chapter 1

POLYCARP EKEREPEYOUNG COULD FEEL A UNIVERSE OF INEFFABLE NOISE SPINNING ITSELF OUT FROM A HUGE DISTANCE OF HIS MIND.  He had been aware of a form close to him that no one else could see enshrouded in a Ghostly bath of clouds and dazzling white sunlight. No, it was not sunlight.  The air above him was full of a far greater complexity of light than the radiant squinting of the sky through its solar monocle could explain but it was white. It was pure, unearthly white and it filled space behind the figure like twirls of smoking air, giving rise to a gradual but incredible distinction; an image expanding as everything else grew smaller and irrelevant, taking shape and coming alive until the unclear became plain as the nose on the Beholder. A man emerged from the pallid haze, significant, elemental and profound. 

Polycarp agonizingly watched his mirror image bending over him, completely motionless, his glazed eyes roving gently as if scrutinizing a strange specimen on a slab. His eyelids blinked away the white light to catch a clearer view of him. A few moments passed and his face assumed a frightening expression. It was like the tragic stare of a New Mother receiving her blood soaked infant, holding her own flesh and blood in her arms- a tiny little deformed babe! That shocking, implausible look.  No doubt Polycarp was afraid of what he saw but what followed terrified him more. It came after a long moment of staring and glaring and trying to figure out what was already evident. His twin stopped blinking, moved one of his arms slowly towards him, carefully in an outstretched manner as though reaching out to a lover in the dark then finished with a pleasant, wide smile. It was one those rare smiles that you may never come across in life, an unmistakable sign that something most dreaded was quivering on the horizon- everlasting silence, death.

  He had mounted the highest Kilimanjaro of pain. There every breath, every palpitation had ached. There his throat had throbbed and bobbed. Jolts of air had shoot out of his foaming mouth, sucking on what pap of life remained. He had fetched thoughts of Chima-Chidi. His waning faculties had groped desperately for her image; her black eyes and chubby face, her ever so sweet and shy smile, her tiny little perspiring hands. He had hoped to be strengthened by her image. He had Hoped that his broken flesh would cleave onto his soul for her sake, that he would ride the storm just a little more. He had reckoned in forlorn hope that by hanging on a little longer help would come. He had groveled for a miracle like the films.  Help had been no where near him.  So he slipped helplessly into darkness. He fell into a dark slippery pit wrapped in silence and slipped on as if falling into the gapping jaws of a bottomless abyss. He traversed the convoluted tubule of death. The cud of his existence was regurgitated, chewed and spewed out of the gut-end of after life.  He felt cold. He’d never been so cold in his whole life before. He would never be.

Two became one flesh. He no longer exchanged stares with his image for he’d become his image and the body he’d occupied now lay sprawled and empty on the hard black road.  A federal road they call it, a dual highway broad as the pathway to Hell. It was the pathway to hell. The road bore various degrees of deterioration, the fairest capable of wreaking the strongest vehicle and claiming the stoutest life on occasion of reckless driving. It was however a road no one could avoid, a major thoroughfare in the city’s sprawling landscape so many never considered that stretch of tarmac and dust more than a reckless driver would treat a little indentation on a car.  Except of course at times like this when a soul is engulfed and his mangled flesh spewed out as though the road were some predator and the victim, a beast unfit for full consumption.

From where Polycarp’s life was violently extinguished the road stretched for a few distance, jumped a vast concrete bridge and continued its damaged journey to outskirts of the city.  The tarred part of the road gleamed from the asphalt melting energy of the mid afternoon sun. Cascading razor sharp beams singled out the details of Polycarp’s expiration; His face towards the sky, his badly damaged head an outcome of harsh contact with the heated metal of the death machine disgorged a grotesque white mash and thick dark blood on the hard black tarmac, forming a thick glut behind his smashed skull. His lips were swollen out of recognition and covered with foamy spittle.  His dress, his holiday best a French suit which was torn and blood soaked on his limp form was beginning to dry, stiffening as though they had been starched and laid in the hot sun. A few feet from his corpse one of his pair of disintegrating shoes lay squatted crushed beyond measure, its leather instep yawing away from the sole. The other shoe was nowhere in sight. 

  Dozen of typed papers littered the rubber smelling road and flew here and there. An innocent young lad jumping and galloping gleefully to seize a paper leaf floating in the soft breeze some distance away, totally unaware of what was happening was promptly scolded by a woman with a strange color of hair. 
“What are you small boy doing here? Oya!  Run home to your mother you little beast!” she yelled, her eyes popping out like marbles after giving the boy a good smack on the buttock. The poor lad made a break for it, wailing and clutching his rear. The woman then joined the crowd of onlookers and mourners fluttering the scene of the tragedy with wide eyed apprehension in the sun’s hotness. There pedestrians expressed their shock and bewilderment in dissimilar manners.  Some women wept quietly, dabbing the corners of the eyes with their filthy wrappers hanging loose while some sorrowed openly, cursing and slapping their thighs in anguish.  Generally the men gawked tragically and shook their heads. A thickset man was of particular interest. He exhibited a solitary and tearless ritual of a unique kind. He would shake his head, bald and glistering with heat in a slow way as though his neck was injured and he feared to turn it, chew his stubby index finger for a while then placed both hands on his head as he murmurs something about how wicked and wretched death is. He would then repeat the process of grief again careful not to miss out any part.

  A few feet from the hubbub stood another fascinating individual. A tall street side vulcanizer in greasy work clothes who had witnessed the scene and was narrating the harrowing account in Pidgin English to a group of men. The fellow pitched his tale animatedly, breaking sweat in profusion, describing and analyzing, touching every point and every detail with his arms, sometimes using his legs.  The vessels of his head stretched near bursting point as he tried to conjure up emotions that seemed beyond the reach of his words. The men swallowed his volleys of words, nodding quietly and shaking their heads.

  The crowd swelled with new arrivals bursting into grief-stricken ejaculations of “oh my Jesus! Oh my Mother! Eo! Eo! Ah!” over and over in gasping moan.
“Whoever did this will not sleep in peace.  He will surely come to swift destruction!” an old woman said, grabbing her sagging udders as she swayed from side to side
“Only if he did not suck from a woman’s breast will he escape from a curse!” she added squeezing the breast cupped in her hands to emphasize her point.

  Like many other people there, the old woman neither knew who the deceased or the hit and run truck driver was. But then she didn’t have to as long as she was a mother, perhaps a grandmother to some “not-a-truck driver” individual. Was that not the main motive for the gathering of the crowd? That their brother, father, son or relative could just have been that dead man and that he deserved all the tears and wailings he could get even though their sorrow would never bring his dead body back to life?

“I know him. He is an educated young man. He carries books everywhere like he’s a professor. He must be a professor, he must be a very intelligent professor, poor him. May Allah rest his soul, may Allah give all of us good and peaceful deaths” An old street sweeper rendered mournfully, his eyes leaking isolated tears. This one had reached an age in his life when death no longer has the qualities of grisly surprise only pity and profound reflection.

  A major traffic Jam or “Go slow” in local parlance gripped the highway. Harsh discordant din from the cars in the rear filled the air adding to the already confused situation. People spilled out of their vehicles and approached the gathered crowd half furious, half curious. Some pushed their way through to catch a glimpse of the corpse so the circle of crowd kept opening and closing, engulfing new arrivals. Soon the highway police patrol got wind of the happening and the lunatic blaring of the siren invaded the scene.

  A newly painted Van halted and a couple of armed police men surged forth, screaming threats and waving their guns, a gesture the crowd regarded as absolutely unnecessary
“Who killed this man” a huskily a barrel-bodied individual who looked like the leader of the squad demanded of no one in particular and everyone in general. For a few moments there was no response. Attention heaped on him. It was the startling attention mounted on someone who’d just uttered the stupidest statement in the world.
“I say who killed this man! I will arrest everyone if I don’t get facts now! ” He growled, waving his baton. The scene was now becoming amusing. The other police officers seeing the predicament of their superior took it upon themselves to rescue him from the shame of having his orders flouted. They pounced on the person nearest to them by hooking into pants, the hold the police considered firmest on the body. Things were no longer funny.  Someone spoke
“He was trampled by a Truck”
The squad leader, without looking at the speaker wedged his baton under his armpits. He produced a pen and a writing pad and removed the pen cover with his mouth, winking ferociously towards the fervent sun.
“Ok any eye witness?”
“I saw everything sir! I saw everything!” the greasy vulcanizer busted out of the crowd
“Now tell me everything and I mean everything!” the police boss said and greasy man entered into another round of dramatic display, this time taking longer than bargained for, embroidering his speech with the most exaggerated turns of phrase he could concoct . The policeman nodded and took down notes, stopping every now and then to wipe sweat from his brow. At times he changed his mind and crossed what he had written. 

The crowd began to get impatient, the car-owners just short of furious.  As a reaction the squad leader murmured something about doing his job and his intention to discharge his duties to the letter.

“Mr. Police officer, are we going to sleep here?” one said angrily from the crowd.
“Five minutes we have waited here for nothing. Do you think we don’t know our rights?” another shouted, riding on the effrontery of the first speaker.
“You think because you are in uniform you can harass us any way you like?”
“The road is not a place for playing Sherlock Holmes. People have jobs to do” spoke a bespectacled man garbed in formal clothing. He was a large and imposing man who by reason of his profession had learnt to make his wishes clear and exhaust all he wanted to say.  The statement touched the nerve and that was mainly because of the ostensible elaborateness of the   name Sherlock Holmes.  Many there had never heard the name before but then there was no doubt that the man must be a shoe too big for the officer’s feet. The police officer scrutinized the speaker then harangued
“Mr. Man, I don’t know who you think you are but I am not going to stand here and receive insults from you. I am doing my job here so take you big grammar elsewhere or you’ll have to follow me to the station.
“On what basis? He lashed back “do you think I am an illiterate who doesn’t know his rights?”
“I am here to enforce of the law, I am doing my job here- 
“You know nothing about the law!”         
“Who do you think you are anyway?’
“I am a lawyer”
“Then this is not the law court”
The battle of words raged on. Polycarp who was still leaning over his corpse felt himself crying. Not superficially with tears but beneath his soul, a shriveled buried creature sobbing to himself. 
   
Soon the sound of distant siren filled the air; news reached the crowd that the Governor was approaching. The squad leader sealed his lips and sprung into action. He ordered his men to clear the corpse from the road and ensure the flow of traffic for the governors’ passage. People cursed and murmured and went their way. Polycarp Ekerepeyoung’s tragic achievement was promptly forgotten but he didn’t leave the spot. He stayed there squatting on his hunches, staring at blood and mess splattered on hot tarmac in the hot blazing sun