Death Race

I don't know exactly how Death will catch me, whether it will grab my jugular while I'm binging, tug at my heart while I'm laughing, or squeeze my balls while I'm riding astride some juicy young lady. I don't know how, but I do know that when I eventually die, it will not be in the night when I'm asleep. Death and I, it seems, have both signed a treaty to kill and to die anytime, in whatever circumstance, but this.

Wave it, I'm no soothsayer, neither am I clairvoyant. Speaking here is just an ordinary man from the grave of experience. In fact I could have boldly told you I've stared Death in its cold, unyielding eyes if not for this same fact: it comes whenever I'm deep asleep, at night. And on each occasion it merely taps me awake and, boom, we'd start running. It would chase and chase until it all but wanes off and can only injure. Of the several encounters I've had, I shall share with you the most interesting three.

The first one happened in my early teen years, that very period when, as a lad, you are bound every morning to have some map of dry akamu on your shorts. Oh, wet dream is another crazy thing. You suddenly find yourself smooching Alicia Keys under one tattered shade in Sokoto. Before you say Jack she has changed into Kafaya, the girl next door, whose agbalumo-sized breasts you've been thinking of the whole afternoon.

Anyway, on this night, I was about handling one succulent pair of booby when Death came knocking. It happened that my immediate elder sister just finished boiling a kettle of water. You sure would wonder what she needed the water for in the middle of the night; that's the unreasonableness with which Death approaches. Butterfingers is what I should call her, but the truth is that then we were fast outgrowing our box room, which was way smaller than a boxing ring. So this lass, in her attempt to cross the hurdle made by my sprawled legs, she tripped and bathed my thighs thoroughly with hot water. Ah, shaperly, I'd flung at our door, out into the chill, dark night, running like mad from Death until my head hit the metallic cage of a neighbour's air conditioner. The koko was powerful.

The second one was in Tedder Hall, Block C, 2nd floor. It was at a time when Boko Haram was as popular as Jesus Christ. One thing squeaks here, Boko Haram! Another thing hums there, Kobo a ram! -- the same hysteria that rocks the Messiah's name whenever people perceive the tiniest danger. I always thought he died for sins and not for deaths.

So, again in my sleep, it tapped me awake, this time with the hands of Demzy, my honorable roommate and host squatter. "Aji, stand up! Fire! Fire! ..." At the door in no time. But I didn't see fire, I saw Boko Haram. The blazing fire crunching the adjacent building was, to me, Boko Haram. They had just bombed our hall's mini-mart. Our staircase, the closest part to the burning building, was already covered with smoke, which was wafting quickly down the corridor. Sharp-sharp, I lunged at the railings, raised one leg over, about raising the order when Aktor came for me. God bless this young man, he did as his name suggests, for nothing would have stopped the Jet Li in me from jumping down, even though I could have gently spidered down to a safer point first. Still, after Aktor must have thought he had hammered some calm into me, I still found myself, a diehard runner from Death, lizarding down the rough fence girdling the block, my torso all severely scratched.

The third one is the type that, in hindsight, makes a sober man suddenly burst into laughter, as if he is being tickled in the ass, a laughter enough to make the next man quickly grab a rope just in case. This one happened in Sultan Bello Hall's reading room around 2 a.m. Sleep and night as usual. For clarity, I was actually living in the reading room then, to tell you the sleep was just as deep. Death as usual. It tapped me to life from a thunderous scramble for the entrance, gbangbagbigigbagbidigban. Trust you know where I would be by now. You fail if you think the entrance. Me? I was already at the porter's lodge clutching the main gate, some good kilometres away, beating several guys despite their head start.

After the whole commotion calmed, we started asking each other what the cause was. No one knew. Apparently, we had all run without a slightest knowledge of our pursuer. Of course it's Death for me. Confused and shaken, we all trudged back to the reading room, only to meet one fellow inside laughing like mad. He was the only one who did not run, one of the few that was awake before the run, and his laughter was the rocking, teary type that kept him from answering our question.

"Guy, wetin happen?" one of us bellowed, visibly out of patience. "Person dey ask you something since you just dey laugh. You think say e funny, something of life and death?"

When this laughing jackass finally staggered out of his fit and found his voice, he, together with two other fellows who later joined in, explained the cause of our run, and we all couldn't stop laughing. The reading room instantly became a laughing room. Even after we all settled down, either to read or to sleep, one person would just suddenly burst out laughing and it would be passed on another, and another. Long things short, we continued laughing till morning, during the day, into the week, whenever we just stumbled on each other with our various injuries, mine a sprained ankle, we the casts in this comedy.

Telling you the cause of our run would make this writing longer, but I would give you an interesting snippet. That young laughing man is a very good friend of mine. Of the many reasons why he couldn't stop laughing, he said I'm one. It took him a considerable length of the night before he could explain, as the laughter wouldn't allow. He would stare at me, open his mouth to speak, then laughter. When he finally spoke, amid laughter of course, he said, "It's ... it's as if Death has been chasing you right from your dream; your speed is super-nat-u-r ..." he trailed off again.

Ui Chaid

Divepen1:
Ui Chaid

So... You were also there when that Mini mart got burnt...


People wey no dey go house, we donsee una face.

Divepen1:
So... You were also there when that Mini mart got burnt...


People wey no dey go house, we don see una face.

hahaha!! yes i was o, my friend actually wrote this piece though, he was there also.

Divepen1:
Ui Chaid