THE VICTIM

… Uche never wanted to give her his keys so he took the bunch and slowly dropped it in his bag. He knew he would not be chanced enough to read BLACKBIRD, yet he collected it from her. He took a few other things, slowly and quietly grabbed his turgid bag, and headed home. Time had grown long legs so he walked faster to meet up with its pace.

Still within the premises, he heard a loud noise. Yeh! was the scream from the recognized voices from the gossips with whom he had earlier exchanged pleasantries. He was happy that he would have good gist to relate to his siblings back home, so he scuttled off to the scene of the accident. She was the one. Abruptly, his double minds sprang up. Why she was outside was the first guess that pressed the door bell of his mind, but deep down, he knew she wanted the keys.

A day before, iron bars were at the entrance. Renovation continued till the following day; and his lover fell victim. So deep. Thanks to Dolapo who helped with her jalopy sport car. The severe pain spurred Betty to cry more. Her leg spurted out thick blood. He cried for her, with fear, for forgiveness from her and more importantly, from their owner.

The amateurish-looking doctor apparently adjusted his pair of glasses umpteen times as he journeyed from his office to the dressing room. He came and started stitching almost immediately. Even at the third time, the wound would not stop gushing blood. I suffered the recurring picture of her muscles, her blood stream and her bone. It was nauseating. What annoyed me most was the doctor’s complacency.

For Uche, time had grown longer legs and walking would not be working. To get hold of it he had to run as fast as he could.

At dawn, he left Hill Top soaked in sweat and choking stench of alcohol. The insensible incoherence of his mind could not help fight the migraine in his big head. Uche painfully dragged himself out of the mess. The mess of his mind. Almost hit by a danfo, the word that managed to pierce through his ears was the bass-voiced alakoba from the reddened bug-eyed driver.

Breathing with fear and fury, he ran to-and-fro, searching for what he did not lose. Oh no! He lost it. He searched, scattering through the crowd that gathered around him. Carried away by the unending search, he never noticed the approaching truck. Not until he fell to the ground with a thud did he know his head was not missing. It was there, soaked in thick blood. The driver, not minding his blood-washed wind screen, blindly sped through the street as the echo of alakoba spread through his mind.

When all the crowd had completely dispersed from the scene of the accident, and all that could be heard were screeching, hooting and chirps from a distance, there appeared a beery dude. The loud throbbing roused him from his drunken stupor. He was so frightened to eyeball whatever it was he had peed on. He wriggled to a bush nearby and kept his eyes peeled for anyone approaching in the distance …

This piece was extracted from one of the unpublished works of Oluwadamilola, a graduate of English from the University of Lagos.

‘Damilola loves writing, reading, singing and cooking.