Na wa for Some Drivers…

As a member of the choir in my local church at Yenagoa Bayelsa state and coupled with the free time I had after my Senior School Certificate Examination, I was told to represent the choir in a music program at Mbiama Rivers state. It wasn’t really a long journey, just about forty five minutes’ drive. My journey there was quite normal and the program was a big success. I still wanted to stay but the day was getting dark as nimbus cloud slowly covered the sky. I quickly made my way toward the bus stop.

At the bus stop I noticed there were four people there, a very old man (who I will call Papa) who was blaming government for the way cars were flying past us in high speed, two elderly women and a young girl who stayed a little bit far from the group smiling sheepishly and looking at fine cars passing, in my mind I was just laughing and murmuring, ‘no body go pick you madam, come and enter bus’.

Shortly After, a bus came and the conductor brought out his head and beckoned ‘four chance’. At first I was happy because I knew the fine young girl will be left and secondly because the rain won’t have to beat me. As an experienced person in the art of struggling for buses, I knew where to stand and be the first to enter. I quickly stood there and was the first to enter; I got a good sit on the second roll just behind the driver and sat beside a very small girl of maybe eleven or twelve years, making the place more comfortable. The others had to sort themselves out, I turned and noticed that Papa sat on the roll second to last, and saw the two ladies on the last roll.

Just as I looked outside to laugh at the young girl, I found out she was heading towards one Prado Jeep, a short conversation and bam! She enters and they zoom off. I had to find something to console myself with so I murmured again ‘dem go use you do money’. I am not a jealous person oh, why should I be? She will be enjoying AC, sitting comfortably in the front seat and am here in one rickety bus.

The driver seemed nice at first, was discussing with one of the passengers sitting adjacent to him. Shortly after we started the journey the rain started and increased seriously, it is a normal thing to have heavy rains here. I was sitting close to the door with the conductor facing me, the glass was slid closed and with time, the place was stuffy, I was even sweating inside at some point, but the rain was so heavy to slide open the window. Maybe I should have stayed with that young girl and try her method out, many thoughts filled my head.

All of a sudden, from the back seats, we all heard someone make an authoritative demand. I knew it was that old man because it sounded like him. With strong guts as if he owned the bus he called the driver, ‘driver driver abeg stop I want shit’. Eh? This must be a joke everybody said, bus friends started convincing the old man to please hold himself because of the rain. Maybe he didn’t want to hear them or he was too pressed, he repeated it again, ‘driver I want shit eeeh…’. Some people just kept quiet because maybe they feel it was not their business while others like me just kept saying no na, the rain it too much. If we open the door, some people will have to come outside for Papa to come out under the heavy rain.

After much countering from everywhere, the old man kept quiet. In my mind I heaved a sigh of relief and the journey continued. The driver didn’t even talk, but when everywhere became quiet he broke his silence and said ‘if you like shit for your trouser, this motor no go stop’. We all laughed.

Hmmm, in all my years of learning at community secondary school Okutukutu Etegwe, never have I experienced an example of energy conversion first hand. Papa, knowing the bus will not stop, decided to change the solid shit into gas and released it for us inside the bus. The same bus that was so stuffy, the same bus that had no AC, the same bus we were all managing.

The first people to get the good news were those sitting near him, a woman sitting near him shouted ‘Jesus! Papa don mess eeh!’ I smiled thinking it was funny, I didn’t know what was coming for me. I started preparing for the worst when one quiet man behind me shouted, ‘Papa, wetin you chop na, which kind mess be this na’ within five seconds, everybody was screaming to the driver to please stop, nobody cared about the rain, the old man’s fart was thick. I could feel it, I just couldn’t decipher what papa ate really, it smelt like real unadulterated fart.

I turned and looked at the small girl sitting beside me; she neither said ‘hmmm’ of make any face gesture of someone who the smell was disturbing. Well, I was too busy repelling my portion of the smell but I noted it and planned to ask her.

In all this, the driver did not say a word, he just kept driving, was he trying to keep to his words? Everybody just kept singing the chorus to the fart verse as usual; hmmm hmmm hmmm. I turned to look at Papa with this disgust on my face but Papa’s face was just normal I think it felt like fresh air to him, so there was no need asking if he did it.

The driver did not help us that day, after like three minutes of steady gas exchange, I started perceiving another version, something different from the first one, I felt it’s not Papa’s own because I knew how the first one smelt so maybe someone used this time to also spoil the air too.

After about ten minutes I think I felt my stomach size increased, I just prayed in my heart that I don’t fall sick. The rain had reduced and things were returning back to normal, I think we all in the bus used our nose to change Papa’s fart to carbon dioxide or whatever it was changed to.

I then turned to the small girl sitting beside me and asked her why she was so calm, or was Papa’s gas dodging her nose or what? She just grinned and gave me the second shock of the journey. She said she has a trick she uses when a place smelt, and the trick was that instead of breathing with her nose she would use her mouth so that she won’t perceive the odour.

I frowned my face in disgust, I didn’t say anything to her, I just kept wondering, do you mean this young girl swallowed Papa’s entire fart? I was still in that state of pondering when I sighted my bus stop.

Walking into the compound I started thinking of the whole journey, which kind of driver is this? Why didn’t he just stop at least? But on the second thought I started to regret joining that bus in the first place, I should have joined that young girl and see if there would be any kind lady to pick a fine boy like me in an AC car free of natural gas.

Story Written by
Anichukwugoziri, Peniel Samson�
Edited by
Uzoma Favour Chimamaka�


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