On that breezy evening

I cradled my head in my palms, sniffling. Don’t cry, don’t cry. I repeated the mantra over and over again until I calmed down.

I looked up at the mirror through bloodshot eyes—I could tell by my reflection.

Ducking, I splashed cold water on my face from the tap. The water sloshed around the toilet bowl as it sank through the drain and into an obscure network of pipes below.

I stepped back and almost hit my head against the glass partition that separated my bath from the toilet. I looked at my reflection again. Three years. Three years!

With a violent burst of energy, I struck out and hit the mirror, expecting it to shatter into a thousand pieces as Hollywood often portrayed. The actual event was anticlimactic. My fist hit the mirror with a dull thud, merely causing it to shudder while I yelped in pain. Cursed “made in China” products. Pull yourself together, Victor, I chided myself.

I wasn’t even really surprised—girls named Precious are never loyal. I snickered at my snide remark and waltzed out of the bathroom, pushing the feelings of heartbreak down and putting a spring in my step to lull the pain. Screw Precious.

I grabbed my phone from the bed, and, stepping out of my one-bedroom apartment, I locked the door.

The sun was going down on the horizon, but the streets weren’t dying down in the slightest. If anything, they seemed to be coming alive. I noticed Musa, the suya seller, setting up shop. Oops. I ducked, pivoting so I faced away from the shop. I almost escaped. Almost.

“Heys! Victor, no think say I no see you o.”

I paused and turned, cocking my head like I was just seeing him. “Ahan, Musa. You don open?”

Musa dropped what he was holding and exited the shop. He stopped beside me and looked back at the shop. “Wow,” he said dramatically, “I don open!”

I laughed despite myself. “Musa, abeg, no vex. I dey go out now. I go see you when I come back naw.”

Musa hissed—not unkindly—and shooed me away.

I smiled, shaking my head, and resumed my journey to the bus stop. I just needed to clear my head. A trip to Epe for a little sightseeing wouldn’t hurt.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

By the time I reached the bus stop, a cool evening breeze had begun to chill the air—perfect weather for a ride. I waved my arm, fingers outstretched, to flag a bus. One came close enough for me to shout “Epe,” but the driver merely accelerated away, splashing a spray of water on me as his tires hit a puddle.

I cursed under my breath and resumed waving my arm. Minutes passed, and I grew desperate. Not even bothering to glance into the next bus that stopped, I hopped in. “Epe.”

The driver met my eyes in the rearview mirror and nodded. He returned his eyes to the road, and I relaxed. Strange—he hadn’t even asked if I had the fare. I patted my pocket to make sure the money was still there, and that was when I looked around the bus.

I was seated just behind the driver’s seat. A dark-skinned man dressed in black that made it hard to tell he wasn’t naked, sat on my left, his jaw was set in a tight square that could probably cut diamonds, and the sweaty conductor sat on my right.

A surreptitious glance back revealed one lady chewing gum loudly, her nails clacking as she typed on her phone at the speed of light. Beside her was another man, his face in a permanent scowl. His belly jiggled with every bump of the bus.

I looked back at square-jaw on my left. He was looking at me with a hard look in his eyes. I averted my gaze, and that was when I saw it.

He held something between his legs—a dark object that glinted in the dying light. A lump formed in my throat, and I croaked. Yes, croaked.

His voice was a raspy whisper. “Give me your phone.”

“S-sir?”

He raised his hand to rest it on his lap, the business end of the gun trained on me. “I said, give me your phone.”

I glanced around. Miraculously, no one had noticed anything. The driver kept bobbing his head to the street music blasting from the speakers. The clacking and chewing from behind continued. And something told me that the pregnant-looking man would do nothing to help even if he saw what was happening. It was like I was in my own bubble of reality.

I whimpered as the man jammed the gun into my midsection, visibly vexed now.

I scrambled to get my phone out of my pocket and handed it to the man with shaky fingers.

The dark man slipped it into a cross-body bag hung around his shoulders and opened his palm again. I didn’t need to be told what to do. I fished in my pocket and came up with every spare change I had left—a ₦500 bill in my pocket and a ₦100 note crumpled underneath it.

I was being robbed.

Another glance around proved that nothing had changed, except I could swear the driver had just been watching me. The conductor, who had been staring pointedly outside, finally turned around, and a new feeling of trepidation rose in my gut. He held a wicked-looking knife in his hand and raised it so those in the back could see. The fat man let out a gasp, hands shaking. The typing finally stopped, and I craned my neck to see the lady open her mouth in shock. She recovered quickly and began wagging her finger.

“Oh my God, this is so not happening!”

She adjusted the strap of her dress. “Driver, I want to come down. Driver, stop this bus!”

The driver merely looked in the mirror and back to the road. If anything, he picked up speed.

Oh no. He was in on it.

All the movies and books I’ve read about hostage situations like this flooded my mind in an odd stream. I realised then how stupid the idea of playing hero was. It was all I could do not to kneel and beg for my life.

The fat man had already handed over two phones, and as he struggled to pull his wallet out of his back pocket, the chair rocked in rhythm with his movements. In any other situation, it would have been comical.

The lady, on the other hand, was spitting obscenities at our captors, and that was when it happened. I saw a flash in the corner of my eye and the smack of flesh on flesh as the back of Square jaw’s open palm connected with the lady’s face.

Two seconds later, she passed her phone forward, not saying another word.

Only then did the driver swerve off the road to park at the curb. Silently, they shooed us from the bus, and three of us came down, significantly poorer than when we got in.

I caught the smile on the driver’s face as he drove off, and I released a string of curse words in my mind that could raise my dead mother from the grave, slipper in hand.

I sighed and stared up at the sunset, Epe glowing gold in the distance.

Funny. I’d come to clear my head.

I ended up clearing my pockets.

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