When I get home by eight-thirty the next day–– in the morning, the house is upside down. Obviously Màámi's doing. When she’s in a mess, she doesn’t know where anything is. She could even forget she’s breathing. The front door isn’t open, so I use my own key, but it could have as well been, because the door to the verandah was. Just a steel ladder and some nerve and the burglar is in. We’ve lived in a block of flats for five years now; a yellow and white building not far off in the estate. Three rooms, a dining and a sitting room demarcated by an archaic arc and an over-decorated kitchen with a store. It all looked like hell as I’m in here now. Memories flash through my mind, but I shove them down, because they are all awful.
If you thought I would have gone to that party, you don’t know me at all. I’m Tomilola Adefuye, and since my Dad’s passing, I vowed never to give in to happiness. It’s for cowards, for losers, nothing but wimps I repeat over and over again. If I break a sincere smile, it’s by the grace of God hovering around me at that moment. If I talk in class, I’m sick. I’m definitely sick. Well, it happened once in secondary school and I vomited just as I concluded the sentence, then I fainted the next moment. Woke up in the sick bay. Didn’t talk to anyone for a week. I know there is nothing wrong with me. I’m just a very sober person, meaning I don’t socialise.
As I enter Rotimi's room, I head straight to the curtains, because it is as dark as night, and in my heart, I say words of prayer; for him to be alive, and for him to go to heaven if it’s his time to die. The only thing I’ll miss about him is his over- protective side, although it always got out of hand. I want God to take my life very soon, so I can stop crying and mourning for everyone around me dying or suffering. It’s damn stressful and makes me bitter.
I go through his wardrobe and I savor the stench of his dirty clothes jumbled with his clean ones. That’s disgusting, I know. I go through his clothes even though I have no clue of what I’m looking for. The last thing that comes to my mind is going to the hospital. If mum sees me, she’ll faint. She gets jolted like that.
As I walk over to his wardrobe, it just dawns on me that I don’t know what I’m doing, but I just keep scouring. Through the pockets of his blazers, leather, cotton and jean jackets, pockets of trousers, and boxes. My emotions are tangled up, more twisted than an umbilical cord could ever be. I don’t feel tears though. That’s the farthest I feel right now. It’s mostly anger and with that, I just start to empty the wardrobe more effectively. First, his blazers then his shirts, then trousers. His entire wardrobe is practically on the floor whimpering when I discover just one pair of ripped blue jeans with swear words on each leg. I grab it as it looks too suspicious to ignore. I put my right hand in all the four pockets to discover a piece of paper in the right back. The paper is 2B and that’s strange because we haven’t used such since primary school. He must have been incredibly jobless to have found these; tucked down in a Ghana Must Go somewhere in the store. I open it and I’m just shocked at what I’m seeing, I’m not saying I didn’t expect such, but I couldn’t put my finger around how it looked so detailed.
It was an instruction manual of three pages; Dying Painlessly. Black and red pens for the title. Written and calligraphed with black and Designed and highlighted with red. I cover my mouth and cry bitterly for minutes. The art is so real and the blood looks alive, and triggered by what will push Timi to do something like this, I cry again. I don’t lift my head up for so long, but when I do, I see my tears had soaked the pieces of paper, but I go through it anyway.
Still weeping badly, the next page starts with number one, and that’s wrist cutting. He writes, I’d do this if I really want to torture myself as this is not really painless (LOL… I’m cutting myself so deep it reaches my arteries). For this to be efficient, I have to execute this when no one could be around me. In order that, it leads to my uncontrollable bleeding, because I cut my arteries, where the pressure of blood is high, and finally, death. What’s the inspiration behind all these, I ask myself. Had Timi been watching that series… 13 Reasons Why? I’m too disturbed, I’m not sure I can ever sleep again, but I go on. If this was Timi's plan, he'd probably attempt it anytime anyone’s not around him.
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Running Away Solves Everything
General FictionIt's 2018 on the islands of Lagos, Nigeria and however hard Ekene, Tomilola and Elvis try to convince themselves that they're okay, they know they aren't. Ekene had always struggled to be noticed and acknowledged, but now, as it extends to even his...
