Chapter three: September 27, 2019

---September 27, 2019---

This is a new day. Especially because a lot of things have changed.

Yes. A lot has changed.

Hey, I'm sorry I have let it get this long before speaking to you again. But rest assured in any case that it has lost you nothing, because since then nothing really much has happened, so we can catch up with ease... Summarily it all can be put this way;

I got back from.the white bed, fancy imprisonment at the hospital.only a day ago-which was Friday, and that was at night. Banny doesn't like to make anything appear ceremonial, and taking your accident-victim-crazy son home in a bed of blankets in the shuddering, spluttering tray of your tired truck in the middle of a Friday Morning or Afternoon seems very much to suggest the like, what do you think? So, that all done and dusted I am better now,.even though it cost us a regretable sum and disrupted a lot with Banny's work- considering that I do help him. And I am in a fairly pretty mood too, back to mu happy, stupid, lazy self, if you do me the pleasure of seeing me that way. This Saturday, I have a few resolutions which are however not new at all. At the moment, I am squinting to ensure that the mark is maintained while cutting up a heavy seven-by-seven" with a saw on a makeshift workbench. I lost my glasses in the scuffle at the Trade Center and have not mentioned it or tried to understand what happened since. Everyday has to be a new life for a wise man. Feel me? I'm gradually growing wise. You vould.benefut so much from.my advice.

It might have occurred to you that, given today is Saturday, I shouldn't be at home, being a Witness. Well, that is one ot the most fortunate things about Banny. We dpn't do that shit because Banny does not. We could be witnesses without having to walk from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and tackle home dogs and crazy people in the hot sun every weekend. We used to, once, and still do sparingly, but on the overall we consider it a scam, thank you very much. Giving out papers and pamphlets hasn't really helped anybody that we know.and most likely wouldn't in a long time, so why take the chance?

A head inches into the room which I notice without turning. Mickey. The sun is streaming golden-ly through the torn-curtain-shedded window and grazing my chin and clavicle with pleasant warmth that makes sweat trickle down my neck. They've begin to do this often and although it is annoying enough I pretend never to.notice. I don't think it is any conscious attempt to be irritating, any way, but somehow they just appear to expect that in the next second I'd be rolling and coughing and crying in a pool of blood on the floor, with my face and all my bones broken again... Oh shet. For Godsake. That shit won't happen.

But if it could before, and there is no explanation possible for it. how can I blame them?

A hanger falls down from a hook om.the door beside which Mickey stands, exposing her, and I make my face look as innocent as possible when I turn to look at her. Oh hello, Mary Magdalene...

"... Mickey," I mumble, barely looking squarely ar her face. She says nothing, only nods with darting eyes that move away from me, toward and down the dim passage... Goddamn. D'you also have to be dumb?

I want to ask what it is. but I choose rather to guess. Okay. Mary Maggie looking down the passage most likely has to mean there's something siting or happening down that passage; of course according to the musings of the world of the dumb and the disastrous and the insane. I nod in reply, sighing and thinking hazily to myself as I rise from the make-shift chair; Keep up the dumbness, you Pigeon si-si. She steps quietly aside to let me pass, and, pulling at the hems of my oversized,.oversagged. workshirt, I take the saw with me under my arm without once considering to drop it... This couldn't be anything serious, surely..

I sense trouble first with my nose; the smell of strangers somewhere too close, and then with my eyes when I see who the heck they are. I pause right in the doorway that leads into our verandah, standing barefooted, stupidly. The two of them look as nearly astonished as I am, and perhaps I know why. You couldn't see our home with the brain and the yes of a millennial and not be astonished. Even the strongest humble faith could ot possibly protect you from the feeling which would come, one of, firstly- most likely -horror, then secondly- very likely too -surprise.

"... Hi, nigga," the talkative one breaks the aching ice at once, obviously aa uneasy as I am. I sigh yo myself again, more slowly, very much more slowly this time.

"... Hi," I say. "Hi, Henry."

Frankly, I might look ao harmless right now on the outside, yet in my heart I want to beat the shit out of him. Perhaps all that stops me from actually carrying that out is the fact that there wouldn't be any obvious point. I mean, why the heck did I do that? someone would ask afterward. I would have no answer to give (which is precisely why I do not) because I alone would possibly understand the answer. The shame that I feel tells me so. My heavy eyes drift to his companion, and the uneasiness in his stillness makes me pity him even in spite of myself. I want to make them feel better about it and that one makes me want to scream out loud and terrorize everybody. I reach out with a saw-dust-roughened hand to them, first Henry, them.the other.

"Hi, Kaseem."

He nods amd barely looks at my face, his eyes darting up in a glance for less than a second. "Hi," he says. We all shake hands and snap fingers. Then...

"Well, how has it been putting itself up?" says Henry, looking shadedly at me. I breath sharply, thinking how awkward it is for them to be standing out and me to be at my door like some distrustful guard dog. I look down at my feet wholesomely and shrug. "It's all obvious bro. Isn't it?"

They both stare at my left leg, which is bound up with bandage like the body of Lazarus. Henry makes a wincing-thinking face. one which is unusual with him, for as much as I know.

"The shit raked a lot of fracas back at school," he says now. "Beast said it at assembly the following week, that one of us was involved. We were all so worried..." his eyes then twinkle with faint mirth. "They rumored you were already dead. Fell down from the top og Trade Centre and broke every bone in your body."

I smile faintly at the idea, though considering the irony in the fact that I did fall from the top of the Trade Center, only not in the exact same way as they imagined. A part of my senses tells me that Mickey could.be peeking through the window warily at us now, and Banny would soon be awake from sleep. It feels very awkward, after all. Standing there and thinking like a thief only because two guys cared to find out how I am, if I'm still alive or dead.

"I'd get seats."

-"Don't bother," Kaseem says.

"We love to stand," adds Henry. He flashes a foolish smile. "Standing is a hobby to us."

We grin and the moment goes slowly by, all in grinning and akward.standng and crazy silence.

"But... man, how the hell did it happen?" Henry lands suddenly. It is like a shot to me, shocking the core of my mind's self-protectiveness. Amd that is because I very much want to say nothing about it. "You look like Jack-sparrow after a fight with King-kong."

I shake my head for the absence of anything at once to say. "I...eh... It, just happened." I frown quickly and thoughtfully, trying to see if there's anything I can remind myself of, and say without giving anything away.

"You were in that building at the time before it was destroyed?"

I meet Kaseem's serious stare and feel.a.bit uneasy, like I'm a suspect under court trial. "Y..Yes. Why?" I ask.

He nods, then shrugs, both slowly. There is a certain apprehension in Kaseem's disposiyion which is not in Henry; he seems to be a little more affected by the entire matter.

"Henry, show it to him," he says.

The apprehension now transfers itself into Henry's eyes and he grows suddenly sober,.nodding and reaching into his jeans pocket. And oh, I must not forget to include how this is the first time we see ourselves dressed in anything that isn't made of weak cotton and isn't blue checkers. I am dressed in my workclothes which are barely different from what Spartacus could have taken to his practice sessions those funky donkey years back, and they are dressed similarly; jersey shirt and jeans. Kaseem's jersey is for Juventus, and sleeveless, and it looks almost comical how thinly-muscular the boy's arms are, like the arms of Shaggy from Scooby-doo, pumped at the biceps, much tougher than even mine; a caroenter's. He has a symbol on.the.right arm that resembles a tiny, inclined feather angled rightward. Henry's jersey is brighter, and he seems to have a taste for big-shirt fashion because it covers down to the elbows, and the same colour as his shoes. He pulls out a mobile phone with the apple logo behind it and hands it to me.

...What is this about?

i take the phone from him with a little confusion. The screen is on, and the play sign covers a dim, paused, motion picture.

"Play it," Kaseem says when my eyes frown at them. "Look at it. Caught on surveillance camera outside the Trade Center at the same time that happened. It was everywhere on youtube the day after."

I grit my teeth. Hell, they do have more info. than it seems. isn't it?

I hit the play sign and the picture comes to life. The moment it does, I subconsciously tighten my frown. This couldn't possibly be good.

The video happens fast. The camera is high above the roof of the Trade center and the sky is twilit. Fir the first thirty seconds nothing moves, asides the headlamps of vehicles on the street far below. Then immediately there is a loud, grating sound, like that of concrete being broken, and human screams echo out of nowhere to the viewer's hearing. I jerk, nearly dropping the phone when a dark form appears, dashing across the screen like light. It obviously takes off from the roof of the Trade Center, and appears to crash into the nearby, high building with an outburst of fire and a violent tremor. In rapid succession another form like it shoots across, also in it's direction, from the Trade Center's roof into the neighbouring building, as the Trade Centre itself explodes inflames, crumbling from roof to bottom with a growl and clouds of smoke and dust. Sheht, I never even knew about that. I was outside the building when it happened.

"I don't know what to make out of this," I say to their waiting faces when the video ends.

"We don't expect yo to," says Henry.

"You were the only one who left that building when you did," says Kaseem. "People might expect you yo know something."

"Well unfortunately, I don't," I say, hedging. "..It only appears the building was attacked."

"Do you remember by what?"

"Why?... No. I guess that wouldn't make any difference now would it?"

Henry,.who now has his phone. taps the screen, playing and pausing the video footage. He then hands the phone back to me, having zoomed in on the paused screen.

"Look.at what everybody has been talking about, Lenu."

A cold shiver runs through me as I see the image. It is the dashing form which has been captured and enlarged. It's outline is unmistakably obvious now; a humanoid form with giant wings spread eagle-wide like a broad shadow across the screen.

"...What.. is this thing?"

"Elijah knows we have no fokin idea," replies Henry, shaking his head and turning down the corners of his lips. "Nobody can guess in the least, and they're saying all sorts of things. Pastors have been having a filled day with the rapture none-sense."

"You saw nothing like it?" Kaseem asks. "You remember?"

His.side of our conversation is beginning to get me on guard. I don't know why anybody would press such matters.

"No," I say, trying to look as thoughtful as possible. "Nothing at all."

That has been my trick ever since. To act like I don't remember a single thing. Unfortunately, it seems I've come to the first person it isn't likely to work upon. Kaseem looks at me then nods his head, blinking. "Take it away, Henry," he says.

"Well... So," says Henry, returning the phone to his pocket with a deep sigh and a grin. "Off to better things, we don't to scare you while you are still like the matador. What can you still do?" he eyes my leg with mischief and even Kaseem is forced to show a faint smile. "You surely cannot play ball anytime soon."

"I was never playing ball at any time," I say.I laugh and momentarily forget how awkward we are.

"Oh, too bad for dull-Jack. We are just coming back from doing so, at the stadium."

"But...- don't be offended -guy, how did you find my house?"

"How did you find your mouth the last time you ate food? You find things when you want to find them, nigga."

"Exams are in one day's time. We photocopied our notes for you," says Kaseem.

"Thank you!"

"That's alright man," Henry continues.

..." Where are the notes?" I ask, noticing their empty-handedness.

"Yah, that is what I was about to say. You'd have to come and get them."

"Come? For Godsake, I'm using a madafakin crutch!"

"Which is why you have to exercise in order to get properly walking again. Come on bro."

I huddle out reluctantly with them, hating the risk of being considered a coward for insisting not to go out of my house.

"Does anybody get to lock the home?" inquires Henry, looking over his shoulder as he saunters care-freely along.

"Well..." I say, piqued at first with the mild suspicion that there might be some sacarsm.in his tone of voice. But maybe there isn't. He is ambling so innocently that I doubt he thinks of it at all. Maybe our home isn't the scraggliest-looking in the world, alas. "...My sister, she's at home."

"Cheeehee! Did you hear that, Seem man?" he says with a tweet of exaggerated astonishment. "Mmmhmmm," muses Kaseem with a small, cold smile. My gaze moves from one boy to the other, envying their free-ness with life for a brief, painful second.

"There's a sexy sister gal in that house, and we had no idea at all"

"She isn't sexy," I mumble, afterward thankful it was not said aloud. Mickey is in fact a very fine girl, I only cannot possibly reconcile her person with the word 'sexy' by any implication of any sort at all. It would seem very absurd and abusive, like imposing a rogue role upon Mother Theresa when she's still a child.

I look up squarely only now that we've walked two hundred meters away from.the home and are nearing the grass-heralded bus crossing of the street- I've been too busy minding my bandaged leg and the crutch under my left arm.

"That's our's down there man. Don't fear you'd have to joggle the whole way on your legs," Henry says, as our gazes connect with, and rest upon the two motorbikes packed just before the point where the edge of the tarmac begins.

"Really?" I say, unable to hide my surprise and hoping it doesn't sound insulting in the least. I only found my mind racing to an estimation of the cost of a power bike in the year 2019, resultantly marvelling when it has been estimated. It certainly is surprising that a fourteen/fifteen/sixteen year-old guy could possibly own one, since I know that it would cost far mire than my own father's income for two hardworking and even productive, years.

"Sure," Henry says. He neither notices my surprise as he and Kaseem pull out their keys almost simultaneously. "Bro, get yourself.upon any of these and we are off like light. No stress, no wayo."

I snicker. This madman always finds a wa to make everything look like a fokin comedy. I- of course -join the bike which Henry rides, and he waits while I get my both legs safely on it and hold my crutch across my lap. Thankfully they had let me take a velvet jacket along. There's going to be some wind which I am not too used to.

"So, here we disappear," Henry muses, turning the key with a roar of the engine to life. We shoot off and I spend half the the trying to accustom my eyes to the terrible experience of having dust and breeze fly forcefully into them while they're open. Both boys are apparently very skilled riders, swerving and turning and meandering through the boisterous traffic without once lessening speed. I see after a few minutes of flying, through my teary eyes, tha Kaseem, who has ridden ahead of us the whole time, has come t a halt somewhere. So, there we come..

"Whoo!" Henry howls in a soft voice as he kills the engine. I have to get off first. I accidentally lean upon the bandaged leg in the effort and groan sharply for the pain.

"Easy bro. God's your muscle," he mutters unexcitedly. We head toward a small house which stands in a scanty neighbourhood amongst similar houses on every side of it. I look around me.

"Thia is Seem's home. Seem, say welcome to our man."

Kaseem says nothing till he has unlocked the railing which leads into the front corridor of the house. "Welcome, Lenu," he manages in his gruffest of voices.

"Thanks.." I stand awkwardly while a pop song springs up in Hnery's phone. He pulls it out, looks at it, and curses quietly under his breath. "This fokin gal..." I sense the difference in our speech when we are away from school; how much easier it is for us to joke, or curse at the thinnest chance. Kaseem is unlocking the door that leads inside. It squeals and the dark space reveals itself, brightening up with a click of the light switch in his hand

"Come in Lenu."

I jerk taut t realize I'm.the only one still standing outside, looking in like Johnny-the-village-traveler in my velvet jacket and ragged shirt and jeans knicker. "Oh, sorry."

"What for, man? Get your broken ass in, that's all."

I snicker, this time with exasperation. "Damn you, Clown."

"You're welcome Jack S.P," he replies heartily and I shake my head.

It is the interior of Kaseem's house that made me stand affixed at the door. The deserted-ness and full-emptiness of it is beautiful in a horrible and unsettling way, just as is his character. There is but one chandelier, it's dim golden electric bulbs casting an oil-shiny glow over the room. There is no T.V or radio or cassette player or anything like that, rather, almost every inch if the little space us taken by art relics, paintings and collages and ivory sculptures, all obviously very old. There is, most bewilderingly, hanging high on the wall, the head of a lion, crossed diagonally with two native staffs and draped with three huge bead necklaces and a raw-hide fan.

"That's Seem's taste you're seeing there," Henry chirps in as I frown in baffled admiration of the fascinating horror of the house. "Very proper young man. Regardful of his roots." He turns to Kaseem, who is now laying his watch on a small shelf. "Seem, tell him where and how you got each one."

"I got them from Henry's father," says Kaseeem, now reaching out to adjust the curtain over the back window. "By beating the hell out of him."

He casts a mild smile in Henry's direction and, just as his countenance fleetingly returns to the cold, solemn. Kaseem state that is more familiar to me, I realize that this is likely to be the most notable, and only, joke I would ever witness from him. It is likewise a bit not-too-straight how all the relics look a bit Southern Nigerian, and Kaseem is supposed to be Fulani, at least by his appearance and his name. I grow somber with a passing thought (which has a little to do with Banny and Mickey realizing by now that I'm not in the house).

"Kaseem... lives here alone?" I rather ask Henry, unable to direct my question squarely to Kaseem. Henry's nose twitches nervously as he glances at Kaseem. "Well, I guess Kaseem would have been better to answer the question. But, yes, he lives alone."

Better to answer the question... They both seem unsettled with the very idea of my asking, like it is something nobody would rather talk about. Okay, I won't bother any further... than to turn to Kaseem automatically and say with bewilderment.

"Does he mean that?"

Kaseem nods without looking at me. "Dead," he says. "My parents and everybody."

I pity him with a feeling of awkwardness for a split second as I imagine how gruesomely and impossibly meaningless such a fate is. "Not here in PH," I say, guessing.

"No, back in Katsina," he replies, still evading my gaze. "I came here as a migrant three years back. With the last of my father's savings."

My jaws weaken and perhaps he senses were my surprise is headed. "...I always sold Suya; barbeque, for a living," he adds conclusively.

"That's right," Henry chirps in as if invited. His voice is uneasily dull and it is apparent how uncomfortable such solemn settings are to him, even for the shortest space of time. "Seem makes suya and sells it to people. (- like he would have sold it to ghosts or dogs -) He's a man of his own hustle. Now let's get about what you're here for."

"-Yes," I say, again remembering my absence at home. "You got me notes-"

"Obviously." The relief in his voice is detectable for having ended that parental-massacre saga. "Buy give me a minute to get them, my man. They're buried in the mountain of Seem's own books..."

He backs away from us, uncertaibty flasgibg in his eyes for the briefest instant beforee he disappears behind the curvature of the wall and I decide that this has to be a single bedroom flat... A single bedroom flat with a front room and a kitchen and a toilet. if my prediction is correct, as it apparently seems to be... Hmm. Again I'm beginning to consider how costly that would be in this part of the city. For the first time I have begun to realize h disparately different people are from each other, especially in the light of the phenomenon of economic status; what was freaking and outworldly expensive to one person could be cheap and common to another. even in the mist astonishing way possible. It amazes me, you know, if amazement itself could be so disgusting.

My eyes blink themsekves calmy with the fading and passing away of my immediate thoughts, and the reality of my immediate surrounding returns fully again; the black tile underfoot and the coarse walls hanging with what could have been in a most exotic museum somewhere in Abuja. But, here they are, shocked?... because I am.

"Lenu.."

I hear my name and recall with my thoughts that Henry is still in the adjoined room;the bedroom most likely, searchng out the phitocopied notes they made for me. So it is Kaseem calling me. I magine this could be the first time he is ever mentioning my name with his dull, drawlng, Northern voice. I am now leaned against the backrest of one of the three pieces of sofa, the crutch held out straight befire me. I turn and find him looking in my direction as well, waiting for me to turn, so I know he is the one who called me.

"Kaseem," I say, wonderng if that's the most proper way to reply under the present curcumstances. He does not say anything else at once, but stands staring dreadfully at me. What the hell... No wonder they think he is spooky Mandy. At last his facial expression changes and I expect he would continue.

"...You might have forgotten some of what happened to you a the mall. But I know you remember some, however little fragments."

I sense a frown changing my face almost immediately, and a seering, nameless horror cloudong the back of my mind. He is yet watching me, keenly observing my expression. "...I,"

"You don't have to talk if you don't want to. But you know, what hapoened, amd what attacked you..."

The sounds of footsteps begin to come toward us seemingly; then stop. Half of my mind imagines Henry could have paused to eavesdrop. I swallow slowly, feeling sudeely ashamed of my dishonesty and my fear. Kaseem's eyes narrow to dark slits on his thin, face.

"...You know it happened because of you."

"..Sorry."

He shrugs with a grim look on his face. "No," he says. "...Baliali. You know him."

"Yes. I know him."

His face still watches mine dreadfully now. "...Please, stay away from them. They are not your kind," he says now. There is a tinge of trembling horror in his own voice when he utters the name. Even he. Baliali. I grit my teeth as I allow myself to accept in my mind for the first time, the fact that I had seen Baliali before the incident. That I had pitied the guy and was stalking him before I nearly got wasted. But I can see no way to assoviate the ncident to Baliali, exceot that, yes, he was close, somewhere when it happened.

"Stay away from them, Lenu."

By 'them' I dare to imagne that this perhaos doesn't involve Baliali alone. 'Them' implies there are others who must be avoided. But how come? Does it make much sense to avoid people without knowing why?

They are not your kind.

That is why.

"Alright, my nigga."

Henry bursts out of the inner room with a dense bundle of papers under his arm and a can in his left hand. My jaw drops open; I couldn't have imagined the notes would be so plenty, I barely stayed so long away. He seems to sense the tensity of the atmosphere and stiffens for a moment, registerng my surprise which isbwritten on my face.

..."Oh-ho! you didn't expect it, eh? Haha, expect the worst always in Government College. Habe this, bro."

I stretch out my hand then leave it hanging midway when I see the can... Hero. Oh shet, I think to myself. Drinking alchohol way befire eighteen... I want to turn the stretched hand into a fist and land him an uppercut under his chin, but that would be too harmfuk and insane. Now the surprise flashes in jis own eyes and he says; "Oh, you don't?" like it is so astonishing t see a fourteen year-old who doesn't drink Hero.

"Apparently not."

"Heh, pastor. God bless you in a heavenly way!"

He throws his scrawny arms up when he says this, and I find no dufficulty in detecting the happy sarcasm in his voice.

"Can I have them?"

"Oh, yes."

He hands the bndle of papers to me and opens tge can with a sharp fizzle.

"Thank you," I say, peeking through the many pages, no longer minding him.

"You'd orefer this one."

I look up to sed his hand stretched toward ne again, this tme with a maltina. "Thank you," I say. I dn't want to take the notes anf still the maltina; tht wiukd be taking too much without giving anything.

"Okay," he shrugs. "... Seem?"

He throws the maltina at Kaseem who catches it without looking, his face bowed as he leans forward against a chair.

"I need a cover," Henry mutters. "That breeze nearly made me Kpai the first tme."

I laugh at the idea of breeze making him Kpai; freezing and killing him. Something about the very statement is a bit comical.

He rushes in and rushes out in a moment, emerging with a huge green, denim jacket which he wrestles over his arms and shoulders.

"Isn't that Seem's?" I ask, just for the liveliness of a question.

"Sure," he says. "We dress as a team." Then he majes the oeace sigm with his right hand and ballsbit into a fist, beating the keft sude of his chest with it. I laugh again, though more calmly this time. "See you Seem."

Kaseem says nothing till we've got to the door ad Henry's out on the corridor, while I'm behind him.

..."Lenu."

I grit my teeth and turn, holding tight unto my crutch with my left hand. He is still leaning against the chair and he turns briefly so that we watch each other. "... Take care," he says.

I nod, feeling that I'm about to shoot into the air and fly away, like the creatures at the Trade Center.

Henry plays 'Enter the place' by Tubaba and Sound Sultan all the way back, and although I curse and complain he sings heartily along, even pausing at some point to lift both hands off the bike's steering, raising in the air. Hell, he's even crazier than I thought... It's not that I don't love Tubaba or Sound Sultan, but for Jesussake this music is too.damn old to bot be played in an.attic or cemetery or something. It gives me the sour feeling of little or no progress.

When we finally draw to a halt, Mickey peeks through the door of the house. Banny emerges soon after the engine dies and just pauses there, casting one oissed look at Henry, then at me. This is ver thankfully unlike him, who I'd expect t have come along with his big stick and be ramming out our brains by now. Buy maybe it's because of my present condition of health. The big stick would return like TheRock to Wrestlemania immediately I get better.

"Hello Sir," Henry says, obviously uneasy. "Good Afternoon to you."

"Hello," Banny says without really looking at him. "Lenelu did not tell me-"

-"Yes, Sir," Henry.quickly replies. "He did not.expect it..We had notes for him."

Banny stays quiet fir a second, then nods. "Okay."

I huddle off the bike and shake Henry's hand briefly. "Fine gal," he says in a tense, lewd whisper, his.eyes narrowed toward my half sister who is still watching through the door. He shoots me a wink and a quick smile and turns the key in the ignition, flying off with a small puff of grey smoke.

Banny and Mickey both seem transficed as I limo past them and into the house. They seem, nowadays, to await me, or maybe rather, to await something that is lilely to come with me, something that is horribly terrifying to them. And in as muvj as I do not deny that it disgusts me terribkly, I feel all the same that maybe it isn't their fault, maybe it's the fault of the way thngs hapoen. The way bad things happen, that is; if you ask me.

I get into the cramped space of my room in which the makeshift bench and the wood are waiting. It appears Mickey returned the saw to my room for me, unless I did so begire leaving, can't quite remember, but it's there. I pivk it up now, mustering the will and the feeling bacj into my fingers, tryng to concentrate on wood and saw, task at hand.

Lenu... take care.

"Lenu."

Stay away from them.

"Lenu?"

They are not your kind.

... Your kind

"Yes Sir!" I reply a jerk of awakening consciousness, I realize with dismay that I nearky ruined the wood, sawing in a different line frm the initial, correct one. I turn to see him standing at the door. His eyes raise slowky from the wood befire me to my face and his forehead and face look creased above his moustache. Banny looks like a joke about Herbert Macauley now (hope that's the right spelling?.. Never mind) with his handle-bar-baraian moustache and his bloodshot eyes which seem to have turned a deeper brown-red. I takr one look at that face and look away. Thank God he isn't glarng... Hell no. Not now.

"I am sorry Sir," I mumble.

"No," he says. "You're not Lenu."

I look up and the saw lies coldly on the bench (which is partly my bed and partly my table) as I stare at his face again. What the f?-

"I know you want to be like your friends, have fun, laugh and sing and chase girls-"

...Oh my Lord, tell him I don't chase girls...

"-maybe you even compare yourself with them a lot now. That is good and I'm alright with it."

My frown materializes slowly as he watches me, his face dull and seemingly many ages older. "...But for Godsake you had an accident lately which you haven't tecovered from. And you have your family to be at least responsible to-"

"I only needed the notes-"

"-Certainly. But they could have brought them along. if they were really thoughtful about your wellbeing."

Alright, here we go. Blaming the good boys for being good and happy...

"It is very well, still. I know they're young and lively and don't understand such things. But, for Jehovah's sake boy, you ought to draw the lines clearly between fun and friendship and recklessness. Because they are all very different things, and they could impact your safety."

...Safety. I grit my teeth. The word has begun to get to me in such an off-pissing way, because in a short recent while I've heard it just about too many damn times.

"Sorry Sir," I mumble again, lowering ny head, blinking my eyes slowly.

"Very fine," he says with a sigh. "You eat if you want. Food is waiting in the kitchen."

"Thank you."

I feel tensely that he watches me still as he backs away from the door. Goddamn... What is this solemn horror happening around here all for? I suddenly miss all the lively madness of before; I miss the crazy Banny and anticipate his return very shortly... Just with my complete recovery from these broken pieces that I've becme...

I look down at my bandaged left leg and shake my head. Urghh, how it sucks to be a clinic attendant. I'd rather have the face of Oshiomole than be that for a single minute... I push the makeshift bench away and rise to my feet, taking the crutch and heading kitchen-ward. Through he only window of the kitchen i hear bickering and busyking voices, and inhale the aroma if spices and meat. In this part of town the houses are all so closely spaced, even the privately-owned ones, so that you.havebto whisper all the time if you want to ensure that nobody hears you from outside. I stand there by the window for a moment remembering meat. I know that that must sound funny, or even astonishing, to you. But yeah, we don't too often get to see meat here. I guess it's either a little against our doctrine or ut's too special to be always eaten ot tmit's too expensive- the latter I suspect to be most likely the reason. So, Christmas and New Year and Easter does it. No meat on any other day ever, thank you so much.

I finger out four potatoes from the pan with a fork, into a plate that I have taken, and eat then right there, standing in the dark kitchen and looking out through the window. Very often something happens to you when you eat. You first get the food into your mouth, then you momentarily forget that it's there and forget what to do with it. So ut remains sitting in your mouth and you stare, or think about other things or just go numb, like a moron. It is precisely akin to what happens to me. I do not remember the potatoes till they're finished and I'm looking at the oil-shined, white surface of the platter. I blink away the thoughts in my head. They're irrelevant and vaporous and I can't remember them even while thinking about them.

The hoise is very quiet- unusually quiet -as I return to my room in the company of my own hobbling footsteps' echo and sit on the makeshift chair before the makeshift bench. For the next few minutes I do virtually nothing. I belch, sigh deeply, then frown to myself as a thought comes to the surface of my mind slowly. The zoomed image in the surveillance footage... The surveillance footage itself. I move at first gradually, then with increased vigour as I search my phone out. Hell, God alone can witness how mercilessly I hide that thing from Banny. Very often, I even hide it from myself in the process.

I finally feel it's sleek, rectangular form in the depths of my puffed-up pillow and pull it out. Oh, buddy, you don't have any idea how much I've missed ya... I push the power button, knowing with my subconsciousness that right now I'm alone- there isn't anybody likely lurking somewhere and peeping. The Infinix logo gleams animatedly on the screen for a while, then all is set... That video. I search for it with the most likely keyworfs that I can think of. Strange flging crearure caught on camera in Nigeria... and almost at once I find it. Yeah, what a genius I am! Now to see what itvis about... I pause with my finger poised over the play symbol, sighing calmly, preparing my mind. This is something I should be the last to see. This is something I do not want to see. Because I know it would be so intimate, so clise and so known that it would most likely leave horrors in my mind that would last for long. I wouldn't likely see it with as mych ease and simplicity as Henry and, maybe, Kaseem, and the rest of the world (note that I've used maybe for Kaseem. He seems to have been affected a good bit by th footage himself), because, nlike them, I wouldn't be just any stranger. I'd be a living, freaking, witness.

All that said havng been thought about, I still hit the symbol.

The dark footage comes to life with a horrifying acoustic grumble in the background and I breath sharply and grut my teeth, squinting till my short-sighted eyes are thin as slits. Hell, God alone knows how a camera could caoture the roof of the Trade Center. It must have been stationed on a stikt that reaches the sky... The first, tiny imagr comes into view and I freeze totally with terribke attention. ..." Rugged.." I mutter under my breath. By every chance that image is me. Me on the roof of the eight-floored building. I follow the image with my eyes carefully as it lingers gor a very brief moment of time, then seems to sudrenly vanish from the screen, off the roof of the trade center. Hell, that's when I f'kin jumped!

"Whoow!"

I almost drop the phone with a jerk of surprise as a dark figure dashes past the screen that same second, seeming to explode from a tint speck into a largr shadow asit speefs across. Likewise and very close behind follows another which dashes past, after the first as my fnger mives fast to pause the clip. I touch the screen to zoom the mage, noticing that my breathng is heavy and my fingers are trembling... God.. damn. I have to see this; I mutter in mt mind, convincing myself. I have to see this.

With the move of my fingers the both blurred shadows enlarrge midway across the screen and I almost fall into the screen to look a them. Beep! goes the phine and I stiffen gor a second. Low.battery alert. Fifteen percent... Oh, rubbish. Back to my image scrutiny.

Zooming the image makes tge two shadows which I wany to se to grow more amoeboid and indistinct. Yet there are the undeniable features I can make out. I see the smaller, iniitially-appearing figure a little ahead of the larger, scaruer one behind it. They are boyh alimke in a yerrigyingly variant way, both of them sharing in common the characteristics of a hunmaoid with wings broader than seven times it's height. It is the wings themselves that are most horrifying. They seem actual and yet ethereal, scatterred like clouds of smoke and dust and feathers blown into the air in the outline of wings.I stare at them for a long while as ny poor battery dies out, seeing yet unabke to believe them... I mean- I lnow that they are certainky real- I can see that they are, yet, sheht, I can't just get myself to look at them and believe that they are, that would be like jumping down the Trade Center again, and hittibg the griund this time. I take a break and look awat from the screen, staring at the window and remembering suddenly that it is still daytime and I'm still at home with the crutch and the invalid leg and the wood waiting to be sawed on the makeshift bench. I allow myself, for the first time since the incifent, to remember the parts of it that I can. There was the woman who spoke to me when I srood staring at the movng elevator. What had she looked like? I can barely recall that clearly now. But she had been thin-faced, and scruffy. Very scruffy... Anf dark haired, and tall- or was se small?

I remember the one I have earlier determined bot to remember. The giant who appearee after her. The one with a spear. Whatever he really comoletely resembled, it was for the most oart hidden under the dark cloak he was covered in. He had been nearly as datk as the cloak, and wore cowries or somethng like them in trinkets arounf his wrists and ankles. And he was barefooted. Hell, that crap could ver much have resemvled a Zulu assasin from the prehistoruc era, for the much that I saw. He had been too fast and so had I. He had growled lik an animal. The crearures which had attacked him were a little like him, only not exactly- in a way I neither can distobctlubor completely tell -hey haf been tall and fast and violent, amd perhaps I saw fire once or twice leap into life while they striggled. The giant seemed to be much greater, defeating them even in a handicap situation of numbers. I recall wha happened when he seemingly destroyed one of them. That one had bursted into what resembled a massive cloud of feathers. Dark, numerous feaher scattering into the air and raining down to the ground.

Could that mean abything?

Very uncertainly.

I liven the screen again and go to Google. Well, what can I say?

... HUMANIOID... WINGED MONSTER... FLYING EAGLE HUMAN. GIANT; I type the jumble of terms into the search bar and hit the symbol.

A variety of results appear, preductably all leading in different, vague directions. There are theories and assertoons of U.F.Os and demons and Lucfer and fallen angels, and I tire of the illustrations. Nobody seems to have any idea what those things were. I make other searches about vampires and fairies and dragons, and they all lead to some sensible confusion. But I take notes fown about each one in order to compare the informations afterward and juztapose them with what I am aware of. Humanoid vampires aren't quite real and wouldn't likely fly, even though they are fast and strong like the creatures I saw... Angels would fit into much of all that, but I wouldn't likely have seen them if it were angels; they were spirits and would be invisible. Dragons were just too offpoint, only similar in the possession of wings and the wielding of fire. Fairies... well, fairies for as far as fantasy stories- which isthebonly pkace so far thet've ever existed -aren't giants and wouldn't likely be fast or strong. U.F.Os... well, who the heck are U.F.Is?.And who cares? The term is rather a compound one than anything distinct, and everytjing I searched about could for the most oart be categorized under it.

So, this is nothig that is kniwn about.If I'm going to know what tjose tings are, I'd have to find out myself... like a new discovery. That is, by implication; I'd have to see them again. And yoi ad God can both imagine that I wouldn't want to do that.

I can hope never to see those thibgs again, whatever they were. I can keep to less crowded, less heightened, places and hopefully be safe.

The problem alas is not really me or them, but him. That guy; Baliali.

Footsteps sound down the corridor and I switch the phone off, putting it away and staring at the wood... Baliali. I know that he had entered the building because I had gone after him. He seemed to disappear in the incident. Okay, I kniw I saw him enter the elevator, but... Sonethng seems to have happened to that guy. Yet nothing did. I would have heard of it. In fact, I doubt anybody would ever susoect he had been anywhere around the place. And people.had warned me about him. Be carefil of the man whon.evrrybody is afraid of. But it is more confusing to associate him in any way to what happened. He had gone by then. Hr was not a U.F.O or a flying giantbor a vampire or a fairy. He was a boy like me.

... Or am I certain?

I sigh tremulously and pick up the saw. I better get done with this wood. The whole tjing is going sore-south, as I knew it would. Getting creepy and scary, amd tha would do nothing.

It takes me forty five,.sweaty minutes to complete what I have, cutting the nine heavy boards accirding to.Banny's measurements. I put them all aside and go for a broom to clean up the wood dust on the floor. I groan as I remember that I'd need the crutch. This thing makes me feel like grumpy Daddy... I take the crutch and hobble down the now darkening passage, to the kitchen. As I stoop to take the broom beside the counter, I hear footsteps. I pause as Mickey aopears in the doorway, quietly watching me. Ohhoho... you spook!

"I won't be needing help Mickey," I say with a calm smile as she looks at me with uncertainty... Be gone, Spooky Magdalene. ".. Thank you."

She still looks at me as she backs away. I sweep the wood dust off the concrete floor in my room and stretch the cloth over the bed properly. Time to get doing something meaningful. I let myself drop almost heavily into the makeshift chair and sift through the papers hastily with both hands. They fill the cramped, saw dust-laden space and my ears shortly with the shwep-shwep-shwep of sliding papers. As the papers move I stare at the cursive handwriting that flashes past, upon them (which has to be Kaseem's; I doubt that Henry clown would be so intellectually and physically diligent to write too legibly), and I know with certainty that I wouldn't understand anything, even before beginning to attempt it. Mehn... I doubt I'd be able to grasp the tiniest shishi under the present conditions. I need a mental and physical and everything break. I lay back on the bed, carefully positioning my bandaged leg as I do so, and smiling shortly as I sigh, for no accountable reason. I close my eyes, but not deeply; just a slow, careful blink and they're open again, seeing the dust-aged ceiling. I try to think about sleeping an ordinary sleep and dreaming an ordinary dream like others, and it feels strangely simular to the thought of th last tome I could jump and run perfectly. Well; maybe all things happen, only with time. Maybe all things happen with time...

The next time my eyes open is about immediately, almost at the exact same time as the time when they close. Yet it is long enough for what can be called the worst to happen.

I am conscious. Yet I am no longer here.

...I am there.

The first thing I see are my- or rather, the -legs. I see them because for sme reason I am seated on what feels (while I am yet to cnfirm) like the rough log of a fallen tree. I look up slowly, feeling that my vision blurs and doubles as my gaze lifts up, and marvelling with a partly-conscious, part of my mind that the legs I have just seen are not broken or dressed in any ridoculous looking bandage. I do not try to get up- to see if the legs really work -for now. Rather my gaze continyes moving. at once becoming more gradual and patient and... cautious in it's drit across apace. Till it reaches the imbecile seated on the opposite side of me.

Hell, if it were my sensible, human self, I would beat the chickens out of who (or maybe what, instead) I see seated on another log some yards across the space, facing me. I recognize him and flinch at the thought that I do recognize him, I mean; when he doesn't have a face... Yes you heard well, his visage is a blur in my sight now, just like the faces of all the other fairy madafakas of his kind in this place. I try to speak- to curse -at once but I do not. I think the other guy either does not know that I want to curse, or dies not know how to cursen, or doea not want to curse. Any way it is quite frustrating, the more reason why it would have been nice to beat the chickens out of him. Yet I- the guy that I am now; that is -do not do so, still. My gaze drifts again from the boy-fairy to the ground and I notice only now the thin chanbel that splits the earth between us, running like a dark, flowing serpwnt with an almost inaudible rumble. I want to dip my toe into the water for the coolness and the fun of it, but it glows and simmers and smokmkders in a manner that appears oaranormally fearful. I now notice my thoughts; my seoarate thoughts from.the human ones which I've always had. These ones come disjointedly and in a langiage that is neither English nor Igbo nor anything I am familair to. n any case I seem to knos their meanings as I think them and they flow through and our of my mind. This is similar to water. This is not really water. This is not any water...

I rise slowly and the boy-fairy watches me. "Kweh'em giewre bahuozo" I say to him, without looking at him. Now what the crap is that phrase supposed to mean?? He does not at once react, but I know that he looks at me and shakes his head in a gesture of disapproval... You clowning goat.

"Kweh'em giewre bahuozo," I say again, this time stealing an unwilling glance at his narrow, ceicular, forest-monkey face. His feet move while he yet says nothing, oit of th wat slighlty to let me pass. I feel the horrifying (everything is horrifying here, for the most part) softness of th ground that sinks softly against the soles of my feet as I step upon it. The little stream which flows across the earth between us appears to widen for a split second as I cross over it and I.look at once yonder, thinking yonder. The forest arpund me chirps, alive with the voices of many startled,.ethereal insects and the little light through the dense overhead leaf-cover appears to dim. Whatever this guy (that is; the second me) wants now, it has to be far beyond were he is now. I sense the faceless fairy-monkey boy follow me with his gaze and perhaps his feet, and it disgusts me slightly that he appears to know me. They all appear to. I don't know any, and haven't quite encountered many of them yet I know. They have no faces to me, yet they seem to recognize mine... They seem to reognize... mine?

I pause, twitchng my fingers slowly in a balled fist and staring at the ground. The thought kind of surprises me; that I've never seen myself here. I don't quite know what I look like.

I resume walking again (I wish I could stop myself; the grim-fairy-me guy, I mean), apparently this time with more purposefulness, like I'm headed for something which I have an idea of. The grey, tree trunks are all so massive that they seem alnost like vast dark curtians that obscure my path with shades of light and dark; light alternating with dark.

"Twuhaka, Wuoria.."

-What the - is your prob?- A this point I must say that I've been, so recently, so deeply imvedded in my peaceful, budding thoughts that it would be pacifying to hang that fairy-monkey in the sun (if there's a sun in this place) to dry. But the other me shows none of my ireitation. The other me quietly, silently turns. I am standing before another thin, stream of refulgent flowibg water now, and I was onky about to look into it in order to see myself. Well, I don't yet, rather I see the faceless, stupid face of my new snoop dog-guardian angel watching me, shaking disapprovingly. "Wuoria," he says. His voice is little and peaceful and mildly echoing, yet I sense that he is something more terrifying, something that I am yet to fully realize.

Wuoria... Wuoria. I've heard that shit before. Come'on somebody, call it back to me. It sounds like Igbo or something... No, not Igbo. Igbo is for Igbo people,.like Banny and Mickey and- in one way rathr than the other- me. Monkey fairy things in Dreamland do not speak Igbo.

As the Lenelu part of my mind still ponders the word, the Demreamland fairy version of me watches the boy. His ears I now see are improportionately large, each with a little exaggeeation, nearly as latlrge as his head; almost like two dupkicate heads attached to a head. Maybe he uses them to eavesdrip when snooping on people. He is standing with one had gripping the vines, one foot on front of the other and dee in the leaf-carpet of the damp.earth. His head shakes again.

"Wuoria, twuhaka' ko-siu'oku"

I realize, with some.dismay, that I seem to understand him. The meaning of the words seem to print in san unclear, Dreamland region of.my mind. Yes, maybe I've actually heard some of it before.

Fire... Sacrifice.

Fire Sacrifice.

But what is this fire-fire thing anyway? Whoever gives a shait about fire?

I turn from him, having said something that I neither clearly remember nor undertand. It was kind of a warning,.whatever he was saying. About sonething in the direction I am.headed; away from.the forest. It is however a warning which the dumb-fairy guy; I, don't seem to car much about. The ground seems to just begin to tremble slightly and the diatance seems to be calling my name, if what it calls is mant to be my name.

..."Wuoria"

Then aomething astonishing happens.

"Can I make it stop appearing to me?" I hear myself say. It is astonishing because it seems to have been spokem.by Lenelu; the.human part of me. I feel and know that it is Lenelu who says it. It could only be him. My fairy veesion does not seem to revolt, he looks at the fairy-boy and waits for him.

"Yes," te boy seemsto say (I use 'seem' because I cannot see his mouth moving and it could only be my own imagination speakng). "Yes. Never come back again."

I freeze with a bit of surprise. We- I and the fairy boy -still watch each other. I ambeginning to agree that this oart if th conversation is just my imagination.. "Please, don't come bacj again. Fire everywhere."

I turn and look.into thethin.stream of dark water that runs through the earth in front of me. The glassy surface appears to tremble calmly and I squint to see the image of.me reflected in it. The image itself calnly reverbeeates but takes form grafually all the same.

...What the shit?-

I lower myself to my knees to get a better view of the pale, ghostky face which looks back, frowning, at me. It's comolexion is what is most appaling, so that I partly and dismally hope the reflection of light into the water has a hand in it. Because if it doesn't, we can xonveneintly liken me to a leprous, unsmiling, gollum in Mary Kay makeup.. Or, okay. Okay...maybe it's not as bad as that. The face slightl resembles me- I mean; the real, friendly, sensible me, Lenelu. And skghtly is an emphasized word there. Quite, quite slightky. Yet there it is. I trace the line of my chin with the top of my hand, muttering something in that blasted Dreamworld language again. I guess grim-fairy me is quite happy to be reunited with his face. He doesn't seem to have seen it in a long time.

I rise up as impulsively from the ground as I had lowered to it, having seen my face now. I face the way ahead, obscured and harrowed and barbed with thorns and vines and roots and monstrous branches. Time to go, donkey.

"Wuoria"

I turn again, almost startkedly. Hell, I came so close to forgeting about fairy-monkey-forest-tiny boy (I know I've got a bit too vicious with the fragmental naming habit, but I wish I could help it here). Well it suggests he isn't likely too relevant. I wish he could just piss-off, really.

"Mbreyeho," he says. "Mbreyeho Wuoria."

His thin hand held before him gesticulates with a stick-like object (which seems to be a kind of weapon) in it. I notice this time how many amulets and trinkets of white and red and blue corals he wears around his arms, all over his body. And there are markings across his bare shoulders and chest? not like the body markings we know, but broader, simpler and yet more elaborate, and encrested in a glowing, fiery ink that sparkles for an instant under the tiny light which mabages to escaoe the dense leaf canopy high above us. My moutg moves and tge himan part of me aches to snap 'Vamoose, fool!'

However again I do not. The grim fairy me prevails.

"Neh'brahuomai," I hear him reply. "Neh'brahuomai."

I guess- I sense- I thnk I know -it has something to do with being safe, Being able to fnd the way....Hmm. This safeness thing is beginning to get to me- in a way that makes me want to take an oat to kill the next person (human or fairy-monkey) who dares to say anything like it to me again.

"Th'hakru," I say again. The meaning of this one is clear in a oart of my mind. You should nlt worry. I don't envy or really want to be the fairy guy- who is, technically and unfortunately; me, bur for a second I wish I could talk like.that in real life. I few, slow, deep words. It would save me some madness and a great deal of energy. But I guess that wouldn't work in real life. You can't talk in real life without being mad and shouting and hollerng about the place. Nobody would give a shit to listen to you.

"Wuoria," the fairy boy calls again jus when I turn and hope that I've finally ditchd him. I turn, but without groaning or rolling my eyes or cursing as I ordinarky should.

"..You should not be here. You should not touch fire."

..Oh, you could speak English so well all along. Idiot. Talking in that Dreamer-donkey language.

I think- with my fairy mind -for a secnd.that it is strange amd even comical for a little boy to warn me; a grown man. It is funny and it is frightening but I don't laugh. Maybe I always knew this boy. Maybe he's really a monkey guardian angel. Yuck.

"Th'hakru," I say.

One word. Them I whoosh off.

The fairy boy pursues after me shortly with a distressed call.

"Wuoria!! Wuoria Kehani!! Wuoria Kehani!"

Wuoria yourself there, you sad snoop.

I soon slow down, having covered what is equivalent to a mile in.barely a second, and having burnt my feet and jumped in and out of other tiny tributaries of nameless, hidden river that cross the earth multiple times, hidden underneath leaves. It is amazing, how.mucj speed is.possible here. I might imagine that I've had a sumilar experience to superman by now. You just whoosh and zoom and the surroindings are a blur and you barely lose or use any strength. But I have t wonder how it could work. I mean, I know it is abomnormal to be here in the first place, and I as such shouldn't expect anything here to be normal. But I think I've got too deepky imbedded in the mankind-little faith-logically arguing thinking pattern to accept it as it is. What is prese.t to make.it possible? What features do I have? I look at my arms and examine them and for the forst tme I realize that perhaps they are much longer and larger than ordnary human arms, although they resemble human arms. And there appear now to be marks upon them..Vanishing and reappearing marks that form a kind of crytpic symbol altogeher, not too similar to the matkings across the fairy boy's body. And the welt-like burning scar is still im tje roght palm, still aching. I look at my feet.They seem large too,.but not webbed or feathered or bearong any enhanced speed engine system.whatsoever. And I don't have wings. I feel my back with my.hand and there's nothing as such there. Okay, what have I learnt yet tht could be of help to breakng me out of this crazy sleepng spell?.. Nothing. But at keats I've begun.to take inventory of this guy; this me. Darkly-pale (does that make mucj sense?) coloured guy,.two pount five, perhaps three meters hogh, long and marked limbs and stern face. Few words and great speed and never too happy. Heh, tough guy,.yoi might call it. But me? Stay the hell out of my life amd my sleep! That's all I care. If I was shmure it would acgieve it,.I could havd killed him. even, just to get rid of him. And, wherever the hell.this.place is, I think my fairy self is not quite a new-comer to it. In fact,.I suspect he's seraching dor simething. And it must be beyongd the forest,.in the area which I called a.city. Andit must be connected in some way to fire.

The Fire Sacrifice.

..Sheht. I can't believe I'm slowly buying that. It's just likely some.crazy gossip amongst ovee-excited fairy shitheads.

I sigh to myself calmly.now that I'm.alone. This place is particularly familiar-looking. Oh, okay,.it's the rovk carpet center at which I always found myself, until today's episode, that is. y feet begin ti move and so does the rest of me, in-between the giant trees (tjey are all so high-reachng that I doubt it is possibke to see the peak of any of them) and I look around me a bit carefully as I go, like I'm expecting to find something. My feet have a way of stepping on the wilting, fallen leaved almost perfectly silently, so that U recognize a sound from any external source whem I heat it; even if it's obly a drop of water falling into dirt. Talk about the traits of karashika, haha. I guess I must have as large ears as the monkey faury boy. But I don't have excessively large eyes- going by the last time I checked -and yet I almist immediately spot the form which seats on a stone in the leafy ground some tens of feet beyond me. where the ground itself appears to slope suddenly downward. I also see and smell the thin, white smoke rising dreamily from the ground, snaking up and fizzling away as it uprises in frony of the stoop-seating form's face.

Hey, anybody there? Who the fok are yiu?

I do noy stop and neither concentrate solely on the other individual. However he-or she- or it sits in the vague path and I must get through the same. As I near the form I identify more clearly it's humanoid features. The hair and legs are most terrifying. They look outkandish- even here in an outland -almost like the features of some scientifically fabricated alien in Mars. Or maybe it's because this is the closest I've yet been able to come to.any of these fairy people. I think it is female, because of the length and mass of the hair which is twisted and wound and bound severally behind it's back yet covers it entireky like a bristly cape. The colour of the hair is like the colour of the shoulders and limbs, which is like the colour of me. A lifeless brown-grey. I do not stop and it does not turn, but now I guess I can reognize who we have here. The saffety-preaching-flying fairy. She seems to be too busy to notice me, her surprisingly broad (compared to.the wrist and arms) hands eubbing themselves in the little fire (what the?-) which burms the tiny heap of crackling leaves and twigs between her feet. Surprisingly I don't see the wings which she.uses to.fly. She's not so little afterall, on the average she's the same size as me, and I must remind you that I'm much of a towering giant here conpared to an average human being. I wat to ask her if she's taken a sabbatical or retired or something, you know; just to show how much I care, but you can predict as usual that I do not. The grim fairy guy doesn't want to.

"M'egoshi'" I hear myself say as I get quietlu past her on my way... M'egoshi'. Sounds like soenthing in Zulu to me. Can I ask myself the name of the language?.. I don't think.the grim-fairy me would want to reply if I do. The grim-fairy me is dumb and stubborn and sucks, and if I could sepaate my human self from him and we could square-off in some rugged and precinct basement in Woji, I would presumably beat the shit out of him for it.

The flying-fairy seems to have been humming a song before I came along, and now her head turns and she looks at me briefly, then rises almost gracefully as bee off the ground, suddenky sprouting eagle-like grey wings and flying. This time she does not hover but flies away, and asi hesitate a moment from my quest to watch her, the himan part of myn mind learns something. I may take.the components of my learning down.in a.note when I wake up in the reak world. They're little and a bit crazy but may be relevant.

Firstly, the flying-fairy too easily recognized me. I think I bear sonething.that makes it impossible to hide my identity. I think they can all see my facebwhen I can't see theirs...

Secondly; the flyng-fairy and the monkey boy may both very well have keft me to my decisions and my fate. They appear to have had the same purpose; to prevent me without force from going anywhere beyond the forest

Thirdly; and most importantly too, I guess the fairy idea may not be the most befitting nomenclatute afterall- although it is so conveninet that I might stll keeo to it. Because the humanoid.things here are NOT quite fairies. The last time I checked, Peter Pan encountered little creatures on butterfly and wasp wings. What we have- what we ARE, here are giant humanoids with large hands and body markings and horrorful eagle wings, which only materialize when they want to use them

And finally, but not the least relevant, is that whatever the fliating-stone city is all about, it can't possibly be too good.

All the same, with all.that said, Floating-Stone City here I infortunately and stubbornly come.

The rest of the journey out of the forest is taken in a run, ith gradually rising speed so.thay by the time I reach the end of the forest realm I am sprinting so hard and fast that I don't notice the difference when I leap and fly. No wonder it happens that way. The wings appear only when I fly. I weave through the same floatung stones again and head for the inner city. I encoubter more whooshing humanoids, but not quite as many as the firs time. And they're not all chattering excitedly as before. Perhaps there's a regional.mourni.g programme?.A public holiday?... Don't mind me.

In any cae I soon get to the heart (it appears to.be the heart) of the city at wgich I met the fire altar tging the last time. As I pmunge downwarf.now i feel the feathry beating of my wngs against my sides and shoulders and the flappng of my silk apparel into.my face. The weltish scar in my palm throbs. I notice also that the entire city is arranged nto the shape of a hexagon (or an octagon) and that the entire pattern is internally crisscrossed by diagonal lines that converge at it's center.

It is it's center that us my destination.

Wind roars ompowerfully into my ears and face as I pkunge down with blindibg speed. An altar of stone sits at the center, and as I near it it roars to life with fire, coveribg me in scalding yellow-red, stunning (much rather than actually hurting) me so much that even the grim fairy giy screams. I am yelling prolonged'ly as the entire realm trembles and I descend toward the earth. I think I hear ither yellibg voices coning from the fire, echoing anf ethereal and vaporous, like the vocals of a audio record from a concentration camp, or from someqhere in Kirikiri prison, or in hell on a bad day. An at the same time the shadow of a monstrous creature surges out of the fie at me, growling loudly so that it drowns my own yelling voice. Sheht. A dragon. Before now I vmcould have thought that being erogon wokd be cool. The jaws open wide to reveal knifr-like teeth and fire smokdering in it's throat. And I'm falling toward it. I scream.

"Ryaaaaaeeeeeh!!"

Fire bursts forth from it's own mouth the moment I get close enough to be swallowed by it and then something happens. Or maybe nothing in particular.

I get blinded by the smoke and the light and the heat. The sounds all die away before I can realize it. ​