Foregone (Fiction)

Foregone

Fiction

It is abominable, that which I do.

But I hurry to it anyway.

I follow the stream by the white light of the moon, stilling myself at every sound of crunching leaves or rustling bushes. I have wrapped myself in the darkest Ankara, on top of it, is my father’s hunting tunic, darker than night. I have smeared his tobacco and spice behind my ears to ward off any strangers or their dogs.

A traveling stranger is less interesting if she smells of tobacco and roots, than of hibiscus and lemons.

In my hand, is my shepherd’s crook. It whacks and chokes, whether it be sheep or person.

This is no man's land, distant from mother's watchful eye. Any assailant would be out of range of father’s arrow.

Now well into the forest, I hear the faint roar of the waters and my heart races. Quickly, I begin to climb the hill.

It is dark but I know where to place my feet, where to grip and brace, where to heave and lift. The darkness amplifies the thunder of the rushing waterfall of Arè. It surrounds, it terrifies. It is enough to fail a heart.

I remove my sandals and wade into the river, she welcomes me and draws me in along the current. I hold unto familiar stones, slippery and some tufty with growth, my feet find ground on the sandy bed. I feel for the rocks and climb out into a cave.

At last.

He is there waiting.

He rises to his feet. My heart thumps, my belly flutters.

Tórę.

The face of a god, of a slight frame and the hugest boyish grin. I run into his arms and remain.

His scent is warm with cloves, and leather and fresh with zest.

By now, he should have come to my home with his kinsmen to ask for my hand, instead, we meet in secret, in a dark, cold cave.

It is destined not to be, this love of ours, for etched deep in my father's aging cheeks are the markings of the Iwui dynasty and right next to Tórę’s clear, searching eyes is the mark of the Ara tribe.

It is an abomination to love this man, as every Iwui man and every Ara man is required to kill the other by law.

---

We are lying now on the floor of the cave, atop a blanket. Our passion which burned bright is now a simmer. His skin is like new leather. His back glistens as I rub shea butter into his skin. His back muscles relax. Like father, he is a fighter, a warrior, one doused with honor.

His body is marked so, with scars, long ones, short ones, ugly ones, curious ones.

I run my fingers over a repeating pattern of incisions over his back.

They are like little sticks. Eighty-five of them.

“In Iwui, these markings are meant for protection,”I say. “Put by the Water priestess on the backs of our fighters.”

He says nothing.

“Your priestess must be beautiful.” I frown. ”Is it why you visit her all the time?”

He turns around and catches me in his arms, “If old, wrinkly Baba Rimi is your idea of beautiful that would concern me.”

I giggle as his lips meet mine.

“I want you to meet my father. I can come with him next time.” I say, pushing him off.

He raises a brow.“It would be a challenge getting around your old man for a kiss—”

“I'm serious. We can't do this forever.”

“You know that isn't possible. The moment he sees me he will kill me. I am Ara, he is Iwui.”

“I am Iwui!”

“You are different,”He twists my hair around his finger,”You are very different.”

“You and father are the same,”I slap his teasing fingers away from my chin. Unthetered by duty, father would roam the ends of the earth, searching for the sweetest waters, and the finest company, those who ponder deep and search for truth. If he were not fifth in line to the throne of Ara, Tórę would roam the ends of the earth seeking the quietness of the night sky and the heavens beyond it, seeking the voice of the wind to steer his path.

Either way, they both would roam and search.

I tell Tórę this.

“Let us remain here. We don’t have to think about Iwui and Ara,”He sighs.

“Why don't you meet him? He will love you.”

He is silent.

“Say something!”I grunt in frustration, “Can you not speak to your father—the king? If he hears you have found love in Iwui, he might consider it and try to build us as allies.”

“Nothing would bring him more joy, honestly. He has been talking about an alliance with Iwui for years.”

I sit up excitedly.

“So, what’s stopping him?”

“He treads carefully. Change is difficult to sell.”

“But he must try.”

“There are some who want the throne,”He says,”And this change is the makings of a rebellion. He says it often, that he may not see this alliance in his lifetime or me in mine.”

He falls quiet and I am lost in my thoughts.

The Ara and Iwui have hated each other for decades. Our affair was not going to change this. So I choose to be present in every breath and I collect our moments like shells at a shore.

---

“You are in love.” My father smiles at me.

“No!” I laugh. It is all I can do to prevent from fainting, as my father has found me out. He sits beside me on the bench. I am running my fingers through the wool of my sheep, checking their bones and wool.

“Is it the son of Ajani? He visited with his father yesterday while you were away with the sheep. He seeks your hand.”

“Roti? No! Never. How can I be in love with Roti?”

“We will send back their gifts tomorrow night.” Father sighs.

“Thank you, Father.”

“You are away so much with these sheep. Let me buy you a fishing net, only a small one. You will find more opportunities at the river—”

“Father, I am content with my trade.” I smile at him, lifting a lamb into my lap,”And you mean I will find a husband at the river.”

After a long stare, a smile tugging his lips, “No matter how unsightly, you must know your mother and I will never stand in the way of your choice. For a man.”

I smile.

“Roti is the fourth man we have turned down,”He continues, “Even the princess Demori hasn't turned down as many as you.” He stands to his feet. “When you are ready…”

I want to tell him about Tórę. About how this son of Ara rescued my sheep with his arrow in the heart of a wild dog, about how I know our love is so real that it breathes. That the water helps me to our cave. She makes my feet steady with her sandy bed, that she watches over us in the water fall as we sleep and sprays at us to wake us up so we aren't found out.

Instead, I smile at him.

“Yes, father. It won't be much longer.”

---

I wake with a start to the feeling that we are being watched. Tórę awakens too. His dagger is in his hand and he is on his feet. The thunder of the waterfall and gush of the waters surrounds us.

There is a presence, we know it is there. It is watching.

“Let us get you on your way home,” Tórę hurries, “Follow the river and stay close to her.” He rolls up our blanket and throws his quiver across his chest.

He bends and ties up one leg of my sandal, as I struggle with the other one.

Of a sudden, he jumps to his feet, plucks an arrow. It whizzes past my ear. It strikes. Something heavy falls out of the tree to the ground.

I run to it.

“Stay back,” Tórę yells at me.

A person.

I see the tribal marks first on the man's cheeks. They scream loud. Iwui!

It is Roti.

The one whose hand I had turned down.

He lay on the forest floor dead.

---

Tórę drags Roti’s limp body to the river. Roti stares at the sky through unblinking eyes. I steady my breathing. With weak knees, I catch up to Tórę and with trembling hands, I grab Roti around the ankles and lift, so he doesn't drag in the dirt. We ease him into the river and let her take him away to rest. Exhausted, I sit along the stony river bank and cry for Roti.Tórę sits on a rock beside me and rolls his tobacco. His hand is steady as he brings it to his lips. He sinks into his quietness, tapping off ashes and looking at the waterfall.

I shiver.

I don't know why.

Tórę drags on his tobacco.

---

The news of Roti’s death spread. I had hoped the river would cover for us as she always did, hide this deed and settle him in a peaceful place but she took him downstream right to the banks of Iwui, where the fishermen and girls washed and children squealed and played.

He is recovered and the whole land whispers about the arrow head that was found in him—that of the Great Terrible of Ara.

That was what he was called—my Tórę.

The Great Terrible.

---

In the weeks that followed, bands of Iwui men would go out at dusk, fresh with incisions from the priestess and return bloodied and fewer in number.The Water priestess was clear. Roti’s death was a sign from the river. The river demanded blood. Ara blood. A new decree was issued that we all remain inside. All cooking, planting, traveling, visiting, all of life stopped right before sun down. Father has picked up his bow and arrow. The lengendary archer of Iwui has picked up his bow. Steady as his hand may be, they now tire with age.

“Maybe my greatest feat would be to pin this Great terrible with an old man's arrow?” He laughs, my mother places his quiver across his chest. My heart sinks.

“You can't go, Father,”I stammer. “He..They are favored by the wind. His arrow will hit you first.”

“I have been known to be favored by all the elements, both wind and water. Even fire! Look at your mother,” My mother slaps him playfully.

“Father, please.”

He touches my cheek lightly.

“Don’t worry, my love. No matter how unsightly. Your mother won't stand in the way…” With that he journeys into the night.

---

The same night, I leave Iwui, following the path I know by heart. There is no moon.

When I arrive, Tórę is waiting.

“What are we going to do?” I croak, wiping the tears off my face as he holds me.

“There's nothing to do. I want you to go back home, by the river. We stop seeing each other for now.”He lets me go. I search for his eyes but they don't meet mine.

“How can you say that?”My voice trembles.

“It’s not safe anymore. You were followed last time.”

“Tórę,” I say, “We can end this madness!”

He scoffs.

“How?” Now he looks at me, his eyes burrow deep into mine.

“I don’t know.” I say quietly.

Tórę freezes, he draws out an arrow.

“Shh.”He mouths.

I am still.

“Tórę!”A voice calls through the waterfalls.

“Uncle?”Tórę’s eyes dart around. He pushes me behind him as they come into view.

There are four men.

“Bring the girl out.” The largest one calls to Tórę .

We don’t move.

“Go and bring them out here.”He orders two of the men. The men wade in the river.

I watch and wait for the water to rise and sweep them away. But she lets them through and they drag us out of the cave to the clearing.

“By law, you are required to kill an Iwui, Nephew.” Up close, the large man has Tórę's large eyes, and high cheeks, but his face is wider and his form is heavy. He has the body of a wrestler and not an archer. And like a wrestler, he is bare chested. He has the same incisions that Tórę has on his back, only his back is covered in them and they are present on his shoulders also.

“Uncle, I am required to kill an Iwui man. She is a woman,” Tórę adds, ”My woman.”

“She is no woman if she births an Iwui.”His Uncle says. He appears bored.

I struggle against the men holding me.

“Well, you must do what you should, it is the law.” The man says.

“Tie her to that tree.”He orders. Two men grab and drag me.

I scream, kicking as I go.

“Leave her alone,”Tórę charges but stops when his Uncle holds a dagger to his neck.

“Please,” The man says, “Please give me a reason to cut out your throat. You are one too many in line for the throne anyway.”

“Is that what this is about?”Tórę says, straining against the blade.

“I’m just saying you’d only bump me up to fifth in line.” His uncle shrugs his heavy shoulders.

The ropes cut into my arms and my belly, as the men work quickly.

His uncle throws his bow and quiver at him.

“Live up to your name, Great Terrible, and make us proud as always.”

It is second nature, the way Tórę throws his quiver across his chest and picks a thick arrow.

He keeps his gaze low.

“Address your target, son of Ara!” His uncle yells.

Tórę stands there, bow drawn.

In a blink, Tórę spins on his heel, the thick arrow splits into three arrows. He sends them the way of the men. They drop to the floor.

His uncle is left standing. Immediately, his uncle charges at me. He is still holding the dagger.

Of a sudden, he lurches forward and jerks, then stops. His eyes are wide. They stare at me. Shocked. An arrow head has pierced him through, it sticks out of the front of his neck. Blood gurgles. He drops to the floor like a sack of flour.

I know that arrow head, with its serrated slants.

My heart skips.

My father.

He emerges from the bushes.

---

Tórę hurries to my side and cuts me free.

“Father,”I greet him, as he approaches.

“Son of Ara,” He addresses Tórę, his bow drawn, “You will step away from my daughter.”

“Father.” I step in front of Tórę.

“Move out of the way! Now!”Father snaps.

“Father,”I spread my hands wide as I can.

“You promised. No matter how unsightly…”I say.

He stares at us.

“Eki,”He says, “A son of Ara?”

“You said you'd never stand in the way.” I remind him.

He spits on the floor.

“Do you know they mark themselves with a tally of the number of Iwui men they kill?” He says. His bow is now across his chest but he unsheathes a dagger and holds it close to his side. He takes another careful step our way.

“No, that is not true…”My voice is low.

I think about the scars, the incisions. On Tórę. On his uncle.

Father takes another step, “You want me to bless a marriage of my daughter to an enemy?”

“How many markings does he have?”

My heart is beating hard. The air is heavy and I breathe quicker. I glance over my shoulder at Tórę.

“You are not a child,”Father barks, “How many?”

“I —”

“How many?”Father snaps.

“Eight-five.”

He is silent.

“Eighty-five of your brothers. Of your own blood.”

Something rages on the inside. It is akin to a darkness. A sorrow. The kind that suffocates.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”I turn quietly to Tórę.

“Let me explain,”Tórę reaches for my arm. I let him caress it, maybe I could feel the truth through his fingers.

“Why didn't you tell me what the markings meant?” I am tired from the thought. My fingers recall the tally.

“These markings have nothing to do with us.”Tórę’s grip is gentle but firm.

“They have everything to do with us!” I shake his hand off. “You tally the number of Iwui you kill?”

“They are my people!”I scream,”You killed Roti!”

“I was protecting us.”

“Is it a game to you?”

“It is nothing.”He pleads.

“It is not nothing.”

I lean against a tree and weep.

For a moment no one speaks. The roar of the waterfall surrounds us, birds chip and sing.

“The Iwui kill us too,” Tórę says. His tone is quiet.

He looks up and addresses my father.

“How many have you killed, Archer of Iwui?”

My father is silent.

I stand there and look at both men who I love. They are the same, they would roam and wander if they could, both with calloused hands for combat and temperamental fingers for shooting the arrow. Both have built a name for themselves on the annihilation of the other.

They are the same— my father and Tórę.

I am saddened by this. And never in any moment have I hated and loved them more.

---

By law, if an Ara man and an Iwui man meet, one must kill the other. It is the law.

But not today.

Tórę puts down his quiver and bow and kneels before my father.

Father stares at him.

“Two years ago, your arrow was found in the heart of my brother, Great terrible.”

Father’s older brother.

I remember.

He takes a rope from his pouch and binds Tórę’s hands.

We begin the journey along the river to Iwui.

I am in tow.

---

The envoy arrives at first light. A host of Ara men have come to negotiate for Tórę. His father— the king of Ara seeks an audience with our king. He remains on the border for an invitation. Day after day, I loiter as far as I can with my flock, hoping for a glimpse of Tórę at the palace where he is imprisoned, but he remains kept. On the fifth day, all of Iwui is summoned to the square.

For the first time since Iwui and Ara walked the earth, their kings stand side by side.

Behind them are the royal court, and the royal family.

The end had come to the killing of our brothers, the Ara, the wind tribe. Our king says. It was time we united wind and water. He talks about strength in unity and the power of clemency. He talks about binding Iwui and Ara with a symbol of our alliance.

With that our king steps to the side. Tórę makes his way to the front of the royal party. My heart flutters. He is alive. Someone else steps out beside him. It is Demori of Iwui, our princess. Our king places the hand of his daughter in Tórę’s. They both look down at their hands, and at each other. Tórę leads Demori as close to the crowd as possible. They raise their linked hands up above their heads.

The crowd erupts in a loud cheer all around me.

---

It is required by law. All peoples small and great, of both tribes, must witness the union of the Iwui dynasty and the Ara tribe.

The union of the water and the wind.

Of Demori and Tórę.

She is beautiful, our princess. She has woven gold threads into her hair, her skin glows like father’s drinking gourd, her neck is heavy with beads and corals from the shore lands. Her hand searches for Tórę’s. It finds it and fits.

He still looks like a god, with a faultless frame and the calmness of a lake.

The old Ara priest announces their union.

Princess Demori smiles up at him and he smiles at her.

The tribes roar with shouts and shrill whistles. The beat of the drums are feverish and frantic. Dancers somersault and songs are on the lips of the women of Ara and Iwui.

The joyful trong pushes me this way and that.

Songs have already been written about him.

Tórę, the Leopard of Ara, the Great Terrible, has become a singing Love bird, the Gentle Lover.

He laughs at something our king whispers to him. He hails the crowd by raising the hand of his bride. The sound is deafening.

I will him to look at me.

Look at me, Tórę.

Please.

He does not.

He kisses the hand of his new bride.

The End

Written by Ike Adegboye

The Prophesy (Fiction)

The Prophesy (Fiction)

“A prophesy is not destined to occur,” Nané says. She stares out of one good eye at Mother and I.

“It is only one of the possibilities the spirit man sees.”

Mother is silent. She bends over and jabs a piece of wood into the fire underneath the pot bubbling with ewedu. I busy myself sieving the yam flour, shooing my baby sister from the powder every other minute.

Nané gestures with her cup of palm wine,”It is the choices we make that help those visions along. Even the spirit man knows this.”

The spirit man. The one who sits in the circle of white pebbles, himself dressed in a white robe held up by a white snail shell. On the outer circle, are a company of white owls.

It is believed that the more the necks of the owls turn, the clearer the vision is to his shut eyes. By the time he has seen enough to speak, all the owls have turned their necks into the spirit world and they stare. Unblinking. Knowing. Channeling.”

“A prophesy,”Nane hisses into her cup of ferment, “is only a possibility.”

An event chanced.

O le je. O le ma je.

It may happen, it may not.

“The father of your children will die.” This is what the seer said to mother. This is the prophesy.

My father is to die.

Maybe it is the smoke or the smell of boiling leaves or Nane’s sweet ferment, but I feel sick.

“Mother, could father live by chance?” I ask as we eat supper, “Could Nané be right?”Mother says nothing.

Nané picks up the fish head in her bowl and after sucking out its eyes and chewing them, she begins to sing to the fish head.

Mother looks at me.

There's your answer.

I sit with father.

The fever has returned. He shivers, his lips tremble, and whispers nothing into the stillness. I touch his body with the damp cloth. He is whispering mother's name. Mother does not look at him.

The spirit man saw death and she is present; loitering, breathing the air and giving none back.

Death is here but so is Life.

She is sitting by father, drawing out his breath, and breathing it back. Her song is light on the night air.

---

You will live. She is saying to him, fighting for him and so I join the chorus.

My mother does not sing with us. She has sent word to father's people three towns over. They must prepare to bury.

The harvest is ready.

Mother is packed for our journey. My sister is nestled on mother's back, chuckling at nothing. Nané helps tie up some farming tools in burlap and they both lift and place them on mother's head. I carry three baskets on mine.

We begin our journey. Without my father’s strength and stories, the path stretches on. We are tired and quiet.

Nonetheless, Mother walks briskly, and I keep up.

I am happy to be away from father, from the gloom of the illness and from the smell of his unwashed body.

We arrive at dusk. Already Faluyi is counting the crops of harvest, his sons are around him and his wives are chattering idly. His side of the farm has been completely harvested. So has ours.

“Olaide,” he greets my mother, “hope it is well. How is home? How is my friend? I did not think you would come.”

“Your friend is at home, if you bothered to visit him, you would know how he is.”

None of his wives offer to help my mother bring down her tools from her head. She is too proud to ask. She squats before me and I help her with the burden.

“The harvest is great, we would not have gotten this far if I made a visit.”

Mother eyes him.

“Give us our share and we will be on our way.”

“How do you propose to carry it?” He asks.

“Do not concern yourself with it.”She says.

“I keep telling my friend to marry another wife. Many more. To have sons and more sons. To till his ground and carry his produce.”

He looks at me and then at my mother.

He takes a step closer to her, and I step behind her, as he towers over us. I smell the herbs and chewing stick on him.

He whispers, “The sickness will take him. He can not come out of it.” His tone drops lower. “Come, let me give you sons.”

“May sickness take you!” I snap at him,

“My father will not die,” Mother catches his raised arm before it swings at me and closes the small space between them in one step, her nose almost touching his.

“Name a place.”

His anger dissolves.

“At the hut by the rock, in the forest.”He presses his lips close to her ear.

He says it so I can hear.

He steps back and orders his wives and children to divide the harvest. Down the middle.

In seven days, his sons will carry the produce for us.

My mother does not thank him. She steps by him and lays my sister down in the shade. The wives stare at her.

It is night when she leaves my side. “Watch your sister,” She says.

“Where are you going?”

It is a stupid question.

She will not be long. It doesn’t take that long. This is all she says.

I should say something but I don’t. I lay there, determined to wait for her. Soon I am dreaming. In my dream, I am on a path at night, surrounded by tall yam plants. In the distance, there is a small, yellow flame and it is moving. A person is carrying it. Suddenly, the wind snuffs the light out. I wake up with a start. Mother is back, she smells of herbs and earth. I wrap my arm around her and she pulls me close.

She sings a quiet song of two friends: time and chance till my lids weigh down and I am asleep.

A prophesy isn’t destined to occur. That is what Nané said. It is the choices we make that help it along. If the prophesy says you will have fields, then by a hoe. If the prophesy says you will have children, then you must lay with a man. If the prophesy says to you a slave that you will be king, then serve your king, and kill his sons.

Mother will become Faluyi’s wife by the next harvest.

“We will starve” she had simply told me, “With your father gone.”

A prophesy isn’t destined to occur. That is what Nané said. It is the choices we make that help it along. When my father arrives on the farm it is night. He had walked all day. The fever stands far off, offended by his strength, and death has turned away to return the path along which she came. When he arrives, I am watching over my sister because mother has gone to Faluyi.

Father will find them at Faluyi’s hut in the forest. He would freeze at the sight before him.

His fingers will seek a lifeline and will drop to the scabbard hanging from his waist. They will close around the hilt of a sickle. His eyes never leaving their bodies.

Death will stop in her tracks, her sagging shoulders will be lifted, and slowly she will turn and look upon Faluyi’s hut.

The father of my mother's children will die. That was the prophesy.

But a prophesy is not destined to occur. It must be helped along.

My father has crossed the threshold.

The End

My Maxine (Fiction)

My Maxine 

​​“Grandpa, what do you regret the most about the war?” 

​​It is always the same question for Maxine. She makes her way across the room. Her old rag doll drags on the grey vinyl tile that I have grown accustomed to at the hospital. I stop rocking my chair, fold my newspaper and tuck it beside me. Maxine climbs into my lap. The sun is setting and its lazy rays warm up her face. At the age of eight, she looks nothing like me or her mother or father. Her eyes are bright and alive, inquisitive. Hungry. The brown in them seems to lighten every time I see her. 

​​She visits a few times a year, sometimes for weeks, other times a few days. Usually whenever I am plagued with old man problems, she visits.

​​“I regret many things, little girl.”

​​“What is the biggest one?”The doll sits on my other lap, staring into space out of its mismatched button eyes. 

​​​I clear my throat.

​​“How about I read you a cartoon from the newspaper,” I cheer, reaching once again for the paper, “I saw a funny clip…”

​​“Oh I love cartoons!”She squealed.

​​“I know you do. Do you still make those lovely paintings?”

​​She is quiet.

​​“I don't paint, Grandpa.”

​​“Yes, you do. I have some of them on my wall.”

​​She leans into me and wraps her arms around my neck. 

​​I look at the wall. There are newspaper clippings, many from the war and post-war efforts, some relevant documentation of gurella operations, some were stamped classified. There are also photographs of people.

​​Ah, Colonel Akpan, old boy. He commanded the raid of Dauji forest, trapping the insurgents in the largest wild fire. Smoked them out like skittering mice. General Luke-Marcus, a bonafide cheat at Ludo and an excellent marksman. 

​​​​Ms. Laide Lucy was a nurse at our base, excellent comrade, an unparalleled distraction. Fola Olaolu. Mide Collin. Those were the days. Then the paintings. Two dozen sheets of paper were tacked haphazardly all over the wall. Abstract paintings of gentle green brush strokes tinged with a subtle crimson. They are the same painting; careless and free as though  a child purposed to fill the page then reverted to the whimsical. 

​​“Grandpa, what was the most memorable part of the war?”

​​I sigh again.

​​I am exhausted. Sleep has escaped me for weeks now. More now that I started flushing the pills down the toilet.

​​The doctors would not leave me the hell alone. They poke and prod. Of course you'd find things in an old man's body if you keep snooping. 

​​Yet again, they have scheduled another surgery.

​​“Grandpa?” She places her head on my chest. She smells of detergent.

​​​​I am tired and so I answer her.

​​”The Lawrije river massacre.”

​​She looks up at me, her expression blank. Her eyes drop to the buttons on my tunic. She picks at them and running her finger along their curved edges. Her doll now is looking up at me with its button eyes.

​​“A river?” She says, “That must have been beautiful.”

​​“Please.” I appeal to her.

​​“The river is one of the cleanest in the area I hear! There is a love song written about it.” She begins to sing.

​​“Please, Maxine. Not now.”

​​Her voice rings out.

​​​​“Where do we find food?

​​At the river, at the river,

​​Where is our hope?

​​At the river, at the river,

​​Lovers hands entwined, 

​​At the bottom of the river,

​​When will this suffering end 

​​At the river, at the river…”

​​​​I scream and throw her off me. Her head hits the wall with a thud and she crumples to the floor like her rag doll. 

​​Someone is screaming. I am screaming. More voices scream. I squeeze my eyes shut.

​​“No,” I whisper, “Please.”

​​The Lawrije river is a gentle green.

​​Screams are coming from the river. It is people from the nearby settlement. It is no wonder rebels would hide in their midst. They were an unassuming group. The sound of ammunition rains, hitting flesh and water in a crisp tut-tut-ting harmony. The people of the settlement with the traitors in their midst fall into the river. 

​​Maxine is back beside me. She is singing. 

​​I dig in my pocket and find it. My switch blade flicks open at release.

​​“Where will we find the people?”She is singing,”At the bottom of the river.”

​​The nurses are here now.

​​“General? Sir? It's ok.” Someone is saying.

​​“Sir, please put down the knife.”

​​​​The singing is grating on my ears.

​​I charge and jab, but hands restrain me.

​​Security men burst into the room. 

​​More hands.

​​I am shivering.

​​“It is my Maxine. Please call her parents.” I tell the nurse.”My grand daughter. She is over there. Please. She will be alone. She is afraid.”

​​Maxine does not seem afraid. She is singing.

​​“He is seeing the girl again,” a voice says.

​​“Sir, there is no one here.”

​​“Maxine!” I scream. 

​​Maxine is singing about the lovers at the bottom of the river. She won't stop. 

​​“I need 500 milligrams of ketamine. Quick.” A voice snaps. 

​​There is a pinch in my thigh.

​​I feel the push of the drug into my body. The knife falls out of my hand.

​​I remember Maxine. 

​​Though that is not her name. She is the little girl from the Lawrije river. 

​​​​She stands tucked between a man and a woman, holding a large rag doll with huge button eyes. They are at the edge of the water. The little girl is left standing when the bullets hit her parents. She looks at me. It is as though we take a deep breath together. The bullet throws her back into the water. The green water runs red.

​​The screams are distant. I am distant. Far away.

​​Voices are speaking. I see her unclearly now. She is next to me.

​​“See you soon, Grandpa.”

​​The room seems to breathe easy.

​​“Get him some sheets of paper and watercolor. He likes to paint when he comes around. Green and red paint…or crimson as he calls it. Yeah, green and crimson,” The nurse is speaking to someone.

​​“See you soon.” Maxine whispers.

​​My world is quiet.

​​Written by Ike Adegboye 

​​For Maxine.

Barabbas: Beautiful Exchange

Beautiful Exchange 

(YouTube Reading available at the end of post)

It is dark. The streets are deserted and market stalls are closed for the night. The air is still. My breathing—steady, shallow, paced. 

The kofir’s sandals scrape against the cobble stone in haste. I watch his shadow slither on the stone walls, his panicked dark form hurrying ahead of it. It is one of those nights bad things happen. Death is here, she is present, hard pressed along the walls of the narrow alleys. Peeking. Waiting. Thirsting. Her breath is stale. Her stench, putrid.

An early riser will discover a body at dawn. Blood. Insides on the streets, exposed. Secret, personal things now laid bare to eyes, to birds.

My face stretches into a smile, but there is no mirth. The cold hilt of the dagger cools my palm. I follow. He glances behind him, not slowing down. 

Easy now.

Was he going to the playhouse? To play their games? To frolick with the soldiers? To do things that bring the spit up a person’s throat. He smells of spices. Strange foreign spices. Of the heathen. Not ours. It is mixed with his sweat, the odor is maddening. It causes me to leap, and I grab him by the back of the neck. We land on the stone streets—him beneath. His strength is small. The blade thrusts. Deep. Into his side. His screams are familiar. They are awful. It is like a song, an awful song. My heart pounds. The blade comes out and pushes in again, breaking another layer of skin, and another. I am screaming too. We make a horrible medley. He stops first. He isn’t moving. I bring my hands to my face and they are red. The warm liquid trickles into the lines and grooves of my palm, running over the hilt to my sleeves.  A light wind carries around my feet. An unrushed breeze. It whispers, faint but sure. 

Murderer. It says.

My breathing is heavy now. I stare at my hands, already the blood was beginning to crust underneath my nails. The air I breathe tinged lightly with the metallic smell of blood and spices.

I look down at the boy. At once, his face is of the kofer—the betrayer—then again, it is of my child. My son.

Abiel?

A cry tears through the still night from a strange place. It is my voice.

Abiel.

 My eyes snap open. It is dark and my yell echoes in a small room. Slowly, the room takes shape. I am here. I never left. I sit up on the cloth which separates me from the stone floor of the dungeon. My chest heaves in pants. The breeze around my feet ceases. Mice scurry away from my toes, climbing over one another to scamper into their holes in the prison walls. The air is heavy with dung and urine and some vomit. 

The chill I escaped in my slumber returns and my teeth chatters. The shackles around my ankles are like an ice vice. The shuddering can not be tamed. The ropes around my wrists cut into my skin. 

I still remember his eyes—grey and deep, like an overcast sky over the sea. He was a boy, barely growing his first chin hair.  I still hear the cry, I see the veins about his temples as they strain in shock. The foul odor of excrement filling my nose as his body jerked in spasms. 

Excrement and foreign spices. 

Murderer.

The end of you is near.

The image of Tovi, who led the last revolt flashes through my mind. The birds pecking at his decomposing face, the wild dogs jumping to nip at his legs as he hung on the tree. 

My shoulders quake as the fear slithers down my back. The chains rattle. The quake spreads to my hands, my feet, my lips tremble.

“Surely God is my salvation”, I mutter. “I will trust and not be afraid.” 

But I am afraid.

The price for joining the revolt is crucifixion. The brothers tell you this at initiation. It is a life of sacrifices, of purity, of hunger strikes until every last one of the unfaithful—the kofers who corrupt the people of God with their detestable ways were removed. It is a life of death. It was the brotherhood who would prepare the way for the Messiah. 

My teeth chatter. I rub my hands over my arms in a hug. 

“ The LORD himself, is my strength…”

The voice snickers.  

“He is my strength, my defense….”

Murderer. You have no defense.

The boy deserved it. Him and all the others. A Jew who knew not who he was, deserved whatever came at him. A Jew who played the Roman games, and worshipped the Roman gods; who stroked Roman soldiers; who reeked of foreign spices; who knows not his God. He deserved it.

It was the fifteenth day of the fast. We would not eat until all the traitors were dead. 

When Tovi was arrested, the brothers had made an attempt to rescue him. Twelve of them had been caught. Thirteen bodies hung off the city walls. All for one. 

There was nothing as glamorous in the days after my arrest. And nothing now. I would die. Alone. One for One. 

Suddenly I look up at the ceiling. I catch my breath. There is a  low rumble. Like a thousand bees swarming. There is  Thumping. Rumbling, a quaking. An earthquake. I still myself. No, not an earthquake. It is distant and from the ground above. 

Ra-ra-ra. 

That is the sound.

The mice squeak in the walls. 

Ra-ra-ras. 

Now it sounds like the rumble of thunder.

A door above opens and lets in the sound.

BARABBAS! BARABBAS!

It's voices.

A crowd is chanting. 

BARABBAS.

Why is a crowd out there? Why do they call my name?

They are calling for your head.

My bowel comes loose. A warm dampness spreads across my undergarment. 

I sit there, like prey.

They want your head.

BARABBAS.

I hear footsteps. Unhurried, unified, precise—the march of Roman soldiers. They stop at my cell door and the door flies open. Hands throw me to my feet.

“ The Lord has become my salvation." I whisper as I step into a formation of six soldiers, two at my side, two before and two behind. They walk in perfect pace, carrying me along in rhythm.  I must be strong. The end is near. The corridor is dark, the brisk stomps of the soldiers feet strike the ground in determined unison. ***They seem only too eager to get me to my place of retribution. 

Maybe the brothers have planned an escape. My heart beats faster in hope.

BARABBAS!

The crowd yells as we approach the upper corridor.

The morning sun is blinding, and at first, all I see is a dark circle in form of the sun behind my closed eyelids. A roar of cheer erupts as I emerge. 

Men. Women.

They scream BARABBAS.

A few fights break out in the crowd and the soldiers push them apart. 

GIVE US BARABBAS.

The high priests are here—vultures. Bribe lovers. They are all we have left of our truth. They stand dressed in black close to the stairs, hurdled together, whispering. The air is cloudy with dust. More people join the crowd. Another fight to the right. The brothers? Was it a diversion? I stay ready. I search the crowd. For Yavi. For Gabvriel. 

“Should I release the king of the Jews?” The voice comes from my left. It is Pontius Pilate, the Roman. He is sitting on a stool. Soldiers flank him—three on each side.

GIVE US BARABBAS!

It is then I see him on the right hand of the Roman prefect. 

A man. His hands are bound. He stands surrounded by soldiers, like me. A soldier hurls a stick at the back of his head. Another spits at him. They cackled as he lunges forward.

He gains his balance. He is silent. 

A man speaks into the ear of the Roman and he looks at the bound man on his right. 

GIVE US BARABBAS! 

This man…Surely he isn’t of the brotherhood. Then he looks at me. 

All cease.

The cries fade into the background. I hear nothing. I see nothing. Just his eyes. His eyes…Did they glow like a flame or had I been in the dungeon too long? 

He does not smile but his face is kind. There is something else. A calm. A gentleness. A Peace. All peace. What manner of man is this? To be at peace in chaos. For a moment, I doubt if he is a man at all.  

Wait! I know him. He is the miracle man. The healer from Nazareth. What is his name? It escapes me.

The one who healed old Amar at the temple. 

“He heals anything,”Old Amar had said, “Even those who dream bad. The ones sick in the mind.” Old Amar eyed me. 

Those eyes.

 Flame.

 Fire.

 I blink. He winces. 

The soldier hits him again.  

The sound of the crowd rushes back.

“Take him away! Have him flogged.” The Roman says loudly more to the crowd than his soldiers. 

CRUCIFY HIM! They crowd yells. 

CRUCIFY HIM!

The Roman speaks in rapid Latin. He looks at the man again, his palm catches his chin in thought. But the man is looking at me.

“Take him away to be crucified. I will have no part in this.”

They push him away, tearing his gaze from mine. A soldier kneels to remove my shackles and another cuts off my ropes. 

They push me down the stairs. My hands are free. My feet are free. 

Now I see them—my brothers: Yavi, Gavriel and Simon. They are in the crowd. I am glad. I walk towards them. I stop. Yavi stands between the other two, he covers his head with his hood, the other two do the same. 

The sign is simple.

 I am no longer a brother. I had been caught. Yavi had spoken. 

They blend into the crowd, their cloaked forms soon vanish.

I stand frozen.

None for one. 

The crowd begins to follow the soldiers and the one who is like a man—what is his name? 

The Roman Prefect gazes after them. 

“Get out of here”, A soldier swears at me, “You are free.”

Free.

At the cost of a life. 

“The Lord has become my salvation.” The words escape my lips.

I begin after them, out the city gates to a place they call the Golgotha. I keep my distance, threading the crowd, watching him carry a wooden beam. The whips of the soldiers eat his flesh, breaking it open with every lash. I want to rush out and help him, to carry this beam but I can not. I am free but the soldiers could grab me again. I follow close behind and watch them nail him to the beam with other offenders. I stand afar off in the noon sun, but close to his cross where again I will smell that sweet, metallic scent of blood—raw, pure, divine—and where one has been crucified in my stead. His skin broken, his blood poured out as an offering. 

Jesus.

That is what they call him.

The Saviour. 

The Ransom. 

Me for him.

Him for me.

One for one. 

One for All.

It is good Friday. Barabbas is in prison and is waiting execution after committing several crimes within the Province of Judea. He is a member of the Sicarii...

Wedding Ops (Fiction Micro-series) Entry 5

Mayokun drove up the shady drive-in. Upfront, there was a road block made up of three large cubes of grey concrete with chalked-in graffiti.

“Park here,” Flavian said. She pulled over a few feet from the blockade. Two uniformed men stood beside a small grey kiosk on the other side, guns hanging from their shoulders.

Their heels knocked and their hands went up in salute when they saw Flavian .

“We walk from here,”He said to Mayokun as his hand shot up in response.

“You should have told me,”She murmured,”I’d have dressed more appropriately.”

“It's a relatively informal location. No pressure.”

“Right.”She murmured tucking her blouse into her jeans and trying to keep up with him.

Soon they came to the front of a house. It was a two-story building with earth tones and wood trimmings. A water fountain was set in the compound next to a wild garden. There was no water in the fountain but somewhere, she could smell damp grass.

They climbed up a few stairs to the front door—twin wooden doors that brought back memories she had pushed into the rearmost parts of her mind. Now she lightly grazed over the memories in her mind. It brought a taste to her mouth. A salty taste that she found hard to swallow. She cleared her throat, exhaled and looked over Flavian’s shoulder at the door. He had a key in the lock. He flushed the handle and the door opened.

“I thought you’d use some face-recognition technology or something,”She whispered,”Well, that was disappointing.”

Flavian ignored her.

The reception area was a dimly-lit large space with a courtyard in the middle. There was no furniture in sight. The floor was grey terrazo and in the center of the floor where they stood was the coat of arms—the horses held up a shield, standing on a lush green tuft, on top of the shield an eagle stood proudly looking into the distance.

Flavian walked to a door on the far right side of the hall and held it open for her, “Please.”

It was a stairwell painted with cream gloss.

“I guess an elevator is out of the question.”She murmured.

They took the stairs up.

“I think I’m dead.”Mayokun panted has she held on to the wooden banister on the fourth floor.

“Mental note: Fitness. Zero.”

“Four is usually my limit. I'm a stallion on two,”She wheezed.

His expression had grown more serious since they drove through the gates but now his eyes glimmered lightly from amusement.

“Come on. A few more flights.”He said, bounding off the stairs.

They made it to the sixth floor and walked along a narrow corridor girded on both sides by offices.

He knocked on the door at the end of the hall.

“Enter.”

“Agent.”A man sitting behind a small desk acknowledged Flavian. His glasses sat on the tip of his long nose. His perfectly round head was shaved clean and shone healthily even in the dull light. He wore a shirt and a skinny knotted tie.

“Who is this?”The man nodded towards Mayokun.

“My Uber,”Flavian responded as he walked towards the inner office.

“Beg your pardon. Agent. Your lack of protocol can endanger us all. Who should we expect next? Your laundry man?”

“Buzz me in, Olu.”

“Well, I need to check her in properly—”

“Olu,”A voice came from somewhere in front of the ranting secretary.

“Madam?”

“Get her a visitor’s badge— ” He quickly picked up a receiver and listened to the rest of his instructions.

“Ma.”He responded over and over.

“Ms. Lawson will see you, first,”Olu said grudgingly to Flavian when he hung up.

A loud buzzing sound echoed and the door popped open off the locks.

Olu handed Mayokun a badge. He was tall and lanky and the helm of his trousers seemed to run away from his ankles. They flapped as he went back to his seat.

Mayokun sat in the leather arm chair. Two large metal cabinets flagged the man on both sides. He stared into a computer screen. Next to the computer screen was a telephone, a strange machine, a stapler, a box of loose memo sheets, a mug and a small cup of paper clips.

The phone rang.

“Ma,” He said at the end of the call.

“You may go in,”He said to Mayokun still sulking.

Mayokun walked into the office. The only light in the room came from a projector. There were photos on the wall—a satellite image of something she couldn’t make out and the silhouette of a man.

Mayokun strained her eyes in the dark. Ms. Lawal was a short woman, with a tight pony tail.

The image of a man appeared on the screen, he was dressed in black native, safari style. His fleshy neck piled on the collar of the shirt. “That’s your target. Morris King,” She was saying, barely noticing Mayokun, “Don’t get excited, it’s an alias.”She said drily, “His real name is Makinde Lawson.”

”Business man. Dabbles here and there. He made a fortune during the military era from pharmaceuticals, oil and timber. He currently sponsors seasonal small cell groups which cause unrest during elections. Off-season, he sponsors a small insurgent group called the Alakia boys. Alakia has recently been absorbed by the Walata group.”

Walata.

Mayokun gasped.

“Should I be here?” Mayokun whispered to no one.

Ms Lawal continued speaking, “Walata is planning an attack. We do not know where,” She paused, then picked up pace like she was suddenly in a hurry, “Arial surveillance is completely ineffective as they have moved locations to the caves within the Jambila region, shrouded in thickets of vegetation. King is a paranoid man. He uses an old Samsung B319 cell phone. He keeps the names of the key persons on the phone. In notes.”

”B319 kwa,”Mayokun chuckled.

“Do you have some insight?” Ms Lawal asked, her eyes pierced in the dark.

Mayokun shook her head.

“We need that phone. It never leaves his front pocket. I need it to be as natural, hiccup, blood, and drama-free as possible.”

“If there’s a pocket involved, we will have it. I’ve seen Ms. Ladiran work. She doesn’t miss a beat.”

“Good. Target is in South Africa for a wedding. His niece’s. Ms. Ladiran you will find your way to South Africa, expenses, extraction are all on you for now, to avoid any suspicion. When you are successful you will be reimbursed. Understood?”

“Ah!”Mayokun exclaimed, “On me, how?”

Flavian shot her a look. “Understood.”She said, “But first I need one thing from you. Call it my sign-up bonus.”

“What?”Ms Lawson crossed her arms.

“I need a partner.”

“Right?” Flavian said.

“ Agent—“Ms Lawal started.

“ Not Flavian. My real partner. My cousin, Fali. She is being held for ransom by someone.”

”That’s not a problem, Ms. Ladiran,”She said, “You’ll have your partner. However, we would appreciate discretion. The circle is us three. No more.”

“That will be all,”Ms Lawal said abruptly, walking out of the light of the projector into the darkness and out a back door.

Her voice called out, “Training starts 4AM.”

The door shut behind her.

“Training ke?”Mayokun looked at Flavian.

“This is going to be fun.”

She could hear the mirth in his voice.

To be continued (tomorrow)

Wedding Ops (Fiction Micro-series) Entry 4

Stunting

Hospitals are not as frightening as people say, not unless you are going to the ICU. Mayokun took the stairs up to the fourth floor of St. Barth’s hospital. No matter how many times she visited, there was no getting accustomed to these cold, concrete slabs of stairs. She held on to the concrete stair-banister, panting, as she pulled herself to the landing.

“God”, She wheezed, “I hate this place.”

The air carried the smell of cheap antiseptic and freshly prepared pharmaceuticals. She could taste the bitterness of the chalky-white pills at the back of her tongue. She gagged, then took a deep breath.

“Ok, I can do this”, She muttered to herself.

She started down the hallway and kept to the right, following directions to the ICU. Nurses walked by in a hurry, technicians in white lab coats breezed by. Prospective patients and family members holding yellow slips of paper, looking frazzled and tired dotted the hallway. The hallway opened up into a small, sunny alcove with a desk pushed against its back wall.

It wasn’t Bimpe behind the desk.

The new receptionist eyed her and nodded at the visitors’ register. Mayokun picked the pen. The page was full, so she turned it over. The page wasn’t ruled. The receptionist waved her question away.

“Just sign here. Name here,”The woman spat out orders, ”Check-in time: four-thirty.”

Mayokun obeyed, writing slowly. Her eyes took in the worn surface of the desk, the edges were chipped, baring new, but dirtied wood underneath.

“Where’s Bimpe?”Mayokun asked.

“She’s sick.”

“Is Doctor Awe around?”

“I don't know,”the lipgloss on the woman’s lips shone too much.

Mayokun began to make her way to the ward. Her steps slowed into a drag.

“I can do this.”

She took another step. “Nope. I can’t.” She leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. She had only ever made it to see Mumie once. That day, Mumie was asleep, her pretty face was now thinned out, her eyes were sunken, her lips, slack and her face was without animation—there was no stern look, no teasing smirk, no eyes rolling to heaven to thank God. There was no voice asking Mayokun to find a husband, or arguing about politics or asking about Aso-ebi. When Mumie did wake up, her voice was different, it was hoarse and tired, all it talked about were the witches in the ward. At some point, she screamed that they were trying to take her somewhere and that the room was moving. She wasn’t the same Mumie that was admitted a month ago. Fali was the one who sat with her and told her the witches would be burned with fire if they touched her and then read her the psalms until the drugs for the pain lulled her to sleep.

Dr. Awe had requested a CT scan and the results had come back inconclusive. There was an inflammation on her pancreas.

The biopsy was going to cost at least seven hundred thousand.

Inconclusive. What does that even mean? After collecting three-fifty thousand.

She buried her face in her hands.

Her phone beeped. It was a message from Akeem.

💬Akeem: This watch won’t move.

💬Mayokun: Why?

💬Akeem: It’s engraved. No one wants that. Can’t sell it.

💬Mayokun: Just polish it and reengrave with something else.

💬Akeem: Can’t do it.

💬Mayokun: How much is it worth?

💬Akeem: It’s a Breitling. Go figure.

💬Akeem: Come pick it up. I don’t want trouble.

💬Mayokun: Since when?

💬Akeem: .

She hissed out loud.

Akeem had once sold certain undeclared paraphernalia from a foreign heist involving marked gold bars, though this was in the good days when he was full of vigor and making a name for himself and not creating senseless stories on Instagram wearing Gucci suits that matched his carpet.

An engraved watch didn’t seem like an awful big deal.

“Not my day,” She muttered and headed back to the receptionist with the glossy lips.

Sign out time: 4:47pm.

***

The hospital had a canteen behind its admin block. It was a white building with a blue roof, and sparse grass in its front yard. Mayokun stepped into the fluorescent-lit room. Instantly she was engulfed by the bustle of the busy canteen—the sound of metal clinking plates, voices shouting their orders, dragging of metal pots, and the opening of soft drinks, the clink-clank of corks hitting the cement. Mayokun joined the order line.“White rice, stew and beef”, She said when she finally got to the front of the bright red coca-cola counter.

“Add egg,”She said.

The server was a short boy with a mohawk cut, Malik, he was called.

“Sister May, you never pay the other time o.”He balanced two eggs bathed in red stew on his long serving spoon.

“Don’t worry,”She winked at him, “I go sort am. And extra for you.”

“Sister Mayo!” He cheered.

“Mali—ki Berry.”

They laughed. He dropped one of the eggs on her plate and handed the food to her.

Mayokun settled in the back of the restaurant, keeping her head low and staring into her phone. There had to be a big job that she could do— to get Fali back, to get the biopsy done. They usually made double when they went out together. If she was flying solo she needed something big. Really big. The big fish—that was what Fali called it—that glorious job after which they would never have to work again.

Her spoon sliced the egg in two, exposing the delicate orange in the center, she spooned it into her mouth hurriedly. She scrolled through Instagram. Nothing.

#Savethedate#Lagosweddings She typed. Her screen filled up with photos of happy, grinning couples. Nothing looked like the big fish.

She reached into her back pocket and turned on Fali’s phone, maybe her feed was more glitzy.

She had turned off Fali’s phone because Dare wouldn’t stop calling.

155 missed calls. 125 from Dare. She rolled her eyes.

300 messages. She pushed her lunch away. Where was his wife in all of this?

Fali’s phone beeped.

Uber notification.

A pickup request.

4.996 star rating. What sort of passenger has a 4.996 rating?

Tap to accept.The screen read.

She tapped the screen, had Malik pack her lunch and went off to pick Fali’s passenger.

“Better be the big fish,” She mumbled, “or at least a good tipper.”

***

Mayokun pulled off the side of the road in front of the shopping complex. It was an old deserted building with ripped bills and posters dangling off its walls. She leaned forward staring out of the front windows for her passenger.

Her phone started to vibrate. It was probably the passenger.

“Hello,”She said,”I’m right outside the building—”

“Mayokun, I have been trying to reach Fali for a while. Where is she?” It was Dare’s voice.

“She’s…out of town.”

“She didn’t tell me. That’s unlike her. Where?

“She went to see her dad’s relatives in Iwo.”

“That’s odd.

“Bet it is” She said drily.“How’s your wife?”

Dare cleared his throat.“Is Mumie out of the hospital?”

“Hey.Hey .Hey. Let me stop you there, oga. How many peoples’ mother is she? Please do not call my mother Mumie, mommy, mom, mama…nothing. You are not—”

She jumped at the loud rasping on the back window, a man stood there.

He tugged on the handle and the faded gold handle came off in his hand. He lifted it to his face and threw it over his shoulder. The passenger door swung open and he dove in.

“Go! Go!” He yelled, the door slammed.

Mayo’s phone flew in the air. Her foot hit the accelerator. A car honked, someone one yelled curses.

“Olorib—” a blaring horn buried his voice.

She threw the car back on the road and pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor.

The man beside her looked in the rear-view mirror and then over his shoulder.

He glanced at her. Mayokun’s eyes were on the road.

“Whao!It’s you?”

Mayokun looked at him.

It was Flavor!

“What are you doing here?”

“I ordered an über.”He shrugged. He looked back again, as she sped down Ademola Adetokunbo.

“Head to the mainland.”

“I have to change the address.”

“I’ll do it.”

He pulled his jacket around, tugging on his lapels, he tilted his head till his neck creaked, grabbed the phone and typed a new adress into Fali’s phone.

He looked over his shoulder again,

“Are you in trouble?” She glanced at him.

“Always,” His lips raised to the right, in a boyish smile.

She kept her eyes on the road.

“This is the third time we’re meeting you know?”He said.

“Who's counting?”

“Well, clearly I am,”His tone slightly embarrassed.

“Last time you were working, the time before that too. Are weddings your thing? You work mostly at weddings? Like a vendor of some sort?”

She glanced at the map and changed lanes.

“Well, I see you're working today,”She threw him a glance,“Where’s your wife?”

“You and this wife!” He chuckled.“Why do you care so much about my wife?”

“Err…because you have one and I impersonated her once.”

“I impersonated Ben Bruce once you know. Completely off topic. You were saying.”

He annoyed her. It was simple. How in the world did he just appear from thin air? He was everywhere. He and his eyes, and that smell. Suddenly an image shot into Mayokun’s left field of vision. A sedan was headed straight at them, she swerved right and righted the wheel. The car swung into the street after them, full throttle, filling up the space between them and the first car. Mayokun threw the gear to four and pushed the accelerator further to the floor until she felt the grooves of the pedal sting her bare foot.

She glanced in the mirror just as the passenger in the car leaned out. He held something in his hand.

Wait—

“Is that a…”

“Yup. Gun!”

She threw the gear down to three and swung into a street, cutting in front of a car. Horns honked. Yells.

She dodged a car, blaring her horn and she drove down the mellow Ikoyi street. She maneuvered through the quiet residential streets and swerved in after a car which was turning into an apartment complex building. The gates closed behind them.

“What the—“Mayokun yelled,“Who are you? Why are there men with guns after you? Are they trying to kidnap you?”

“Well, Uber is probably going to think you kidnapped me. This isn’t my destination.”He pointed to their blinking car location on the phone screen, “You are pretty far off the route. Just saying.”

“What…?”She glanced at it and back at him, “Tell me right now! What is this that just happened?”

“I was checking out some real estate in the area.” He shrugged, “The deal went sour.”

“There was a gun,”She realized she was still winded, her heart still thumping fast while he sat there, cool as the kdk fan in her apartment and unbothered in his stupid blazer.

She stared at him in silence, then took a deep breath.

”You are trouble. In every sense of the word,”She said, “I can’t do this. I have deadlines—”

“Right,” He cut in,”Let’s lay low for sometime and then drive to the mainland once the sun sets. Then I’ll be out of your hair and you’ll get a 5-star rating. Sound good?”

She gaped at him.

“We could even make something of it, like—,”

“No.”She snapped, slamming back against her chair, arms folded in front of her.

“Ok. Just a suggestion.”

They sat in silence for a long time, and when it was dark they headed for the mainland without turning the headlamps on.

“You know I have a job for someone with your skill set. Plus your driving is really good. You shook those guys off, sharp thinking turning into the apartment complex.”

“You need a driver who dodges bullets?”

“The other skill.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She kept her eyes on the road. She could feel his eyes boring through her.

“I have a wedding coming up, it’s in South Africa. The job will be there.”

“Look Flavor, I can’t help you. Don’t know what your talking about. I am an Uber driver and a budding wedding photographer.”

“No doubt.”

She took the exit to Anthony village.

“Plus you don’t even know me. Or who I am, where I am from—”

“Mayokun Cynthia Ladiran. Attended Newland Montessori. Father deceased just after kindergarten. Wrote JAMB 6 times. Bought results before a 7th attempt. Mother hospitalized. Cousin, business partner and flat-mate Falilat Ajayi-Lawal who is dating a very married man with a very pregnant wife.”

Her eyes, wide, she turned slowly to look at him, “Who are you?” Now as she stared at him his smile looked sinister.

She cursed, “You’ve been following me all this time…” She continued,“At the weddings…Now this uber ride…Are you Kayo’s guy? Did Otunba send you too? Who sent you? Where is Fali?” Her voice had risen with hysteria.“How do you know all that stuff about me. I swear if you touch me—” She pulled over swiftly at the gate of the destination.

“You would do well in theatre,”He said drily, “Look, I’m not from Otunba. I am not friends with any of your friends. I’m one of the good guys and we would like you to work with us.”

She stared at him, searching his face. Skeptical, ready to whack him out of the car if he tried any thing odd.

“It’s a short-term project.” He continued, “You’ll never have to see me again…if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to.” She said quickly.

She looked at him. She wasn’t sure about working with him. “Ok so you know all these things about me,”She said slowly, “What type of job is this?”

“An extraction.”

“Of?”

“An item. Tiny item,”He pressed his forefinger and thumb together, “Teeny.”

“How much?”

“Five,” He said.

“Five thousand?”

That would pay for mom’s drugs, definitely not the Biopsy. Blood work. Some. She needed much more than that for Fali…

“Million.”He corrected.

She blinked and recovered, “I’ll take ten.”

He laughed.

“Five point five,”He bargained.

“Eight,”She shot back.

“Six”

“Eight”

“That’s a lot.”

“Find someone else.”

”I can talk to my superiors…but I’m not promising anything.”

“I never penned you for a thief, Flavor.”Mayokun chuckled,

“I’m not a thief. And it’s Flavian.”

“Whatever makes you sleep at night, hun,” She shrugged. Hun? Why did she say that? She kept her eyes on the gate, “So who is our boss?” She added quickly.

Flavian reached over , she could smell him. Spicy citrusy woody. Musky. She caught her breath as he leaned closer to her, his face closing in on hers. He leaned past her and pressed on the steering wheel, the hoot from the horn was squeaky. The gate began to open.

“The Defense Intel. Bureau of the Republic of Nigeria.”

In front of them unraveled a long drive-in shaded by tall trees that all but blocked out the sun.

“Welcome to the Secret Service. Ms. Ladiran.”

To be continued…

Wedding Ops (Fiction Micro-series) Entry 3

Hustle Town

​​​​The key to a friendly robbery is stealth. Mayokun watched as the bride, groom and their bridal party gyrated to a familiar  tune from the 90s. Obesere—yes, that was the sound. The singer’s quick tempo had set the room on fire—bank notes flew like confetti, soft wisps of  dry ice covered the floor, giving the dance floor an ethereal, celestial look. The bridesmaids had broken up into dancing pairs, throwing their shoulders forward and back, and leaping around, straining their restless legs against the shiny fabric of their dainty dresses. Mayokun pretended to take photos of the dancers from her seat; through her phone camera lenses, she scouted. Guests gathered around the newly weds throwing bills at the couple. The notes got caught in curls of hair, in tulle, stuck on the bride’s sweaty face, some gathered at her helm. Mayokun watched the “sprayers” closely. There were the one-time sprayers who had changed a thousand Naira into smaller notes; there were those who threw higher bills of cash but with a civil flick of the wrist, wiggled their bodies in slow lazy sways and went to sit; there were the ones who reveled occasionally in the act, going back only when their favorite track came on, with a new wad of cash to throw at the newly weds. Then there was the odd uncle who didn’t dance, but moved in a quick two-step shuffle to the couple, sprayed and went back to his seat. He usually was generous.

​​She remembered when she was younger, she’d pay a friend to go in between all those dancing legs and gather some money. The dry ice would have been the ultimate cover. Her job was to look out and rescue. On Saturdays, they made a little under two thousand Naira, party hopping across the mainland.

​​The cardinal rule was never steal from the poor—they took things too personally. The lynching, the rubber tyres, the kerosene and matches appeared too quickly—they lived for the day of the thief. 

​​She remembered walking through Tejuoso market as a little girl, holding on to her mother’s hand. The mob dragged a woman along on the floor, tore off her clothes until she was dressed in a long off-white shimi. Even though Mayokun was four, she could sense that death loomed. That night she cried herself to sleep. The poor woman didn’t deserve to be harassed so much because she stole one small mackerel. She never knew what happened to the woman but she knew when the rubber tyres appeared, mother grabbed her and made a dash in the opposite direction, the mob sounds and the woman’s yells in the distance. 

​​“Don’t ever steal from the poor” Mother had said that night, as she unwrapped her wrapper and unfolded several crumpled notes of money, a few odd potatoes, a few onions, five fingers of okra, a little bag of powdered milk and a tiny bulb of sugar tied in a transparent nylon. At first, when she’d see mother pilfer, she thought her eyes played games. 

​​Then at night, mother would place the goods on a round wooden tray, balance it on her head and walk the streets, selling as much petty stolen items as possible. Mother soon adopted her sister’s baby, Falilah, who was only a year younger than Mayokun—when Aunty Peju ran off with a Ghanian man to Cotonou in the late 80s. She died a year later from an illness. By then, mother had gotten her own retail shop selling provisions. They moved into a one-bed apartment and by then, Falilah and Mayokun had became inseparable. 

​​Mayokun looked away from her screen at her target. He chatted calmly with two other men dressed in the navy blue-red caps and white natives of the day. He was dressed regally in a brilliant white agbada, his short-sleeved  buba exposed his wrist and a brown strapped leather watch with a gold face. The watch was tightly bound to his wrist. That surely was a problem, what happened to good old chain watches? 

​​A good target for a friendly robbery was someone who was deep in conversation—still not too deep, a person engaged in friendly banter or even the uninterested party, usually a man whose eyes would easily follow the gentle roll of her hips. Women were another production. The older they got, the harder it became to steal from them. She chose not to engage in the battle of the sixth sense with women. Old pervs, any day. 

​​Mayokun made her way to the prize—go big, girl. She had to get Falilat back tonight. 

​​“Mayokun,” A voice said.

​​She looked to her left. It was that guy again—Flavour. Florian?

​​It was crunch time. She balanced on five-inch heels and stepped around him, pushing her long curls out of her face.

​​“Hi.” She said hastily. There was no way she was sleeping with Otunba.

​​“It’s Flavian”

​​“Yes, Flavian. How have you been?” Her eyes fluttered to the door, through which the target had walked through.

​​“Great. You? Good thing no IV’s are required at Siji and Mayowa’s wedding. Vibrant pair”, He threw his head in the direction of the couple and their howling, gyrating mob, “Which one of them do you know?” There they were again. Those eyes.

​​“Siji” She said quickly. In the distance, the target was talking to someone. 

​​“Really? How do you know Siji?”

​​“We went to school together.”

​​“Really? What school?” 

​​“Primary school.” She said through her teeth. 

​​“No kidding! I was in the same primary school. What set?” Her heart thumped. She breathed deeply to calm herself. 

​​“I don’t remember that far back. I hated school. I was bullied, blocked all that out now,” She said in a breath.

​​Mayokun watched the target walk back into the room, flanked by three men keeping up with him, his agbada rustling as he threw its arms up his shoulder. 

“But you remember the anthem?”He was grinning now.

“At all. I know the tune on a recorder though. Lyrics have never been a strong point. A few of us girls learnt it and played it when the governor visited,”She watched as the target made his way to his seat.

​​“No joke” Flavian said drily, “Girls, huh? That’s odd, considering Siji and I went to a boys-only boarding school in Nairobi.”

​​The anger spewed,“Yeah, so what if I party-crashed. I’m not the married person preying on single girls at weddings. Please leave me alone.” She hissed.

​​She pushed by him and stalked towards the door, tilting past merrymakers. She flung her hair over her shoulder, smoothened her skirt and picked up pace. In the crazed haste, her elbow rammed into someone. 

​​“Yee!” The person exclaimed. Mayokun looked just in time to see the plate of vegetables fall out of the waiter’s hand into the lap of a seated older man. 

​​“Dear Lord.” A voice said.

​​“Oh no! I’m so sorry sir.” She stumbled slightly in her shoes.

​​The older man stood to his feet, offered her an arm till she was steady, then flicked his clothing so the food poured into his plate from his buba. 

​​Mayokun curtsied. “I’m so sorry sir.”

“​​No problem, my dear. I probably will never wear it again anyway. Not with all the Aso ebi my wife has lined up for me until the end of time.” He laughed. 

​​Mayokun smiled. 

​​“Sir, I would offer to pay for dry cleaning but—”

​​“Not to worry yourself at all, young lady. Please. You are my guest. Any money to be paid comes from my account, as the father of the bride. It doesn’t stop,” The old man said with good-natured laugh.

​​Mayokun hesitated. 

​​Father of the bride?

​​The man tapped her shoulder, “Ti e na a de o! Soon we will celebrate yours!” He excused himself, threw his agbada over his shoulder and walked away with three people waiting to help him with his outfit. His wife appeared and followed, hysterical at the mess. 

​​Mayokun sighed, she pulled her phone out and put it to her ear, straining through the loud music to hear it ring. 

​​”Oga Matthew, abeg pick me at the Chicken Republic down the road.” 

​​“Just stay on the road, I can’t turn off the engine of Fali’s car.”

​​”No problem.”

​​Her heart tugged. She missed that crazy girl driving that crazy car. 

​​She slid into her purse the wallet and brown leather watch she had swiped from the old man and made her way out of the venue. 

​​He was a kinder target than she cared for but it wasn’t time to be sentimental. She needed to get her cousin back. 

​​Just then her phone beeped. She glanced at it. A message from Fali. She opened it quickly.

​​A photo stared back at her. Her cousin was gagged, her hair disheveled, eyes wide. A silhouette framed the photo in the back looming over her. 

Less than 24 hours. The text said.

She glanced at her watch. Eighteen hours really.

She needed a miracle. Some magic. She knew just who to call.

​​To be continued…

Wedding Ops (Fiction Micro series) Entry 2

​​Yawa

“I still stand by it that Wiz Kid is not dating her!” Mayokun said, as Fali pulled over along the side of the unpainted outer wall of their apartment building. Mr. Kazeem, their landlord had started charging a parking fee within his walls and collected all keys to the gate— it was a flimsy black gate which hung nonchalantly between two unpainted posts, its weathered metal blistered orange with rust bubbles and wounds. Mayokun searched her purse for her keys to the pedestrian gate.

​​"He is!”Fali chuckled, “We can’t all be wrong. What’s the big deal if he is?”

​​“Publicity stunt aye. These celebrities have y’all on puppet strings,”Mayokun hissed, her keys jingled as she fetched it out.

​​Falilat playfully scrunched her nose,“Shut up. What do you know sef?” She turned off the ignition, leaned over and grabbed her heels beside Mayokun’s feet, pushed against her door and got out, sticking out her tongue into the car, “We like the publicity stunt like that. Leave us. I hope they have babies.” She quipped.

​​Mayo chuckled and pushed against her door, but it didn’t budge. She threw her shoulder into it, it squeaked and opened up. She stepped out barefoot onto the warm tar, and her toes curled in response to the hard asphalt.

​​"Baby ko. The baby go resemble—” She froze. 

​​A man was holding Fali around the neck in a headlock close to his face. He was a few inches taller than Fali and his skin a shade lighter than her dark skin. The skin on his face was colored unevenly and his hair needed a trim—or at least a comb. The man had an object to Fali’s head.  

​​Mayo’s mind reeled as she stared at the dull, gray metal pressed against her cousin’s ear.

​​Gun. Gun. Gun…

​​“Where’s the money?” The man asked.

​​“Calm down, oga,” Mayokun slowly held her hands up, she took one step away from the car towards the front. Then another. Her bare feet scraped against the floor and the trumpet style of her skirt kept her knees closer than she’d have liked. 

​​”Don’t move. I’ll finish her.”

​​”Ok. Just wait. Relax.” 

​​She took another step around the car and paused at the bonnet of the car. Fali’s eyes were wide and stared out of sharp whites. She whimpered as the man pressed the gun harder to her earlobe.

​​“Let her go. I’ll give you whatever we have. We have 6 tablets, 4 phones,” Fali’s slender arms hung helplessly at her side. “Please…”She whimpered.

​​Something moved in the corner of Mayokun’s eye. It was then she noticed the car parked behind theirs.

​​A figure stepped out of the passenger’s seat. He was tall, slightly hunched and wore black native buba and sokoto. His gait was relaxed and his movement almost sluggish, like he had all day.

​​Kayo.

​​"Kayo, na your guy be dis? This is your person?”Mayokun hissed and dropped her hands to her hips.

​​"Cynthia” He smiled at Mayokun.

​​“Where’s Otunba’s money?” His raspy drawl grated her ears, then he made a sucking noise, as he turn over a sweet in his mouth. He was never without a hard candy. 

​​"Kayo, we are working on it. I promise you—”

​​She caught the reflection of the  neighbor’s flourescent light on a gun in his left hand. His arms hung loosely at his sides from his hunched shoulders, giving him semblance to a vulture. He stood there turning the sweet over in his mouth again, on occasion, again making the sucking noise.

​​“Look. Once my mother is discharged”, Mayokun continued, “I’ll have more liquidity, I promise. We are doing everything. Fali is even an Uber driver in the evenings. Though she has a 2 star rating but still…”

​​”Not the time…”Falilat glanced at her stiffly,”I don’t want to die. Please take my car! Take everything.”

​​Kayo looked at the rear of the old 1993 Camry, his eyes traveled languidly along the body of Fali’s car.  “This car should be incinerated.”

​​For a brief moment, Fali looked hurt. 

​​“I've given you enough time. However, Otunba is willing to make a deal,” Kayo paused.

​​“He thinks you aren’t bad looking. “ He looked thoughtfully at Mayokun and shrugged. He has a suite at Maritime. When you are ready say the word.”

​​Mayokun rolled her eyes,“That’s disgusting—“

​​“Ahah,” He held up his gun, “Calm yourself. He said to me, ‘by any means necessary, I want the girl. But of her own volition.’” 

​​“There’s no way I’m sleeping with some old baba because I took 6 thousand dollars. Kpere. Abeg no.”

​​“You’ll come around.”

​​He snapped his fingers.

​​"No please” Falilat yelled, her eyes squeezed shut like she expected the worst.

​​"You have 48 hours. Do your magic. Call me when you get the money.”

​​“No!”Fali screamed as the man dragged her backwards towards their SUV, the gun was pressed deep in her side now. He threw her in the backseat.

​​“No!” Mayokun whispered,”Wait, Kayo.”  She wobbled in the long train of her dress.

​​“That’s what you say every time, Cynthia.” His back to her, his drawl sounded far away. 

​​“Time’s up, my dear.”

​​They got into the car, the driver made a quick Y-turn. Someone held Fali down at the back, her screams were muffled and Mayokun could see her struggling.

​​“No! Please.” She stumbled forward and broke into a stiff run after the car. The tail lights sped away from her. She stopped, her knees weak under her. She sank unto the warm asphalt. 

To be continued (tomorrow)…