Chapter one: September 9,2019

PROLOGUE

It always becomes temporarily better in a way which appears the worst.

...That is; before it becomes the worst.

"Kiss me," she says in a quiet voice to me. A quiet voice because of how close we are, because of how delicate everything, including ourselves, have become, so that at the mildest heightening of sonar amplitude, the smallest shift in anything we could all be destroyed. I do not tell her- so she does not know, of course -that I don't quite hear her, although somehow I do; and that is all because I am, as I do almost always, nowadays; thinking. Thinking hard, so so hard that I completely forget all that I am and remember only all that I was, and wish so, so bad that I am what I was; when there were none of the things which now are. When there were no feathers in my life and no thoughts in my head and no girls anywhere asking me to 'kiss' them. When I was Lenelu; the simple, humble, innocent, lonely, carpenter boy. And it is so surprising, too- just as the whole of life is, I suppose -how I can envy myself when I was lonely and wish that I was that way now. It is as surprising as all that has happened so far is. As surprising as everything.

She goes ahead and does it when it becomes apparent that I mightn't; her breath and lips resting on the corner of my mouth for a brief moment. I sigh, coming back to the present with reluctance and I return the favour, this time to her forehead which is tucked under ny chon. Her scent is like something from the past which I try to catch with my mind but which flues and fades away, slipping each time through my fingers, out of reach.

"I wish it would always be as it seems now," she says.

"How?" I ask. I sense her lean arms encircling me like a subtle and malevolent constrictor and she does not look up. "Safe," she replies, still very quietly. "I wish it could always be safe."

"Oh..." I say nothing more because there isn't and possibility or necessity of doing so. It would never, ever be safe for us. Ever.

"Things can change," I hedge thoughtfully then, wondering for a second why I should hope so.

..."I love you."

I grit my teeth hard, because I want to say the words back, but I doubt that I can. I doubt that wouldn't soon regret it, because, as it is, it is most likely tha I would. We remain this way for a little while, till the room's temperature seems to become a little too high to be quite comfortable any longer. I want to disengage her arms and rise, and walk out into the streets and forget everything (with the hope that that would help).but I know that it would hurt and I don't want anybody else hurt. Her fingers flip the screen of her phone and I see the reflection of her fingernail faintly on the glass, like a thin, grey shadow of dust upon her emails. I kniw.that crickets chirp outside n the grass, and that toads croak somewhere far down, toward the vehicular crossing in the street, although do not hear or see any of these.

"You love me?" she asks.

...Oh, hell.

"Mmmhm," I say without saying anything, only musing it in my throat. I hold her closer to me and wish I was that capable of protecting others; wish I wasn't as limited n my mortality as I am.

...But, for Godsake, enough of the wishes for now. Enough of anything that isn't so good.

My eyes behold the symbol on the smooth, perfect curve of her shoulder even in the dimness. The mark is visibly there always. The reminder of my enemies who I never knew yet wronged so much as to have made them what they now are. The reminder that she is in fact, one of them, and could turn to their side at any moment. And leave me alone, on my own to defend myself. As always, i seems.

"Tell me of something that could make you laugh," I say to her. "Anything you can remember."

"Laugh?" she asks.

"Yes."

I want so, damn, bad to laugh, as I very much used to before. I want to make her laughter to be mine, although that is actually so selfish that it can drown any sea of laughter completely into itself.

"Well, like you sitting in your father's truck tray on your first day?" she suggests. Now, that one is surely funny, I must confess. She is already laughing, and I try to laugh too- amd actually do laugh-till I remember Banny. Banny grinning involuntarily when I thank him for sending me to school. Banny suggesting that I 'seek Jesus Christ'. '... He us the only friend. He would help you.' Banny changing.

...Anything can happen in a single moment.

Indeed. A single moment is everything.

My body jerks taut at the same time as hers and I predict that it is likely to be for one reason. My eyes stare widely into space as I hold my breath and listen in the quietness. The thud on the door repeats itself again, more loudly, more ferocious now. I shift her carefully and rise without a word, getting up from the dissembled shambles of the bed.

-"Lenu," she whispers a little tensely. I turn just as she holds her shirt over her body, watching me. I believe my horror is mirrored in her own eyes, which the little.light from the faraway street, passing through the window reveals. I yet say nothing, only nod quietly.

I should have known it would happen... And I guess I did. Or I wouldn't so easily have guessed it. Some things just have to happen, anyway.

It is him.

Perhaps, even; Them.

She ducks backward into the darkness as I make for the door. A small, sharp knife slides into my back pocket and I try to stay calm. I am calm.

The thud sounds again and I know for sure now that they are in the other side. I can sense them; I am repugned by them from right where I stand. Yet I grip the.door by it's handle. Time to open up and be a man. It might require four more years biologically, but psychologically it could happen at any time. Anything could happen... So, time to face the future. I slide the bolt, turn the handle and pull.

..And we continue.

---SEPTEMBER 9, 2019--/

Dear.... Whoever;

Today, I have no idea what the hell I am.

I hope it doesn't baffle or irritate you that I have said this, especially because if it does, unfortunately I wouldn't likely notice anyway, because right noe my eyes are closed.

...Closed yet conscious as a squirrel (sorry for the queer comparison).

I know when the thin, red arm of the clock ticks and I know where the other two, broader arms are at every moment, spinning painfully-patiently across the surface of that 2D circle far away in the front room. Yeah, I sleep quite far from where the clock is- the frontroom, I repeat -which is where Banny might be sleeping now. Like me he sleeps at odd times and in odd postures and in odd places. Poor guy. Once I saw the man fully dozing with his head lolling out of the window in the drizzle of July and his shoulders on the metal pane and his legs kneeling with ragged jeans on the concrete floor. Banny is one good guy whose life would have done better(I presumably almost guarantee) with some sensible sleep. It would make him less grumpy and drawling, and less goof-eyed and les flabby-bellied (never, ever, tell anybody I said that) and less mad.

And, talking of the word Mad... Talking of the devil. Back to me.

My eyelids tremble restlessly over my eyes despite all my hardwork to keep them still as as deadman's. Although the sun is still far too shy to show itself, it is morning now. Another, shitty day like every other... Oh, thank God for life. I know it's coming. I hear nothing yet I sense it, amd think dismally to myself;

Shit! that madman's on the way

"Rrraaaagh! Lenu!!"

What a hurtfully precise prediction. I flash open my eyes just in time to fly off the bed, spinning out of the way as the heavy stick comes crashing down on the poor bed. The bed frame itself groans from the pain and shock, giving way with a hollow crash. Banny is not nearly done yet. Lenu must pay with his life.

"Hraaahh!! Wake up early!!!" he yells, his eyes and his moustache and the stick wild as it flies again, missing my square head by only a few lucky inches. Wow! thank God I'm so fast.

"I'm up Sir!" I yell. "Up!! Up!!!"

"Yes, Fool!!!.Up!!!" Banny roars, swinging his weapon all the more with clenched teeth and wicked determination. I duck beneath one blow.after another, again and again as I scheme and scramble for the door. One of these mad mornings, I'm going to get killed. Do they have child abuse agencies in this country? Does anybody cares the fuck about what happens to me, to me, to me, in this place?!

The stick relents a little as Banny catches his breath and I fly out the narrow door of life that same split second in a sliding tackle, like Messi. I told you I was that good. Crap! The band of my pyjamas trousers leaves my waist and acts like a horse rope around my legs. I wonder sme times who really changes between us, Do I get lankier or does the damned cloth grow baggier? This is the devil's work.to stop me. However he fails. I escape into the narrow, oil lamp-lit hallway.

I might caption this DAY 1, for your own convenience. However bear in mind that this is indeed DAY 11; 11th since I last slept.

Well, don't ask me why, because that I would surely provide; I would like to gradually tell you rather than confuse you with a few ridiculous sentences all at once. And don't ask me how, either, because that I really don't know.

I think that I don't suck at so many things as everybody assumes that I do, but at this one I indeed suck. Acknowledged. There is very little about everything which I know or can account for, and even what I know, can account for only a little.

I googled (with a samsung bought after three years of saving since I was eleven, and religiously hidden from Banny) about some similar characters and possibilities. The results? well, too far-fetchedly ridiculous I almost drowned the phone in a muddy pond. Wikipedia and Quora and some middle-aged men sitting in dark corners far across the world and writing long and frightening nonsense. The possibility of non-sleep was said to.be akin to... what were they again?... Werewolves, Vampires, Talisman-weiling confidence men, buggers sniffers (like Banny. hehe). The biology said you could get bitten by some not-too-friendly arthropods and it could change your character, like the tse-tse, maybe. It made me remember Peter Parker; Spider man. So I was being likened to a marvel super guy. How pleasantly flattering. It could flatter Queen Elizabeth of England and make her dance like Micheal Jackson.

...Shit no.

Who the heck would believe that? Even kindergarten guys in this century, no. I couldn't be spider man. And although I had unfortunately pissed off the white rat at Biology practicals and it bit me hard in the hand, I couldn't be Ratman, either. Ratman would suck and I don't quite suck.

I know that I can keep to it but I just somehow don't. I know I don't need to sleep in order to be healthy or to survive. To sleep for me is terrible, like a journey of a sort to somewhere in nowhere. Yet I do sleep sometimes anyway. More often than not.

And Oh, I must not leave out the guy who attacked me so suddenly. I must tell you about him... Well. what fo I know?... Barnabas got married to my mother before she died- and after ny father had died. Which means he is, quite unfortunately; my Step Father. And, please bear this firmly in your mind any time I mention his name; Banny, after now. I know he would act mad and I hereby deny any bloodlinks to all that massive madness.... Yes, as I continue, Banny had a daughter before he married my.mother, and she is called Mickey- absurd for a lady, right? In any case I don't think Mickey is any normal lady, although for now I cannot give clear details about her own kind of madness, since it is a little twist of Banny's which I am most familiar to by now. Banny is mad in an annoying way that could make you mad, yet want to laugh out loud or smack his head- if you can -Banny's like a hybrid of Godzilla and King-Kong, mind you. But Mickey- her real name is Nichole, mind you also -is mad in a way that makes you know that she is yet prevents you from knowing just how, or how much. With that said, I imagine you would be gracious enough not yo expect me to account too much for the daughter as her father. Oh, I suspect you won't, yet let me give a small example; t took me nine-minths to realize, and to convince myself and to believe that the lady wasn't dumb. Yes, buddy. Nine whole, hefty, donkey months of brooding and watching and sneaking and stalking and imagining and thinking and praying and crying... you just name it. And the lady was only three years-old then- she is twelve now -so you can imagine. A.three year-old lady. Not talking a damn thing at the age when a human being should ordinarily blab and shit and fight and cry the most. I only achieved the success of my confirm-this-gal-isn't-dumb study by observing that Banny did not.make signs to her. Dumbness.very often implied. or was treated as an implication, of deafness. However the madman simply spoke to his dumb daughter and the two mad people got along fine. So it dawned on me then (and thank God it did so early) that;

1.) I was on my goddamn own

and

2.) In the midst of mad people

So here I am today; nine years later. That is exactly how I came to become what I am. So please don't blame me too fast or too totally. I had to become mad or be left completely out, thank you very much for understanding. You are a good baby... When she was five or six Mickey however began to say a few intelligible words to my hearing, like "Hi" and "Yes" amd "No", you know; all that minor conversational fragmental stuff.

... back to the reality of the present. I'm still running from the madman behind me. Banny's footsteps always sound like little slaps on the floor; the louder they get the faster you can tell he is moving. Pretty much gives the guy away anyway- you should ask me why I haven't always been safe still -but, yeah, the guy is cold weird, and it makes him detectable. A moving astonishing bizarreness, I tell you, though good-naturedly too. And Oh, let me acknowledge that Banny has successfully made me a bit of a super-sensed, super-subtle-duper scurri-er. In order to escape him I guess my senses of sight and smell and hearing have all heightened a bit, you know, above the normal. So most often he just has to be within two hundred meters- maybe even three or four -for me to detect his dreadful arrival, and of course disappear. Say; he is coming around the rectangular winding wall that leads from our rickety back door to the indoors and I am in the kitchen- I rummage a lot, just for boredom's same - with his much-worshipped, obscure new brand of beer under my scrutiny. All I have to do is sniffle the air twice for his Papa's body spray, prickle my ears for the tiny slapping sound on the floor and I'm off through the window of the toilet, two hundred meters away fron the entire house before he even gets in. And I would stifle laughter when his angry, disembodied voice echoes after me.

"You fool! Leave my beer!!"

I would picture him holding the beer bottle which I had left on the counter in haste, standing stiff with rage and astonishment in the.middl of the kitchen. Then he would take a stick and look for me. Poor guy, he never figured out how I used to disappear from the entire house -until seven months back, that is, when I ran too fast to bolt the window shut from behind and he nailed two hard boards across that little gate of life. So I guess that thrill is likely over for me now, since I'm neither getting any younger. Fourteen. An old man of fourteen. I feel my abs weakening already, and perhaps my head would begin it's journey to baldness soon. Yuck. Somehow to be older stinks. You know what you could do but you don't because you can't any more. You ought yo be a grownup now; to be responsible and to talk in a low, drawling and deep, Papa voice and chase lanky lads around at odd hours with big sticks. Oh Lord take my soul at once... I don't want to get old.

"Come here!!" Banny yells behind me as I dived through the narrow door of the bathroom in to dark safety. The door itself is as scary as Banny; having falling perhaps on every other day of every year since we moved in- which is almost as far back as the B.Cs -Banny got fed up and at his command I nailed an aluminium sheet in place of it, turning the heavy door itself into a funny kind of barbell which I lift above my head repeatedly on any dull evening that finds Banny not around and myself alone (Mickey can almost be said to be a ghost), seeking how to feel good about myself. I doubt anybody can cheat the proper thing, anyway. My biceps never seemed to rise by even a thousandth of an inch and other boys still called me "Stick".

The moment my body tumbled into the narrow enclosure I banged the roofng-sheet-door shut so that the aluminium crackled along with my yelling.

"Raaah! I would get you when you are out. Wale up early!!!"

He just said Good Morning, I think with a sigh as the shower- a hose arched high on a six-inch-nail -turned on above me. You have to turn on the tap below to use it. The water cascades down in a single, dense spurt over my body as I stand still under it, shivering, doing nothing else. Most often I do nothing else for the first minute, then I feel around for the soap. Four minutes at most is all you can use for a bath or else Banny would crash the door and bath with you- of course in the disastrous company of his big stick. I always need to let the invisible dirt wash off before the visible. The invisible is more powerful... Which brings me after a long encircling journey, back to the center of my ordeal on this crazy day. As I soap my hair with closed eyes I think of what is happening to me, what has always seemed to happen. There it is and yet it cannot be described, being the most worrisome aspect. I know about the other realm, the other reality and the other side; the other me, yet have no idea what it or I really am. Of recent, I made a grim decision not to sleep, even.though that isn't too nice in itself, as it accentuates the ab-normalcy to me; the fact that I can stay awake all year round and get away with it- the fact that I don't need to sleep at all. I was forced to ask google- please let nobody know about that -what I could possibly be. Had anything such as that existed ever at all? Had anybody any similar experiences? Well, th results of my search? So terrifying that I altogether forsook it. Quora and Wikipedia and some blogs here and there making allusions to all shapes amd sizes of things. Of a sudden. vampires and shape-shifters and U.F.Os flooded the already messy picture, with Illorin witches suddenly flooding the air in my dingy den on broomsticks, cackling and slashing at me with machetes in their left hands. Anyway I knew and know that I couldn't be a vampire or shape-shifter or U.F.O for all the crap I know. Those things start and end in movies for blockheads to watch and cry and be fascinated about. I'm not a blockhead and I don't believe.

And while I ponder about all that, today is in itself special- if being utterly miserable can be considered a sign of being special. I'm going to the Government College... Shet. Before now I've been lucky to long predict that this bad day would come anyway. Banny always loved that kind of thing. Government stuff was cheap and he liked cheap stuff. "Get a government job;" he would say. "You won't worry about losing it. It would be stable." Banny himself has busted is ass trying to become a teacher at the Government College. He studied Physics and made a Two-One. But No Jobs; they would always tell him. This government's administration is not for you. Sit down and stay poor. No Vacancy... Banny is a believer; he still images one day there would be a special government and a special job, crafted and placed by Jehovah, just for him- and please bear in mind that we are Witnesses, too. I hate to but kinda hope it works out for him too. At least he would be using the big stick on other boys then, not just me. Paramount among my concerns about the school is that of bullies. They say there are guys about twenty-one years old in that place who would call you up and make you hop around after taking your shirt and pants and whipping you with their belts and extorting you. Somehow it sounds like an act for Idi Amin or Sani Abacha or someone else like that. I'm lanky and might pass fot an easy and amusing prey, and the very thought makes me sick... Well you can't judge anything too soon. I know I'd get to see for myself.

I open the crackling door very carefully, so it doesn't sound too loud and doesn't cut me with it's edge, and I peer into the hallway for any sign of my madman. Phew! Banny's not there. I see the oil lamp flickering tremulously on the floor, out of kerosene, maybe. Taking my clothes from the nail on the wall with a shivering-freezing hand I open the door fully with the other, then I dash through to the safety of my room, my nakedness flashing with a trail of water down the hallway till I half-skid-half-tumble into the scattered, safe space. Men, this place is in a mess; I think glumly to myself as I pull the leather trunk out from under the heap of clothes on which I sleep. My bed is a heap of my and Mickey's babyclothes and I'm damn proud to argue it is the most comfortable contraption mankind has ever invented, if you are an easy-going, simple-minded man, like I think I am. Banny arranged the space which should have been a small, kitchen-side pantry for me to sleep some three years ago, when the menace of my snoring in the front room had become unbearable. I wonder sometimes what Banny would think or do if I ever dare mention that all my snoring was a conscious and deliberate and desperate measure to convince he and Mickey that I slept when I didn't. He would certainly need more than his big stick to correct my backside on that one. Maybe he would borrow a horsewhip, or a machete for me. Mickey later grew too old to be afraid of the dead boy- the son of the preceding tenants of our flat who had killed himself in the one bedroom of the house. The idea of the boy killing himself is one which I remember as having given me the craziest notions about killing yourself. Maybe it wasn't so bad; I had thought. So long as you do it in the only bedroom of your flat and because you just want to sleep a long, deep sleep. A long deep sleep would be fun; I thought, although I never had it. Once when Banny was away I tried to do as the boy had done, with sme bleach from the bathroom. A deep long sleep wouldn't be bad. It didn't work. Maybe I wasn't as blessed as the other boy. Then I tried other things. Kerosene, diesel, a knife. I later discovered that people did what that boy had done when they were 'depressed' and that if I had done it I would have been called 'depressed' also. I was not depressed and only wanted a good sleep, like what other people had. The bottom line in any case; it didn't work. Neither the bleach nor the diesel nor the knife. I could not sleep, under any condition or by any means... That was when I knew something was likely to be seriously wrong.

I take out the folded uniform from the trunk. This is the only surviving vestige of my mother and father; Banny said (not directly to me) that- according to my mother of course -they had "only a brown leather trunk of old clothes when.they first arrived Port Harcourt, so in the absence of any other around I guess this is the one. It has been my pillow for some donkey years now. And I won't lie to you that when I lay my head on the thing I hear any angelically sad voice whispering to me; 'Lenu, find and fulfill your destiny, my so-o-o-n' , or that I feel sad, even. I simply have no memories to substantiate the reality of my parents' ever having existed. I barely knew them and sometimes it seems almost funny to think how they appeared to have competed for who dies first. My father was off with the fairies when I was three nonths-shy of the world and my mother raced after him in my second year; back to back. Oh I admit now, there is a little tinge of sadness to it- just a little and I always catch myself; I really don't like the feeling of being sad, and I think it won't do any good any way. My mother's death still hurts Banny however, although I perceive it might be the associated horror of thinking that every wife he marries dies almost at once (that guy might be really cursed with the wife-death-disease after all, haha), and coupled with the habitual madness of his character, it makes a disastrous, depress-able mix waiting for the smallest sparks to be ignited. For sme reason he took all her pictures and hid them away, and if you ever mention my mother, he bits the shit out of you. Till now I don't know what she looked like because Banny hid the pictures and my real parents, for all I know, have no siblings or family to provide a picture. and I would be damned to ever stick out my square head to find any or demand for any, either. Banny would decimate me. So nobody ever mentions the fact that there were any other, real parents and I call the madman 'Pepa' and the lady 'Sister' and I guess till now we've got along just fine- in a.mad way, ot course that is.

Whoooh, now here is today. Lawd, today! The ninth of the ninth of the ninth (if we take.away the 1 in 19) and I'm destiny-bound to the most vaunted-ly despicable secondary school any government was ever barbaric enough to establish on earth. Not too surprising for a date which when turned upside down would look like the number of you-knoiw-who-I-mean: the beast, that is. So in the end it is off to the barracks which they call a school. Nothing can or would save ne now. And whole I think about all of it, the thought occurs suddenly to me. I heard the suckers down there wear blazers. Now that I am one of them, I would wear a blazer too. God! can it get any worse than it already is?, I think. Come on Satan, you've doen your worst already. Come one. Give your best shot left. I'm bullet-proof now... Or please don't. I know how bad things happen more.easily than good. Don't amaze me any further Sir.

"Wait up Sir!"

I'm always in a mess. Yeah, congratulations to me. The madguy on his first day to a place of madness, from yet another place of madness. No chaotic arrangement can ever exceed this one. I have my bag strangling my neck with it's single, battered arm which has survived it's brother for four hard years now. My biro is stuck behind my left ear- give the blame for that ine to Banny and the family business, not me dear - and I am half-skipping, half-prancing on one shoed foot while trying to shoe the other, my new trousers below the waist, dragging and trailing me along like a rope of rags. The shirt- do I remember I am wearing a shirt? -is askew at the collar and the check blue tie is like another noose, exsanguinating the life out of my already baffles self as I crash and roll and tumble out of the flat, yelling and flying with the heroics of James Bonde- kindly spell the guy's name correctly for me if it is wrong. In the truck, Banny casts me a habitual, nastily-disgusted-not-knowing-what-to-do-with-this-boy looks as he battles the protesting stirring. I race hard after him. He can't let me trek the thousand miles to that outdated prison on the first sad fay. He can't leave me. I won't let him.

"Wait!!!" I roar, my limbs flailing by my sides as uncordinatedly as my mind as I scamper toward him, leaving the door open (Banny and I hardly care about the door, any thief with a brain would be sensible enough to keep away from a place as our flat even in our absence).

"Raaaah!! You run up! F-o-o-l!!" he yells, obviously frustrated as always. I catch up with the speeding thing and dived like a goal keeper into the tray behind, rattling into the rusty vessel of hammers and nails and pincers with the sound of nuclear bombs in the Nazi war. Yeah, that was fun. Hurtful, disgusting fun, but fun anyway. Especially for you if you live as perpetually dully as I have to in this God-forsaken city. In this Godforsaken tray I would forget my crazy reality for a little moment. Oh yes, only a little moment is beautiful enough, when you are deceiving yourself. In the truck behind me I can hear one of Banny's back of beyond jams on the back-of-beyond, wires-jutting-out-hit-and-start contraption. A horrid voice is messing up the atmosphere in there now. I listen over the rickety clangs and clutters and jumps of the truck... This world is not my own... Shet. Who on earth would listen to such sad jams so early on a bad Monday morning? Amd he expects to live long and healthy and happy? I know the madman is nodding now and (with clenched teeth) I envision him hunched over the stirring with his back-of-beyond, unsmiling face. Banny is like a barrel of tobacco in the cramped, crumbling driver's seat; which itself is too hilarious to ever see. I guess people in Tahali are tired of being shocked at the sight of us anyway. One mad man and two slaves in a cramped truck apparently manufactured no later than 2000Bc, speeding across a pothole-riddled, awakening street with absurd songs playing and the sound of rattling and a massive cloud of smoke and dust that might as well require fire service to extinguish. I smile to myself tightly as we speed on, not seeing the countless, scowling faces that glare at our out-of-this-world, blockbuster exotic scene. It is good however that I hardly bother myself to think about what others think. If I can't think for anybody else, why so much as attempt? Only now does Mickey occur to me again. Oh, pheew,.Mickey. Yeah, yeah,.Mickey. It shames me that for a while today I forgot she exists, and I hate to acknowledge that momentarily it made me mire lively. With one foot wedging my body rigidly to the steel, I look back through the glass behind me and see her, in her habitual corn-rows/ponytail amd with her Sisters of Mercy (which I call "Mary-Magdalene") white tunic and red beret, sitting in the small space beside Banny and staring at th rough rad ahead, rocking this way and that with the vehicle, not saying a word. I scuff to myself inaudibly. Like Dolly Parton and Great Khali. Oh man, so much to make even a gravedigger laugh.

"What is it?!" Banny yells over the voice on the mp now and I stiffen right were I am. We sink into a gully now, the truck trembling and rattling like it would burst apart.

"Whuh?" I blurt with bafflement.

"What? What are you smiling at me for?!!"

I now see.that his eyes are in the overhead rearview mirror, glaring at my face. Oh, he caught me red-handed om that one.

... "Nothing Sir! I... I was trying to, to check... to check..."

-"Hraah!! Check your head!! Or I'd get my big stick for your head!"

"Yessir!" I reply as heartily as possible as the truck suddenly huddles to a bone-rattling halt. I whirl now as the door falls out of it's place with a shove of Banny's big, angry hand. I flinch as th hand jabs into the tray next to me, rummaging frantically and violently as Banny rambles under his voice. "You rat! I would deal with you!"

He locates the huge pincers close to my foot and yanks it out, stumping hurriedly to the car which has stopped in front of ours.

"Rat!!"

The pincers' jaws take hold of the number plate of the nice corolla ad twist the metal animalistic-ally. yanking it out of it's bolts in violent jerks. Poor, pretty,.fancy car to show up on dooms day. The driver's door opens just as Banny hurls the mangled number plate so hard that it spins and tumbles like a bizarre, dangerous kind of discus. The driver looks as Banny with his spectacled eyes, not uttering a word. Yeah, sorry bro. I understand that fear. He could be a banker or architect, all packaged up in that corporate cover, lean and kind-faced and just healthily normal. Well, our Banny is much like the opposite. To so much as say a word now could be to het decimated, and I think our lucky friend here can foresee that. Just in front of us, the rest of the vehicles begin stealthily to move again. Alas it a traffic jam, no body's particular fault.

"Get out of my way!" Banny yells.

The man just looks (cautiously) at Banny, shakes his head, and moves the car out of the way. I see him pull up at the far, dirty corner of the street to pick his ruffled number plate. He ought to be thankful anyway. It could be his bonnet or more still his ass on the ground by now. The truck trembles as Banny jumps in again, huddling and cursing behind the stirring wheel as once more we shoot off. I grip the steel close to me, keeping my balance firmly. I have no idea that this is one of the last times I would do this, or rather, do this with a clear conscience. In fact, this is one of the last times I would do many things which I once did, and yet do. Beyond now, many things would no longer seem as normal as they were.

The truck slows down as we pass Kahiala, I see the logo and the words on the arched gateway as we pull up.

SISTERS OF MERCY, ANGLICAN MISSIONARY SCHOO (The 'L' is nowhere in sight), KAHIALA

Motto: The cross is our strength

For what might be the ten thousandth time I echo the words with a despicable taste in my mind's mouth. The cross is our strength... What kind of bleak, madman caption is that? Why would anybody stand on his two legs to contrive a sentence like that and hurl it upon some skinny, girl children in a school?

Some people... I think to myself. Mickey opens the door at her end with a small rattle, stepping out. . Oh, there goes; I think to myself with glumness. She stands mutely by the truck amd gives Banny a nod. Although I cannot see him I know Banny nods back. Then I freeze as she turns to me,.equally nodding.

"S.-see you" I mumble for the total lack of any other idea. I doubt she would ever have heard me anyhow. Drums beat as she turns and walks toward the large gates without even slightly moving her neck. The other students about Mickey's age run and jog into the premises but she doesn't. I trust our Dracula. Nobody would be daring enough to discipline her. Sometimes I feel sorry for her classmates and teachers. I just wonder what it would be like to stand or sit in a class with Mickey when you are a stranger to her. It would be like confronting a... a.... don't let me say it. Banny's sad jams sing on as he takes off in our cargo again, and I am jerked backward by the force of off-taking. It reminds me obscurely of a section of the NEW SCHIOL PHYSICS textbook where it mentions Newton's third motionary law, of action and reaction and the example of a passenger's neck getting broken when collided forcefully with. or pushed hard from behind. That is what Banny just exemplified now. Action and reaction. Banny just nearly broke my neck. He'd have to pay for that one in a hilarious way which would make nobody laugh. Very soon. Hmm... I guess I can sight some other practical example. Like Inertia explained by his big stick on your head. Force of the stick times period taken for you brain to just fundamentally recover from the shock. Maybe he could have made a good physicist. The guy is rather too frighteningly physical. Oh, well, the more you talk, or rather; think- I am not talking right now -the more you complicate a would-have-been-simoke picture, isn't it? I know I mentioned a biology practical earlier in our time-away-whiling ramble, and now there comes this talk about Physics and Newton. You wouldn't expect that from a lad on his first day to Senior grade one. I haven't had much of an.organized schooling. to be honest, although it is thankfully such that when you piece the shards and fragments to each other, they form a not-so-bad whole and you can't possibly say I haven't had an education. or a complete one- maybe we can leave the completeness aspect out of it altogether. Mickey is the one who always went to school; to the same school,.rising up the levels normally. For me, life is always with a little touch of animation, if you'd agree. Much of my early learning happened at home (Oh my Lord); and most of the time I was either teaching myself. or getting taught ny some insane and obscure personality of a teacher which Banny had brought from church, or. getting taught by the beast Banny himself. No longer sounds so posistively.animated, eh? However must confess I enjoyed it because people hardly ever sat their asses over my square head and told me to and how and why to learn. For some reason till now I never really left the sickeningly dark (and I apologize for saying that) life that surrounded us. I don't know why anyway, but it seemed almost as though Banny was wary of something in letting me live a far-going and far-coming kind of life. Maybe he felt something would happen, I would make something happen as I always did. Something terrible in a Ben-ten-super-heo style maddening way. And if that I am in absolutely no position to blame him. Why? Me?... Do you really mean me? I know me. Mad things happen always around me. So I wouldn't blame a man for trying to decrease the magnitude and frequency of all the mad events by making me school home, amd school barely at all. Also, lest I forget to say, there is the family business. Yeah, you heard it rightly. Family Business, full stop. Frankly the mere term makes me feel just as sick as you do. In any case, Banny is kind of an artisan- although if he wasn't a member of my family I guess I wouldn't likely recommend him to you for your own wellbeing. And I feel a bit cramped-tummied to add, but a carpenter, to be more detailed. It is something similar to a generational occupation for Banny's family. His father and uncle weaved the bottom of broken chairs for people to sit their asses in, and his grandfather- Oh my Jesus -built caskets all his nineteen-twenty-something era, surviving by it with his two quarrelling wives and eighteen hefty sons and five bickering daughters before the war, till he went to sing hallelujah in the bye amd bye which nobody talks about and his eldest son made one just like the ones he had made for others to lie and die in, for him. Funnily it seems all the men in that long mad line from which Banny fell into the world all had, and have a nut loosened in.some hidden, unfortunate part of their heads, like it gets struck accidentally on several occasions by the hammer in their hand while trying to hit a nail. True, I've seen a number of them. Uncles Jioke and Mance and Banny's crazy cousin Thompson; the one with a big head and big bottom and big belly who chased me half way round the yard with his belt in hand for calling him, "fat". They're all as mad as Banny, as we all unfortunately are. That, along with the Family Business concept, could pass easily for the reason Banny prefers I run around in a tight circle into which he can easily jump, yelling with a big stick in hand. Or, there would be the chance that he knows... Knows? you might be forced to ask. Knows what? Well, I'm worried with a.simikar question so I can't precisely tell you, the reason being referable to my initial sentence in all this ramble if I can remember.

I have not the smallest idea.

And now, have I accounted for my little Newton and lab rat talk?.Okay, I havren't quite. The government college isn't the first school I am enrolling into for the senior secondary level, as obviously you can see that this is not the first day of September either. The first of September was a Sunday which saw me in a missionary, boys' school somewhere in the middle of nowhere close to, I think, Umuahia. Guy, you should have seen it. It was like a cubicle in the center of a dense tropical forest on Mars (if there really could be any there). I presume lions and gorillas would.whisk students away from.the.night prep very often and you might get to find not-too-friendly anacondas in your study desk at class once in a while. To make things more brutal, the land seemed to have been a kind of cemetery or something in the past; so you could be wise to expect ghosts of Biafran soldiers to show up in the pretty picture every other midnight. They had a statue of Mary in the center of the vast unused space which was the final straw for Banny. If you have any problem understanding why this was, please refer to any AWAKE! bulletin near to your residence, see what they say about statues and figurines, especially the ones depicting the poor lady (with all due respect there). A deserted land in a dense forest was okay. A former cemetery was manageable. Emaciated boys skinnier than me (and I must warn you that I am skinny!) ambling and trudging and speaking igbo and laughing with battered day wears and torn footwear and all shapes and sizes of craniums was in fact just alright. But a stone statue of Mary- A statue of Mary!! That was far too much. That, that, that, in fact that was just mad. We could ask God to give us back all our tithes if He approved of it. That was the picture Banny painted and although the levy had been paid, after two days as a day-student (within which I got the physics idea and the bite fron the lab rat) we left.

But I doubt it was the real reason.

In any case I would take no time to beat around a stubborn bush that gibes no clues to you or I, and I can't purport to think for him or you or anybody. So it can rest there. Just rest and sleep and be happy for now.

An update on the present situation of my location: I am in the madafarkin second school now; school 2 as we might easily caption it. Hell yeah, I'm such a traveller. Columbus and Armstrong might do better with a rundown of some of my voyage experiences. The gates here are thankfully better than all.I have seen so far, and there is no unsettling caption on the high arch. Only a shield-shaped badge with a book and pen on it's face and a few words out of which I can only catch some French; "Pro Unitate'" because of our own speed. Banny has to get to the workshop early. This is Monday and all.his waiting clients seem to consume a strange specie of heroine on Mondays. Unfortunately he is on it alone for today. Poor him. happy me. I wouldn't likely be doing that shit on every other day any longer. As we move in, I sense an abrupt change in the very texture of the air which brushes past my face and neck in the truck's tray. It seems to have stiffened and tightened a bit, and worse still; around me. I look around innocently and first cite the security in their oversized black-and-blue, sorry dabs as they mope at me. They are so intent they don't remember to slow the truck down.or ask any questions. With some gear action Banny shoots in, burning the tarmac so that the hem of.my white shirt- which was never neatly tucked-in im the first place -flies into my face. I hold the thing down, squinting for the fierceness of the breeze. That is when I see the students. Dots of white and blue checkers that gradually become moving human beings as we get closer. Like the security most of them look back, the same astonishment in their eyes. What? I think. A boy in the.tray of a truck with the appearance and speed of a spaceship from an alien ambush in Venus, with his old man driving without smiles in the front, passing with a whiff of some oldschool song. Not too bad still... or is it?

As we near each moving cluster of them. I see smirks on the students' faces. Perhaps we are an amusing sight... Did I just admit that? I doubt I did. I hope these people's attitude, whatever ut is, won't get too good a hold on me. I'd have to be here for the next three years and it can be ugly if that happens. I know Banny is a little off and we're not quite like everybody. But I've never felt guilty or palpable and I never want to.

We soon.get beyond the smirking faces and white shirts and head into a park. The steel rods are painted blue and there is a stone statue close to the park itself, of a student with a graduation mortarboard in one hand and an open book in the other. Not too bad a replacement for Banny, isn't it? The engine dies and I jump spryly out of the truck, missing the tools that clutter the tray's floor. Banny's already moving and I follow.him. beyond the park. down a concrete-floored archway and past a winding staircase to an office on the ground floor of the two-storey into which we go. On the door post; VICE PRINCIPAL is written in bold letters and for a moment I get a tiny tingling that I've seen something similar before. We head in with Banny n front. There are two clerks in the first room who look at us any look like they're about to say something but don't. I understand that one. Nobody easily wants to say anything when Banny's face is in their face. We move into the room.beyond the clerks and a man jumps up at the sight of us. Banny is towering with his big belly in the door wat and I am like a child assasin from Soweto at his back.

"May I help you?" he says,.a.quick frown appearing above his bottle-thick, round glasses. He has the complexion and voice and tribal facial markings of a Yoruba and Banny offers a bone-crushing handshake without a word which he takes, more out of horror than courtesy.

"Morning," is all I hear from.them as I remain at the door. "This is.my son, Lenu, who I told you about."

They speak a few words more before Banny turns his face back to me. I am trying to remember how many months ago I wrote the entrance examination which I am surprised to think anybody could have failed. It looked like a mockery for disabled kindergarten children. Somehow Banny had initially changed his mind and we had made the fatal attempt of the other school.

"Go," Banny says to me now. "Get your books. We'd see five-thirty."

Five-thirty; I record to myself as I leave them. No earlier or later. That is Banny's way of delivering an injunction. You never suspect until his big stick gets you.

I ask a few questions till I'n at the school's store. I have my receipt with which the books are given, alongside a checker blue blazer. A blazer?!! I take it along.with my heavy book-load and leave miserably. Wearing white and checkers and speeding in a truck's tray seems mad enough. Now I've added a blazer to it.

As I head toward the Acad. block, things get a little bit worse.

The monstrous three-storey harboring about two-hundred classrooms is heralded by another concrete archway in front of which is a field. Here, I meet a gathering of no less than a thousand white-and-blue-checkers-wearers like me. They are arranged in ling and numerous rows, before another gathering; this one being of teachers. I have never come across such a massive gathering all in the name of a school and I momentarily freeze, not because I am aware of the singing of the national anthem, although I am thankful I stopped when I realize. The drums and singing stop and I jog toward the lines till a bald,.dark man stops me on he way. He has a stick in hand, which though smaller, looks.deadlier than Banny's and I stare at it rather than his face.

"You, come late why?"

I open my mouth as another man runs up behind us, a stick in his hand also. He is shorter amd notably uglier than.the first one. "New boy," he says.

They let me and resume my jog, staring at the many rows in confusion as I come toward them. Maybe anybody can be anywhere. Maybe I can be anywhere for today, till I learn the ropes of assembly line-up for next time. The row next to me is an easy refuge. I'm drawing uncomfortable.attention.

"Get-at here!"

A sharp slap meets my jaw from one of the boys in the line. "Fool!! Getat!"

I see that I am surrounded by others like him, with the same baleful old, scowling face. Oh shit, maybe this place is not for me.

"Come," somebody whispers as I sneak away. It is a boy, and at least this one looks a bit as green as I guess I do. "Okay." I creep into his own line with my head ad back bent.

"How come you were running into senior lines?"

"I didn't know," I say.

"Oh too bad. Those guys are bad guys there. They can kill you."

He smiles as.he says it and looks ahead again. I peek around me. The others too are about our age, and they all.seem a little bit too fanciful. Too many clean cuts and wrist watches. And there are girls n this school, too, although thankfully they keep to themselves in a different queue from ours. Under their breaths the boys whisper.in bass voices. Somebody pinches the back of my neck and at first I ignore. The second time I catch the hand before time, crushing the struggling fingers without either a word or a backward glance. That's it for you, bitch, I think.

"Beast is here," someone whispers mirthfully. "The man is a fokin clown."

The lines from which I was driven; the senior lines, erupt with short laughter at something he has said as I now see the man standing on the platform high over us.

"Shatap!!" he screams, his eyes dashing in their direction almost at once. "I am talking!! Disciplinarians, fish out those laughing baggars! Asuquo!!.fish them ouut!!"

He screams the "Ouut!!" like an exorcist casting out stubborn demons. The men who jad.stopped me now jog toward the senior lines and I sense movement there as boys slink from one line to the next,.shuffling positions. Whistles like birds' tweets mischievously emanate as the disciplinarians near them. Okay; I think. I am beginning to feel the familiarity of this after all. Demented people everywhere.

The baggar-fishing scuffle soon.comes to an end and we hear the man in front.of us- who I now guess must be the Principal -giving apologetic excuses for the shift in schedule; assembly ought to be Wednesdays and Fridays aline and this week we have to have one on Monday instead. The inter-school essay competition is soon to begin; our school.woukd be represented. Did he mention it earlier? Yes, more baggars would be caught. Bullying and extorting would be well punished. You could.get expelled or suspended if you misbehaved too much. Read your books. The termly assessment would soon begin. Nobody would be bribed to promote, if you insist on being a baggar, you baggar.

Then we were off. Marching away with the beating of drums.

"What arm are you?"

"F"

"Oh same as me. You should come this way."

"I have to check on something."

I leave him and walk back toward the park where Banny had parked. From a stone throw I observe that he has driven off.

I return to the Acad. block and sneak around, wary of the "bad guys" I had earlier encountered. The classrooms here read on the post of their doors:

S.S 1 A, S.S 1 B, S.S. 1C.....

I wander along till I'm.at the one which reads "F". There are about forty-nine people already inside; boys and girls who all look at me as I stop for a confused brief second there at the door with blazer on my shoulder and book-bag on my back and stare back at them. Then it follows. The congregation bursts into laughter and I become momentarily even more rigid, thinking furiously to myself; "What the fok could be the problem?"

In the back a dark hand raises and waves and I breath deeply, looking down as I go through the doorway into the room. There are broken fluorescents overhead, only a few of which reflect white light upon the over-trampled marble floor. Somebody restrain me. I'm about to kill somebody. The face beneath the hand can soon be seen. The boy who showed me the correct line to be in half an hour earlier. I grip the hand of the bag harder and grit my teeth, nearing the seat he seemed to have reserved. Or perhaps which nobody else would like to seat.

"You've checked the something out?" he asks

"Yes," I say glumly. My eyes are.on the desk's polished surface and I think of other things.

"You must relax. It's like this over here all the time," he says.

"Like how?"

"Like people being proud and fake and all of that. A newbee comes and they want to know if he has swag. If he doesn't, sorry. He's the shit for that school year."

-"Which implies I'm the shit for this year"- I hedge. I just want to be prepared afore.

"Not necessarily for that long," he replies with a grin. "Pray to be bailed by another shit who shows up within the term."

"Okay," I nearly smile too now, but that is currently impossible. I feel that a million smirking eyes are glaring at us now, and want to poke my fingers in all of them. A brilliant spark of an idea (if you catch the point).springs up im my mind and I look up.

"How does one get swag?" I ask. "You say they laughed because I don't have it."

He turns and stares at me mutely when he hears it, at first amusement then astonishment widening his eyes and whitening his face.. "Are you serious?" he demands with genuine surprise. "Guy, what quadrant of Genesis have you come from?" his astonishment transforms to a sudden frown- "You are not trying to amaze me are you?"

"I'm serious," I say. "Tell me.."

"Akataka" (an onomatopoeic mutter of bafflement) he mumbles to himself and blinks his eyes, obviously wondering how to introduce the concept of swag to a human being in.the twenty-first century. He looks around us inventively, then nods at a clincher.

"That," he points. "Swag."

"What?" I ask. I am becoming a bit more confused. In the direction of his finger is another boy about our age. He is leaning back in his seat with a head set curled around his neck, looking into the screen of a huge phone hidden under the desk before him. I whirl from the confusing directive as he points in another direction. "See shoes?" he asks. "Swag."

I suddenly realize that the shoes to which he points are notably different from mine. Wow; I wouldn't ever have noticed. They are symmetrical and thick-heeled and shiny and mine are hand-me downs from my man Banny- I know you require no further description than that. I am still looking down as he points somewhere else again and I look up.

"Pencil trousers? Swag," he says. The checkers trousers at which he points are tapered almost picturesquely to the wearer's legs, the fold lines ironed to crispness. Mine can be divided into five parts all larger than.that one, and I guess even Banny's head would fit comfortable into the hem of it. Oh; I think to myself now. It is bizarre, yet becoming a bit clearer.

"This," he says, pointing at his silver watch. "Swag." Likewise he points at his low punk haircut. "Swag," he says again. "You get it now?"

"Yeah, I get," I reply, although I wish I rather don't.

"But it doesn't all that matter," he says with his lips turned down. "It isn't a crime if you don't want swag, or have it."

"I nod and blink my eyes calmly. Hell, things are getting shitted up. I couldn't have suspected I would be ending uo.in a place where I'd be judged for what I cannot change. Even Banny didn't wear such watches, so who was I?

"I am Henry," the.boy beside me says now, extending his hand for a shake. I take it and it feels cold. "I am Lenelu," I say.

"Oh Christ,"

"What is the problem?"

"It's kind of a funny name," he says. "Another reason to keep.people laughing for many years."

Okay, so I must make an estimate of my tenor as a laughing stock. Minimum two and a half years.

"I haven't told about my man Kaseem. He sits here too."

I look up now to see a lean boy walking toward us. He has the light-skinned, small-foreheaded appearance which gives him away as a Fulani. Kaseem pauses a few feet away from the desk and stares quietly at me, amd I notice a drastic death of the voices all around me at the appearance of him. I think I have a small idea of the cause of the deserted-ness of the back desk now. Kaseem.

"He keeps to himself," Henry says now. "But cool guy." Even he lowers his voice as he speaks in the presence of Kaseem. I shift a few centimeters as Kaseem comes to the desk.

"Get up," he says. I gape at him confused-ly, horror growing slowly in my heart.

"New guy, Kaseem," Henry says.

"Yes. Get up."

"... Get up, Lenelu," Henry says conceding-ly, in the tone of an advice. I rise up and step out of the way, his pointy nose close to my head as I get past. I am not nearly short at all for a fourteen-year-old, yet this guy's chin is above my head. I night have to find another seat, which in this place for now isn't likely to be too easy. Things are all going crazy today.

Kaseem goes to the end of the seat, close to the window and even Henry moves aside to let him get past. He seats and stares broodingly into space. I am unaware that I still stand close to the desk, looking at this feared-man. A minute passes before he turns to look at me again.

"Sit down," he says dully.

I sit and set my bag down beside the desk. Henry is talking again, telling me about the bad guys I saw earlier, the teachers who were the meanest, the girls. Yeah, I think he kind of centers on this one a little longer than the others. Talk of the tendencies of a future womanizer, I feel almost sorry for him. The bad guys are the S.S.3 students. They use cellphones in school and wear mohawk haircuts and earrings and peddle contraband materials, and they extort and beat you if you ever come across them on an unlucky day in a secluded place. The hostels go burnt down in fire started by one of these bad guys. That was about a tear ago. It appears the guy was using a ring boiler or smoking a cigarette or something. In any case,.although thankfully no life was lost in the blaze, he disappeared thereafter and was expelled, and since then there hasn't been any boarding for the boys anymore, only for the girls.

I think this might have been the catch for Banny. No boarding. I would still be able to assist in the workshop in my spare time and he'd still be able to chase me around with his big stick every morning. Oh perfect.

The bad guys did not touch Kaseem, or even talk to him. He did not hide or flee when he saw them, as all other boys did. They were afraid of him. Everybody was. It was surprising; Kaseem wasn't a very imposing or outspoken character. Bu it was true.

"Kaseem fears nobody," Henry says, in a pitch of voice which only I would be able to hear. "I wish it were possible for me. The only time I tried it with the bad guys, I got a black eye and a.puffy cheek for the weekend."

Even now Kaseem stares blankly ahead of him, appearing to meditate upon some deep abstract thought. The room.grows a bit lively again, the voices recovering from their Kaseem-froght interruption. Then in a few minutes a teacher appears. His bloodshot eyes look around circumspectly as we all settle down. I momentarily think they'd settle on us three at the back seat, but they only hover over Kaseem for a moment, then dart off, clouded with what resembles both astonishment and terror. The air is soon riddled with flapping sounds of papers.

"Good Morning students. Get your Chemistry notes out."

I presume the entire shit about me in this institution actually begins right from this point.

...After what seems like twenty whole years, it is finally over- at least for one day. I am headed for the gates with Henry walking on the right side and Kaseem on the left side of me. Henry talks even at this time, which is a good thing, considering the state of my mood now and the fact that Kaseem would never have spoken under any circumstance. One person to liven up the dullness isn't so bad. As we go on we come across many people and Henry seems to have something bewildering to say about most of them. "This guy you see?" he would ask. "I know this guy. He is this and that and did this and that." He enrolled in the midstream, barely two weeks now. I wonder how he could.know so much in so short a period of time. Maybe he knew so much before even enrolling. Maybe he knows so much because he has swag- which could as well be perfectly inverted to say that I; Lenelu, don't know much about anybody because I don't have swag. Well let me digress from it. I don't want to go toward that one.

We see sme of the bad guys now. They litter the stairways upstairs and the corridors- including ours -in black blazers(while the correct colour should.be blue checkers) and huge mohawks and earrings, leaning against the pavement in the company of some girls who look as fierce as they do. They scowl at Henry and I, but they don't call us or extort us as he has said they could. We soon take the right turn which should lead us into the concrete walkway, if I very well remember. Here the number of co-trekkers increases, and I am thinking worriedly about all that crowd when someone appears out of it suddenly, headed toward me. Henry is still talking and Kaseem yet hasn't spoken a word and as our baffled gazes meet she lets her bag (it is clutched in both her arms, close to her body) fall to the concrete, all it's contents scattering far across with a sudden clatter that makes my shoulders jerk. Oh Goddamn; I think fast as I make to stoop toward the fallen items in common courtesy. In the same instant a hand grabs my left shoulder and pulls me up violently. I turn to see Henry looking frightfully at me. His lips move soundlessly as I frown in bewilderment; "Stop."

I turn back to the girl who is bent intently over the scattered papers and pens now, keeping her face lowered without seeing me. I am beginning almost to feel miserably apologetic. Then I sense a stifling of the very air around us as I look up to see somebody emerge out of the moving crowd toward me again. Henry grabs my hand.and I stiffen.

"Guy, let us go," he says.

Well, what is this really for or about? As we get going in our way I watch the boy who has emerged behind the girl with the fallen items, telling myself I couldn't be that much to blame however (don't you think?). I didn't badge into the girl. I may have stunned her, but I did not physically hit her bag out of her hands. Who knows; she might only have been astonished at how terribly I lacked swag. So I'm not all that guilty... Oh crap, that's my guilty conscience speaking there. The boy's eyes neither at once see me. They are pale in a ghostly, dull way and they center circumspectly upon the girl and the fallen items which she picks up. Like Kaseem, he is much above my own height; perhaps 6'3" from my smoke assessment- I am 6'1" -and he wears a huge black sweater and a leather bag across his back. I think I can see the girl's hands get shaky as he nears her. and noticeably the moving crowd spreads in a much wider circle than before, around her the closer he gets. What the? Can anybody tell me what the - is happening in this institution? I think to myself just as Henry lightly chuckles. Now I feel actually miserable.

"What happened back there?"

"Nothing," he says.

"How do you mean?"

"That lady is the last person you want to be spotted even a hundred meters close to," he replies now. "Her boyfriend is Dracula. You don't want to have his teeth around your neck."

I look back now at the both of them. The boy is standing over her, not seeming too willing to help with the fallen items. So why does he show up in the first place? As my gaze settles momentarily upon him he stiffens for a moment, then rolls his eyes sideways to see me. I grit my teeth. Hell, something is wrong with those eyes. Something is very entirely wrong with this guy. I draw a deep, trembling breath as I face the walkway again.

"What do you think?"

"Queer nigga," I say.

"Exactly."

..."You called him Dracula... Did his father really name him that?"

"-God no, haha, don't be so crazy, guy. That's just my private name for him. I think he acts like a snake."

I listen, but I don't smile or laugh.

"-His name is really Baliali."

"...Baliali... What kind of name is that?"

"You ask him, not me. The chick? Hers is Blantha. So please see which is more absurd between the both. It might be a birds-of-the-same-feather thing. Every nigga thinks Blantha is a pretty girl, but you can't attempt to get past Baliali. We doubt he really cares about her. but he's always there somehow, and we don't know the fok why."

He shrugs with a raise of both hands now that he says "we don't know."

"Just get anywhere near and he appears. So we all leave them to themselves. Nobody wants to die so early my man."

I want to glance behind us again, but I don't. I rather look to my right with puzzled-ness.

"Kaseem doesn't tell you when he leaves," says Henry. His face is bowed over the ground with (perhaps) awe as he mumbles it. "That one is really another queer guy, even though not as harmful." He looks up now that we are only yards away from the gates, an idea lighting up his face. "Bayern is playing tonight. Let's bet on them."

"I don't bet football," I say quietly. I am still thinking of other things. Of course I woukdn't tell hom that I hardly even watch; that the last time I watched the damn sport itself was the 2010 world cup,.when I was six years old. Yakubu's miss in the last game was enough to make me quit, even if I hadn't.wanted to. To say you don't watch football at fourteen might be a huge dent to your chances of having any swag by any chance at all.

"Okay," he replies easily. "I'm proud to sat I bet. Even though I've lost over twenty times more than I've won."

Thirteen tines? Now I laugh. We cross the gates into the street and he turns the left corner, walking on the side pavement. That; unfortunately, is my direction too. So I predict the question which comes next.

"Where d'you live?"

I jerk taut. No amount of preparation could brace me up for that one. "Me?"

"Yes, you."

"I- would tell you."

He shakes his head. "Funny you," he says. "I live at the fifth mile."

And thank God he lets it rest. I can't imagine letting anybody know about our ramshackle home now. They'd laugh me back into my mother's womb.

We get to a huge building painted blue, with a huge football logo in front of it; along side a broad tick sign and a stack of coins. the gamble house, alright.

"You're sure you don't.want to play?" Henry glances sideways at me as he diverts toward the building and I keep going.

"I cross my heart with Jesus' blood," I reply with a sorry smile. He grins back; mad guy, he catches the joke. I take the remaining walk all.the way to the pedestrian bridge, then I board a motorcycle. Twenty minutes later I'm off the motorcycle with teary, dust-blown eyes and walking again. Haha, if I were an Arab maybe I would have trekked the whole earth over on my feet, it appears I have a gift for that kind of.thing. Or I am strengthened by the lack of a choice because "you have to save money, fool!!," in Banny's voice. Unfortunately I am about to.see that guy again not long from now. Banny's a good guy, but I can't be pretentious enough to lie that I missed his presence so sorely for these few hours. It's all inevitable to see im im the end however, and thankfully I beat his five-thirty ultimatum and saved my backside for today. Hopefully I won't be seeing the big tick till tomorrow morning.

I soon come to the huge, many-floored complex, the ground floor in which is Banny's workshop. I walk into the dark space- dark despite the struggles of a small golden bulb which dangles from wire overhead - and I see him seated in a corner, hunched over a workbench which a drill buzzing in hand.

"Hello Sir," I mumble. Right now the mirth and enthusiasm aren't all too abundant inside of me. He looks up as the little light in the doorway is barred momentarily, a serious frown on his face, and grunts. He looks at the watch on his big, hairy wrist... Lucky me; I think glumly to myself as I get further in.

"How was the day?" he asks me wth a worriedly-creased face.

"Fine-fine," I reply quietly. I know it is an unsatisfactory reply, but perhaps I am too drained by the day itself. Come to think of all of it; the morning rush and the hard ride and the long trek and the- I know I ought never to mention that one, but Oh my Gad -hunger which lingered and hovered over everything, mingled with the sudden consciousness that I was a living creature who no swag. Even one half of all that was enough to cripple John Cena in his best form, minutes before the Royal Rumble event.

"Very good then," he mumbles, apparently distabilized.by the dullness of my tone. "Get to work at once."

In that very instant I want to fly into the air and come down with my fist upon his skull- but sadly, of course that won't be possibke.My eyes feel like.stones as they pop forward in bafflement, threatening to fall out of my face. To work at once!!! What is wrong with Banny, anyway. Don't people drink water or sit down or stretch out their legs and just, chill, in his village? Did his father never take any break from knocking and nailing caskets for dead people before he too was dead?

This guy... I think to myself as I look snidely at hm.still bent busily over his work. Somebody has to tie this guy with horse rope in a dark room and flog him with a guava branch. He is presently in dire need of such correctional punishment... You'd get your share one day soon.

I go over to the heap of wooden boards and rods which have been marked with chalk by Banny at the points were they must be cut, am as I gather a number of them heavily in my scrawny arms an idea suddenly occurs to me. How about I asked Banny for a little, yo know; Freedom? He could let me narrow my blazers and trousers till they were a nit more fitting? like the ones Henry had pointed at, couldn't he? If nothing else, that would make me a little more comfortable.

"Sir-";I begin in a spurt, hovering, hedging. His face creases as before and he looks up from.his business at me. "Heh??"

"...Ehmm... Never mind," I suddenly say. I have thought better of it already. That would be nearly as risky as what a suicide bomber does as occupation. He looks at me, then nods, muttering grimly;

"Very good. Better not to say what would make me rake your skull. Now get to it."

I carry a two bundles of the wood under my both arms and pass him entering into the adjoining room. Eihhh!! The place is like a damn rat trap, tiny and cramped and stuffy. There is only one window, and it is so narrow and so high up on the leftward wall that I could easily seal the thing with a bindle of rags and not tell the difference. There is a sachet of water on the little stool in here and I sigh. Perhaps Banny has some sense after all- just a little all the same, though.I put aside my heavy bag and blazer and hastily undress. It is that time of the day when the sky looks dreamy before sunset. I need speed. Okay, here goes.. I slip the workshirt- a tattered grey matter which looks like what Mussolini (did I spell that correctly?) must have worn in his most deadly shoot out of the second world war - and my battered jeans knicker and get the saw. In the twinkle of an eye there are ten of the hard boards taken out of the pile and done with. Hell yeah, I'm so gifted don't you think? That one would have been a compliment if it wasn't carpentry we were talking about here. It appears nobody really likes carpentry, which, well, is not too surprising since people like swag. You can't do carpentry and have swag. No. Carpentry would mess you up and you'd end up in tattered shirt and knicker like me now, haha... I wouldn't like to be called "talented" in carpentry work. and perhaps Banny knows. The eleventh board is done with and I put it aside, the room becoming momentarily quiet as I catch a few quick puffs of my breath. A the same time Banny calls from.the front room.

"Leeenu!"

"Yessir!"

"How many done gone now?"

"Ehmmm, twelve sir?"

The air- if I can boast of any air in here-goes silently heavy for a second.

"Okay. Very fine. Shut up and bring them along because we're gone right now."

Shut-up here means Shut the shop up. I think it's enough hardwork ensuring to escape all of Banny's outbursts with your head on your scrawny neck to bother discerning when an outburst is about to come or not. An outburst always appears to be in th pipeline,.waiting to explode. At the same time I hear the grating of the heavy workbench as he pushes it some inches away from him across the floor and heads out toward the truck. My head and arms and saw-dusty and sweaty, but phew, enough for one day at least. I scramble for the sawed boards hastily, glancing once at the tiny window with an uncomprehendable, fleeting spasm of worry. He is trudging on his way as I get out into the open, headed for the truck with tools and wood on his shoulder. I am yet to hear him but I know what he is humming now; one of those back-of-beyond songs. Hyuck! l want to rake his skull for it. The luggage in his hands falls into the tray with a metallic thud and I drop my own burden- the bundle of sawed boards -into the tray after him. I turn again, dashing for my bag of books which is still in the inner room.

"You waste my time again?!!"

"No Sir! Just one second!!" I yell, running with all my might. I could as well outrun the explosion.of the twin.towers in some hollywood adaptation with this speed. I dive into the shop and snatch my bag, not knowing or finding out if it's contents are all in and I race out. The shop itself is dark now; even.the bulb does little to change the gloominess of this enclave at night. The keys jingle in my hand as I dash out again to the furious sound of Banny's horning truck. I have to lock up the place. Oh shit!

Speed! Speed!!

The keys fall out of my trembling hands to the floor and I nearly shout in excited frustration. By now Banny's madness knows little.bounds

"Be fast!" He screams. "FAAASSST!"

If only.that guy coul be patient! I want to whirl and yell back at him, but, haha, you know what that would mean. We are about the only ones left in the entire building, as always. he other shops are mostly jewelry and electronics and accessory stores and close earlier.

"I'm done!!" I scream, jerking the key out of it's hole with an outburst of renewed energy and triumph.

"Come!! Hraaaahhh!!"

I wonder why Banny has to scream as the truck shoots off. Why? That jalopee's loud enough to portray any degree of rage or madness on it's own without him lending his voice. Well that shows it. See what exactly I have to deal with. A mad man. A freaking, back-of-beyond madman.

"Waiiit!! Aaaarghh!!"

I pursue after the truck till the back of my head's vibrating like a locally made bomb about to detonate, and I am yelling at the pitch of my voice. Perhaps I won't catch up. Then what? ...Well, then I'd have to trek the thousand-mile distance back to our house; with a white shirt, a tie, a flabby trouser and a bag full of school books, with henchmen waiting in street corners all along the way. No. Noooo!!!

My hand reaches out and catches the tray's bumper in the last second and I swing aborad. Haaaah, so much for getting driven home. I hear Banny's voice humming over the back-of-beyond-song that plays- can you believe that madman is still playing it?? -on the mp amd I grit my teeth and curl my fists for a moment. He never even noticed!! God! I'm going to kill that guy... one day. The street soon meets us,.and I know this because the reflection of the street lights casts itself upon me lying on my back in the unseen. rust and metal and wood covered tray and breathing in calmly so that my heart beat slowly returns to normal. Whooh, but for a few abrupt amd almost jarring jerks and bumps along the way, this is it. Nothing so far could be any better. I close my eyes- of course without sleeping -and think dreamily to myself; Can somebody there sing me a lullaby? Oh this is beautiful. Breeze finds a way to reach me where I lay, fanning my limbs and face with a quiet, tingling sensation as I sense myself slowly slowing down. I'm beginning to forget that I am a human being, on earth. I am beginning to feel like one who is halfway into heaven. Oh, what an experience. Oh, what a- What the!-

The tray opens with a sudden, heavy swing and thud of steel and before I open my eyes I already sense Banny's monstrous, livid shadow glaring down at me.

"Hraaaah! Come out!! Ouuut!!!"

I leap with a yelp, snatching my bag along with me as I fly out of the truck. "I'm out!!"

Mickey steps out of the dark house as we offload our absurd burden and head into our rickety home. As always she says nothing, standing there quietly on the front steps and shifting slightly aside as we pass her, watching us.

"How'you Mickey?" I mutter for the shear necessity of it as I we come abreast of each other on the way indoors. I doubt that she replies, if she does them I don't hear it al all. Man.. somebody's got to recommend therapy for that gal. She's beginning to get even creepier.

We get in and I amd Banny set down the wood and tools on his bedroom floor. I might more honestly choose to call the place a woodroom instead; it has no bed in it and crawl with termites and geckos and nails and tools and pieces of wood sufficient to make a bonfire for satan's soup in hell. You could guess now it's probably the reason he sleeps in odd places and at odd times. Banny prefers to ise the place to work, ,and work he does. You can't pass through a whole night without at least an hour's worth of nailing and sawing and chiselling sounds, so that I'm almost sure have had the full experience of living close to a battle front; shell shock can't harm me any further if war ever occurs. I'd be shooting and shouting in the midst of blasting canons without even noticing.

At last, once again I am alone. Enough trouble for a single day. I exhale quietly as the candle smolders to full life, cackling and.cracking mildly as the wick gets consumed and hardened. I open the pages of a book on the desk before me and stare at them mutely, blinking my eyes, trying to get my mind into the right frame to proceed. My eyes drift from.the paper to the wall slowly without my notice as I envision an ethereal shadow growing somewhere close to me.

"What is this?"

I nearly jump at the sharp whisper. Banny is standing over me, peering down at the page with curiosity creasing his face. It is a copy of Senior Secondary Chemistry by Ababio and I look up from the page at him.

"Salt," I say, equally sounding baffled. "It is salt Sir."

On the page is an illustration of chemical bonding between the atoms Sodium and Chlorine to form Sodium Chloride, and I am completely short of any other idea of.an explanation for it under the present circumstances but to say 'Salt'. I know it would only sound ridiculous to call what is in the paper salt, but I have no other idea. Sorry man.

"Salt?" he echoes. "Salt isn't that large."

"-Ehhh... it.. is," I hedge. "When you eh.. look eh..."

"Microscope?" he says, his face lit with sudden fascination at his own recollection as he gesticulates.

"Yes! Microscope!!" I concur, grinning and nodding vigorously like an idiot. He grins too, louding the word and we both nearly yell. "Microscope!!"

...Jesus. Never tell anybody, anybody, that that one ever happened.

His smile fades as it all quietens and Banny blinks his eyes peacefully, so peacefully that I could almost have as well mistaken him for a normal human being at that moment. He purses his lips in a way that creases his chin, nodding.

"Read book," he says. "Book is good. So you don't hit and hammer wood like me."

For some reason I wat to burst out laughing when he says "hit and hammer wood" but I don't. I rather see myself nod mechanically.

"Thank you Sir," I say now.

His brows narrow in a quick frown again. "-For what?"

"For sending me to school," I reply.

He blinks again and looks at me with a kind of faded-serious-smile on his face which I know I would remember later, when he's acting his usual self; mad, again. Or at some other time which I cannot foretell. His big hand slaps my back a bit too hard and I sigh before the candle as he departs. Jonsing guy, he thinks I was so serious about all that. I can never be serious. That's one undeniable problem with me. You can never find, or make me serious. You'd lose your own seriousness in the attempt- But wait, how did he get in so quietly that I did not notice? Man, one ought to get more cautious these days. This is a no Old man-zone. A crash at the far end of the house startles me.

"Hraah! Lenelu! What have you done to my wood!!!"

"Hyuh!" I rush to the door and bang it shut just in time, pushing and piling my.bed and books and clothes and hangers and the chair and table against it from.the inside.

"You would come out tomorrow! I would whip you!!"

I heave a prolonged sigh of relief. That was a close one. I noticed early that I had cut the boards into mismatching lengths and edges while preoccupied mentally with other things. i had known he would notice sooner or later. Tomorrow, I'd better be gone before he remembers!

Well,.for now I am safe. Safe and tired, although all the same requite no sleep to be healthy or alive. For what seems like hundred centuries I have not had any. I have been afraid to close my eyes for where it would lead me. The candle light has been put out in the scramble to seal the door and I lay in the rubble of bed-frame and mattress and clothe and shoes and books amd I let my eyelids come close to.eac other for the first time in a.long, long time. I know I shouldn't do it. I never ends too well when I do. But it is almost too late already. I am almost completely gone, to the other world.

...Safe.

My eyes open again.to behold a green-gold sunlight far above me which streams down warmly through the broad leaves of.majesrically giant trees in.wha resembles and vast, supernatural forest. I feel the lush moss underneath my body and the dew falling off the leaves' tips, and one hand raises to feel my forehead; to be sure that this is me; that this is where I am.

..Oh, boy; I think dismally to myself. I'm back.

The voice encircles me as I rise to my elbows from the ground. It whistles, whizzes, brushes through the invisible wind and leaves in a quiet hum and a whisper.

You are safe here... You would go no further from here.. You are safe here.

You are safe. You are safe.

I sit up fully now, watching the creature fly and hover around me in the air, moving from tree to tree, whispering, muttering. I may be yet to tell you about this place. But it is not quite my fault, for, until I am in the other world in which, mysteriously, I too often find myself, I fail to believe fully that it could be real, just as it is now. I look up, peering carefully as I try to make out the diaphanous form of the spirit being that warns me this time. as always. What ever it is it os female; I know. And it seems to know me, and to always await my appearance. I must never exceed the point at which I find myself; it warns. I must remain here. Here is safe. I lean further forward and it warns again, encircling a bit closer now.

You are safe here... You would go no further from here.

Every other time I appear here, I do not go any further. I remain where I am safe.

This time I would do something different.

I rise up and marvel that my feet bear me up even as they stagger and tremble momentarily. Ut is the first time I am ever getting on my feet in Dreamland- that is my name for it -and for a brief instant I imagine that my feet here might be different from my feet in life; in the other world. Weaker than my feet in the other world. In this world I am like a feather in the midst of a strong wind, wilt-able and bend-able and carry-able. But somehow I sense that I can not be destroyed. I am more powerful than what I am in the other world; powerful and yet I don't know what I am. A kind of mythical, malevolent creature? I look down at my arms, twirl my hands around my wrists. They atr the same,.even though I can barely see them, for nothing is distinct or distinctly visible here. All is a haze. In any case I am sure that I must look very closely as I do look in the real world; a dark-skinned, skinny boy with short curly hair and a narrow face even though I do not quite seem to wear the same kind of clothes, or any clothes at all. The voice grows apparently more tense as I move one foot tremulously forward in a step- the first step.ever which I have taken here. The air is like an unseen pillow, very faintly weighty against my moving foot.

You would go not further... no further. No. Further.

I lift up the second foot and it sways in mid air momentarily, momentarily as I appraise circumspectly the mythical realm surrounding me. The flying fairy- I guess that tern could serve till we find out what it really is -is still hovering on high, breezing and vanishing from tree to tree, humming and whispering. The point from which I arose is less vegetated than the rest of my surrounding; a coarse carpet of rock that swells a bit at it's center lays the ground there, an invisible sun casting pleasantly glittering rays through the sparsened canopy directly overhead, splitting the misty air into many tiny rainbows. I stiffen as the flying fairy breezes past me now, rather very close. Oh, hell.

...You are safe here... No... further from here.

Sorry fairy lady; I think grimly to myself. Your lullaby is just about to lose it's relevance today.

And I use the word 'lady' because of the voice. It is nearly as vague and indistinct as the creature itself, yet I can identify that it is typically similar to the voice of a female in the other world; the human world. And although I can't say exactly why, that is a little surprising, since I am no longer in the human world. I am in a world that for now has no name. And which I know rather little or nothing about.

I'm.about to learn. To find out.

Asides the sunligjt-illuminated centre at which I found myself, the trees densely surround my view in a vast curtain of gigantic trunks and branches and leaves, and the ground feels soft underneath my foot. So this is some kind of forest, eh? I see that, far beyond, the trees part into (presumably) vast hinterland; for from that point there is a thin crack of light which is soon obscured as it approaches the center of the forest. There must be a way out through it, to somewhere else. I guess that should be where I'm headed.

...Well, here goes.

What sounds like a sharp cry of despair echoes in my ears as I dash off unpredictably. The soft soil sprays behind me and soon I step upon the leaf cover.

My God! My God!!

I barely see the white and green and brown surrounding which dashes past my face on both sides now that I run. I am moving nearly at the speed of a rocket headed for Saturn. I do not see the trees now and neither stop to see them. Rather they dash past me in growling puffs of air like the coaches of some train on the way to purgatory. It seems almost as though they bend out of the way on their own accord, or is my instinct to elude them a different entity from my thoughts? And at the same tine I sense with horror my apparent inability to stop myself even if I desire to. Shet mehn!! The flying fairy must have been right in the end. I'm messed up... What name do people call when they are in trouble. Jesus! Jesus!!! Heeeeellp!!

I know this should be expected to be fun for me, but no, it isn't. You could be having fun if you're speeding in a cute and clean ferrari on a clean street in Lekki (does Lekki have a clean street, pardon??) on a clean morning with Two face baba singing on.the stereo in a clean voice. Yes, I already envision how much fun that would be. In the real world! You can't imagine it would be the same if you're speeding on your own dirty feet through a hazy forest with a flying fairy who wants you to be sitting on a hard rock your entire lifetime coming after you.

"Whoooaaa!!"

I sense the flying fairy whoosh up close behind to catch me and my pace subconsciously quickens so that I soon feel that I am no longer n the ground. Thd trees themselves soon vanish and I launch into blue-green and white atmosphere, moving still at great speed. I feel that wings have materialized on each side of me. I'm flying now. Perhaps I've turned into some hawk or vulture. First I was a bare footed rat. What woldn't I become?

I slow now, realizing that the forest is gone and the flying fairy with it. I am beyond the place of safety now. I think of the voice and want to laugh. Ha! Safe place indeed. But here it is apparently impossible t laugh. I am a grim guy in this place, almost as grim as Banny (if it wasn't that nobody else could easily be that grim). My dreamy wings still wave heavily, suspending me in the air as I pause momentarily... when a second ago I feared that I would be unable to stop myself.

Where is this place?

My surrounding now is something similar to.what you would find in a half-yorn page of an old textbook on History and Anthropological Studies of Obscure Ancient Kingdoms; if there could really be any textbook with a name like that. And I had considered Banny to be back-of-beyond!

Well, welcome to where beyond turned it's back on the present, little clown.

I mutter words; words whose sound and language are unintelligible to me. And have I told you that the flying fairy thing speaks a similar, unintelligible language? Okay, I hadn't. Now I have. I hear the words and know that they are not English, yet at the same time I hear their meaning in my mind- in the language which I understand- English. So we might take it this way; The me in the human world kind of collaborates with the guy I am now. I mean, we- that is; me and me -seem to get along fine in passing our natures an thoughts and knowledge to each other while retaining the most intimate fragments, which is a little astonishing because the me in the real world doesn't know this guy and doesn't quite give a Christian damn about him. But I guess that me could like this me if the two ever by chance met. They could be friends, who knows?

I dash forward again after the brief hesitation. I seem to know this place. Yet I don't know it. The clouds are mottled with hovering gigantic blocks of stone; pillars and walls and the limbs of great statues hanging in mid air like jagged replicas of planetsimals. I hover again before one, stretching my hands to touch the cold.moist stone. Only now do I see my hands. They are very much like my hands in the human world; lean and dark and veined. But as I touch the moss-covered stone an ache surges into the palm of my right hand and I withdraw it sharply to look at it. In it's center a line glows, welt-like and thick; similar to the scar of a deep blade cut across the palm from the left edge to the area between thumb and finger. And I also notice that here, too, a finger is missing. The same finger which is missing on my human right hand. Bit of a discovery, eh?

"Kurehieni tre'utu," I hear myself mutter as I look at the palm. What the - did that one mean?

A howl floats with wind through the air, whistling as it splits against the hanging rocks and comes toward me. Maybe I should take my bearings from now and here. Okay, alright; this is the city, and that was the forest, and beyond it might be-

Oh no, I'm- he's about dashing off again!

The sky is a blur now and I am covering as much distance in as little time as Superman did in his doomsday episode (which itself was a scam for little children). Feel me?... If only it were a little slower.

"Rraaaaah!!"

I soon come across the first other creatures which I am ever to come across in this realm- of course asides flying fairy pretty girl. I can barely make them out for the speed with which they dash past me. However they are all humanoid, an apparently flying just as I am... Hmm. A little cool. Just flying around without giving a shit about anybody. A few of them get a bit closer than the others and I try to catch a little more distinct glimpses of them. Humanoid. Yes. All humanoid. And perhaps all dark-skinned, too. And covered skimpily in some very light fabric that flows easily behind them- linen or silk, perhaps. And I guess some are male and others are female, if there could be any such thing here. As I travel further and pass several more of them I also hear voices dashing past with them, and I catch a jumbling spur of words by the tail as they brush past me. Again th words are unintelligible; in a non-english language that I decode in my usual crazy manner into intelligible pieces of words.

Fire... Living... Come... Pass... Kahani.

My ears prickle at the sound of the name. Kahani. Who the heck is that, anyway? I dn't stop till the sky is as crowded as the vicinity of a honeycomb in fertile season. More humanoid forms dash this way and that, sme coming very close, almost tangible brushing against me. My mind- the mind of the non-human me -ruminates the words which I caught.

Fire... Living... Come... Sacrifice... Kahani.

Fire. Sacrifice.

Fire Sacrifice.

I feel as though my speed increases even further the very second I mentally piece those two words together. Fire Sacrifice. A small growl escapes my throat as I surge forward, still plunging down toward a bottom that is out of sight. The fluffy clouds soon.lessenthe opacity of their veil over my vision and the image of the city again comes to view. It is less sparse here, bubbling and rowdy with life from a distance. I see streams and rivers of water glowing like thin, threaded arms of light that streak and mingle into a single, larger whole. And then comes the ground itself into view. The ground. I can make out polygonal shapes arranged in symmetry which grow larger the lower I fall. It resembles a kind of maze; what the polygons form; like the kind of maze you expect to find behind the pack of some children's cereal; simplistic and yet complicated enough to demand a serious, squinting glance. And whatever the polygons from, it is circular in outline, traveling from thence in lines and crisscrosses toward a rectangular center. My sight settles upon this center toward which I descend like a dart out of heaven, and I see it roar to life suddenly, wild red fire flooding out of it and burning ferociously. The heat of the fire seems to climb the many meters into the air till it meets me and I feel it's harsh warmth on my face. This is like a miniature replica of hell. All the same I keep falling, descending purposefully toward the fire; inti the fire, as though I do not see it. Wind now sweeps violently into my eyes and ears and I let out a small, strained cry. Rraaaagh. This guy is acting like Rambo on the way to become barbeque. "Rrraaaaagh!!"

I have come only a second away from descending into the burning, dark rectangle when.a humanoid form dashes out of nowhere into me from the right, startling me like a kindergarten kid getting stunned by a motorcycle when he is halfway across the street lane.

"Lenu!"

I barely have enough time to see that something's running into me before we collide and I am knocked violently out of my path, tumbling rapidly leftward as the fire itself reaches upward with a desperate roar to consume me.

"Whoaa!!"