We had a lover’s quarrel...and I stormed out of bed

The first thing I reached for on Saturday morning was my phone. It had been switched off since the night before, right before I stocked my backpack with that evening's supply of fast (junk) food – my staple for God knows how long now. There were a number of people with whom I had some business or other and I knew they'd have cause to call sometime during the 'sulk-time' I had so meticulously arranged for myself, but I'd sooner have ripped my liver out before I'd have cared. I had gone through a deal of pain to darken my mood the previous night, and I wasn't about to let anyone ruin it. As I switched on my phone, I recalled the events of the previous day that had led to my waking up angry.

I had maintained a merry demeanour through the day having decisively licked a long-time rival at a board game. I was yet in these transports when the drama over the fellow who collapsed in front of our building deflected my mood down a more sober lane. Apparently the fellow in question had come to Lagos all the way from Ondo state to visit a relative, and had the sore misfortune of being 'One Chance'd ('Once chance' is what Lagosians call the buses used in the ritual-killing/robbery racket). Fate was in an atypically magnanimous mood though, because he somehow was set free after he'd been voodoo-ed in some way (I'm quoting him here) and he stumbled around in a daze for a bit before collapsing in front of our building. His appendages had assumed a rather grotesque arrangement when he'd fallen, giving his body the appearance, at first glance, of being lifeless and amplifying the buzz he'd garnered enough that someone thought it fit to notify us of there being an unconscious man lying outside our building. We glanced up, absorbed the news, and carried on fiddling busily with our computers as though the subject were of a wounded sparrow.

I, in truth, had thought the thing to be a joke of some sort until someone with a greater supply of common sense finally got up to verify it, came back and announced drily that a man had in fact collapsed in front of our building. We glanced up, absorbed the news, scrutinized him intently as he strode across the room and reassumed his position, and carried on fiddling busily with our computers as though the subject were of a wounded sparrow.

Have you ever wondered how calloused most hearts are in Nigeria? How it often takes a medieval-style barbarity to pierce far enough through our battle-hardened skins?

'Tsk! Come the frig on joo!' I snarled at my phone, having held the power button a tad longer than was usually necessary.

The minutes passed after we heard the news about The Man Who Fainted and our curiosities were finally roused sufficiently to prod us outside to personally witness this unfolding drama. Everyone else, it turned out had locked their gates and drawn the blinds, orchestrating enough of an alibi to feign ignorance when the no-good policemen came around to take away (or rather arbitrarily arrest) 'suspects'. Fortunately though, the young man had still been alive. I tried to piece together his story when he came to, but his dialect was rather unwieldy and seemed to rise and dip in a strangely sonorous cacophony. The substance of it was that he had narrowly escaped getting finely ground (or some other barbarous fate) and composed into a money-spinning talisman of some sort – no doubt some nameless fellows ticket to the good life. All through his narrative, the poor bastard's lower jaw had been quivering, his face contorted in a blend of anguish and self-pity, and he could barely manage more than a few sputtered syllables without breaking into violent sobs.

We got him something to eat, sorted him out as best we could and went back inside. I wasn't satisfied and felt we had a duty to accompany him to a police station where he could sleep through the night and begin his journey home the following day but all my colleagues said  '[they had] no power for police wahala'.

Have you ever thought that our hearts might have become calloused because it's often either foolish or a real hazard doing the right thing in Nigeria? Ever known someone who was arrested, detained and tortured as a suspect after reporting a crime or had a relative die on you because a doctor would not treat a person who was shot or stabbed without a police report? Ever known someone incapacitated in an accident who was simply pulled as much off the road as not to be obtrusive and then abandoned for a day or two before being finally taken to a public hospital where he was left lying on the floor until his blood caked into a glutinous red gel, binding his ripped buttocks to the floor and sealing his fate? How was his fate so sealed you ask? Well because our thitherto invisible patient's very literal bind did not suffer him to be conveniently moved off the floor when his moans were finally heard, and so he had the meat of his rear end severed with a machete and died less than two days after. A remarkable doctor that was that attended to Alhaji.

'You have 9 voice mail messages. Press 1 to read your messages....' The voice was as always expressionless, impersonal - more irritating than normal.

'...no power for police wahala' – I had mused on those words while I wrapped up my thanksgiving blog post, methodically ignoring a pesky bugger who unaccountably fancied himself to be quite witty. As I trundled glumly out of the building on my way home, I was annoyingly sensible of my colleagues merrily making ready for their Friday night grooving, with no trace of a remembrance of the quivering jaw of the lad from before. We might well have gone outside to observe a wounded sparrow. 'he'll find his way abeg, I no want trouble' right?

'Here's your change sir' Said the girl at the fast food place, tentatively interposing in my reflection. I have a habit of thinking out loud that most people find disconcerting – actually I more than think; I frown, growl, laugh, smile, gesticulate and whatever else it is my present musings include. Whatever emotions had bubbled through to my face from my simmering innards must not have been welcoming, if her countenance was anything to go by.

I finished my business and headed home.

'Blast!' By everything noble, I swore, the darned phone would stay off for as long as I bloody well pleased! So what, if it had nothing to do with my frigging mood? A strong current of bilious thoughts coursed steadily through my veins, increasingly embittering my heart, goading me to starve this cursed world of my voice, a minute for their every drop. 'The blasted phone will stay off dammit!' I snarled lying on my bed, my eyes ablaze, burning my last conscious thoughts into the ceiling.

Blast! And what the frig did it matter if I didn't have a well defined frigging reason as to why the frig I was angry? 'And who the frig were all these frigging voice mails from?'. I wondered as I pressed '1'.

It was mom panicking again. Blast! Why does she always get her knickers in a twist when I don't pick my calls? I have been on my own for a number of years now haven't I?

'Blast! Why did I even have to wake up that Saturday morning anyway?' I fumed as I stormed out of bed...

 

 'And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world' – Robert Frost