"Are you sure there's a way through there, sir?"
I asked the man who was describing the way to us. We had been lost for hours, trying to locate the venue of the wedding. The truth was we were lost. The Google map messed things up for us.
"I'll give you the right direction if you pay me." he said.
We quickly gave him some money and waited eagerly.
"I will describe the place to you now, but it has to be only one of you." He said tucking the money away into the pocket of his torn trousers. He stood up and walked a little bit away from us.
The request was odd, but what did it matter as long as we got put in that place? We quickly decided that Akin, the driver of the car should listen to the right description from the man, after all, he would be doing the driving.
Akin went to meet him, and he told Akin to bring his ear closer. Akin did and right before our very eyes, he bit Akin's left ear that was turned to him very hard and started laughing.
We all rushed to meet them, and Akin was holding his ear screaming in pain. Thankfully, his ear was still attached.
I pointed at the man and insulted him, "You must be mad. What did Akin do to you?" he stopped laughing and looked at all four of us. He picked up the cutlass he had earlier dropped before biting Akin and moved closer to us. We all knew what that nonverbal action meant, and took to our heels. He chased us around the car for what seemed like hours, and somehow amid the race, I lost one of my heels, I almost paused to throw the other way, but didn't get the chance.
Two men came running from the path where our new friend emerged, and with the speed of lightning overpowered him, and collected the cutlass.
Wow! Who are these men who could overpower someone with a weapon? I wondered inwardly as soon as I caught my breath.
The men bound our friend with a very thick rope they brought with them and apologized. We narrated everything that happened to them and they burst out laughing uncontrollably.
Did any of what we said appear funny?
They apologized and explained to us that our tormentor was a madman and he had escaped from a local psychiatric facility close to where we were.
Madman? Of course, how could we have missed something so obvious? It must be the stress that robbed us all of our common sense.
They had been looking for him all day before they finally located him with us.
They told us that the map led us astray, we were on the outskirts of the town, and it was the end of the road. The paths ahead of us only lead to one place, the local psychiatric facility, and there was nothing for us ahead.
We politely thanked them and told them to give us directions back to town. They did and told us what markers to look out for as the roads all looked alike and had similar markings, only the keen eye and frequent users could tell the difference, reason why we couldn't retrace our steps before.
We thanked them and left. We arrived at the town after about 15 minutes drive and we turned back home. I typed an apology text to the couple on the way and promised to explain better when we saw each other.
I finally made it to my bed at night and I slumped down on it from exhaustion. I don't think I have ever run that much since I was born and to think I avoided going to the gym and stuck to healthy diets because I hated workouts. What a day!!!