Super Human: Kurt Wagner

The cabman nodded in silent greeting to the guard and popped his boot open. Another guard checked the boot and then went round the cab with an under-vehicle mirror, as the first one checked my pass and Id. In a few minutes, the cab drove down the driveway to the taxi drop off and I made my way to the entrance of the UN headquarters.

         “Good Morning Sir.” One of the security personnel greeted me with a smile. She had a subtle accent, which I couldn’t really place at that moment, probably East African.

         “Good Morning.” I replied.

         “Please place your personal belongings in the plastic bowls provided, then step through” She said.

I did as she asked and walked through the scanner. She smiled apologetically at me when it started to beep.

         “You’ll have to take off your belt and wrist watch Sir.” She said and I obliged. She was a breath of fresh air from her colleagues at Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport. Bloody numpties had received a tongue scalding from me. Infuriating part was that the insults were lost on them since they didn’t even understand a thing I said. Imbeciles.

When I finally made it through the scanners, she directed me to the registration area where I picked up my tag and schedule for the day.

         “Welcome Simon. The convention is holding in the first level Auditorium. The signs will guide you.” The receptionist said to me. “The Plenary sessions start in about 15 minutes. There’s a waiting area upstairs.”

         “Thank you very much.”

In the waiting area, I quickly scanned through the convention schedule. The convention had been organized by the United Nations Information Technology Service and I was giving a talk during the afternoon session.  My talk was scheduled for 3 pm and if everything went according to plan, I would be on the 7 o’clock flight back to Lagos that evening. My daughter was in town and I had a date with her the next morning which I had no intentions of missing. I had spoken with the co-ordinator, Nngoyomo Endiete, on my way in from the airport. I tried to call her again, to check in but the chatty lady seated on the sofa beside me had other ideas.

Are you from around here?

Oh, what’s Lagos like? I’ve only been there on a few occasions.

What do you do?

How long are you in Abuja for?

What are your plans for after the convention? I’ve lived here all my life, I can show you around.

That said with that little smile that I’ve seen more times than I care to talk about. She put a hand on my arm and started to say something else and it was in that instant that the deafening sound filled the air and the tremor shook the floor through my feet. Time seemed to slow down and I saw her eyes widen in fear as the realization of what was happening hit us both. We were going to die. The bay windows facing the front of the building blew out in a shower of glass shards and flying debris, and my ears started to ring and then went into the monotone beep. I felt like I’d been sucker punched as the sofa was lifted clear off the crumbling floor, throwing me back against the lady. Her grip on my arm tightened and I felt a sickening sensation that started from my stomach and spread into the core of me, like my insides were being sucked out into a vacuum. Just when I thought my eyes were going to pop from that all consuming force, everything went dark and I succumbed gratefully to oblivion.

*

I came to as we hit the ground in front of the US Embassy. The aftershock of the explosion was just hitting and the crowd of visa-hopefuls in front of the embassy was thrown into a panic. I’m not sure how long I was out for but it wasn’t long enough for the slip of a woman to have carried me all the way from the UN building. It didn’t even make sense that we had escaped the blast. I would later find out that we had been sitting directly above the spot where the car bearing the bomb had crashed into the reception area and the bomb had gone off. 

I sat up on the hard tarmac and looked into the seemingly ordinary face of the lady whose name I didn’t even know. It was bleeding from several glass cuts. Her eyes looked dazed, like she wasn’t quite sure of what was going on, and her hand, which was still gripping my arm, was trembling violently, most likely from shock.

         “What happened?” I croaked. My throat hurt from the effort it took to speak. “How did we get here?”

         “I don’t know!” she gasped, her eyes still giving off that glazed, unfocused look. “I… I was just so… I just didn’t want to die…”

It all didn't make any sense at all. I have never given much thought to the issue of my mortality. I know everyone will die one day but the how and when is not something I have thought about too deeply. Yes, I might have been somewhat vaguely aware of my mortality. Yes I do believe in there being something beyond death, the afterlife, some call it. Yes, I might even fancy the idea of extra-terrestrials and the notion of another planet out there with a life-form of some sort. I however do not believe in Super humans, or Super powers or mutants or magic and all that hogwash. I’m a practical man and I believe in absolutes, so the fact that the pretty lady who propositioned me actually teleported me away from certain death is something I still want to chalk up to some debris from the explosion whacking me hard on the head.