Quarantine Episodes by Festus Destiny - HTML preview

12th April 2020.

Bigger Guns.

It was the year when the sound of a gate felt like air raids. Rumours slept with our fears and have birth to insomnia. Streets brightened under the flames of burnt tires and we ate our meals with little spices of soot. Day became night for the gentlemen of the highway and the clouds decided not to shed a tear for us. The sun ruled the day with a heavy hand and the heat crept through our roofs and haunted our eyes. Distraction became popular among us and hope vanished like thin smoke. It was a time when the end of a conversation felt like the beginning because our answers still had question marks. Sometimes the night stops breathing and it feels like there is a whistle blowing somewhere that keeps blowing and never stops. It shrieks and screams and grows louder when you block your ears with your finger. It feels like the air is still. Perhaps twisting its aerial body into solid form so that fear can walk comfortable on it. The silence of the night turns breath into whispers and snoring into exploding shrapnel. The rumours about the robberies getting closer keeps everyone legs afloat. We sleep with cutlass and torches. The old ones says that the rumour and tales remind them about  the civil war. And slowly, danger dragged the feet of youths till they started sleeping during the day and watch the night slowly strip itself naked of stars and clouds. Youths have armed themselves to the eye lids with cutlass and fear. They are forced to take part in vigilante operation. The old one says it reminds them of the conscription technique during the war. Yesterday, I slept alone. Today I woke up with dusts and soot, blacklegs and decoloured tongues, and memories of burning tires and black hot smoke.

When the government told the citizens to enter the well of comfort without sending a rope of palliative, they drowned. Even the ones who could swim only lasted two weeks before they started praying in their Mother’s tongue. Fear of hunger, more deadly and blind to class, threatened to swallow them and slowly they all defied the lockdown. They set up stores in blind sight and woke up as early as three to arrange their wares. Hunger came one day, prepared to strike, but when it saw the long flames of defiance that burned in the broken walls and cracked huts of people’s homes, it went back sad and depressed. So, hunger visited the jobless ones and the brutal ones. The people who look for every opportunity to unleash the terror hiding in their bushy brows and unkempt hair. The ones who had ways with words and could talk a man into selling his own kin. One of such person was Michael. A Master student that had seven years state of unemployment to show for his hard work and torn nails in the university. Michael was one of the new generations that thought education alone could unlock the door of success. Alas, he found out that in Nigeria, the door of success had seven key holes and education could only open one lock. Michael devastated, plunged into cybercrimes three years after looking for a job. He sustained himself but since his avenue of making money depended on many probabilities, he plunged into hunger sooner rather than later. In those years, hunger had tripped him and he fell into bad company, Michael had engaged in petty theft with empty gun shells and cutlass. It was this same man that hunger visited. And hunger visited Michael when he was with his gentlemen and slipped an idea into his head. A new idea. Michael unwrapped this gift and chewed it and found that it was good. It pleased him and he showed his friends this new idea. At first, there was silence. It is not easy when a poor man robs a poor man. Both of them shared a similarity of situation and one is liable to breed sadness and pity. They did not discuss this again for another week and when the met again in the company of empty pots and burnt out cigarettes, arrangements were made. They all informed their trusted peers  and fellow gentlemen and in four days, Michael was informed that 49 men were ready.

The first time they struck was at nights. They arrived in blazing guns and black masks. The shot at furniture and the skies. They attacked four houses. Each group went from door to door collecting food and money. They left no bruises or bullet wounds. The only mark they left were broken doors, shell casings, sorrow, sweat and dust... The first time they struck was the only time they left behind sweat and prayers. They shared the loot among them and discovered that it was little. Some had nothing to show for their hard work.

“We must not give up. Tomorrow, we will go to the estate behind Bankole Avenue. Shoot anyone that threatens to stop us. Remember that we are fighting for our freedom and our rights. We aren’t doing anything that the big men in Abuja aren’t doing. The only difference is that their guns are bigger. They may have the bigger guns but we have something more powerful, Will." Michael spoke some more and when he was done, he didn’t know that he had installed a beast in the soul of each man.

The next day, they shot sporadically. When the security guard refused to open the estate gates, they left him in a pool of his own blood and shot open the gates. The people in their homes cowered under dead bulbs and dialled the police line till their thumbs peeled off. The bullets flew in different directions and cries became louder as doors were broken. Some of the robbers came with a POS machine and took thousands of money. Some of them slapped unnecessarily and spat at the men who were guilty of being rich and having many in a period of want. When the police came to the rescue two days later, they met five dead bodies. Fifteen girls were raped, two were mutilated and a certain young man cried about one of the robbers having anal sex with him.

Michael earned more in the days to come. His gang grew bolder and shot more. They lived without consequence and the police couldn’t catch up. So, they were surprised when they were greeted with bullet when they tried to rob an area in the suburbs of Lagos. They caught fifteen of Michael’s guys. He prayed that the people would have the right sense to call the police and let them handle the situation. The next day, he passed the street and saw the burnt bodies of his guys. They still had the tires on their necks. He threw up when he saw their bodies blue and rest, tainted with flames and tire marks. Their identity burnt away. The smell of kerosene was still pungent and people passed with their noses buried in handkerchief.

This news spread fear among the gang. After three days, they sought revenge and went back for blood. Instead, they had to bury five more members. They looked for vulnerable areas but the people had taken up responsibility for themselves. Burnt tires were placed in the beginning, middle and end of every street. Citizens bought guns in black markets and charms in wild bush path. With time, his guys left him till Michael was alone.

In those days, hunger visited with more ideas, but the memory of his people burnt under flaming tires paralyzed his fingers and kept him from picking up a weapon. He wallowed in hunger and regret. He thought he could exploit the situation and live a life of no consequence. But here he slept, with twenty two souls burdening his thoughts and praying to steal his souls. In the days to come, he woke up with dusts and soot, blacklegs and decoloured tongues, and memories of burning tires and black hot smoke.