Justice According To Vengeance: The Unravelling

The Toyota Corolla stood out like a sore thumb, or more like a shiny Schauss pink one. It was way past 2 a.m. and Apóngbòn Under Bridge isn’t the usual hanging out spot for blinging Toyotas, especially not at foolish-o’clock.

The driver brought the car to a stop just at the ascent to Èkó Bridge by a cluster of makeshift sheds that looked deserted. In the dark, two forms peeled themselves from the shadows and approached the car. The thugs wondered at the audacity of the person who had dared wander onto their territory without invitation.

One of the thugs went over to the driver’s side and grabbed the door handle, trying to force it open. When he couldn’t, he slammed the tire iron he had with him into the window in anger and it shattered. 

        “Ògbeni, cooperate, àbí you wan chop bullet!” the thug said to the driver, his voice hoarse like stones scraping over slate.

One by one, like moths drawn to a flame, more thugs slunk out of the shadows, surrounding the car and before long, there was more than a dozen of them.

The first thug thrust his gun in the driver’s face, ready to start spewing more threats. His gun stopped a hair’s breadth from the driver’s nose and they stared at each other for a few moments, one face registering a mixture of shock and fear, the other deadly calm and unflinching.

        “Kílónselè? What’s happening now?” one of the other thugs demanded, already impatient.

        “Ask him to bring out all his money.” another said.

        “Abeg give am bullet if he no wan cooperate jàre!” someone else said, slamming the metal rod he had in his hand on the side of the car and denting it.

        “Shey he get powder àbí booze?”

        “How much we fit get for the car? Na tear rubber!”

        “Commot am for the car before you shoot am oh, make him no dirty the seat.”

The gunman didn’t reply his cronies. He simply slid slowly to the ground with his free hand clutching his shirt over the bullet hole in his chest and his lifeless eyes forever frozen in their shocked mask.

It took a moment for the others to register what had just happened. Blame it on the rounds of weed they’d had earlier. Blame it on the excess Apeteshi they’d already consumed. Blame it on the fact that the script had never gone that way before. But that tiny bitty moment saw another three thugs hit the ground in quick succession. The others scattered then, scrambling for safety but not quite fast enough. Another one took a shot to the head and one in his kneecap. He dragged himself over a low barbed wire fence, screaming for his mates to help him. Of course, no one waited to offer any help.

The driver sat calmly in the car and watched them scamper away. With the same unhurried movements with which he’d shot at the thugs, he disconnected the silencer and put it and the Glock into the glove compartment. The whole thing had taken less than five minutes. He got out of the car and surveyed his handiwork. He took one disinterested look at the body lying about three feet in front of his car and blocking his path down the road.

As if nothing had happened at all, the night remained dark and quiet and not a soul stirred. Absently, he took out a pack of Mentos gum from his breast pocket and popped a couple into his mouth. He got back in the car and started up the engine, Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze starting to pour out of the speakers. He hummed under his breath as he cut the wheel all the way to the left. He drove on towards Ìgànmú, his front right tire narrowly missing the sprawled body in his path.

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Justice According To Vengeance: Simon's Story

Simon Bólárìnwá seems to have it all; wholesome good looks, a thriving business, his pick of Lagos’ most beautiful and intelligent women, and a luck that seems far from running out. Best of all, he has the love and adoration of Rèmí, his 10-year-old daughter, who is the nucleus of his entire world.

His perfect life is turned wrong-side-down when one chance encounter leaves him living his worst nightmares and embarking on a quest that is nothing short of crazy. It’s left to Ese, his best friend, to put a stop to the madness that ensues before it’s too late.

As the final showdown begins between Simon and the man who took everything from him, Ese is faced with some terrifying demons of her own. Will she be in time to save Simon before his crazy brand of justice destroys him?

Now available on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle format, OkadaBooks, Book Depository, and other online stores.

Justice According To Vengeance

How much will a father give up, to be his little girl’s Hero?

How far will a woman go to protect the ones she loves?

Is all really fair in love and war?

I had it all. My life was perfect. Until one man took it all from me.
Now, it's time to make him pay.

Read Simon's harrowing story. Now available on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle format, OkadaBooks, and other online stores.

We Are One

This beautiful piece was written by Jo Deep and he agreed that I share it on here. I particularly like this piece because it struck home with me in a way I'd never thought of before. Enjoy!

                             *

We are heirs of the Father

We are joint heirs with the Son

We are Children of God's Kingdom

We are Family, We are One!

I was discussing with Joy Shimite of @outburstmusicgroup about spiritual songs, especially how many Songs of our young age and Hymns are not being appreciated for the riches they hold simply because we have unconsciously given these songs a new meaning by singing them only at certain events.

For instance, you'd most likely hear "Oh come to the Father through Jesus the son and give Him the glory, great things He hath done" or "Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine" at a wedding or funeral service. Now, rather than dig into the songs' riches, you're simply reminded of the event.

I mean, if a song that has the gospel imprinted into is properly defined as a gospel song, rather than defining it as a song sang by a Christian, then these are the real “gospel songs” right? But well, what do I know?

At some point during our discussion, Joy began to sing... "We are heirs of the Father". See, there are many more songs we've thrown by the side with such depth and riches injected into them by the song writers. To get your mind full of the heart of any song, be mindful of the words of the song. Don't assume you know what it's about; make sure you know.

Now, concerning the song, if you were anything like me then you know that we usually sing the song to probably round up a meeting and create a family bond in the room by singing it to one another with the holding of hands which isn't wrong at all... but look at the lyric again and tell me that the song writer didn't mean to inspire MORE...

We are heirs of the Father

We are joint heirs with the Son

We are Children of God's Kingdom

We are Family, We are One!

Yes! We are Family with one another and that's AWESOME! But oh boy, we are FAMILY with GOD! Heirs of the FATHER! Joint HEIRS with THE SON! WE ARE ONE with THEM! Heirs of the Father!? Joint Heirs with Jesus!? What a privilege!!! God bless this song writer for the reminder.

Yes, we are Family with one another but only because we are ALL first FAMILY TO GOD. By reason of our family-ness with Him, We are, with one another too. 

The Family-hood-ness we even have with one another only holds weight because WE ARE FAMILY WITH GOD! Wohooooooooo! I'm getting too excited. I'm already inventing my own English. So I'm gonna end on this note!

W E (God/Jesus Christ/One Another) A R E O N E ! 

Grace and Peace,

Jo Deep

The LifeWay Chapel

You can read the original article here. Follow @iamjodeep

The Personal Confessions of a Mad Woman

These things take time. I’m fine for a few days, a couple of weeks, two odd years, three even. Then one day I come undone, and start all over again.

 “I don’t feel my laughter inside anymore…so what do I do? I keep going back n forth, ‘cos I know I have felt it before, I’ve heard it before, and it’s part of me. It is me. And once this tunnel is past, I’ll hear it again, ‘cos it was never gone. Not for one second…”

That was my friend’s status on face book the other day and it felt like she was yanking the words from my mouth before I could even form the thoughts.

I was in that place again. Sometimes, it’s as simple as feeling like I’m sitting on the side-lines, watching life flow by, not exactly sad or anything like that, but neither happy nor joyful or live. At the other extreme, it’s like having this deep dark empty hole, like having this intangible entity in your head, all around you, sucking you in from the outside in and the inside out, it’s like having spiders crawling around in your head. Sometimes it’s this inexplicable desperation, this deep sad you can’t explain, it’s like looking out from a shattered mirror and all you see is a distorted reality. Sometimes, I feel like I totally understand what J.K Rowling was trying to describe when she came up with the idea of Dementors that suck the soul out of you. I have my good days too, my almost manically happy days that just like their sad counterparts, I really can’t explain. The only cloud that seems to hang over those blissfully happy days is the thought that I’ll eventually come down from the high and the crash is usually as bad as the good-feel high was.

I have often wondered if I was crazy (I probably am) or if there was something I was doing wrong because I look at everyone else around me and they all seem so normal, they all seem to have it all together in ways that I can’t seem to be able to. It made me wonder if, just if, everyone else was faking it, I mean, how do you manage not to get swallowed up by that intangible entity in your head? How do you stay sane every single day? How do you balance things out instead of living on the extremes?

Then my friend’s Facebook status goes, “maybe they just think or hope that if they laughed longer or harder, it’ll banish all the sad from their lives… or maybe they just know something we don’t!” So I ask myself, what could they possibly know? I wonder if we could trade our muddy spectacles for their rose-tinted ones so we could see the world as they do, see the magic they see, feel it, live it…

I remember quite vividly the first time I experienced a mood swing (at least, it’s the first episode I remember) and I was five. I remember playing with my sister one minute and the next feeling this overwhelming sadness and the need to cry and hide away from everyone. I’m not exactly sure of what triggered it, if anything, or why it started out at all but I know I’ve lived with it off and on for the last twenty some years. I’ve heard studies show that in a lot of cases, a traumatic experience could be a trigger. I have rather traumatic memories of sexual abuse also from the year I was five (what I can’t really remember is which came first, the abuse or the episode). Well, that offers me some hope because it means whatever this thing is, there’s a chance it’s not hereditary and my little girl will stand a chance of living her life whole…

I know that naturally, when we go through some life altering situations like the death of a loved one, the breakdown of an important relationship or the loss of a job, we might experience some depression to varying degrees. What I can’t explain is the unravelling that happens just because. It’s the nothing-ness that just comes for seemingly no reason. It is having twice as much difficulty getting over these life-altering occurrences as everyone else seems to. It’s getting weepy for absolutely no reason at all and being unable to stop the crying. It is living on that edge, knowing you don’t have the strength to be strong, wishing you didn’t have to have to be strong. It’s walking on this road that seems too long, thinking you don’t want to go on, thinking you can’t. It’s thinking you’ve finally gotten a grasp of this horrible thing in your head, only to circle back to the place where you don’t understand a thing. It’s the weariness that comes with fighting the same battle every day and the defeat of giving up on waiting for the day you’ll be fine, realizing it may never come, realizing ‘this really is me’. It is catching yourself thinking about doing it yet again, wondering how you’re meant to do it: right across or a thin straight line down the middle. It is trying to stop the hurting in your head and your mind and wondering why you didn’t just get it over and done with, why you didn’t just put an end to it because you’re going crazy with desperation and all you can think is please, please, Dear God please just let it stop. It is wishing you didn’t have to have to do it. It is the mind numbing fear that you might actually do it one of these days, tumble over that thin line you’ve been threading for much too long into nothingness, a week or a year or ten years from now.

That seemingly ordinary Saturday in October was one of those unravelling days for me. It’s like a wool sweater unravelling from the hem, up until the breast pocket, but not all the way. I still have the wool all around me, in swirly whorls, waiting for me to un-undone it. It was one of those days that the sweater unexpectedly got snagged on something – a nail, a sharp table edge, a memory, a song maybe, - you never really know what exactly it is – and I came undone. It didn’t make sense really. It was the same day that I completed a Book that I’d been working on for a really long time. This was huge for me, it’s my first complete book project and I’d been working like crazy the last few months, working a full time job, weaving this intricate plot, seeing things through the characters’ eyes, laughing at silly things they were thinking, bonding with them, feeling their rush of adrenaline as they meandered through the plot, I had done tons of research (I became lawyer, marks man, Jason Bourne, gyno, ballistics expert and even Ismaila the mechanic all rolled up in one), scouring the internet (if there’s some secret service agent monitoring my browsing history ehn, they wee soon send a SWAT team to my house), writing every opportunity I could get, editing, writing some more and putting everything into the project. The writing process was a truly magical time for me and at the point that I finished, I should have been ecstatic, I should have been on a high, I should have been popping the champagne, I should have been doing cartwheels! Instead, all I felt was this deep, crushing depression. This wasn’t just a case of exhaustion, it was like being thrown into a vacuum with the flick of a switch, it was like taking a next step and just tumbling into nothingness without warning, it was like everything you have been, just ceasing to exist in a split second. I spent the weekend crying and almost unable to get out of bed. I just didn’t get it, I still don’t. Even now, I haven’t been able to bring myself to go back to the finished book, not to read or do the editing or anything. I wish I understood why at least, it would make not knowing what to do about it a little easier to handle.  I got unravelled inexplicably, but I didn’t go all the way. That’s something, I think. It gets better. Next time, maybe the sweater will stop at the bottom pocket. Or maybe just around the middle. It does get better, until one day I wake up and maybe realize I’m all fine and this too has gone away. I’ll wake up and not be so tired and weary.

In my twenty eight on-again off-again (I’ve had my good times, I even went sober for about two years at some point without even a little ‘sad’ episode) years of living with it, I’ve discovered some things that help with handling it. One is music. I really can’t describe how worship soothes my mind when I have an episode. It’s not how you would imagine it, not like break out the Tranquillity playlist and poof, it’s gone. It’s a little hard to describe, maybe quite like the saying that peace isn’t the absence of trouble or storms but finding your calm within the storm, something like that. God bless Hilsong United, they’ve been my go-to fix of late, especially the acoustic versions of their Empires and Of Dirt and Grace Albums.

Writing has always been therapeutic for me and it helps to just write out what and how I’m feeling, pour it all out, like bleeding out the poison from my veins. Sometimes, I don’t even necessarily have to write what I’m feeling. Writing almost anything at all helps. Sometimes I write these long, incoherent letters to God (these help because, call me unspiritual if you like, but these are the times that it’s hardest to pray the words, so writing God long crazy letters are my way of talking to Him in these crazy times. These are times when it’s so dark in my head that the notion of God loving me seems ludicrous at best. It feels more like a cruel mockery on some really bad days). Sometimes I write the long crazy incoherent letters to myself or maybe even a good story. Writing just about anything helps and I’m almost always happy when I’m writing.

I’ve kept journals over the years and this might sound counter-productive but writing down all the bad actually helps me look back and see how far I’ve come and how well I’ve done. For me, it’s like writing down your prayer points and then looking back over them and seeing how God has answered them over the years. (If it still doesn’t make sense, remember that these are the confessions of a mad woman, so go figure).

Sometimes, my therapy is losing myself in a book. If I can just pick something up to read, it’ll help me forget my present twisted reality for a while. So, whether I’m writing it or reading it, a good story usually soothes me.

One thing that I’ve found invaluable is my support system; that is people who to an extent know about it and who I usually talk to about what I’m feeling or going through. I see them quite like an Alcoholic’s sponsor. Having a support system is an amazing thing, it helps you share a tiny bit of that burden and it keeps you accountable, sort of. Unfortunately, I have found out that getting that support is one of the hardest things, especially in our culture where it’s almost taboo to even mention anything relating to mental health issues, not to talk of coming out of the closet and saying you’ve got them issue thingies. It’s just not done. We’re all sane, strong, healthy people, God forbid that we’re associated with any such thing! And the Christian community, I’m afraid to say, is even worse. I’ve found it harder to talk to Christians about it than I have other people. Even when I do get to talk to my Christian friends, it’s usually in a ‘non-Christian’ setting. People have implied that I’m definitely not really saved or filled with the Holy Spirit if I have mental health issues and at some point, it started me doubting my salvation and everything I know and believe too. Someone’s said to me once “How can you call yourself a Christian and be saying you’re depressed?” This someone (who until that point had been an important part of my life) cut me off totally because he couldn’t handle it and couldn’t imagine what people would think (his words) if they knew I was struggling with depression. Immediately you even start to say the ‘D’ word, people start to scabbash and bind and cast and I’ve often been left wondering if I’m the evil spirit that is so repugnant to them. We Christians are quicker to judge and slap labels on things we don’t understand. It’s easier than trying to explain how it fits into our ideals of God and Christianity and most times, people with mental health issues  do not really feel like there’s a place for them within the fold (okay, maybe I’m speaking for just myself here, but this is from painful experience) so we try to fit in, we try to fix our un-normalness, try to fake it until we make it, but believe me, that might work everywhere else but when it comes to the mad in your head, it just doesn’t! It’s been extremely hard getting a support system going and I’m ashamed to say that I’m still in the closet to a large extent (who am I kidding? I'm in the closet in the closet!) and I doubt that the few friends in my support system even know just how bad I have it. I remember my mum once catching me reading a book by Tim LaHaye, ‘Overcoming Depression’ and the alarmed look that came on her face as she asked me why I was reading such a book. I looked at the fear and terror written all over her face and I knew I couldn’t bring myself to tell her, I couldn’t do that to her, couldn’t do it to me. I just couldn’t bring myself to share this with her, my mother. I’m not totally sure of what I was more afraid of; breaking her heart and shattering the picture perfect illusion she has about our lives (I mean, where do I start from? The abuse from all those years ago? The crazy episodes and the baggage they bring? My lowest, ugliest moments?) or making myself vulnerable, opening up my deepest, most painful wounds? Maybe deep down, I was just terrified that I would see that look of revulsion and repugnance on her face as well, that look that said I was damaged and broken, that look that said I was weak and weird and crazy and didn’t fit in. Irrational maybe, but well, that fear was there as it has always been and I took the coward’s way out and told her some dumb story about how it was just a Christian book that I’d picked up at the book store in Church. Coward! Believe me, it gets really emotionally draining trying to make people understand, dealing with the judgement, especially that which you know isn’t coming from a spiteful place, that which comes from a place of love (and getting over that rejection in itself is usually a trigger for an episode, so it’s just way easier to avoid it). People tell you to snap out of it and stop being such a cry baby, and oh, how I’ve tried! I wish more than anything else that it was that simple. I am going to have this published anonymously (if it ever gets published that is!) because a huge part of me is still very afraid and wary. I’ve learned that no matter how understanding or forward-thinking we think we have become, biases still run deep in our DNA and it’s hard to let go of notions and ideas that have been ingrained in our thinking. I know just how fickle and fleeting acceptance usually is. I’ve seen the unveiled derision, I’ve watched the walls go up as soon as people know. I’ve watched well-meaning people flounder and stumble, trying not to show how uncomfortable they are with being uncomfortable with my damagedness, how they try not to make too much of it and then wonder if they’re making too little of it. You know that whether they judge you or just feel sorry for you, it will still distance them from you, you’ll still be different. Then, there’s the resentment that creeps in from handling all that judgement and snobbery and misunderstanding, and in a way, I’m starting to pass judgement of my own on people for not understanding (the irony, eh?). It’s a constant, conscious fight not to let these other negative emotions in and not to take the path of offense (see? This thing messes with you on so many levels). I must confess that in recent times, I’ve sub-consciously started to pull away from my support system as well because a part of me just wonders if, you know, even they are getting tired of my wahala because me sef I have tire. I find myself wondering, what if they’ve had just about enough of these bouts of crying for nothing and the long winding conversations that seem to make no sense. I wonder if they just might think I’m just a spoilt brat seeking attention. Sometimes I wonder if my burden is getting too heavy for them to carry and if it’s starting to drain them as well (kai, sometimes, I worry for the sanity of my Therapist, the things I have told her ehn!). An irrational part of me wants so much to be perfect for them, I want them to see me as whole and healthy and smart and inspiring and intelligent, not the broken toy who constantly needs their help. I want to be giving and adding value to people’s lives, not just needing and taking all the time. I’m trying to work on this but it’s hard because again, those notions and ideas that have been ingrained into our minds by our culture and society. This road can be a very cold and lonely one to walk. I’ll never ever take for granted the power of someone just being there with their love, even when (maybe especially when) they don’t really understand what you’re going through.  Sometimes it’s all that’s needed and it makes a whole world of difference, just knowing you’re still accepted despite everything. It makes the fight easier to fight. Sometimes, it’s absolutely everything because it just might be the reason someone walks away from the edge.

 Another thing that keeps me off that line is remembering, even in my deepest, darkest moments, the things that matter, the things that are worth the fight. I remember during my last episode, trying desperately to hold on to something, anything just to keep my sanity. I remember starting up two lists, one for the reasons I just wanted it all to stop, reasons why I needed this overwhelming hurt in my head to end, this was my aye list for silencing the screaming in my head, getting away from that intangible entity that’s sucking the essence out of me once and for all, reasons why I had to end to it all. I do not write this lightly and I know how hard it must be for anyone reading this to understand why anyone would have the audacity or the state of mind to make such a seemingly selfish and self-absorbed decision or to even think of it. I doubt I can adequately put to words or paint a picture of the reality of such a state of mind or how totally you can get pushed over the edge or all the muddling that’s going on in your head and mind. I really can’t. But I’ll say this: it takes more than strength or will power or even a moral or religious code to walk back from that edge each and every time (at least for me). So, after I finished my aye list, I started out on my nay list and the first thing that came to my mind was my nephews. One of them turns ten in January and I recently started up a project to write him a book for his milestone birthday (he’s already an avid reader too) and in that moment, I burst into tears and became overwhelmed with all these emotions and memories and the elaborate plans for his birthday and the letters we write each other back and forth and the silly things he does and says and the storyline I’ve been working on for his book and how we love to read together and how he tells me stuff that he’s read and how naughty he can get and….that brought me back from the edge. I abandoned my lists and I knew I had to fight one more day, just one more day this time because I just couldn’t afford to give up, not just yet…

Well, it’s been a journey. It’s been twenty eight years since that first day I ran and hid in my mother’s wardrobe and I’ve learned a few things here and there. I made a conscious decision to have a relationship with God when I was about nine and I know my faith has been at the core of my still being – well, - being. In Taya Smith’s voice, my Soul knows well You’re here. Even in the middle of the broken glass shards that is sometimes my mind, He’s always right in there, getting cut and ripped along with me. In the midst of the spiders crawling around the corners of my mind, He’s there, holding me through the worst and the best of it (hey, I have my good/sane/normal days when I’m just the girl next door!). And I know that if while I’m in this broken, damaged body, I never get to be rid of this thing, I can draw comfort from knowing that He’ll always be right here in my crazy head, through the times that I’m aware of Him and the ones that I’m too far lost to even feel Him. I know (even in the times that my circumstances say otherwise) that He’ll always be right there with me, every single time I walk on that awful edge, every time I sit on that thin line, wondering if I should simply silence the roaring, end the emotional torture, He’ll be there through each one and whether it’s a week or a year or ten years from now, He’ll be there through each one until maybe one day, the edge becomes a distant, fuzzy memory too. Through it all, I can say “Even when I have no song, even when the fight seems lost, even when it hurts like hell, even when it makes no sense to sing..." I know that His love surrounds me when my thoughts wage war. I’m taking comfort from the fact that if one day, the wool sweater gets unravelled all the way and I have no idea how to put me back together again, He’ll be there to make sense of the mess and maybe He’ll even decide to make something entirely different from the wool…who says I always have to be a sweater!

And oh, if there’s anyone reading this who is crazy just like me, please know that it does get better, just hang in there…

Princess Diaries: New Papa

Dear Mr. AJ, 

Hey SB,

First and foremost, I think congratulations are in order so from one Princess-Daddy to another, welcome to the club of the Elite! 

Thank you so much. This is indeed an elite club (this I’ve found out in the past weeks) not for the weak hearted!

I’m sure you know by now that this changes everything. From that first amazing moment you hold a Princess in your arms and look into that beautiful and seemingly helpless face, the power-shift happens and a new Boss takes over. 

Things have not only changed, I vaguely remember my life before the first beautiful Wednesday in November ’16. I wonder what I’d been doing and what my life even comprised of! Yep! That’s how much Oluwamayomikun took over! She was brought out immediately after delivery and handed to me. It took a lot to hold the tears, my eyeballs were just floating in tears. She was so tiny and big at the same time. Like, human beings come this tiny and don’t break?! And, wait! All of this was in The Mrs' womb? I’ve always said babies are not born beautiful, this one was an exception. I literally felt a tug and a squeeze on my heart, I ran out of breath just standing and looking at her and saying a prayer of gratitude to the Most High.

She will bring sunshine and colour and texture and flavour into your life and only then will you become aware of all the grey, flat plains that were in it before now (especially if you were a self-absorbed wuss like I was). You’ll be amazed at all you’ll learn from your tiny little tot, about life, about yourself, about mundane things you didn’t even know existed. Best of all, you’ll learn a new kind of loving, giving and receiving it. 

Colour and sunshine she did bring. Colour first though, never imagined a room could be so full or colours and not hurt the eyes, but The Mrs worked her magic and I absolutely love her room. It’s even comforting in itself. I’m sure you know how even watching a baby cry can be a beautiful experience! Sleeping, playing, crying, smiling, laughing, whatever she’s doing, she's just captivating. You know, saying I love her so much doesn’t even convey the feelings. I’m not sure anything I can say or do can fully express the depth of love I have for her. I’m just always in a state of 'what else can I do for her?', and how? Or when? Gosh! Someone said I’ve been softened. I scoffed to form macho, but me I know, I’ve become butter.

You’ll learn anew the meaning of vulnerability and how utterly beautiful and fulfilling it can be. You’ll discover the hero in you, not just for your Princess but for yourself. You’ll get more than just a few grey hairs (oh yes you will!) and come to see each one as a badge of honour that you’re immensely proud of.

Grey hairs! I have ‘em. I know exactly how many more strands I’ve gotten in my beard since November 2, ’16, and I’m immensely proud of every mm (if you guys do imperial, read: inches) of them.

Each day will bring its own little treasure and I wish I could possibly put to words all the wonder and adventures that await you but I couldn’t possibly do it if I tried. And even if I could, nothing, absolutely nothing can compare to actually unwrapping each precious treasure for yourself. You are in for a great ride my friend, congratulations! 

"Treasures in earthen vessels" has just been redefined for me. Each moment is a treasure in itself. Sometimes, I think I will pass out from being full of joy at the littlest things she does.  I’ve had my sleep cut drastically, I should be upset, yeah? Hell no! I wake up and wait for her to wake up so I can ‘rush’ to her room and bring her to The Mrs to nurse. Sometimes, I think I mentally wake her up sef :D This has to be the best ride life has to offer!

I know as the days roll into years, you’ll start to collect your own Princess-Diary memories. They will become some of your most prized possessions so treasure them, savour them, luxuriate in them. I hope that we can get to share our treasures with each other and I hope our precious Princesses get to know each other as well. 

I’ll confess this right now, I’ve never taken as many pictures of anyone as I have taken of Oluwamayomikun. Mostly solos of her, sometimes with dad selfie :D, or the whole (that sounds awesome) family ussie :D. Opened an email for her, I plan to leave emails now and then and milestones of her life. I’m like gathering every info and moments I can of her and trying to store them. Sometimes, I feel silly, but the good kind – not like there’s any other kind :D Absolutely looking forward to another ‘run in’ and sharing more of these moments, while watching our treasures play and probably do girl stuff.

Here’s Mayomikun in her car seat. I love that she loves being in the car seat, so we can easily hit town.

Till we meet again, probably in another dressing room with your little girl in tow, I remain yours’ Knightedly,

SB

I do have to run and get outta the office and head home to this awesome lil lady.

New Papa 

Star Elite Traveller

I’ve always been a regular Joe when it comes to travelling. I jejely buy my economy tickets, go through the awful queues at MMA1 and moan and gripe along with everyone else about how crappy our dearest airport is. After going through the whole palava of checking in and all, I sit patiently and wait while they call the different categories to board and I’m almost always with the last group to board. I’m used to it. I hardly even think about it anymore. I guess it’s one of those things your mind just blocks out as part of its coping mechanism.

Then recently, I had the opportunity to travel with a couple of friends who had what is called the Star Elite Traveller status. You know, all those times that you go online to look for the cheapest tickets, and you see things like Air Miles blah, blah, someone like me just goes straight to sites like Opodo to go and look for the best deals. Who cares about buying from KLM just to get some Air Miles? So these guys have not only been jetting around the world like boomerangs, they’ve been accumulating these points and now they’re Star Elite Travellers. I feel like saying it one more time, just to…okay, I digress. So these guys are like the VVVVIPs of travelling. I guess somewhere in the periphery of my mind, I knew there were such things as Lounges at Airports but when you’re a gbogbo ero like me, you don’t allow yourself ponder such things too much. But because I was travelling with these guys, I was allowed a sneak peek into the Elite life.  At Heathrow, we just breezed through the whole check-in process, no long queues, no waiting around. My friends just flashed their cards and the airline staff simply opened up the retractable barriers and we waltzed through while the other passengers on the queue eyed us with jealous eyes. Even our luggage trolley was wheeled in for us and we were all checked in in a matter of minutes. Ah, this is the life! Then we were ushered into the Elite Lounge. I saw places I never even imagined existed within Heathrow’s Terminal 2! There was a never-ending buffet, free drinks, seats big enough to swallow me up, it was lit! Then when it was time to board, there was no walking through those zig-zagging tunnels (which get me claustrophobic). It was like they parked the plane right at our backyard and we just strolled on. No squeezing through miniature aisles, looking for your seat number and then trying to shove your carry-on into the tiny cubicles while the person already sitting on the aisle seat gives you the stink eye. We strolled onto the plane, sat in out mini-flats, stretched our legs (no annoying passenger in front of you pushing their seats in your face) and the drinks were on the ready from smiling hostesses (even those smiles were different from the ones you get in Economy, true!).

You know, by the time they asked the gbogbo ero to start boarding, I was probably half way through a movie already! And through the partly opened curtains that separated we the Elites from them, I could see them lumber onto the plane, looking really bleurgh with their tired grumpy faces, squalling toddlers and their gbogbo ero Economy tickets gripped in their hands as they started the weary task of settling in for a seven-hour flight in cramped quarters. That was them and this was me. I wasn’t one of them anymore, I was an Elite Traveller. I’d been invited into ‘The Club’ and it was oh so easy to see all that was wrong with those gbogbo ero. It wasn’t hard at all to point (and maybe even smirk) at how crappy and razz it was back there and to say to myself, thank God I’m not with that bunch. I couldn’t help my nose crinking up in distaste thinking of how messy the toilets get or how two people have conversations at the tops of their voices while everyone else is trying to sleep or how people would be taking silly selfies (okay, I’ll confess, I did take a photo or two in Business class, but who wouldn’t, eh?). It was really easy to distance myself from the common people.

This whole experience brings me, in a kinda weird, not-necessarily-logical way (I’ve come to realize that my mind doesn’t always work in a conventionally logical way) to the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. The Pharisees are probably some of the most un-liked people in Christendom. We talk about them and their shallow lives and I bet they’ve had their fair share of sermons preached about them. They’ve got a Rap sheet more than a mile long and it is really easy to dislike them, in fact, that’s the default setting. The thing however is that, after my one stint at Elite status, I’ve started to kinda find it hard to point the accusing finger at them. I don’t know about everyone else but I’ve realized (the Elite way no doubt) that once we get invited to the inner circles, it’s so easy to turn around and see what’s wrong with everyone else on the outside. It’s easy to forget how unpleasant the feeling of being the outcast is that we start to ostracize other people who we deem not up to our status. I can stand here and say with all the indignation in the world that the Pharisees were the ones who accused Jesus falsely, cooked up stupid lies and bribed false witnesses to have Him condemned. I can shout all I want that they were the ones who stirred up the crowd to demand for Barabbas’ release and all, but the truth is when Jesus hung on that hideous cross, just as much as the Pharisees, I put Him there. One bitter truth I’ve been having to chew and swallow lately is that I probably spend more time being a Pharisee than I’ll like to admit. And that picture I’m seeing of me ain’t pretty at all. What am I trying to say here? (Hey, I have absolutely nothing against being an Elite Traveller! In fact ehn, I’ve been hinting at those friends to you know, let us take another trip). My point is I constantly need to search my heart so that even when I stand and point fingers at the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, I’m not being a finger pointing Pharisee myself. I need God to put me in line so that if given even half the chance, I don’t become worse than the Pharisees I so easily condemn (you know, that thing about the speck and the log?). In my own little way, am I judging others or placing unfair burdens and standards (yeah, the Ten Commandments according to Yours Truly Tipsy) on them? Do I try to replace God’s grace and mercy with my own sense of right and wrong and judge others by my self-righteousness? This is just a heart-check for me so that as I go through this life-journey, whether I’m lounging in the Lounge (hehehe see rhymes!) with a Pina Colada or shuffling through those tiny aisles to the nightmare that the toilets become after about five hours into the flight, the only banner I want to be blazing through life is one that screams in capital letters: GRACE, GRACE! AMAZING GRACE!

The Persecutor Preachers

I have a feeling this title sounds a tad confusing. Bear with me a moment while I attempt to explain to you what I had in my head when I came up with it. Hopefully then, it starts to make a bit of sense and you’ll see the picture I see. Hopefully.

It’s Easter time again and I was in Church for Easter Sunday service and there was one thing  that jumped out at me this year that I’ve probably never ever thought of or considered the uncountable times I’ve read or been preached to about the crucifixion.

When Jesus was crucified, two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the left and one on the right (Matt 27:38, Mark 15:27, Luke 23:33, John 19:18). As Jesus hung on the cross, the crowd hurled insults at Him, including the thieves that were crucified with Him (Matt 27:44, Mark 15:32). However, Luke’s account adds a little more detail. In Luke 23:39-42, we see that there seems to have been a shift of some sort. One thief goes “Oga, how far nah? If you’re really this amazing guy who’s supposed to be the Messiah and all, do your thing biko and get us out of here.” The second thief on the other hand rebuked the first (vs 40-41). Now, I have no idea how much time had elapsed between their being strung up on their crosses and this particular bit of conversation. I don’t have all the details of everything that might have transpired between this thief’s joining his partner and the crowd in insulting and mocking Jesus, and his suddenly defending Jesus to his partner and then taking what is probably one of the biggest leaps of faith ever, and asking Jesus to remember him (vs 42). Was it minutes? Hours? What did he see or hear that changed his entire perspective? Was it the stark realization of his dire situation, like omo, na kpai I go kpai today oh! Was it a last moment of terror or was it resignation at his fate? Or  was it that his cross was at an angle to Jesus’ and he saw the inscription ‘King of the Jews’ and had an Eureka moment that wow, I’m dying right beside royalty! (If the guy had been Nigerian, he would probably have been pissed he couldn’t get a selfie with the celeb beside him!) Maybe it was hearing Jesus forgive the ones who had wrongfully nailed Him to a cross that did it for him, like Say what? How can you even forgive the people who put you in such excruciating pain? Or maybe the guy heard all the insults hurled at Jesus and all the mockery coming His way and he was blown away by the tidbits of info:

He saved others, let Him save Himself if He’s truly the Christ…He trusted in God, let God deliver Him now…He healed so many others, why can’t He heal His own wounds now…He claimed He would destroy the temple and build it in three days…the insurgent claimed to be the Bread of Life, imagine…He called Himself God, greater than even Abraham…He had the audacity to forgive sins, the nerve of the man….He claimed live-giving waters flowed from Him…He said anyone who believed in Him would have eternal life, now He’s dying like a common criminal! Oh the irony…

The crowd of mockers must have rehashed the many sermons and parables and sayings of Jesus over and over, having a good laugh at Jesus’ expense, throwing His words in His face, literally rubbing salt to injury. But in all of that, maybe, just maybe, that thief heard the words that changed his life. Maybe hearing about Jesus’ life-changing miracles, His audacious claims, His words on the cross, shifted something inside of him and he came to realize what the mocking crowd had missed. And in that moment when his eyes were opened (I guess he did have an Eureka moment after all) and he cried “Lord remember me when You come in Your kingdom”, the unbelieving crowd (which ironically included the Pharisees, scribes, chief priests and elders, who were Jesus’ greatest persecutors) had inadvertently become very effective propagators of His gospel. They had indirectly preached the word (preach it preacher!) with outstanding results!

So, hope you now understand the title? If you still don’t, remember that I tend to get a little crazy inspired sometimes and even I don’t always understand how my mind works! Hopefully though, you got the gist of the story ;)

Faith Like A Pharisee

Mark chapter 3 is probably one of those chapters that we’ve all built pictures around. Okay, that is if you’re weird like me and watch too many action movies and have a cuh-ray-zay imagination. Just indulge me for a moment.

The stage is set. The crowd is gathered. Enter left: Jesus and His crew. Enter right: the Pharisees with their flowing robes and chins in the air. They take their seats at the front of the synagogue, set apart from the common people.

Flash back to the sitting room of one of the Pharisees, say his name is Phineas. Three of four other top Pharisees are at this coded meeting:

PHINEAS:         That insurgent won’t be able to resist, it’s in his nature.

        AMOS:              I’m sure he won’t. He just can’t help himself.

CAIPHAS:          Yes he can’t help himself. (Gives an evil chuckle). He will help us wrap the noose around his own neck!

Back to the present scene. Jesus is doing His thing, probably reading from a scroll or teaching. All the extras are taking their cues from the director off the cameras and nodding and scratching their chins, as if discerning for the first time, the secrets of the universe.

Enter centre: the man with the shrivelled hand.

Flash back to Phineas’ living room again:

STEPHANUS:     We know that dude with the freakish hand likes to hang behind the crowds outside the synagogue.

AMOS:              Yes, he never goes in but he never misses Sabbath either.

PHINEAS:         I’ll make sure to rebuke him sternly on my way in for not ever dropping an offering in the bowls. He’ll be forced to go in. Guilt-tripping works like magic all the time!

STEPHANUS:     Even though God knows he’ll have nothing worth putting in the bowl. (Wrinkles his nose in distaste).

        PHINEAS:         And our dear little healer will be there to see him.

AMOS:              And everything will fall neatly into place! (Rubs his hands together as an evil smile steals across his face).

Back to the present scene. Jesus looks up from the scroll and stops mid-sentence. He looks at the man shuffling up the aisle, head down, withered hand hidden under his cloak. The poor dude looks like he wishes the floor would open up and swallow him. The crowd now turns with Jesus to stare at this man. Everyone goes quiet as if on cue. The only sounds in the synagogue are from the man’s shuffling feet. Some high-tension sound track starts playing. Camera zooms in on Jesus’ intent face. Then it picks out Phineas’ gloating, triumphant one from the front of the synagogue. It goes back to Jesus, then zooms in on the man as he comes closer and closer. We get a shot of Amos’ clenched fist in his lap, like he’s trying to use some Jedi mind trick on Jesus to make Him perform the miracle. The tension builds and the volume of the ominous sound track increases…..

…You know, sometimes, we need to have faith like the Pharisees. Yup. Those guys had such unshakeable faith in Jesus’ ability to heal the man with the shrivelled hand. Their entire plot to trap Jesus in a faux pas was hinged on this one fact. I wonder how many of us believe half as much as they did that Jesus can meet our every need, move our every mountain. Just food for thought. Sorry guys that I took you through all that drama just to tell you what I could have said in about four sentences. E ma binu! #okbye

This Little Goldfish

June 23, 2007

01:25 hours

The fog in my head clears slowly and the masked and suited policemen swim into view. I’m sitting on the floor of a Piccadilly train car, my back against a blue and yellow seat. I look around the car in utter confusion, disjointed bits of information registering in my brain haphazardly: the dot matrix display showing the train was at Finsbury Park Station; the half a dozen or so ninja-looking coppers in full assault gear spread around me; the ‘Going to Heathrow?’ Ad on the wall; the spilled fries that are starting to turn pink from soaking up the blood from the grey linoleum floor; the cackling of the radio on the shoulder clip of the policeman crouching a few feet from me; the drawn assault rifles that are trained on me; the blood that has soaked through my brown coat and navy-blue tweed jacket; the canary-yellow of the sweater the lady whose head is sitting in my lap is wearing and how matted with blood her blonde hair is; the bloody kitchen knife in my hand.

The knife…

        “Drop the weapon and put your hands where I can see them!”

Weapon?

I look at it, dazed, trying to figure out why it is in my hand and why both it and my hand are almost completely covered in blood. Then it slips from my numb fingers to the floor with a clatter.

*

00:34 hours

The lady’s iPhone fell to the floor with a clatter, missing the edge of the platform by just a few inches. She was propped up by the crutches under her arms and her right foot, which was cocooned in a cast, stuck out awkwardly in front of her. She cursed under her breath and tried to hobble towards the phone.

        “Here, I’ve got it.” The man in the brown trench coat said, picking up the phone and handing it to her.

        “Thank you.” She said, giving him a relieved smile and he nodded at her.

The train arrived then and he stood aside for her to get on. At that time of the night, the usually busy Leicester Square Station had quietened down and there was only a handful of passengers waiting on the platform to board the train. The man took a seat adjacent to the doors and absently registered the other occupants of the train car. There was the young kid, who looked no older than 16 or 17, in a hoodie and with Beats headphones clamped on, two seats away from him. He wondered what the young boy was doing out that late. Further down on the other side of the car was an old couple, holding hands. Beside them, a blonde woman dozed, her head starting to loll towards the man. A quick glance at his wrist watch told him it was 12:36 a.m. He had just six stops on the train and he hoped to be home by 1 a.m. He picked up a discarded copy of the Evening Standard from the seat beside him and started to flip through absently….

*

02:21 hours

….Shhhlapppppp.

The sounds the papers make as the Police Detective flips through them yanks me to the present. I shudder, imagining this is what it must feel like to teleport from one dimension to another; disorienting and utterly confusing.

        “Mr. Adewale?”

Her voice sends another jolt through me and I swallow to push down the bile in my throat. She pronounces the name as Ah-dee-wally and it takes a moment to realize she is addressing me. I shake my head, trying to clear it. My mind feels woozy and I can’t seem to gather my thoughts.

How long have I been sitting here in the hard plastic chair?

I look down at my clasped hands on the table. They look raw and grey, like I’d been scrubbing at them real hard. There are still traces of blood around my finger nails.

How did I get blood on my hands?

The hand cuffs are cold against my wrists and they look so out of place, like ill-fitting bangles. I stare at them, unable to find a logical explanation for why they and my hands have anything at all in common.  I’m wearing a pair of grey joggers and a black sweat shirt. I have no idea whose they are because they are several sizes too large.

What happened to my clothes? Why am I wearing these things with someone else’s body odour on them? Why have I been cuffed like a criminal? What exactly is going on?

I rack my brain for answers but come up blank.

        “Do you want to tell me what happened on that train?” she says giving me a patient look that I do not trust.

Sarah Burns. The name jumps out at me. I’m not sure how I know that’s her name. She has probably mentioned it to me at some point.

Why then don’t I remember her telling me?

I look away from her and my eyes hit the clock on the wall above her head. It is 2:24 but I have no idea if it’s afternoon or the middle of the night.

        “I….” I started.

What train is she talking about!

I clench my eyes shut and try to concentrate. Everything is fuzzy.

“I…Leicester Square…” I shake my head.

Come on, remember!

“I got on the train at Leicester Square…”

        “Okay. Then what happened?” she asks.

I look from her to her partner who is leaning against the wall, arms crossed across his chest, with an open look of mistrust on his face. I reckon he’s the bad cop in this crappy movie that I have found myself smack in the middle of.

        “I…there was a…”

I look at the little recorder on the table between us. It is making a quiet whirring sound which is rather distracting to me. I look away from it to DCI Sarah Burns and try again.

        “After I got on the train, I …”

 I what?!

I want to tell her what happened after I got on the train but for the life of me, I can’t remember. It feels like it is just there, on the periphery of my mind and that if I can only just stretch far enough, I’ll be able to reach for it!

She raises her eyebrows and leans in slightly towards me expectantly.

        “What happened after you got on the train?” she asks.

        “I got on the train at 12:34 a.m.” I say, gripping the edge of the table, desperate to remember. “She was asleep, at the other end of the car, beside the old couple.”

        “Who was?”

        “The…” dead woman.

My heart starts to pound.

Oh my God, there is dead woman.

        “Who are you referring to Mr. Ah-dee-wally?”

I do not want to think about the dead woman, I can’t bring myself to.

        “We arrived at Covent Garden at 12:37.” I say instead, ignoring her. I vaguely remember seeing the time on the dot matrix display as Julie Berry’s voice announced the station.

        “Then…”

I hit a brick wall. There doesn’t seem to be anything else after that point. It is like my entire existence has been whittled down to those moments between 12:34 and 12:37, an entire lifetime reduced to a mere three-minute window. I grip my face in my cuffed hands, the metal cold against my lips, and will myself to remember.

        “Tell me about the woman who was asleep on the train.”

I raise my head and look at her.

        “What woman?” I ask.

        “You just said there was a woman asleep on the train, beside the old couple.”

When did I tell her that?

A frown creases her brow and I wonder if she thinks I’m crazy. Her partner motions to her and I look at him, my hands starting to shake. My eyes hit the clock again, and the long hand is between five and six.

2:28.

What is it about the clock that draws me so much?

I try to think but everything is a jumble, plus the blasted whirring of the recorder was getting in my head. Whirrrrrrrrr….

*

00:40 hours

Whirrrrrr went the motor of the mobility scooter at Holborn Station. The man in the scooter fidgeted around a bit after getting on before he could get it to rest against the wall. The lady with the crutches got off through the other set of doors and just as they were closing, two young men jumped in, bringing the smell of stale beer and sweat with them. Their football jerseys barely covered up their sagging denim pants and one of them had a horn which he tried blowing but was too drunk to.

        “Hey matey, care’t  gimme a blow?” he slurred thrusting the horn in Adewale’s face. He had a scraggly ginger beard that looked like it was home to more than just a few creepy-crawlies.

Adewale turned his face away from him, ignoring him and the other drunk guffawed.

        “Sure he’d love to give you a blow!” he bellowed, his face and bald head going almost tomato red.

        “Shut yer face numpty!” Ginger snapped.

Baldy only laughed some more and started to sing tunelessly. Ginger put the horn to his lips again and tried to blow, but he only succeeded in spraying Adewale with his spittle. Adewale wiped his face in disgust and luckily, Ginger left him alone and stumbled down the car.

        “Care’t help?” Ginger asked the man in the mobility scooter, trying to push the horn into his hands.

        “Get off!” the man snapped, slapping the horn away.

        “Aw come on, don’t be such a Nancy!” Ginger said, pushing the horn back at him.

        “I said get off!”

 He slapped at the horn again and it knocked off his bag of Mac Donald’s fries from the top of the scooter.

        “Now see what you’ve done!”

        “You’re not gone cry, are ya?” Ginger sneered and kicked at the fries.

        “Idiot!” the man spat at him, really pissed.

Ginger laughed and then put the horn to his lips and….

*

02:32 hours 

        “And?” Sarah Burns asks.

I look up from the table top at her.

        “I can’t remember.” I whisper.

She shakes her head in frustration. “You’ve got to help me here.”

        “He…he must have blown the horn again and…”

        “I don’t want you guessing.”

        “I…I need a trigger.”

        “What?” she frowns at me.

        “I need to trigger the rest of it.”

        “Mr. Ah-dee-wally…”

Acting on a whim, I push back the plastic chair I’m sitting on and it makes an awful scrapping noise, almost like an inebriated man depositing a mouthful of spittle in a horn….

*

00:44 hours

The sound from the horn made Adewale cringe and he looked up impatiently as the train pulled into Russel Square Station. The old couple got off hurriedly and he doubted very much that that was their stop.

        “Have a lovely evening!” Ginger called after them and he blew into the horn again.

Just three more stops he thought to himself.

Baldy went down the car and took the seat beside the blonde woman.

        “Hey Luv, would ya like’t give my friend here a blow?” he asked her and he laughed at his own dumb joke. She got up and swapped seats and he whistled at her. Ginger went over to sit beside her.

        “Come’n now Darl’n, don’t be like that!” Ginger said to her and when she attempted to get up from beside him, he grabbed her arm and pulled her down.

        “Hey, leave her alone!” Adewale said. He’d had enough of the two idiots and to hell with the unwritten ‘mind your own business’ tube rule. They were taking things too far and it was high time someone stood up to them.

        “What’s it to ya?” Ginger asked.

        “Yeah, what’s it to you?” Baldy added, walking up to where he sat.

        “I’m calling the police.” The man in the scooter said, driving towards the red help button.

Adewale stood up and Baldy shoved him back into his seat.

        “Mind yo damn business Black Boy else, I’ll mind it for ya.” He said grabbing Adewale’s jaw in one hand and giving him a shake. Adewale knocked his hand away and they stared each other down, both breathing heavily. Finally, Baldy sneered at him and started to walk towards Ginger and the blonde woman. Adewale jumped up then and grabbed Baldy in a choke hold from behind, putting pressure on Baldy’s carotids with his biceps. He started to count quietly under his breath.

“Oi! What you doing?” Ginger said in a shrill voice but he didn’t dare go near Adewale. Adewale kept a steady gaze on him with his arm still around Baldy’s neck. Baldy went limp on the count of seven and he let him slip to the floor in an unceremonious heap. The blonde woman screamed and the kid took off his headphones and got shakily to his feet.

“Hello! Can anybody hear me!” the man on the scooter said, jabbing his finger at the red button over and over.

“What you done man? You choked him to death!” Ginger gasped, deathly pale.

As if to answer him, Baldy let out a low groan and started to stir.

“You crazy man! You crazy nigger!” Ginger screamed.

“Oh God, oh God!” Scooter man muttered, still jabbing at the red button and the blonde lady started to whimper.

As soon as the train pulled into King’s Cross St Pancras Station, Ginger grabbed a hold of Baldy’s feet and dragged him off the train, yelling obscenities at Adewale.

*

02:38 hours

“So, you fought off the trouble makers?”

“Yes…I…” I rub my face wearily.

“What happened after that?”

“I don’t remember.” I say. “I need something to trigger the rest of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know!”

I take a deep breath. “I don’t know.” I say in a calmer voice. “I’m having these spurts of recollections and they seem to be triggered by things…” I look at her earnestly, willing her to understand. “I need to figure out what the next clue is.”

“You can cut the bullshit!” he partner says, coming to stand beside her and she holds up a hand.

“So, you’re saying you’ve got some sort of amnesia that’s dependent on recreating the events of the evening?” she says.

“No! I mean yes, it’s not…”

“Stop with the BS and just tell us why you killed her!” her partner said, leaning towards me to glare at me, his hand flat on the table.

“I didn’t kill her!”

“John…” DCI Sarah Burns tried to interrupt her partner.

“Why did you do it? What did she do to tick you off that bad?”

“I didn’t…”

“Were you afraid she would come forward to accuse you of killing the drunk dude?”

“No! I didn’t kill anyone!”

“Were you…”

DCI Sarah Burns lets out a shrill scream, startling both I and her partner. Then, the…

*

00:46 hours

… blonde woman screamed and the kid took off his headphones and got shakily to his feet.

“Hello! Can anybody hear me!” the man on the scooter said, jabbing his finger at the red button over and over.

“What you done man? You choked him to death!” Ginger said, deathly pale.

As if to answer him, Ginger let out a low groan and started to stir.

“You crazy man! You crazy nigger!” Ginger screamed.

“Oh God, oh God!” Scooter man muttered, still jabbing at the red button and the blonde lady started to whimper.

As soon as the train pulled into King’s Cross St Pancras Station, Ginger grabbed a hold of Baldy’s feet and dragged him off the train, yelling obscenities at Adewale.

        “Is everyone alright?” Adewale asked shakily, looking around at the bewildered faces around him.

        “Oh man, what did you do to him?” the kid asked.

        “He’s gonna be alright.” he replied. “I just knocked him out is all.”

        “Hello?” a voice said through the microphone above the help button.

        “Oh thank God!” Scooter man gasped.

        “Is there a problem in there?”

        “There was a couple of drunk dudes messing around with everybody.”

        “Okay, please stay calm. I’m going to make a call for help to the next station. Are they being violent?”

        “They were causing a lot of trouble then this man knocked one of them out, chocked him or something.”

        “Did you say choked? Is he…”

        “He just went down like that!”

        “Sir, do you know if he is still breathing?”

        “He is, I mean he was. He was muttering when his friend dragged him off the train.”

        “They’re off the train?”

        “Yeah, the guy was screaming blue murder!”

        “Alright Sir. Is everyone else okay?”

        “Yeah, I guess. It was real crazy man!”

        “Okay, can everyone please try to stay calm? I’m going to call the next station so there will be security personnel to attend to us over there.”

        “Alright, cheers mate. So glad all that is over!”

So much for getting home before one, Adewale thought with a resigned sigh. He sat quietly while the kid and Scooter man rehashed the events of the evening over and over. The blonde woman was obviously still in shock. She stared at him with a dazed expression on her face, her hands clamped over her mouth. He wanted to say something reassuring to her but couldn’t think of any appropriate words, so he looked away from the haunted look on her face apologetically.

*

02:50 hours

“We continued to Caledonian Road without anything else happening.”

“Then what happened there?” DCI Burns asks.

“The driver came into the car to speak with us. A guy in a TFL vest joined him. He must have been security or something.”

“And?” This from John what’s-his-name. He really is living up to the Bad Cop image.

“They asked us to go to the station office to give statements. Our train left but we were promised there was one last train for the night.”

“What happened afterwards?” John asks.

I look apologetically at DCI Burns.

        “I need something to put me back on the train.” I say.

“You can stop wasting our time now, you do know we’ll have the evidence as soon as we get the coverage from the cameras?” John says and I look at him.

I am both relieved and terrified at the realization that there will be CCTV footage from both trains. At least, I will get answers and this nightmare in my head will be over. But what if I really did kill that woman? I can’t let myself consider that possibility, so I look back at DCI Burns. Please… my eyes plead.

        “This is Caledonian Road….” She begins in a not so good Julie Berry imitation.

        “This is ridiculous!” John says, throwing up his hands.

DCI Burns clears her throat and starts again.

        “This is Caledonian Road. Please mind the gap…”

*

01:12 hours

…between the train and the platform. This is a Piccadilly Line train to Cockfosters.

Adewale got on the train with just the blonde woman. The kid’s mom had come to pick him up from the station and Scooter man had called a cab. He said he’d had enough shaking up for one night. Adewale had just one more stop on the train, so he didn’t mind getting back on. Besides, he’d seen a whole lot in his eight years of living in London, so he really didn’t think there was much else that could faze him. The blonde looked like she had calmed down a bit and he was relieved. He hated to think that he’d spooked her out the way he’d tackled the drunk guy.

A feeling of Déjà-vu washed over him when he noticed the spilled fries on the floor.

Can this night end already!

He closed his eyes and let out a breath. It had been a long day at the University and he couldn’t wait to get home and zone out. His Graduate Research Team had had some huge breakthroughs with their work on Goldfish and they were gearing up to present their Paper to the Faculty.

        “You killed him.”

His eyes snapped open and he gasped when he saw she was standing over him. He wondered how he had not heard her approaching.

Crap, maybe she isn’t so calm after all.

        “No, he’s not dead.” he said gently, sitting up straight.

He imagined Chen, his Chinese housemate who’d taught him the move, having a good laugh when he recounted the events of the evening to him. Chen was the kind of guy who would find something like that funny.

        “I simply knocked him out. I’m sure he’s at some Pub getting even more wasted right now.”

        “I knew this would happen, I just knew it!” she muttered, swaying on her feet.

        “Are you alright?” he asked.

        “I knew it! I should have taken the dog out, but I never listen. This is all my fault! I’m such an idiot…”

        “Hey, do you want to…” he reached out a hand towards her.

She slapped the hand away and started to cry, still muttering incoherently.

Oh God, please help me!

        “You leave me no choice.” She said, swiping at her running nose.

        “What?”

        “I don’t have a choice, I have to do it now.” She said.

        “Do what!”

        “I have to…”

*

02:54 hours

        “Damn it!” I mutter in frustration.

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Why can’t this bloody nightmare just end already!

        “Have to what?” DCI Burns asks earnestly.

I can feel her frustrations too. So close, yet so far.

        “This is a waste of time.” John says. “I’m gonna go check on the status of the videos.” He says and leaves the room.

        “What else was on the train?” Sarah Burns asks.

        “There wasn’t anyone else, it was just the two of us…”

        “Anything you can remember, a poster, a soda bottle, anything!”

        “Err… there was a diet coke can wedged between two seats….” I clench my eyes shut and try to think. “Her sneakers squeaked….I…there was a Tesco AD on the wall and…”

        “Tell me about the research.”

        “Huh?”

I open my eyes and stare at her.

        “The research you’re doing with the fish, tell me about it.”

What on earth is she on about? What has that got to do with anything?

        “What exactly were you working on?”

        “The memory span of Goldfish.” I say and she prompts me on with a nod.

“We performed a series of experiments where we exposed Goldfish to different stimuli over a period of time and then we took away the stimuli. We separated the fish into different batches and then re-introduced them to the stimuli at different times, some after just a few days and others up to six months.”

I look at her, wondering if I’m making any sense. She nods again and I continue.

        “We discovered that fish that had been trained to respond to certain sounds while in captivity were still able to respond to those sounds up to about five months after being released into the wild. Further study also showed that they can distinguish shapes and colour as well.”

        “So, basically, you debunked the three-second Goldfish memory myth?”

        “Yes, but not just that. We proved that fish are more intelligent than they’re given credit for. This could have huge implications for …”

        “The fish were able to respond to sounds, months after they’d been exposed to it?”

        “Yes…”

        “A particular sound that they associate with an activity?”

        “Yeah, usually feeding times, lights out…”

She leans in close.

        “That means if we can reproduce a sound associated with that exact moment when she died, you’ll be able to remember all of it, not just a few minutes’ worth.”

I go cold all over. Is she saying I have somehow become a metaphorical goldfish with a three-minute memory span? But that doesn’t even make sense!

        “What else was on that train!” she asks again, emphasizing each word with a light thump on the table with her fist.

Oh God, help me…

        “Err… there was… I… the train jolted and the soda can fell to the floor…”

She flies out of her seat and goes to the waste bin in the corner. She fishes out an empty Sprite can and tosses it to the floor…

*

01:15 hours

The soda can hitting the floor startled him and he took his eyes off her for just a moment. That was when she whipped out the kitchen knife from her hand bag.

What the hell…

He dodged as she lunged at him with the knife.

        “What is wrong with you!” he shouted, terrified out of his mind.

She took another stab at him and he caught her wrist, wrestling with her for control of the knife. He marvelled at her strength, considering how slight and frail she looked.

        “You killed him!” she said through clenched teeth. “You killed him and I need to make it right.”

Up close, he noticed her wild and glassy eyes, and her dilated pupils. Her lips were pulled back into thin, white lines which contrasted the red sores around her mouth.

The train went around a bend and they both lost their balance and went sprawling to the floor. The blade hit a pole with a teeth chattering clang and flew out of her hand. They both sprang for the knife at the same time but the train’s momentum pushed it down the car, out of reach.

        “You killed him and it’s all my fault. I have to make it right!” she said, clawing at his face and digging bloody furrows in his cheeks.

        “Stop it!” He grabbed her shoulders and tried to shake some sense into her. The sleeve of her sweater rode up to the elbow to reveal needle track marks on the inside of her wrist.

Oh dear God! How much longer to the stupid station?

As soon as the train stopped, he thrust her away from him and lunged for the doors. She made a grab for his foot but he kicked her off and jumped off the train.

Her blood curling scream made him whip around and he looked on in horror as her whole face contorted into an unearthly mask of rage. She raised her hands and pulled at her hair, like she wanted to yank her head right off! Before he could even recover from the frightening sight, the bum, who’d appeared to have been asleep all the while, dug the knife into the side of her neck. The bum looked at a stunned Adewale and gave him a wide smile, displaying brown, toothless gums. Adewale didn’t think, he jumped back onto the train and caught her falling body. He tried to clamp his hands over the gash in her neck to stem the bleeding but the blade sliced through his palm instead. The pressure of his fingers caused her flesh to relax against the knife and it slid out, causing the bleeding to increase.

“’Ave a nice night.” The bum said, forcing the closing doors open with his hands and getting off.

Adewale pushed his fist against her neck, an irrational part of him hoping to save her life. Even as blood spilled from the gash, she still continued to let out that nightmarish scream, blood frothing out of her mouth, as if possessed by some unworldly force. The sound filled the air and his ears and his head until it felt like it was ringing in every last cell in his body, spilling into every pore. Just when he thought it would burst his head right open, everything went black.

*

03:00 hours

I try to clamp my hands over my ears to shut out the sound, but the cuffs won’t let me.

        “Are you alright!” DCI Burns asks, her voice alarmed.

I hear her voice as if from a great distance. My chest tightens and I start to gasp for breath. I feel the pressure building in my head and my chest as my mind is assaulted by a myriad of emotions and sounds and smells and feelings, each one piercing through me, each one threatening to tear my mind apart:

the deafening chug-chug-chugging of the train on the tracks;

the flowery scent of the old lady’s perfume;

the wetness of Ginger’s saliva on my face;

the police swarming down on me, pushing me down to the floor;

the thumping of the crutches on the linoleum floor;

the kid’s high pitched voice and his Irish accent;

the bum sitting by the entrance of Leicester Square Station;

the knee in my back as my hands are cuffed behind my back;

Baldy’s tuneless rendition of ‘God Save The Queen’;  

the blinding flash of the camera as picture after picture was taken;

the flecks of green in the blonde’s blue eyes;

the ride to the police station, sirens blaring; my clothes being bagged;

the horrified look on the train driver’s face when he found us;

the tweezers picking hairs from the scratches on my face;

DCI Burns asking me if I want my lawyer present;

the bum slipping off the train after the drunks;

the over-powering smell of blood and how I can still feel its coppery taste in my mouth; the bum asleep at the other end of the train car when the woman and I got on;

that last violent shudder as the blonde woman breathed her last;

the deafening silence as her scream is cut off abruptly, like someone flicked a switch.

The chaos in my head dies out finally, its red-hot intensity fading out slowly until all that is left is the faint coppery-gold of a lone goldfish in the dark.

I wrote this for the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. I'm bummed I didn't make the shortlist but I thought I'd share all the same! ;)