a jilted lover joins a desperate crowd fetching petroleum from a ruptured pipeline; a near-true story.

Mudi woke up reluctantly, wishing it was midday. He had tossed and turned all through the night. Shadows drifted across his eyes, then dissolved. He glared at the wall clock. His portly limbs felt fettered as he lifted them off the bed on to the carpeted floor. He lumbered to the small toilet, which also served as the bathroom. With pyjamas unzipped, he let out urine the colour of tea. Outside, the wind soughed. Zinc sheets clattered, the pawpaw trees rustled.

He sagged into the upholstered chair, scattering dust.

You can’t turn me into a mess, he said.

Yesterday was Christmas. The round table covered with bottles of Star, the spicy aroma of suya while Mudi gazed bleakly at his beer. His friends had tried to coax him: Gulp up, chummy. No woman deserves dying for.

Girls a-plenty, brother. Come on, drink like heaven is here!

Tossing the frothy liquid down his throat, he burped and caught a strange hint of ash in his mouth.

I’m losing something, Julia had said. 

What are you talking about? he had mumbled, not taking her outburst seriously.

I’m sorry to say this, Mudi. Her lips trembled. But kissing you fills my mouth with ash. You need to move on without me, darling.

He wanted to laugh, but Julia’s jaw set so hard reminded him of a fierce dog. Wanted to hold her, but she eyed his thick-fingered hand, then his flaccid belly.

I can’t wait any more. Two years, ho? You’ve tried.

Y-y-you’ve been waiting?

Never mind; I must have been…a fool. Then she stormed to the door, glanced over her shoulder. I still appreciate that secondhand bra you gave me on Valentine’s Day, Julia added, banging the door.

Mudi felt a tear-wrenching jab in his tummy. Dumped on Christmas Eve – like an orphan.

For two nights he had tried to explain Julia’s abrupt departure from his life, but ended up thinking she wouldn’t have left him had he promised to marry her. He had never thought about marriage anyway, because he believed she would always be around for years. Now she just –

Vrroom like that! Mudi mouthed, with a flick of his fingers.

He recalled the first time he’d undressed her and how his tongue had lolled out. He had slept with many a girl, but none had fresh watermelon-large breasts like Julia had. Thereafter, he swore to keep her at all cost. Julia used to be understanding. It seemed she had grown demanding, a bit though.

He was not tightfisted by nature: the problem lay with his aged mother, whose deteriorating diabetic condition drained most of his earnings. Every month, he would divide his measly salary of 7,500 naira into four parts: for himself, his mother, his younger siblings, and his girlfriend. Mudi was willing to spend every kobo he earned to make Julia happy.

The jangling of a bell outside his window interrupted him. The preacher wearing a stiff goatee, smelly dreadlocks, an ancient robe, a metal cross dangling, clutching his weathered Bible, and always wailing like someone in the wilderness. You often heard his gravelly voice rising earlier than a cockcrow. Most residents regarded him as one of the teeming mad citizens of Lagos. 

Mudi tried to imagine the preacher as a miracle-worker. Hoisting himself up, he realised that he could do with a miracle this instant. He grabbed his cell phone, dialled Julia’s number. It rang and rang. He redialled, placed the cell phone to his ear, pacing back and forth. Still, no response.

He wished she were sitting hunched over in bed, bawling – aching for him. He clasped his fingers tight around the cell phone. Julia was the only person who had cared for him when he’d spent a fortnight in the hospital during the appendectomy.

For the first time in his life he felt so deflated. He never knew it was possible to miss another person as much as he missed his father, who died of heart failure ten years ago. He had met her at the bus stop and had paid her fare when they both boarded the same taxi. They exchanged numbers, and became lovers.

His room would ring with her tinkling laughs no more. His stomach would no longer feel jolly with her piquant vegetable soup. No girl would ever replace the special way she moaned his name Mudd-di, steaming his face with soggy tomato breath whenever they had sex.

He dialled her number once again. Dead silence.

With a sigh, Mudi flopped back into the chair. His fist slammed the chair’s arm.

I should get serious with a church, he said, raking his teeth over his tongue.

He couldn’t imagine himself fasting and praying – like his next-door neighbour who was consumed with “Pentecost.”  Mudi had not stepped in a church since the funeral of his father, and couldn’t even remember when last he prayed.

The jangling sound jarred him again. He considered flinging his phone through the window at the preacher; instead he plunked it on the table. Maybe he should call his friends, let them meet at the bar tonight, and “drink like heaven is here.” 

He clapped his hands. He was a man, not a weepy kid. He wasn’t going to jump off Third Mainland Bridge for any girl!

He brought out a picture of him and Julia, pored over it, rubbed his thumb across the matte surface. He struck a match and set it alight in the dustpan. He opened the fridge. He poured some chilled Ponche into a tumbler. He swirled it and swallowed. And then switched on the radio –

…your time to shine …! a commanding voice boomed out.

Mudi almost slapped his palms over his ears.

This is your year of prosperity. Financial EXPLOSION…

He wanted to reduce the volume of the radio, but paused.

…say Ex-plo-sion, my dear listener!

He pronounced the word in a slow, self-conscious way, and suddenly did not taste the ash on his tongue any more.

…say Amen.

Mudi punched the air with a fist. AMEN!

The great voice soon gave way to the morning news. The male broadcaster revealed that he always observed a minute’s silence every Boxing Day for the Tsunami Dead. Anytime Mudi remembered how the sea whisked itself into murderous rage, killing over 200,000 people, and submerging entire villages, his bladder tightened. He had watched bodies piled on bodies on the TV. He’d pictured those gasping victims underwater, then tried to place their last thoughts before being finally washed away, and decided that death by any other form was more tolerable than by drowning.

Moments later, a soft bone-melting music wafted in the room unheeded for a while, before Mudi presumed that the lyrics seemed to convey a secret message to him:

I’m not going to let you go…

The music kept speaking to him:

I’m not going to let you slip away…

Unconsciously, his lips began moving:

Don’t you be afraid...

An ethereal feeling spilled gooseflesh over his body. Mudi could only liken it to the potent relief that engulfs a fumbling man who is being pulled out of the cold mouth of a pit. He spun on his heels, feeling sprightly.

Darkness tries to steal my heart away…

As though he had heard a magical voice, he cast his eyes upwards. The cobwebbed ceiling stared blankly down at him. He decided right away that he would quit his job as a cook at the Vice Chancellor’s Guest House after the New Year festivities. He wasn’t sure what kind of job he would take on, though he somehow felt confident – like a burglar who has a key to a chest of jewels – that before five days when the year would finally end something important would have befallen him.

A riot of sounds scattered his thoughts, he ran to the window, and the icy wind needled his face. The harmattan dust filled his nostrils.

Mudi had once been stranded at Ojota. The commercial drivers had embarked on a protest strike against the government over the arbitrary hike in fuel price, and Mudi had watched as humans – dense as bees in a hive – plod homewards. That could not compare to the tide of people now overflowing the street.

Motorcyclists and vehicles slowed to a halt, some already parked close. A few policemen, rifles slung over their shoulders, batons in hands, glared on.

Off Shobowale Street, the ruptured pipeline had become a hub. Two days before, the neighborhood had noticed a leaking pipeline, with petrol pooling underneath. Some black marketers had dug four-feet deep into the earth, tapped into the pipeline, and sped off with generous quantity. They had only sealed the punctured pipeline carelessly.

Amid the reek of fuel men and boys hauled large gallons and women and girls carried small cans – all sagging under the weight of fuel, carting home fortune. Uninhibited.

Hot sweat glazed his belly. It occurred to Mudi that his “year of financial explosion” could start at once. His eight years in the city had finally yielded fruits!

He found himself…

cruising around his village in a BMW
his mother crying out hallelujah
girls flocking around him like vultures
children running after him …

In a flash, he emptied the water in his 50-litres-gallon. Outside, he almost bumped into the dreadlocked preacher.

Sorry, Mudi panted.

Son, remember, the preacher warned, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth for man is born unto trouble.

But Mudi had vanished from his face. Young and old nudged one another around the pipeline. Mothers with babies strapped on their backs strained harder to scoop the precious ambre liquid into plastic bags and metal containers. The fumes stung Mudi’s eyes worse than red pepper. In his mind though, he was busy counting crisp naira notes while Julia hovered behind. His back and knees crackled as he straightened up. For a while his breath failed him, then his nose started running. He thumped his chest twice, cleared his throat, hawked out spittle.

He reminded himself that there was always a price tag to success. The fuel-soaked ground shimmered with rainbow patterns. Mudi remembered the story of Noah, and grinned.

A black nylon bag lay at his feet; his hand snatched it. Tore off a part, wrapped it over the mouth of the gallon, and tightened the cap. His chest quaked with bouts of sneezing, and his eyes spurted tears. His throat bobbed as he breathed out.

The nearby market had spewed out people of various trades, a few of whom Mudi recognized. He lugged his gallon of fuel. He began weaving his way through the swelling mass like a crab. A policeman darted a wicked look, but Mudi was quite in a jubilant mood: two other gallons needed to be emptied back home. He squeezed his hippo-size body between the bonnets of cars nosing one another. So much elbowing, jostling for space. A woman howled in agony, and a man asked her why she moved like a slug.

Someone tapped Mudi. He turned round and saw a sweat-drenched man pointing left.

These Okada boys, the man gushed. They drive like demons!

Mudi sighted the motorcycle zooming towards the crowd, which broke into a dash. He dropped his gallon and scurried sideways. Like acrobats, two boys perched behind the rider, clutching gallons.

Get off the way, scavengers! barked one of them. Tiny sparks flew from its worn brake pads as the motorcycle swerved in suicidal motions.

Mudi’s fingers turned frigid. A somewhat eerie sensation chilled his forearms. Bracing himself, he looked round and walked back and heaved the gallon onto his head. Wobbling. And before he could steady himself an explosion so thunderous and powerful thrust him off his feet. His head slammed into the boot of a car. His eyes fleetingly took in a grim spectacle: the motorcycle seething in a fiery orange blaze; the teenagers writhing and screaming.

Lying on his strained back, blood running down his cheeks, Mudi saw the electric lines buzz and sputter and snap – swift clouds of smoke blacken the morning sky – men, women and children flap about, like beheaded ducks, bumping against one another – the buildings and automobiles crackle in the guttering flames. The groanings of a thousand tortured souls vibrated in his ears.

Mudi now realised that drowning was less painful. You are spared the raw agony of watching your skin burn. Staggering to his feet, his hands flailed about. He fell down, coughing. As the hungry inferno surrounded him, he thought he heard the teasing voice of Julia singing: Need to carry on, darling. Move on. Without me.

The End