Read Version 1.1 here
I got
dressed in auto-pilot. Snatches of the dream kept going through my mind and a
part of me was expecting to wake up at any moment.
I made it to St. Agnes’s bus
stop in seven minutes. It still beats me how I did that! And as if he'd been
waiting for me, a bike materialised in front of me.
"Unilag gate" I said, getting on
without even waiting for his reply.
My
skirt got snagged on the edge of the seat and I shifted to pull it free. It was
then that I realised I'd worn exactly the same thing I'd been wearing in the
dream without thinking about it! If the day hadn't been weird enough already, I
would have been spooked. Plus I had a lot to worry about if this all unfolds
the way the dream had gone. I took my hand off the seat just long enough to
steal a peek at the time, then I resumed my death grip, that okada guy was the
definition of mahdt! Fourteen minutes. I had just 6 more before…
I never heard the screams, never heard the screech of tires or the horns. All
I heard was the wind, that whooshing sound, in my face, filling my ears.
Then
the thud.
Then
the shrill sound of shattering glass.
In that
crazy moment when I was lying against the shattered windshield of the Toyota
Camry, the first thing I did was look at the face of my wrist watch, which miraculously
was still intact. Twenty-one minutes. I was too late…
Then I
started awake.
* * * * * *
My
blasted phone was ringing again! I struggled to pull myself out of what felt
like very deep sleep. I felt sluggish, like I was swimming through a sea of
thick syrup and my head felt like an over-ripe melon! I groped for my phone and
picked the call.
“Hey
pretty girl!” it was Ayoade, the real Ayoade.
No one else greeted me that way. “Where’re you at?” he asked.
I
tried to sit up in bed and a million stars exploded behind my eyes. Then I
realised my elbow was digging into something hot and hard. I finally pried my
eyes open and was almost blinded by the sun!
“What…” I trailed off, looking
around my room. Or rather what should
have been my room! I was lying on the hot, sun-drenched tarmac by the side of
the road, with a crowd forming an arc above me! Trust Lagosians now, everyone
had stopped to gawp!
“Are you alright?” Ayoade asked, his
tone switching to one of alarm.
“Yeah…I’m good…” vaguely I
remembered the bike, the car, the flying glass. So it hadn’t been a dream!
“You sure?” Ayoade asked and I tore
my attention from the gawking crowd.
“Yeah…”
“You were supposed to meet me here
an hour ago!”
Then
I remembered. As in really remembered why
I’d been on the crazy bike in the first place! The call. Seventh floor. Senate
building. The dream.
“I’m so sorry!” I said pulling
myself up. The crowd shrunk back, like they’d seen a ghost come to life.
"Where are you at the moment?" I asked, hoping, grasping at straws...
"I'm on the Island." He said.
The Island?! What on
earth?!
I tried to gather my jumbled thoughts together,
nothing was making any sense!
"Island? Where on the
Island?!"
"The Galleria."
"I'll be there as soon as I can!"
“Hurry, Pretty Girl!” I could almost see the sneer. The voice was back.
"What..."
the line went dead. Frantic, I dialled his number again, wondering if I was
losing my mind!
"Hello!"
"Ayoade?!"
"What happened? You just went dead!"
"No, you did!" I heaved a sigh of
relief.
"Must be network, so much for MTN!"
I
laughed, more from relief than from the jibe, who cares about MTN?!
"See you in a bit then?" He said.
"Yeah sure!"
"Aight!"
"Yaight!"
We
both laughed and ended the call.
*
* * * * *
A smile lingered on my lips....he had that effect on me. I
shifted under the covers and looked at the pink smiley-moon-faced clock on my
bed-side table. It was a little past eight. If I hurried, I could leave home by
nine and hopefully, all the Saturday wedding-goers would be in church by now
and I wouldn't face too much traffic. I could hit the island tennish. I threw
the covers off and they fell away, along with the bed-side table and my
flowered wall-papered walls and my rose-red curtains and my Hillsong United
posters and the million and one pictures of Ayoade that decorated my room and
my soft, comffy bed. In an instant, I was flat on my royal behind at the side
of the road with my gawking audience.
Panicked,
I searched the crowd frantically for the bike. A silly part of me intended to
jump right back on it and continue my journey. There was no sign of the bike,
or the Toyota Camry for that matter! Had I imagined all that?! What then was I
doing, napping by the side of the road! At that point, I really wasn’t sure of
what was real and what wasn’t and really, I’m not sure it mattered whichever
way ‘cos there seemed to be some force making sure everything played out just
as it was, no matter what I did or didn’t do. I slowly got up from the floor,
wondering if I hadn’t lost anything. I imagined walking away from this scene
with my arm screaming after me not to leave it behind! On this crazy day,
nothing would surprise me! When I was sure I hadn’t broken anything (at least
nothing that was immediately obvious!), I started to walk gingerly in the
general direction I thought led home.
“Auntie sorry oh!” someone said from
the gawking crowd.
“Take am easy oh!” someone else
said.
“Awon
okada olori buruku yen!” another sympathiser added.
All
that sympathy and not a single offer of help! Have I mentioned that this was
Lagos?!!! The crowd watched me go, giving me a wide berth. I honestly had no
inkling what I was going to do at that moment, I just knew I had to keep
walking. Get home. Get my uncle’s car keys. Get to the Island.
“Na where you dey go?!” He asked, revving his engine with loud vroom-vroom sounds that threatened to burst my ripe-water-melon-head right open.
Yeah
you got it right, I got on the bike. The day had been crazy enough, what harm
could one more crazy act possibly do?!
