ON A KEROSENE NIGHT (III)

 

….continued from the last post

 

It was a mini war getting a cab to Keto. You got into one whose driver kept saying that Ojoo was 100 naira for the three times you asked for the price for Keto. When you got down at Keto, the other passengers told you about another Keto at Ojoo, and you probably paid for that one. ‘Well, fifty good naira extra to keep some negativity off you.’ You thought and sighed, shuffling into the station.

You walked to a beautiful attendant, wanting to know how much the Kerosene sold for. But what spilt from your mouth was: “Do you have kerosene?”

The girl whose features you can’t remember anymore suddenly turned ugly. She had a scrunched-up face as she spat the Yoruba version of “we don’t!”

You reeled back on one spot among the cars in the queue for petrol. You realised that frustrated people that frustrated others were everywhere, not just in banks. Taxi drivers were frustrated, and petrol attendants were too. The only thing left was you joining their frustrated gang.

You waited for about fifteen minutes at the roadside, waiting for a cab to take you to the Keto at Ojoo. You were still waiting when the woman next to you suddenly seemed approachable. She advised you to ask another attendant that looked humane. You couldn’t thank her less, for, at that moment, it felt like God had sent you an Angel.

 As you asked another tired-looking attendant, she promptly pointed you to the kerosene stand with no attendant beside it. Well, someone had acted sane, and all you had to do was wait till all the cars got their petrol before you got your two and almost half litres of Kerosene.

And you did get it only when someone else came along. The guy was in a striped white shirt, and your red blouse failed. 

He became the light you followed after standing a few minutes by the roadside, wondering if you would get a cab on the other side to UI. Once bitten, twice shy, one could say.

“You’d soon get to UI,” You told yourself as you followed him. But the guy soon disappeared.

You kept walking the road you thought to be Orogun. It was already dark, and the only light that helped you navigate your way was the one from oncoming cars. You crossed the Orogun road, and as you walked along, you looked sideways to where a sidewalk should be, only to see pitch darkness. "It could be a deep gutter", you thought while maintaining one or two inches away from the supposed ditch.

The pitch-dark rectangle suddenly became wider till it was a river you could have fallen into. You could not express your shock, but it propelled you to walk faster, more inches away from the river that looked more like a figment of your imagination.

You sighed, sure you had left the river behind, and the sight of a tall mall greeted you welcome.

“Richbams,” you noted mentally. You had never realized that Richbams was that near Orogun. The security man who sat outside the mall looked at you weirdly.

You almost gave a shout when you saw ICC on the opposite side. It was shining amidst the array of lights. You complimented yourself for saving a hundred naira.

Looking around at the number of people walking to and fro, you saw a mini market still bustling in the dark. It was a definition of the 'Black market'. A man sold cut and sew cloth, another had several secondhand boots before him, and you made a mental note of pricing it when next you came.

There was a tarpaulin canopy with the signboard “Nwachukwu Osinachi,” or something, canteen. You were near home, so you walked faster.

And there, it was a petrol station. Again, your mind told you that you were at Mobil. You continued trekking in the dark. But it seemed that very soon, your eyes would open to reality. You were suddenly walking along a side bush. All fears appeared to turn on you in a minute, and your mind began to imagine wild things. 

You thought that a pair of hidden black hands would suddenly grab you from the side and have you screaming till your voice broke. Your pace increased crazily, and you watched oncoming cars care no less that someone was walking that road. You imagined a driver thinking “No sane person would walk by that bush at night.”

As you walked closer towards the road, you vigilantly watched out for cars on one side, and strong black hands on the other.