and bustling junction, he depressed the button that indicated to the driver that a passenger intended to alight. He’d take his chances with those more likely to give answers to his dilemma. If he had any luggage, it was going to be lost because having no recollection of what came before his being on the bus, it was better to lose luggage than be taken for a thief. That latter circumstance had no place for lost memories. Consequently, at the bus stop that followed, he alighted empty-handed. Alone.
He didn’t allow the fact that he didn’t recognise the area nor have cash on him cause him to worry any. Years of experience taught him to also avoid acting the part of a stranger in any public place. He was going to find one of the few characters he always sought for answers in a tight spot as his. Again, another nugget of wisdom drawn from experience. He felt some confidence return as the realisation of these two experiential instances proved he’d not lost it completely. He made another attempt to come to terms with the thought that was eluding his mental focus but failed again. What was it? Did it hold any clue to his memory-loss? Why did it seem so close yet easily elusive? He stopped walking to allow all attention to focus on grasping the spritely phantom of a thought and the closer he came to gaining a hold on it, the less fortunate he was. He sighed and opened his eyes. Just before him was a newspaper vendor of advanced age – just exactly the kind of character he could get the answers he sought from.

Pleasantries exchanged, one of the myriad of questions assailing his mind was on the tip of his tongue when his eyes registered that he couldn’t recognise any of the titles on display. There was no Punch, Guardian, Vanguard, Tribune, The Nation, Daily Independent nor The Sun. What were these? The Gazette? Enquirer? Times? Today’s News? Where did these titles come from? No, where was he? His contorted face must have given away his interior turmoil because the old man appeared worried for him. He immediately put the question to the old man, enquiring as to where on earth he was. The old man easily calmed down, made some space on his bench, and motioned on him to take a seat.


When the old man answered his last question sometime after, the effect on him was devastating. Even if his questions were answered, it left him in a worse state of quandary than before. He was told that he was presently in the Right Region. This region was one of the four regions of this country – the others being the Left Region, Uppermost Region and Lowpost Region. Obviously, this novel nomenclature led him to ask if this was not Nigeria. And that was where the real story kicked in. It chilled his blood. Literally.

...to be continued.