Had the city not dozed but for the moonlight shedding a glimmer of silvery light, plus the faint smell of a burning tyre, Man would never have sensed there were footsteps catching up with him, nor would he have caught a glimpse of the silhouette trailing him from behind. With a robbery operation just a couple of hours away, and his life hanging on how efficiently or not he played his cards, he would have picked even the sound of a pin dropped on the sandy pathway. Out of instinct, a WALTHER P99 pistol lodged in hand, Man squeezes himself into an old rusty car devoid of its doors and tyres plus a deteriorating interior, his eyes locked in the near-darkness of the street behind. He'd barely settled when a presence startles him. "Oh, finally found the one," the voice rattles from no where, somewhere . "I'd put a bullet in your skull if you don't stay away from me, whoever you are." Scoffs. "You don't have the heart to buddy." "Why?" "You didn't even have the heart to give a chase when I stole your cap." "So you're the mad guy from a week ago at the market?" "Depends on what you understand 'mad' to mean," his form is now naked under the eyes of the moon. Sneers." Ain't you mad? Long scraggly hair, torn clothes, unwashed..." "I didn't expect you to understand. People don't see beyond their specs." "This conversation is over!" "Fine. But, how would your mother feel seeing her son on the papers with a bullet hole in the head gushing blood?" "I am not a robber, "Man shoots back. "Those exact same words are the you reason you think I'm mad." Mad let's seconds slide, then motions for Man to step out of the car, "Let's have a walk buddy." Man steps out, "To?" "I wouldn't be afraid with a gun in my jack." "I don't get it, who the fuck are you?" A smile escapes Mad's lips, then a grin, then loud croaky laughter, "I have, for twenty-six years roamed the heart and streets of Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt - bigger cities than Uyo - hoping to get asked this question; praying for a chance to tell my story." "We've all got our stories man. A man to his problems. Why is yours a big deal?" "Well. Let's say 'cause your mother would either see you in the papers or not if I tell it to you or not." "There you go again," Man barks. In no time Mad rolls a joint, hands Man a rolling paper and pinches of leaves he doesn't care to peek at in the silvery moonlight, then abandons his butt on a slab. He is puffing away when Man leans his butt on the slab too, until both are sat hip-glued, a few yards from a nauseating refuse dump. "I did not understand I had become a robber when I first became one. It all started in Lagos, as errands ran for an uncle at fourteen, until years later when I would learn I'd been made to play the delivery boy of my uncle's gang. I would never had known had my uncle not forgotten to lock his room one morning, and left the luggage on his bed," Mad puffs, releases a ring of smoke, buying the needed time to allow Man light his spliff. A police siren bleeps from two streets away. He seems to understand Man's panic, "Relax buddy. It is not destined for you to get arrested or killed by the cops. "Ho..how do you know all of these?" Man stutters. "Something we have no control over, something that's meant to be, that's destiny, right? You're safe here, though." "So...what about the luggage?" Mad scoffs, "I shot my uncle with the first pistol I could assemble that morning. The decision wasn't hard to make when I recalled my dead mother telling me Uncle had killed my father and gotten his everything." "Ouch, I'm sorry about that ma..." "Ever shot a folk buddy?" Scoffs. Man puffs long on his spliff, "Twice. A snitch had a bullet forgotten in his throat weeks aback. Dude lost it. Then there was this bitch from years ago, my baby's mama who wouldn't keep away from walking back into my life to cause me more misery, so her feet got served. She's wheeled in a chair now." "Wow. Tonight would have been your third. Not much of a bad guy." "You're sounding so sure. I..." I am buddy. The world is this very big book, and folks like you who do not travel see only a page. I've seen more pages of the world than you ever would, as much as serving seven years in the astral world. But that was after I'd eloped with the armoury together with a townsman, an urchin every one called Randy. Eventually, we ran into a band of homeless thugs who survived executing perfectly-schemed scams." Man makes to get up, "I have an appointment to catch up with, I think I can see the end of your story. Every bad guy ends up mad, sorry, like you. Good thing I'm not you. Goodnight." "You sane folks are always in a hurry times you're not buried in worry. A little patience and a lot more lives would be saved. Your health suffers 'cause you folks would rather ride a bus than walk five minutes. You rush after ill money, then your life suffers the rush. Call us mad, but we're just a kind who find joy in the little things we can have freely. "Urmmm, okay, can you please summarize?" "You see the earlier you sane folks realize the world is a place of details and not summary, the better for the Blue Planet. I didn't roam twenty-six years searching for a listener to my story so I could finish in a jiffy buddy." "We're not buddies. At least I'm not mad just ye.." "Says a guy who's spent the last hour with one, smoked his mad weed, your butt's sharing the same slab with his, because somehow your life hangs on the wire of his insane story, and that doesn't make you one? I would feel like a mad guy if I were you." "It depends on how you look at it." Mad sniffs, "One evening when Randy and I would come back from spying only to learn the band of thugs had duped us of the materiel but for a pistol I hid in a bush, I, too, thought it depended on how one looked at it when I robbed my first Boss of a hundred million naira in 1989." "Fuck, I wasn't even born then." "I was barely twenty, yet smart enough to have learnt a thing or two from the band of scamming thugs. The one they called 'come and see' was my magic wand. Man lights his now inch-long spliff, "How did that work?" Loud, wild giggle. "As simple as taking some rich guy to a warehouse-sort-of-place stacked full with sealed cartons, on the pretext of those cartons being filled with dollars owned by a late Uncle. The trick is to fill a couple of cartons with wads of dollar notes, so the rich guy wouldn't have a problem exchanging those for his millions of naira since you know nothing about exchange rates." "He must have been foolish." "Not foolish, just the wrong type of smart. Well, we both knew no bank would let a teenager walk away with such dollar bills. Plus, every foolish person thinks they're smart you know." "Didn't that make you a robber?" Man drags on long on his last puff, letting a ring of smoke circle the air above their heads. "It depends on how you look at it. That was my defense line. For a homeless orphan feeding from the streets, I felt I was taking from a rich man who had more than enough. It was justifiable, at least to Randy and the many homeless folks like us." At the other end of the refuse dump, a dozen vultures are gnarling and beaking it out over the petrified carcass of a dog. "They don't get that often," a chortling Mad gestures at the vultures. Man can barely stomach the stale odour from the dump now his spliff is burnt out, "For a guy who was once a hundred million naira rich, how did you end up with the scraggly hair and scruffy beards? "I stuck my penis up in the wrong hole buddy. The thing with a gun is the power it wields. Just the pull of a trigger, a speeding bullet, just a second proves enough to end a life. It was that power that pushed me into putting a bullet through my boss' skull. I did not mean to, and never would have had he not leaked my pictures to the Police, and made my face the new bad egg on the dailies. I robbed, raped, shot...did a lot more. Good thing the slums of Ojuelegba proved enough to shield me. It was in the astral world that I would learn the blood of an innocent girl I'd robbed of her virginity, then diced into smithereens sought my sanity. They said I would not die of my own until I roam and find in the streets a good robber like you to save first, one who would not chase when robbed." "I am not a robber," Man mutters, "It's just hard watching a little girl I love more than life lose it to asthma 'cause Daddy can't foot the bills." Mad frowns a minute away, "Hmmmm. The Police wouldn't take it that way with that gun in your jack. Do away with that pistol; that thing with you is cursed buddy. WALTHER P99. That's the exact same pistol my father took a shot from, the same pistol I shot my Uncle with, the innocent girl I raped, and the many men I brawled with." "I never got no pistol from you. What are you saying?" "Because you found it ashore a beach doesn't take its history away. If you have it until morning, you would shoot your daughter and yourself from frustration. "Hmmm. And where's Randy now, by the way? Chuckles. "Oh,Randy. He took a bullet from 'your' pistol when he refused to get thirty from the hundred million naira, not like he played a bigger role than helping cart the cash away." "Still not a fair reason to have killed a friend." "Maybe, or maybe not. I don't know. Life isn't fair. I was an orphan at thirteen 'fore the very uncle who'd killed my dad and caused Mother's death took me in a year later, made from me what I would never have wanted to be. The poor become poorer by the day, and the rich, richer. People get shot for no wrong. Then we have the disasters when we're not dying by the swords of extremists or crashes. There are thousands of homeless people than you'd ever know, people who know no joy 'cause agony owns them. So you see buddy, nothing about life is fair." "No place you call home?" Mad Grins, "Come with me. Home is that mad car you took cover in, my most-priced possession. Come with me." It is sat on the wired metal of what was once the comfy seat of the now old rusty car, hands abandoned on the steering, staring out the cracked windscreen, that Man dozes pondering on the words of Mad, "Your life is yours alone to steer to whatever direction you wish. The road is bumpy and probably ridden with potholes, but if you make the right choices, nothing would mar your way. Look above, there are a million stars glowing in the sky. Find your star and it'd show you the way. Don't quit or ever think of giving up. You're already buried in pain, already hurt and broken. Get a reward from it buddy. Now I can find peace." The echoes from a pulled trigger is the first sound that filters into Man's ears as the night gives way to the day. Then he sees him - Mad - motionless: head rested on the broken dashboard, legs tucked carelessly, bloodied pistol lain on the dashboard beside his head. The dailies would bear the tale of some random mad guy shot in his 'home', only that Man is in the know Mad was more than some random mad guy.
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From @chuka