DAY 30: The World by the Tail

Courtesy: flickr.com

Today’s Prompt:

You are walking to your car when you pass a boy selling newspapers on the street. He doesn’t look like he’s getting any customers, so you buy a copy, only to discover that it’s dated a week from today. And one particular story makes you realize you need to take action—now.

Courtesy: writersdigest.com

Word Count: 1,026

                “You in the mood for a peculiar spin?”

                “As long as you keep the beer coming I’m down for any kind of story.”

Sam and Utuk (/who took/) sat by the counter of the Drunkard’s Boulevard, a pub at the end of the street and just around the corner.

                “I just got out the public library you know the one standing by that mini stadium where we used to go watch our high school team battle other teams in soccer competition. I was walking to my car when I spotted this kid selling newspapers. The way he stood there with his papers struck me as funny. That was before I observed nobody was buying. I noticed folks actually, walk up to the kid, grab a paper, glance through, and then… scuttle away. It was like all of a sudden they remembered an important meeting they had to attend and they were running late. It pricked my curiosity.”

                “Uh, uh.” Utuk wasn’t looking or listening to Sam anymore. He’d given his attention to something at the door. “Yo, Sam, check out the sister who just walked in.”

Sam followed Utuk’s gaze and felt disgust fill his mind. “Ain’t that the girl who almost got your ass busted last time we were here?”

                “So what? It’s just a harmless stare. Ain’t nothing to it.”

                “Whatever. Let’s get back to my story that’s the only harmless thing around here.”

                “Ain’t it the same story where you had a flat and had to park your car some place and hike it home?”

                “Nope. This one’s different.”

Sam and Utuk had been friends since their high school days. They stuck together after they left school. They were the low profile kind of guys. They knew most of the people here nevertheless, they were prone to go out through the backdoor than make a show of themselves. Sam wrote fiction focusing on the Sci-Fi genre and Utuk was a journalist.

                “You don’t say,” said Utuk. “Is it important?”

                “Of course, it’s fairly important.”

Sam gave a so-so gesture with his head and puckered his lips for good measure. And they both chuckled. The bartender came up and filled their glasses.

                “You know, Joe, someday you’ll get us bombed,” Utuk said to the bartender. “We’ll end up spending the night up on your counter.”

                “That’ll be a fatal pleasure,” the bartender said and walked away.

                “I’m surprised I never mentioned the story to you before today,” Sam said. “That kid’s papers, like I mentioned earlier, seemed to put off customers than attract them. Folks took one look at his papers and zapped!” Sam punctuated his statement with a snap of his fingers.

                “Maybe, it was full of reports of the apocalypse,” Utuk piped in.

                “Yeah, there were lots of such stories in the paper.”

                “What the…?” Utuk uttered in absolute awe.

                “Naw, just joking.” Sam waved it away.

                “Let’s drink to that. It’s not every day one hears you make a joke.” Utuk sipped on his beer.

Sam ignored him. “I walked up to the kid and took one of the papers out of his hand. ‘What do you have there?’ I asked him. ‘Today’s papers, sir.’ ‘Today’s paper,’ I said. ‘Ain’t it a little late in the day for that or is it the Evening News?’ The kid appeared uncomfortable with that question. I took one look at the headlines and I knew why all those folks had to zippety-zippety zap after they took one glance at the papers.”

                “Why did they do it? Was it old newspaper? Was it dirty? Why?”

                “The paper was dated a week from that day.”

Utuk cracked up. His bellow thunderous and wild heads turned in the pub. He almost got his neck broken when he took a fall off the stool.

                “Oh jumping macros,” Utuk said after he got over his laughter.

                “That’s macaroni,” Sam corrected.

                “Yeah, macros for short,” Utuk said.

                “Since when?”

                “Just now. Since it was all next week’s news, why the hell would anybody wanna read that stuff?”

                “The stock market?” Sam suggested.

                “Well, you ain’t saying none of the guys who put an egg in their shoes and beat it were investors or had interest in the stock market, are you?”

                “Not exactly, but I did make something of the whole mess?”

                “You? You bought the paper?”

          “Bought it and gained a considerable success with it. I get updates from @writersdigest delivered right to my android. And for the past few days leading to my encounter with that kid whom speaking of, I’ve not set eyes on again since that day, I’ve been receiving tweets about this Writers Digest annual short story writing competition which was going to close a few days from the evening I met the kid. I saw a news article in that newspaper where the Curiosity Rover discovered alien life forms on Mars. So I wrote it as fiction and submitted it as my story.”

                “That’s called cheating.”

                “No, it’s called creativity.”

                “Did you win?”

                “I submitted the story to the Sci-Fi category; they thought I was prophetic when the real story came out in the news. Of course, I won”

                “Did you spill your guts about the source of your story?”

                “Why the hell should I? I have the world by the tail cause of that story, it’s the reason I got published in the first place. You don’t expect me to throw a lifetime career out the window.”

                “What about the newspaper. What did you do with it?”

                “For the life of me, I can’t tell where I kept it. It just disappeared.”

                “There might be consequences, have you though about that? Such mysteries don’t just happen.”

                “You know,” Sam said, looking totally serious. “I’ve been thinking about that lately. Maybe, I should call up the editors at WD and let them in the whole way the source of my winning story.”

                “You really believe you should do that?” Utuk’s eyes grew wide.

                “Why not? It’s called coming clean,” said Sam with indifference.

                “No, it’s called stupidity.” Utuk said.

                “Whatever you say, boss,” Sam said and gulped his beer. “Whatever you say,” he repeated.

Eneh Akpan

June 30, 2013

DAY 29: Smoke and Mirrors

Courtesy: Wikipedia

Today’s Prompt:

You get a message, it is obviously for you, but it is scrawled in lipstick on a mirror in a public restroom. It’s unexpected but now you know exactly where the killer is hiding. It’s time to find him and, hopefully, your friend (and hopefully, your friend id still alive.)

Courtesy: writersdigest.com

Word Count: 1,092

‘Mo kicked in the door and dashed into the restroom guns out and pointed business end first. His eyes panned across the room, the guns following his movement. He breathed heavily and had bloodstains on his clothes. He was banged up but he was alive and that meant he lived to fight another day. He kicked open the door to the first cubicle—empty. He went down on all fours guns pointed out and scanned for feet beneath the gap under the doors. Nothing there, either. He raised himself off the tiles and advanced forward, kicking in door after door. He heard tiles fall off the wall as the door slammed into them. besides that the room was empty of people.

                “Damn!”

‘Mo inquired of folks he’d met on his way down.

                “Did any of you gentlemen happen to see this guy and this lady drive by this town? Last I heard from them, they were headed in this direction.

He’d received positive responses. “I sold ‘em gas,” the guy at the fuel station had said. “Nice fellow, that one was.”

                “You don’t know the half of it,” ‘Mo said to him.

On his way to the restroom, he’d spotted a green farm truck and waved it down.

                “Sorry to trouble you sir.”

                “Sure, no problem.”

                “You didn’t happen to see a red caddy with a man and woman riding south did you?”

                “Yes sir, I seen them alright. Parked in front of restroom, they was.”

Farmer Joe had directed ‘Mo down to this place. “Keep your eyes to the east, not far from here there’s a restroom. You can’t miss it.”

He holstered his guns, trotted to the sink and started washing his face; ridding his body of the drying bloodstains. A wall-to-wall mirror had been screwed into the wall in front of the washbasin. ‘Mo finished washing, grabbed some paper towels and began dabbing at his face. He was going in for the last swipe across his face when he noticed the inscription on the mirror and froze He’d recognize the handwriting anywhere. Sophie had left him a message; she knew he was following their trail. The inscription looked awkward like it’d been made by trembling hands. ‘Mo knew exactly where they were going.

                “Time to nail the bastard.”

He dropped the paper towel, rushed outside, jumped on his bike and scattered grit as his tires dug into the sand and hit the asphalt with blinding speed.

                “You’re gonna get yours,” ‘Mo muttered to himself. “You’re gonna drown in your blood, you psycho killer.”

What ‘Mo didn’t know was that Ibak (/he back/) had anticipated his coming. Ibak who threatened the farmer in the truck to tell ‘Mo he saw his caddy parked in front of the restroom, had also forced ‘Mo’s girl to make the inscription on the wall. So far, all worked according to plan, Ibak’s plan. ‘Mo was heading into bottleneck drama.

                ‘Mo wasn’t half a mile from the restroom stop when gunshots rang from behind trees and underbrush which lined the road. He canted his bike at an angle and flung himself off to one side, rolling as he landed on the asphalt to lessen the effect of the impact. Gunshots bust the afternoon quiet, scraping asphalt and throwing up grit. ‘Mo imagined it was only a matter of time before a slug blew up the bike’s tank and blasted him to Hades and he pitched for the trees.

He was trapped, after all. Ibak wasn’t jaunting alone. He’d left a trail of lies behind him as he traveled through the town, giving ‘Mo hope that he might catch up with him and rescue his woman.

                “You were never a match against me, ‘Mo. I just been playing with cha.” He punctuated his speech by unleashing a barrage of lead into the trees. “What took you so long? You kept me waiting. I never work alone, ‘Mo. You should have known me by now.”

‘Mo didn’t answer. He also felt betrayed. All those people cowards everyone of them. they sided with Ibak and led him into a trap. But I can’t really blame them for what happened, can I? these guys are armed with weapons of mass destruction and they know where those folks hang their hats. I can’t blame but I still feel betrayed.

He heard the sound of something rubbing against another. Something was sliding down the tree he used as a refuge. He raised his gun up, pushed himself away from the tree with his legs and released slugs into the branches. A man grunted and fell out of the trees. The man had a chance to take him out sitting up there in the branches why hadn’t he taken the shot? Unless he had his orders—Ibak wanted ‘Mo alive. Either Ibak still believed he had access to the money or he wanted the pleasure of torturing him and watching him die slow. ‘Mo sprang to his feet and hooked himself to the tree only after retrieving the dead man’s rifle. Looking out from the top of the tree improved his view. ‘Mo positioned the M-1 rifle and locked its barrel on Ibak. Damn, if this wasn’t poetic justice at its peak, he thought to himself. He could take Ibak and his men from here, picking them out one by one like green bottles.

Ibak had hunted and picked off his family one after the other because he busted his shipment of dope across the border back in the day when he used to work as a customs officer. And now he’d taken Sophie captive. The bastard deserved to die.

Ibak was having the best time of his life when he heard the report of his own death. The sun bore down on the middle of his head on the Friday noon he met his doom. He waited for the men he placed on top of the tree to bring ‘Mo to him. He wanted to watch him die slow. Cause him as much pain as he’d brought on him through the years. He’d make his wife watch it all and then he’d take her out as well. These was the highpoints of his midday reverie when the high-caliber bullet bust through the trees, slammed into his head and drilled a hole large enough for a kid to put his hand through in his forehead. But not before tossing him several feet into the air. The shot flap down Ibak on the shoulder of the road like a discarded fold of newspaper.

Eneh Akpan

June 29, 2013

DAY 28: Slitherin'

Courtesy: pitbulllovers24.com

Today’s Prompt:

You’ve been outside digging a large hole for several hours when you realize that you can’t recall why you’re digging it. Retrace your steps to try to discover your motivation.

Courtesy: writersdigest.com

Word Count: 1,181

The mind is a monkey, but you already knew that. The shower was beginning to pack heat. I was all over that pit, to get it over with and get the hell outta dodge. And right then I discovered all that dirt-digging business had scrambled my brain. I couldn’t recall the hell I was doing in that hole. Ain’t that a big laugh? I put my back to the grind for hours and now that it’s almost ready for ­what-the-hell-I-know-not, my mind flips out. I just couldn’t conjure up an image that fit in that pit.

Here’s what I did, I threw my memory in reverse.

I remembered picking up the axe and going round the house to the backyard but let’s go further than that. I remembered coming home from work and wondering where the hell the pitbull was. That dog has got some voice on him and he’s never shy about showing it off. He’s always out of the house like an acrobat shot from a cannon whenever he hears my car approaching the house, nevertheless when I came home that evening the hound was MIA. I was thrown, to state it mildly. I whistled for the thing but it was like wishing for the moon. I registered my wife did not come out of the house when she heard me call out for the dog, and my internal alarm system went off its rocker. That bull never strayed nine yards of my house. Unlike some of the neighbor’s dogs that went hunting in other people’s trash cans and were worse off than those almost unbearable stray cats.

Impale them all, I would if I had half the chance. I stepped out the car and approached the house. A man’s not gonna turn away from where he hangs his hat just cause his dog’s AWOL and his wife ain’t gon’ come out for an explanation. Besides, it was only a dog if you get my picture. It’s always gonna be a dog when you get right down to it. I stepped away from the vehicle and came towards the house. And first thing I notice, there’s a nasty stain on the coating on the wall. I fumed from both ears. A man can only do so much painting in one calendar year and not break up into a spray of colors.

                “The kids are gonna pay,” I says to myself. “Watch if they don’t pay.”

When I got up close to see the blotches on the wall for it was, it’s a different image entirely that flashed on the walls on my mind. It looked like blood. Hell, it was blood. It spread all over the porch and formed a coating on the stoop. “It’s all my damn imagination,” I says to myself. “It’s DreamWorks shooting films in my brain is all.”

But let’s step back to before that time; flashback to the previous day’s journey home. I bet it’s got a lot to do with all this and that damn pit. Let’s not forget why this story is vital.

I met a guy pitching dog food at the corner of the street. Saw a few familiar faces buying it off him, too. I was tempted I gatto admit and hell, I got out the car and made a go for it. It’s been a while since I actually brought something home for that pitbull; wife’s chores I tells myself whenever it crossed my mind. You see sometimes, life gets in the way and you forget the most beautiful things in the world are the ordinary stuff. Dog food wasn’t cheap, either. But I admit there was something strange about the guy, something that ought to have turned me off if I hadn’t been too involved with guilt of neglecting the dog.

The weird dude gives me the once over and thinks, you can see it pasted right there on his face, daddy dreams of getting son a little puppy for his birthday and wants to start with dog food.

Sure, why not, I thinks. I get the dog food, three cans in all and feed the dog myself after I get ‘em home. The pitbull ate all three cans and gave one long stupid belch.

That was all yesterday. This morning, we woke to find Bully the dog had put on extra pounds during the night. He walked with a bearing and gait like that professional wrestler called Mark Henry.

Standing by the porch, the memory of my dog’s magical weight program earlier that day overwhelmed me and I broke into a run. I didn’t go busting through the door all at once, I’ve watched enough Hollywood movies to know that would be the most stupid thing to do. I stepped over the blood coating on the floor trying not to think what such level of blood loss might mean to the donor, whoever it was.

I peeped through the keyhole and saw what had become of my pitbull, I saw one dark specter, a big brown lump almost slithering over the floor. His paws had almost but disappeared and he had blood all over his jaws. I hated to think whose the blood was and of what was left of my family. I backed off the door, leaped off the stoop as briskly and lightly as I could but it wasn’t enough to fool a pitbull. I heard it slamming its weight into the door trying to get out and it would, too. It was five times the weight and size of any pitbull I’d ever set eye on.

I ran for the car. Popped the glove compartment and heard screams coming from the neighboring houses. They were probably having their own taste of special dog food. I fumbled around in the glove compartment till I clasped an object in my hands. I swung around as first; the door bulged outward like plastic under the weight of the bull and then exploded into a million splinters.

Only one word rang through my mind as the slitherin’ bastard splashed into the boulevard and lurched towards me. It was this word, eyes. The eye is the most vulnerable organ in most creatures. And it was what I aimed for when that thing came for me. I plunged my pen into its left eye and leaped away. It rammed its weight into my and watched in alarm as the impact tossed the vehicle a few feet into the air. It writhed in pain but only for a few seconds and then it charged at me again, blinded in one eye, and fueled by revenge. I ducked into the garage. When the thing that used to be my dog slithered in, I was waiting with a sawed off shotgun. I let it slide up close then aimed the shotgun at the second eye and triggered the weapon.

The result was tremendous. It tore off one half of the thing’s head and scattered fragments of skull around.

That’s why I was digging the hole; I was going to bury the mutant bastard.

Eneh Akpan

June 28, 2013

DAY 27: Outlaw's Hideout

Courtesy: nigeriamasterweb.com

Today’s Prompt:

You’ve just moved to a new house and are trying to fix it up. In the process of painting, you find an odd crack in the wall. As you explore further, you find out it’s a secret passageway—and you have no idea where it leads. You decide to grab a flashlight and go exploring.

Courtesy: writersdigest.com

Word Count: 1,253

I moved into Outlaw’s Hideout precisely six moths ago. ‘This house is meant for you. I can feel it.’ My agent muttered as he gave me a tour of that place. I can’t tell you I didn’t feel a bonding when I stepped inside that apartment.

                “What happened here?”

                “What do you mean what happened here?” the guy who put the house on the market asked.

He knew. I could smell the truth on him. The bastard knew and pretended just sell me that haunted piece of architecture.

                “There is a potent trace of mystery in this environment. This room vibrates with electric potential; the electrons in the air are battering each other and giving off peculiar warmth. Don’t you feel it?”

The guy swallowed spit. I think he didn’t want to own up to the palpable and he didn’t want to deny it with a flat out lie. I sort of had him pinned in a tight spot.

                “Well, this place has been known to be capable to spur uncanny activities.”

                “‘Uncanny activities,’ does the phrase X-Files jog your memory?”

He deferred.

                “Thing is, you deserve this striking beauty, don’t ever let doubt alter your initial course of action. I don’t dig the shit and I don’t wanna go on and tell you lies but this house has got a history and it’s none of your business unless you make it.”

After we finalized the deal, I came around some fine evening to clean out Outlaw’s Hideout and my neighbors—practically the whole street, if I gotta be frank with you—were out watching me, with awe pasted on their faces, like i was a rabbit hopping out of a hat. A few of them mustered up the courage to say ‘Hi’ to the guy who inherited a lunatic’s memory and I Hi’d them back. That was my first day at Outlaw’s Hideout.

                Around the back of the house was a shed for storing tools intended for basic house maintenance. I found some old but still serviceable paintbrushes in there. My first day alone in the house was uneventful. The electricity I had felt on my first visit was poignant in the air. I could feel the vibrations but besides that nothing peculiar turned up. One of my neighbors finally got over his cold feet and came over to the house on the third day I was out there. I was in one of the rooms painting.

                “Hello, there.”

I turned around and there he was looking dressed up for manual labor in his pink polo shirt and jeans shorts.

                “Hello, buddy. How do you do?”

                “The name’s Effiong (/eff young/). You the new guy, right?”

It was more a statement than question.

                “Yeah, I’m Udoh (/hoo dor/) been nosing around a little trying to create some sanity out of this mess, I gatto admit, shit is more than I can manage alone.”

                “Want me to come give you a hand?”

                “Sure, I could use an extra hand. If it don’t bother you, why not?”

                “What do I gatto do?”

There’s the guy who let me in on a little secret about my house.

The first man who lived in Outlaw’s Hideout was military—a retired soldier—one of the first batch of soldiers sent in on peacekeeping mission during the first Liberian civil war. “He was a nice guy, the first few years he spent here,” Effiong said. “He raised this structure from the dust. I think his family sold it off after his demise. Akam (/arkham/) used to have a beautiful sense of humor that was before his wartime memories caught up with him. It’s like he never got over the war.”

                “What ever happened? How did he stop being nice?”

                “First thing we discovered was the fact Akam spent more and more time alone inside his house; he severed ties with the outside world. He didn’t have a wife. I suppose she divorced him shortly after he returned from serving in Liberia. And I rarely saw anyone visit at his place. But when he first arrived here, he used to come by the house and we would talk. It was such fun cause he was a loving man.

                “Something happened to Akam that most of us—his neighbors—have come to believe can be traced to this building, Outlaw’s Hideout. We cannot verify our assumptions but we feel we don’t have to. The last days of Akam’s life is all the proof we need. His entire life bogged down the day he took that kid out while screaming his head off in Liberian tongue, finishing him off by pumping hot lead into his head.

                “The kid belonged to the Jacobson’s, they moved out of the hood a few weeks after the incident. The stain nevertheless is pasted on the air of this town like a stamp.”

That was my first taste of the Hideout’s peculiarity. My time would come to have a scuffle with the source of Akam’s psychosis. And I dreaded it with every atom in my being.

I was painting over the east wall of the guest bedroom when I chanced a crack in the wall. When I jimmied it, I discovered it pried open a bigger fissure, which eventually turned out to be a secret passageway wide enough to allow a man. I had my doubts but I knew that sooner or later, the urge was going to be irresistible and I would take a walk down that mystery corridor behind the wall.

When the day came around, I grabbed a flashlight and set off down the path that spelled out my doom. I wanted to know the experience that changed the soldier called Akam.

The tunnel led to a dark, damp and extremely creepy room. It was Akam’s memory room. Photographs—souvenirs from Liberia—of corpses in grotesque poses. Farther down the room, in a corner where the sun will never shine, a rack packed full with weapons, firearms and rifles of varied make hung down a wall. The object that transformed me into the thing I am, stood atop a shelf layered with dust; a shotgun shell. The slug displayed markings etched into its shell. Each marking I assumed, represented death. Probably, the total count of people this unfortunate soldier offed in field of battle. On the other hand, it might signify innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.

Akam definitely, never forgot. He lived with the pangs of memory his entire life. When I touched the bullet, strips of film, horrendous images, flashed before my eyes. I stood inside a war-torn zone, watching slugs whizz by and tear up flesh, human flesh. Akam had learned about the disease called war the hard way and it had turn him against himself; corrupted his own sense of humanity.

When I let go of the shell, I knew I had inherited Akam’s memory; his curse had been turned over to me.

This is what I saw, never-ending devastation. Women, girls, boys, men, pregnant mothers, babies ripped out of their mama’s womb—death that stretched on without the promise of exit. I felt right there pulling the trigger on these vulnerable creatures. I saw familiar faces distorted in terror; saw the ammo on the rack by the wall in my hands; saw me gunning down people.

It wasn’t just a feeling, I’m almost sure of it. I must have killed all those people or I would not be writing this from behind the bars of a jail cell.

Eneh Akpan

June 27, 2013

DAY 26: What Has Death Got to Do with it?

Courtesy: chacha.com

Today’s Prompt:

You talk on the phone with a relative who died years ago.

Courtesy: Writing.Com

Word Count: 1,265

The clock on the side table said it was 03:00 in the morning. Ekong (/hay Kong/) had woken to the sound of his phone buzzing. The caller’s voice was eerily familiar or it was someone with a weird sense of humor.

                “Hello?”

                “Hello,” said the caller.

He felt a strong urge to ask, who is speaking? He decided against it.

                “Been a while, eh?”

                “I guess so.” Ekong fidgeted. He might have known who it was if his mind wasn’t working so hard to shut down the possibilities. He stood with the receiver rammed against his ear stuck between knowing and denial, which in one word translates as confused.

                “How have you been on that side of the universe?”

The speaker was playing Ekong, trying to make him take a shot at who was on the phone.

                “Fine, I guess. And how has it been on your side of it?” That was so lame, he thought to himself, it sounds like a rehashed line. He bit his lip and waited in breathless expectation of judgment.

                “I’m fine, Ekong.”

Ekong heard soft snickering on the other side. So like her to laugh at him in his awkward moment.

Silence thick and solid as a concrete wall wrapped up the pause.

Ekong cleared his throat. “Hello, are you still there?”

                “I’m here, alright. You still having a tough time making up your mind who your mystery caller is, Mr. Doubting Thomas?”

She always knew how to make him crack up. Ekong chuckled as the weight of realization cracked up the ice of restraint and denial. The chuckle died away when awareness bore down on his mind; there was never going to be a promise to be home early after the call, cause she was never gonna be home. Never again. He was never gonna be able to wrap his arms around her or kiss her goodnight or have her cry on his shoulders. He lost his confidant forever cause she was…

                “Dead.”

He needed to hear himself say that to believe this was really happening. His hilarity morphed into a moan; he tried but failed to shut off the flow of tears.

                “Are you crying again, Mr. Doubting Thomas?”

                “Don’t call me that.” Anger surprised him and ran away with his tongue. And it was a shock for him that he still blamed her for what happened. “This is not funny. Not anymore. Do you have any idea how many nights I cried myself to sleep?”

                “Hey, Sugar. I’m sorry, I was trying to…”

‘Catch you in a bad mood,’ is what she would have said.

                “No. that was a really nasty thing to say. I apologize.”

                “Jessie,” she said.

                “What?”

                “Say, I’m sorry, Jessie. Say my name.”

                “I’m sorry, Jessie.”

Now that it was finally out Ekong sensed relief wash over him. He wasn’t imagining things. This was for real.

                “That makes feel good. Better.”

                “Jessie, can I ask you a question?”

                “Hmm, hmm.”

                “How can we… you know…”

                “Talk to each other?”

                “Yeah, how can you communicate from that side and through the phone? You’re…”

                “Dead?” she completed his sentence for him. “To be straight with you Ekong, I’ve not yet figured it out myself. Maybe, it’s just God being God; trying to humor us a little. I saw a phone up here and an image flared in my mind—me calling you. I did it and…”

Clack!

                “Jessie! Jessie!” This cannot be happening, not when he was beginning to have a good time. “Jessie, talk to me.”

                “Hey, Sugar. I’m here. I dropped the receiver, some guy bumped into me. Is that weird or what? We ain’t compelled to be perfect. We still make mistakes but not the type where people get hurt or killed.”

                “You neither feel pain nor regret?”

                “You can if you want to. Without argument, it’s totally different than a sadist POV. It’s not like you could harbor sentiment, though. You can share your loved one’s aches and when you do, you find the ‘yoke is easy and the burden is light’ as the songwriter says. It’s because up here we understand—we know, troubles will pass and pain don’t last.”

                “How did it happen?”

Ekong blurted out the words and clapped a hand over his mouth. The question was a spontaneous reaction to nights of nerve-racking and bizarre nightmares. “I’m sorry. Forget I said that.”

                “Oh no, it’s okay, Ekong. I would have asked the same question if the situation was reversed.” She fetched a sigh. “I was travelling across that bridge when my cell phone buzzed. I placed it on the dashboard earlier and I reached for it.”

                “Oh God.” Ekong moaned.

                “I wasn’t gonna pick the call, just wanted to know who the caller was is all.” She sounded like she was trying to hold back the tears; her voice was thick with it.

                “Are you crying?” Ekong asked.

                “Not yet, I’m still holding it.”

                “Does that happen a lot up there?” he asked a little uneasy himself and battling the sea welling up in his eyes but failing.

                “It’s not regret or remorse, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m feeling your pain. We’re on the same frequency now and that bond allows me to share it with you. Tell me Ekong, are you crying?”

                “I guess there’s no hiding anything from you as long as we’re communicating on this frequency. Yes, I’m crying and struggling to keep it together. I miss you, Jessie.”

                “I miss you, too.”

Awkward silence.

                “Look, I don’t how long we’ve been given so I really wanna rush the accident story. Okay?”

                “Did you know they blamed it on Carol?”

                “What? Who is they?”

                “People.”

                “What the hell did they do that for?”

                “Cops found your mobile phone. They thought your friend got you attention by calling you up while you were driving.”

                “She had no way of knowing where I was, did she?”

A thought struck Ekong. “Isn’t she there with you?”

                “Why would she. Ain’t she there with you?”

                “Not anymore. Suicide. She couldn’t stand the guilt that she got you killed. Drug overdose, in point of fact.”

                “That’s awful. She called a second time just before the accident but I didn’t bother to check on the caller. I thought Carol again. I was just at the point where the bridge gave on the expressway. I ran over a bump and juice spilled on my lap. I snatched my eyes off the road for the breadth of a second and that was enough to bag me a permanent retirement ticket. The driver had his eyes off the road, I saw him seated behind that big wheel looking sideways for lord-knows-what. When he saw, it was too late to step on the brakes. I felt my flesh and bones disintegrate as my sedan argued with a Mack truck bringing in tons of heavy-duty pipes.

                My windscreen exploded. A few seconds later, I felt me sneaking out of my stiff through a gash axed open by a shard of glass from my busted windshield. The fragment that slit my throat was still sticking out of my neck when I slid out of my physical body.”

Ekong did not say a word for a long time. He was too shocked for tears.

He woke to the ringing of the alarm an hour later and noticed the receiver in his hand. And then he remembered. By thunder, he remembered everything. He rammed the receiver up to his ear, the line was dead but he didn’t seem to mind.

                “I love you, Jessie,” he said.

Eneh Akpan

June 26, 2013

DAY 25: The Treatment

Courtesy: vultravideo.com

Today’s Prompt:

He turned the key in the lock and opened the door. To his horror, he saw…

Courtesy: Writing.Com

Word Count: 1,200

He turned the key in the lock and opened the door. To his horror, he saw the thing rolled up inside fabric that could have been Egyptian mummy wrappings, if the circumstances were a little different. Except, were they not?

SPECIALISTS, INC.

We kill unwanted visitors!

100 Easy Street off PDB Drive, Ikeja.

A soft drizzling rain fell on the fine June morning he decided to take his friend up on his suggestion. The drizzle never could get anything in particular wet even if it tried. It was Mother Nature’s excuse for keeping folks fussy. You wanted to get out of the house and you were like should I take an umbrella along? Would it stop at this or would the rain morph into a downpour? He had not bothered to bring his umbrella even though he had one sitting in his car.               The man glanced up briefly at the inscription etched into a small metal plate and screwed into the exquisitely carved entrance door as he made his way up the stairs. The walls leading up to the office floor displayed framed portraits of sample pests— mosquitoes, bedbugs, roaches, rats and so on—the Specialists smoked out of folk’s homes and offices, but the man saw beyond the smoke screen.

He stepped into the posh office and there sat a man in the reception lobby where a woman might have been better suited.

                “Hello, Mr. Mene. My boss has been expecting you.”

Mene surprised himself and balked. “How did you know I was coming, I never told anyone?”

                “Oh, but you did.”

                “I did?” he rubbed his chin and then recalled telling his friend.

The receptionist saw his face brighten. “Your friend Calvin called in to say you were coming in. Go on, my boss is waiting for you.”

Mene stepped up to the door behind the receptionist and turned the knob. The view knocked his breath out of him. The office was state of the art complete with a wall-to-wall built in TV screen. On a far corner was a sofa possibly for the executive visitors.

                “Hello, Mene. I have been expecting you. Come, make yourself comfortable.” A man sat behind a plush giant office table. Mene wondered what else he did on that table besides office work.

Mene took the seat on the end of the table and waited.

                “You saw our offer and decided to come check it out?”

                “I wouldn’t put it that way, Mr. Max…”

                “Max, please. Call me Max.”

                “Max, I was wheedled into it by a friend.”

                “I see.”

                “Calvin said you turned his life around. Said you helped him out of a delicate situation. I was wondering if you could do the same thing for me. Except, I ain’t getting my hopes up; I’ve tried everything I could and I don’t wanna trust too much in your strategy and be let down.”

                “Well, I commend you for making up your mind to come see us about your problem. We’ll come to that shortly but first, you must sign the form. Without it, we can’t do business with you.”

Mene waved it off. “Oh, please, forget about the money…”

                “It’s not the money, Mene. It’s protocol. Just in case anything ever goes wrong we at Specialist Inc. want to know that our interest is preserved and protected.”

Mene scanned the form quickly then signed it.

Max plucked the document out of Mene’s hand when he offered it up, got out of his seat and clapped him on the shoulder.

                “You have made the greatest decision of your life. You will not regret this, I guarantee it.”

                “If you say so. I don’t know. But if I have to face it one more day, I’ll self-destruct.”

Max fetched a remote off his giant desk.

                “The pictures you are about to view show some of the methods we apply in the treatment of pests. You will see stuff that’s unconventional to educated society. Mene, according to the form you signed, you are not permitted to discuss what you see with anybody outside these walls. Not even your wife.” He paused then added for emphasis. “Especially, your wife.”

He made sure the reality of what he said sank into Mene’s mind and then pressed the remote.

The jumbo screen came alive and a picture floated to its surface.

                “I want you to meet Mother-in-Law #1. This mama had all the knacks of a dinosaur. But we managed to cut her down to size. She wanted to bathe the baby, bathe the baby mama or talk her through her bathing time. Can you feature that? When does the man enter the picture when Mother-in-Law #1 is always a step behind the wife? The man was a complete wreck when he visited our office and this close to suicide. We helped him and now he, not Mother-in-Law #1 is the man of the house.”

Mene had a strong desire to squeal and yodel but he found out he’d lost his voice when he gasped instead. His throat was dry and it made a clicking sound when he tried to talk. The woman on the screen had no face. Where a face should have been there was a horrifying specter of a Halloween mask, cooked raw. Her teeth lay bared because her lips had been clipped off.

                “She learned her lesson the hard way. When the man’s kids couldn’t stand the monster their mother-in-law became, he had to put a halt to her visits.”

Click.

The next picture was of a woman strapped to a metal chair—possibly an electrocution chair.

Mene let out a bone-chilling scream and clapped both hands over his eyes.

                “Enough. I’ve seen enough. Turn the damn thing off.”

                “Oh, but you haven’t Mene. I’m just warming up. There are pictures in this film that will freeze your blood.”

The woman on the screen had begun to assume strange and grotesque positions.

                “We did try to warn her from hanging around her son-in-laws apartment but she would not listen.”

                “What kind of beasts are you?”

                “The Beast from the East, Mene and we’ve come to right what’s wrong with your marriage.”

                “By killing innocent people?”

                “They made other people’s marriage and lives miserable; they had to be taken out of the way before they pulled off more havoc.”

                “You are sick. And same goes for everyone in this establishment from hell.”

                “No Mene we are here to save people like you from their mothers-in-law. And here’s the next picture…”

But Mene wasn’t going to wait around and listen and watch one dead person after the other. He rushed out into the rain which had finally opened up the skies in a downpour.

                “You signed the form, Mene. You can’t turn tail and run.” The receptionist called after him. “We will do our job. Make sure you’re ready to pay up when we finish.”

He stood on the threshold, staring at the form inside the Egyptian mummy wrappings, and wondered. Back at the Specialists office, he’d seen a picture on Mr. Max desk, it began to gain substance in Mene’s mind. With substance came realization and then terror.

It was the picture of his mother-in-law.

Eneh Akpan

June 25, 2013