Salvation

Photo: Quinton Coetzee

Today, like yesterday, we find you in your room, lying down and pretending to be asleep. Not much has changed; your thin singlet and boxer shorts, for one, are the same, except that they now carry the slightly pungent smell of unwashed skin. The mug from yesterday is still here, caked brown on the inside with long-dried Milo dregs.

It is the demon, no doubt. He is awake again, creeping up from your belly like a thief and slowly invading your being. We know it is him because, like you, we can hear the steady ticking inside your head, like a clock, that always signals his presence. The ticking that has kept you skulking around the cramped space of your room for the past two days.

Your phone shrieks from somewhere near, cutting open the eerie silence and disrupting your fake sleep. You open your eyes and roll over to pick it up, cursing softly under your breath as you do so. Already, we can tell that if it is another message from Mariam, you will give her a piece of your mind. But no, it is that boy from yesterday, Elvis or Evans or whatever his name was.

You sigh. We sigh too. What is it with these boys and prick?

“Hey, it’s me again. How are you doing today?” The boy’s message reads, a little smiling emoji at the end.

We see the fleeting moment on your face when you consider tapping the block button. You regret agreeing to exchange contacts with him on Yellow Mask. In spite of your resolve to never let it happen again, it was your very own fingers that had found their way to reinstalling the app on your phone. 

For now, you change your mind about blocking him. “I’m doing okay. U?”

His reply follows in a flash. 

“I’m doing great! Was wondering if you’re home today. I’m kinda bored.” This time, a sad face emoji.

Since you replied to his first message yesterday, the boy had been eager, sending shot after shot of himself in suggestive, languid poses. At the sight of his hairless nakedness, you had gotten hard. He was pretty in the way most of them are, slim and dark-skinned with full lips. Your spec.

The ticking in your head shoots up a notch, and you groan, feeling the onset of a headache. Your ears are on fire as you tap on the keyboard once again.

“Sure, I’m home. You wanna pop by?”

I

THE BOY WITH THE DROWNING EYES

You were sixteen the first time you fucked a boy. His name was Majid, an ordinary boy with a face as confounding as it was riveting. Anyone with a bit of sense could tell at first glance that Majid was bent. Before he came to the Madrasah, you, like everybody else, had never heard of him. He neither lived on the same street nor attended the same public school as the rest of you. All everyone knew was that one evening, a man drove in a big Hilux and dropped him off at the Madrashah. 

Majid’s otherness stuck out like a sore thumb. Each time he walked in, his effeminacy blared like a siren as all the other boys exchanged amused to irritated glances. Later, during Qur’an recitation, his voice would rise shrilly, lancing through the rest of your boyish basses like a hot knife through butter. The first day he arrived was the same day you decided to hate him. You were nothing alike, not in mannerism, not in appearance, but still, his mere presence felt like a threat, a silent reminder of a buried past. Because you were popular among the boys, it did not take long for you to gather a group of fellow haters, and together, you formed yourselves into an army of torturers whose sole mission was to frustrate every moment the boy spent at the Madrasah. You succeeded, boxing his ears from behind and throwing little stones at his head when the Ustadh was not looking. In moments when tears glistened on his lashes as the boys mocked and parodied his girly gestures, you laughed and felt accomplished, like you had done a great deed.

One evening, during Hadith recitation, you looked up to find that he was staring at you, his expression pensive and inscrutable. As usual, your face became a scowling mask. But you could not deny the other thing that happened as he stared—the sudden dryness in your mouth and the tightening in your shorts. To make things worse, it was as though he was seeing right through your mind: he smiled this funny little smile and held your gaze a bit longer than usual. When night came, you masturbated furiously before burying your head in your pillow to cry. Were you failing again? you wondered, your lips trembling with fear. Did your forehead still bear the mark of a fãsiq? How else had he been able to single you out from a gathering of over thirty boys?

The day it happened, it was your turn to sweep the madrasah floors and dust out its mats after the lessons. Because you hated doing this particular chore, you dragged your feet so that by the time you finished, dusk was near and the old muezzin from the mosque nearby was already calling for Maghrib, his frail cry carrying far into the night. You were locking up the doors when you noticed him pacing about outside. This was strange because he was always the first to leave, barely waiting for the Ustadh to say ma salam before grabbing his satchel and running off with the man in the big Hilux. 

You finished bolting the doors and approached him with your usual swagger of intimidation. 

“Where is your driver?” you demanded. 

The boy paused in his pacing and turned to you, folding his arms before replying, “He’s not here yet, and I don’t know why. And what’s your business with him?” Shock made your mouth drop open. You blinked your eyes once, twice, to make sure that this was still Majid, the fragile pansy that shivered in your presence and understood his place on these grounds.

“What? Are you going to beat me?” he asked further, his voice edged with goading. 

It was like a deliberate act, this poking at the embers of your rage, perhaps to see just how far he could go before provoking a slap or a punch from you. He needn’t have tried so hard anyway because your strength had flown away the moment he opened his mouth. Your arms hung limply by your sides like dead logs, embarrassing the both of you with their uselessness. Much later, cocooned in the warmth of your room, you blamed all that followed after on the darkness of the night. You blamed the absent stars for fooling you into losing your guard and causing your vulnerability to expose itself before the boy like a whore’s privates. Before that night, you never could have imagined it happening, but you both started talking to each other, stuttering a bunch of casual nothings like a pair of nervous teenagers meeting for the first time. It felt strange. Under the same weird spell, he soon held your hand and, before long, led you towards the pit toilet behind the building.

In the cramped space of the toilet, ripe with the harshness of stale urine, you both stood, breathing hard with uncertainty. Above you, the sky was a grey blanket, gloomy and moonless. The toilet door, stubborn in its refusal to latch, kept making loud kra kra noises as it swung back and forth in the night wind. When you felt his lips brush against yours, your whole body went rigid with shock. Your first instinct at that moment, had you not wanted it too, would have been to push him away and run as fast as your legs could carry you. But that night, even your facade was no match for your aching desire. Slowly and hesitantly, your mouth opened to let him in. As you kissed, the skin on your back burned with memories of old scars, but you did not notice this until you both pulled back for some air. With your lips mere inches apart, you found yourself lost in his eyes, a pair of endless orbs that peered at you in the dark. Into their sorrowful depths, you slowly fell, and just before they sucked you past the point of sanity, the burn on your back jerked you back to consciousness. In the blink of an eye, your old self returned, along with an alien, brute force, and like a boy possessed, you grabbed his shoulders, swung him around and tugged his trousers down. It was the first time you’d ever gone that far with anyone, but it did not take long for you to find your way. Soon, you were tearing into the softness of his body. He thrashed and struggled against your assault, but your hands were iron chains that held and locked him in place. When he cried out and begged for mercy, you simply clamped a hand over his mouth and went on, feeling nothing as his warm tears trickled down your knuckles.

When it was over, and you were wiping the semen and blood off your penis, he bent over the slimy cement floors, shivering like a chicken dunked in water. He looked up at you, and his mouth kept opening and closing, looking for words that wouldn’t come. Not that the words would have mattered much since his eyes said all that needed to be said. In them, you saw naked fear and trepidation dance before they transformed into laser beams that pinned you with guilt and seized the breath from your chest. You did not even know when the words tore themselves from your throat.

“I am not like you, Majid. I will never be like you!”

You ran home that night, and we ran alongside you, guiding your steps because your vision was too blurred with tears to notice the gutters and stones in your path. We admit that we watched you suffer this agony and did nothing to help. Not that we could have if we’d tried anyway, for it is not our place to do so. We are mere watchers. Record keepers of your deeds.

***

A firm knock at the door jerks you from your slumber. You sit up instantly. Your eyes are bloodshot as they rove about wildly, a reminder of the hammering inside your head.

“Who be dat? You wan break my door?” you ask harshly, a slight anger circling the edge of your voice. 

“It’s me.” The voice is light and almost inaudible. 

“You, who?”

A second passes, and we hear the clearing of throat before the voice speaks again, this time with a lilt of confidence.

“It is me, Emmanuel.”

Realisation snaps back into your face. Of course, the boy is here already. You drink in gulps of deep breaths to steady your nerves. “Alright, I’m coming. Give me a minute.”

You reach for the hand mirror on the little bedside shelf and take a cursory look at your face. It is oily from not having had a shower since yesterday, and there are patches of scruffy hair all over your chin, but who cares? No be him dey find prick? You get up and walk to the door, unlatching it to let him in.

The boy at the door is the same as the one on his profile, thank God. The first thing we notice about him is his nervousness. He hesitates by the door before coming in, and even when he does, he stands by the entrance, glancing around timidly. Perhaps he is wondering if you are a kito, one of those soulless men that pounce on their victims with fists and knives as soon as they get them behind closed doors. We can also see that he is unimpressed with the state of the room, though he does a good job of trying to conceal it.

“Sorry, the room is a mess. I’ve not had the time to clean up,” you apologise as you bend to pick up the cup and a few other litter strewn about.

“Oh, it’s fine,” he replies before adding with a chuckle, “You look just like your picture, except the beard.”

He is pleased with your appearance, at least.

You move towards the curtains and pull them apart, enough for some light and fresh air, before turning around to take a proper look at him.

“Thanks. You look good, too.”

This is true, except he is slightly shorter than you’d assumed. He is also wearing a pair of glasses with lenses as thick as a Coca-Cola bottle, which gives him a nerdy appearance.

“How did you know this was my room?” you ask.

“Oh, there was this woman coming out from the compound as I was about to walk in. One fat woman like this. I told her your name, and she pointed out your room to me.” His English is crisp, like a proper ajebo’s.

“Must have been Mama Busayo. I wish you hadn’t met her. Her amebo is too much.”

The boy giggles at this and clasps both hands behind his back, relaxing his face into a seductive coyness. In spite of yourself, your dick responds, twitching to life, and we see it begin to rise in your boxer shorts. Like us, the boy’s eyes travel downwards and widen in awe at the prize they find.

“Come here, let me see you properly,” you call to him.

He ambles over, giggling again. You pull him close and fold him into your body. His breath quickens sharply, and you can feel him tremble excitedly in your arms as his arousal presses hard against yours.

“Have you done this before?” you ask softly, enjoying his clean clothes and Pears Baby Oil smell.

“Yes, a few times,” he murmurs, sinking further into your body. You grunt as your desire stokes higher.

As a rule, you never kiss or make out at these meetings because, for you, it is never about pleasure or enjoyment. It is only a hunger that requires sating. Like a bad addiction. Like smoking weed or sniffing crack. But this boy smells so good, and we see that you want to taste him. With an index finger, you tip his jaw upwards, and your lips are almost touching when your phone screams from the shelf.

“For fuck sake,” you curse at the interruption. “Please give me a moment.”

As we’ve rightly guessed, it is Mariam. It is her third time calling today, and we watch you try to stifle your frustration as you press “answer”.

“Hello?”

“Babe, I’m about to close from work, and I’m thinking of stopping at Ipata to pick up some items for soup. I want to make the kind of efo riro you like, so should I come over to your place later with semo or rice?” As usual, she rushes the words out of her mouth like hot coals burning her tongue.

“No, I’m fine. Don’t worry,” you say.

“Na wa oh! You and this ‘don’t worry, don’t worry’. You have refused to let me see you for the past three days, and you have also refused to show up at work. What is happening?” The genuine concern in her voice causes you to relax a little.

“I’m fine, Abebi mi. I just need some time alone.”

“Hmmm, okay o. Mo ti gbo. Will you be showing up at work tomorrow, then? Mr Bash is starting to ask questions, you know?”

“Yeah, I think I’ll come tomorrow,” you reply first before adding, hoping to placate her, “I’ll give you a call later.”

She does not buy this and fires back at once, “No, you won’t. But don’t worry, I’ll call you myself later tonight. Make sure you answer when I do, okay?” 

She does this often, switching into the role of a doting mother, at once firm and tender with her love. You turn around to look at the boy. He has stripped down to his tights, a bright red cottony affair that bulges nicely in front. Unclothed, his skin is dark and shiny, and he looks no more than 20, certainly nothing like the 23 claimed on his profile on the app. In the dim ink-blue lighting in the room, he looks exotic, like forbidden fruit. Your impatience with Mariam returns.

“Okay, okay. I’ve got to go now. Talk later.” You cut the call before she finds something else to say.

“Who was that?” the boy asks, his fingers playfully tugging at the band of his tights. His seduction is calculated and effective.

“None of your business. Now come here, I want to eat you.”

He laughs, a sharp, boyish laughter filled with excitement, and in a single move, pulls down his tights and steps out of them.

Still laughing, he walks over.

II

MARIAM

You met Mariam in the third month of your NYSC service and first year in Ilorin. Back then, the city still jarred you, with its stretches of one-way, pot-hole-filled roads and general lethargic lifestyle that was a vehement opposition to the spirited energy of Lagos. Its people, too, stupefied you with their endless, pointless greetings of “epele kopa wa”. 

Like you, she was in her service year and newly employed at Adeta Government High to teach Literature-in-English. You handled Further Maths. During the first get-together in the general staff room, she approached you and introduced herself, smiling a wide, toothy smile. When you offered a handshake, she brushed it aside and, instead, clasped your hands firmly within both of hers: “We kopas have to stick together, and that is what we are going to do, you and me.” The next morning, you arrived early to find a plastic food warmer sitting on your desk. When you opened it to find that it was full of jollof rice and chunks of fried beef, the sudden confusion that assailed your mind made your mouth drop open. When Mariam sauntered in a while later, humming the words to Bob Marley’s Redemption song, you turned to her and asked if she had dropped the food there. She spread out both her palms in a gesture of childish ignorance before asking with feigned surprise if no one had ever given you food. You stood there, dumbfounded by this unearned kindness, till she stepped forward, snatched the warmer off the table, and chucked it under your desk. “You want the others to come in and begin to say what they did not see, abi?” She then looked up at you and cackled, a mischievous little giggle that felt oddly intimate like a private joke.

That morning was the beginning of your inseparableness. You began going everywhere together outside of classes, the assembly grounds in the mornings, and the staff meetings in the principal’s office afterwards. During lunch breaks, you strolled side by side towards the tall avocado trees that lined the school field and sat under their leafy shades to eat the jollof rice or fried yams or moi moi she always brought along. At the end of each day, you waited for each other to finish marking notes so that you could walk together to the junction and gossip about who did what that day. Around her, life became simple. Her constant presence unlocked an inner peace within you that, until then, you’d never thought possible. She made it easy to do everything more—laugh more, talk more—so she became as vital as the very air you breathed.

Not surprisingly, the rumours came swirling. In the staff room and in the classrooms and on the playing fields, they were shared in loud whispers, peppered with exciting untruths. 

You and Miss Mariam had been boyfriend and girlfriend since secondary school. 

No, she had, in fact, already moved in with you, and you were already living together as man and wife.

Despite how fast the rumours swirled, you only paid them little attention, thinking it was a matter of private understanding between you and Mariam, until she brought it up one afternoon as you were both packing up after lunch.

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

You paused and looked up at her, noting her seriousness. 

“Do about what, Mariam?”

“What do you think I mean?” she countered.

Of course you were not dumb, and you knew perfectly what she was talking about, but your mouth had suddenly become too heavy for words.

“Well, say something, at least. Are you not a man?”

In your silence, you begged for her understanding. How could she not understand? When still you remained mute, a slow disappointment fell across her features. It was like watching a falling curtain gradually trap the lines of her face in shadows.

“You know what? You don’t have to say anything. Let’s just forget I brought this up,” she said, looking away and rushing the rest of the packing, her hijab flapping in the wind as she walked away hastily.

Of course, the matter could not be forgotten. Like a bloated carcass, it had already been cut open, fouling the air between you with its undeniable stench. When you returned to the staff room that afternoon, she was not there. Her desk was neatly arranged, as always, but her bag and the food warmers were nowhere to be found. The next morning, her greeting was flung at you, choked as it was with an underlying frostiness. It was the kind that clearly said, “Ogbeni, maintain your distance.” Also, there were no food warmers.

For the rest of that week, as the new uneasiness grew to become the norm, you lost your sleep. You tossed around on the thin mattress in your room each night with your eyes wide open as several rambling thoughts jangled around in your head. She, Mariam, had become the salvation you sought for so long. With her, your other possessed self, the one that had succumbed to sin again and again after that day with Majid, the one that had ploughed through the bodies of several nameless boys in street corners and school toilets and university dorm rooms, fighting your desires by inflicting pain on their many bodies, had finally been buried. How then could you lose her?

The puzzle solved itself on a cold, harmattan morning. That day, you hastily threw on your clothes and shoes and hurried off to school, startling the mai guard at the gate with your unusually early arrival. When Mariam walked in at the usual 7:30 am, you were ready. You rushed to her and clasped both of her hands tightly between yours, the same way she had held yours that first day many months ago. The words poured from your lips like water from a gushing tap. When you finished, a pregnant silence filled the air. You did not even realise you had been holding your breath until she said, after what seemed like forever, “Ever since we have known each other, I have never heard you say so much in one sentence. So you sef get liver.” She then giggled her usual Mariam giggle, and everything became perfect. Fireworks exploded in the air. The grey of the morning gave way to bright sunshine as you lifted her and spun her around excitedly, drinking in her familiar scent of lavender and rosewood.

“Ha ha ha, put me down now. He he he, what if a student or other teachers see? Ho ho ho,” she protested weakly amidst gleeful, hiccupping laughter. 

“Let them see o. Na dem sabi. Let them talk. I don’t care,” you chanted, drunk on the dizzying current of your sudden, burning love.

That night, as your lips danced against hers in the darkness of your tiny room, you prayed for the first time in years that your manhood would not disappoint you. You reminded yourself over and over that this was the normalcy you had been chasing after so badly all your life. When she touched your penis, and it was hard, you mouthed “Alhamdulillah” in quiet gratitude. Later, as she slept off with her head on your chest, both your bodies smeared with the proof of your validity, only one thought kept ringing in your head, “This is it! I am home at last.”

***

The first time you enter the boy’s body, the feeling is a little like deja vu. The rush of excitement that grips you as you slip through the familiar tightness almost has you losing control, so you pull out to steady yourself. His eyes snap open. “What’s the matter?” Hot breath from his mouth fans your face.

“Nothing,” you say, shaking your head.

“Why did you stop? I’m okay. I told you I’ve done this before. I—”

“Shhhhhhh,” you hush him a little harshly. He talks too much and wants too much.

His body writhes beneath you impatiently, and he lifts his hips against yours. Again, the feel of his arousal against yours has you rushing towards the edge, so this time, you get up and walk towards the window. Outside, the sun has burned to a deep shade of gold, almost bronze. You part the curtains slightly further to get a better view of the receding day.

“What is happening?” the boy calls from behind you, a little hesitant. “Are you not doing again?” 

You turn to look at him, now sitting up with a flaccid penis, worry etched on his face.

“I told you to be quiet. Na so e dey sweet you reach?”

His apology is quick, and the words tumble over each other “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

You turn back to the window and accept the truth about the demon. Your eyes open to the truth of how he is a part of you, impossible to bury. You see now that he has always been there, never once gone, simply lurking in the shadows and sneering at your fake act each time you slipped into Mariam’s body. Two nights ago, he’d sniggered and let out an “I told you so” as the weight of your desires finally forced your fingers to reinstall the app on your phone. Right now, you feel him growing, fanning out to your limbs and your nostrils. The ticking in your head is loud to the point of numbness, and your eyes are aflame with his power. In one swift motion, you snap the curtains shut, plunging the room into a darker haze of blue. Azure. You turn and walk back towards the boy. When you reach the foot of the bed, you look down at him, “Now, I will fuck you like the little bitch that you are.”

The boy trembles from head to toe, and you can see the mixture of excitement and fear rock his body. Inside you, anger and rage and lust and hate boil together, coalescing into a single, soggy mass, but on the outside, your face is a picture of calm. You don’t even try to fight it because you know it is no longer in your hands. You simply relax and surrender your body to the power of his will, the bottomless chasm that is the hunger of this creature.

III

HAMZAH’S REFLECTION

Father was the one that found us together, with my limbs intertwined around his. This was the year before Majid, at a time when I was still a foolish boy dreaming of the impossible. There we were, my lover and I, buried too deep in the heat of our sin to have heard the door open. He, my lover, saw Father first and suddenly turned rigid like ice against my body. That was when I turned and saw him, too. Why he came home around that hour, don’t ask me because I don’t know.

Even now, I only have to close my eyes to recall the looks on both their faces—Father, his mouth hanging open, a scream trapped in his throat; my lover, his face an interesting shifting picture of shock and fear and denial. Later, after Father had closed his mouth and walked away wordless and my lover (who, I should probably point out here, was also my classmate and best friend and first love) had hurried off, mistaking my trousers for his in his fearful haste, I sat on the floor of my room and awaited Father’s return. The stink of my shame hung so heavy in the air as one dreary scenario after another painted itself in my mind. This was Father! Father, who routinely decked Mother’s belly with heavy punches at the slightest perceived insolence. Father, who once held my open palm over a burning candle for dozing off during Tahjud. Death, or worse, was certain.

I was asleep when judgment came. In my weary distress, I’d nodded off where I sat waiting. The next time I opened my eyes, he was bending over me and softly tapping my shoulder. In the already dark room, the white of his jalabiyah shone faintly.

“Come, my son. Put on your clothes. It is time to ask Allah for forgiveness.”

I hurriedly threw my clothes on and shuffled after him. As we walked outside the house towards the single-leaning palm tree that had been there since I was born, our feet made soft slapping sounds and the cold harmattan breeze whooshed in and out of my ears, sounding like music. When we got there, he carefully fastened my hands around the tree with fresh fronds, his hands moving with the same meticulous precision they assumed when he wove little prayer talismans with black and white thread. His eyes were unreadable, and it appeared like tears were in them. The further the rough bark of the tree dug into my chest, the deeper my heart sank into my stomach. 

“With each lash, say Astaghfirullah loud enough for your mother to hear. Do you hear me?” 

“Yes sir,” I replied at once, naked fear pushing the words out of my mouth before I’d even thought of them.

I cannot say much about what happened next because I don’t remember much of it. All I know is that the next time I opened my eyes, the sun dug into them so hard that I had to snap them shut again quickly. From where I lay belly down, I could not tell if my back was still there or not because I couldn’t feel it. In its place was a weight too intense to be described as pain. When my body healed enough for me to sit on my own and sip water without assistance, I began my penance. For twenty-one days, I sat beside Father in his prayer room and whispered ten thousand istighfars. Speaking tenderly, and sometimes with fat tears rolling down his cheeks and disappearing inside his beards, Father reminded me each day that it was not me, but the demon that lived inside me that was being exorcised. Without this cleansing, damnation was imminent.

“You must not allow the devil win, Hamza. Call to Allah with all of your heart, and he will hear you. Ask him for salvation.”

For twenty-one days, I fasted and chanted and prayed, and on the eve of the last day, Father, using a sharp razor, shaved off all my hair, made seven incisions in the middle of my scalp, and washed the bleeding cuts with what he said was holy water. Afterwards, he hugged me and pronounced me absolved of all unnatural inclinations. The slate of my sins has been wiped clean, he said, but what we did not know was that a seed had been sown, and for years, it grew in silence, shedding away old skin, adding sinew to muscle to flesh. Inside me, I felt the nameless restlessness brew, gathering in strength and intensity until it finally burst forth inside that stinking toilet, fully formed and uncontainable. A demon come to life.

Majid was only the first in a long line of meat. The demon is like cancer, a calculating parasite that expands with each new boy he consumes. Each time he gets hungry and the clock inside my head begins its song, my zombie transformation begins. He climbs up from my belly, spreading and stretching till he is everywhere. My eyes, my ears, my nostrils, my anus, and every other part of me become suffused with his presence until I am almost breathless. Trapped inside him, my sanity disappears. My body becomes the vessel for all his crazy, manic shit. I always try hard, so hard, but I am never able to stop him. My feeble body is too weak a weapon.

When the demon finishes and returns to the void, I begin a slow return to myself. Through a foggy haze, I watch helplessly as the boys struggle to pick up what is left of their bodies, which by then, is usually smeared with blood and, sometimes, shit. In their haste, they always leave little parts of themselves behind. A piece of underwear here, a single sock there. Some of them, just before they leave, stand by the door and swear at me. They whisper harsh, muted curses, never loud ones, lest the neighbours overhear and begin to ask questions that would implicate them, too. Most of them, however, say nothing. They, like Majid, simply look at me and burn me with dead eyes.

Every time it happens, I always want to say something, but my tongue always betrays me with its heaviness. I try to speak of my own helplessness. Of how it was not me but a powerful impostor wearing my face that held them down and crushed their dignity while their lips begged for mercy. Of how I, too, suffer the bitter agony and cry myself to a snot-soaked slumber afterwards. Most of all, I long to tell them of my fear—that the demon would one day go too far and burst through, causing my world to come crashing down like a pack of weightless cards.

***

It is really quiet now. A calm breeze is wafting gently through the parted curtains, causing them to dance drunkenly in the dark. The breeze caresses your skin deliciously as you lay with him arm in arm. For once, thank God, your neighbours are not blasting loud music or poisoning the air with their fume-vomiting generators. Even the little children seem to have gone to bed early tonight. It’s been hours since you have been laying here with the boy, and though you have prodded him again and again, whispering silently in his ears for him to open his eyes, he has refused to answer.

Earlier, when the ticking in your head stopped and your senses began to return, you had looked down at the boy and frowned in confusion. Unlike the other boys, he made no attempt to crawl out from under you. He remained there, flat on his back, looking towards the door. His face was matted with the usual sweat and saliva, but there was something else, something that caused your spine to tingle. With a cupped palm, you cradled his face gently and turned it towards you, peering down for a closer look. First, you shook your head sideways, trying to clear remnants of the cobwebs still clung to your consciousness. You could not quite fathom why only the whites of his eyes were showing or why the right side of his chest looked the way it did, like a partially collapsed building. Your head would still not clear as quickly as you wish, so you got up and walked over to sit on the only chair in the room, a rickety wooden mess the previous tenant had left behind. You were naked, and the hardwood of the chair grated against your buttocks, but this did not bother you as you sat and watched quietly, half expecting the boy to jerk up and ask again, “What is the matter now? Are you not doing again?” He remained silent, lying there with one hand hanging limply over the bed frame. You noticed then, for the first time, how long his arms were.

You sat watching him until you dozed off. When you came to, only minutes ago, it was to the loud ringing of a phone. Beyoncé singing about collapsed sandcastles. The sound was so jarring that you bolted up and stumbled about till you found it. His phone with 25 missed calls. Twenty-five missed calls? you wondered, before angrily holding down the off button till the phone went off. That was when you noticed that it was dark outside and that everything was unusually quiet. You then returned to lie beside the boy. His skin was cold, colder than the breeze wafting in. Again, you wondered how this was possible since it is still June, and Ilorin’s heat is still blazing like mad. Because you did not want him to remain so cold, you pulled him close and wrapped your arms around him.

You are still here with him now, lying down with your arms around each other. Suddenly, a memory from the past comes to your mind. An old poem your mother used to sing while she did her chores around the house. She also sang it when she dressed your wounds each time your father used his spiked whip. She even sang it after the palm tree whipping. You hum the words of the poem again and again to the boy, smoothing his hair over and over as you do so. Already, you know that there is no more sleep tonight. You know this is where you will lie till the sun shines through those dancing curtains.

About the author

Moyòsóre Àyìnlà was born in PortHarcourt, Nigeria and studied Biochemistry at the University of Ilorin, Ilorin. As a writer, his pieces explore various facets of the human experience, with a particular focus on themes of loss, family, prejudice and the intersection of identities. Amongst other things, he sings, dreams, and spends hours before a laptop screen.

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