Life Imitates Art

Last night, I had the strangest dream. This wrinkled, stooping old man hobbled up to me as I sat under a tree. I watched him as he came forward - slowly, ever so slowly. His shuffling footsteps were the only thing that could be heard for miles. Everything had a blurred, milky quality that was ethereal. They melded together so that one did not know where one object ended and another began, and things swam teasingly out of my sight when I tried to focus on them. Only the old man was clear and unmistakable.

Then the man stopped directly in front of me. His features were strange too - human, but something else too. It was as if they changed every second. I watched him touch my forehead with his finger.

“Be careful what you wish for.” He said.

Then I awoke. My forehead tingled where he touched me. My body ached. I rolled out of bed regardless.  

*****

Now, I am sitting on the chair in front of the plastic table. The table was once a spotless white, but now it is mottled with a mosaic of colours; orange-ish oil stains from food, ink stains from pens, and a large brownish spot from spilt coffee. I don’t look at them like I sometimes do whilst I daydream, wishing for many things and some people. I’m intently focused on the laptop in front of me, rushing to meet the deadline for a freelance job.

I am to write a 4000-word story on a motor accident. I write that an oil tanker has an accident and swiftly catches on fire in Ilorin. It ignites a mass conflagration, and eventually, 30 cars are burnt into twisted, charred bits of steel. Many people are charbroiled into the afterlife. My forehead tingles like it's on fire as I hurriedly type. Finally, I finish the story and send it off.

Evening comes. I am reclining on my bed, watching TV. I can see my table and chair, with my wardrobe. The self-contain apartment is a bit cramped. Sometimes I imagine a giant popping the roof like a latched door and household knick-knacks just flying out and about, like in a cartoon. I don’t mind the cramp, though. It makes visitors leave quicker.

The news flashes on. There is a report of a tanker fire in Ilorin. It started in an accident. Thirty cars were burnt, and many people died. I stare at the screen, horrified at the gory scenes being seared into my eyeballs.

Before I sleep, it hits me how the accident is very similar to my story. Identical, in fact. Exactly how I imagined in my head as I wrote, down to the logo on the body of the tanker.

I fall asleep aware of a vague sense of foreboding.

*****

The next day, I continue a short story I've been writing for a while. It’s about a woman (named Laide, after my neighbour) who wins 2 million Naira in an online lottery and then gets robbed by armed robbers the night after. In the story, the robbers violently rape her and shoot her in the leg in a fit of rage when she refuses to tell them her ATM password. The tingling in my forehead is worse. It feels like someone is pushing hot coal into it.

That night, I am abruptly awakened by the sound of a door being kicked in and gunshots really close by. Screams echo from the floor above mine. I switch off the light, then stay curled up in bed all night, petrified as the screams shatter the delicate quietness of the night.

The next morning, we hear that Laide was robbed of her all her money, which she had won in an online lottery. The robbers raped her and shot her in the leg.

Sweat begins to stream steadily down my face. I feel light-headed, and my legs go weak. The story I wrote yesterday comes to my head, the furious tingle in my forehead as I wrote. The excited discussions of the neighbours begin to recede as though a wall of cotton has separated them and me. The maniacal beat of my heart fills my ear. I caused this. This is my fault. Did I have to name the character Laide? What did Laide ever do to me? I caused this.

Or perhaps... Perhaps I didn't.

Perhaps none of this is my fault. Perhaps it is merely a demonic coincidence. Perhaps if I know more details, there will be things that will make this less identical to the story, and I will stop feeling vile and unclean and guilty.

“What leg did they shoot her?” I hear myself ask.

The conversation stops. People give me strange, quizzical looks, but I’m too flustered to care. Some women begin to slap their hands together, mouths turned down in judgemental disbelief.

“Heh heh. Wetin concern you? Ehn? Abi you sef join dem tiff ni?” someone says.

"Please, I need to know," I say again, addressing everything, anything.

“Which kain question you dey ask so?” a woman pipes up from somewhere. ”See this idiot o.”

People begin to mutter in anger.

“Please,” I entreat.

“Tor. Na for her right leg dem shoot am. If na know you wan know. The leg even…”

I do not hear the remainder of the statement—right leg. My legs go weak with relief. I almost weep for joy right there—right leg. The Laide in my story was shot in her left. I accept this disparity wholeheartedly, grateful for the reprieve, sure that there will surely be other differences I don't know about.

I hang around for some minutes and shake my head and cluck in pity, cursing this unfortunate country that takes people so suddenly and heartlessly, but I leap for joy in my head. Tragedy has never brought me so much relief.

Some minutes later, we all disperse.

*****

That afternoon, I settle down to write a story in the first person about a man who receives some bad news and then has a heart attack and dies. My forehead tingles as the words come in a flurry, and soon I am nearly done. I stop, observing that my stories are always dark and morbid, involving anarchy and death and destruction.

"It's the nihilist in me," I remember saying to Joy, my friend, last week when we were discussing it.

“That’s not a reason," she replied. "Maybe when your stories start happening in real life, you’ll rethink this your pointless morbidity.”

“I wish.” I scoffed in jest. “Although a lot of times sha, I've stared at my table and wondered how things would be if my stories came true. I'll be all-powerful!”

“That your dirty table?” she laughed. “How do you even think on that thing?”

I pick up my phone to call Joy. I enjoy talking to her.

*****

Ten minutes later, a sound at the gate attracts my attention. I walk to my window and peep through it at the gate. Laide is coming in on a wheelchair being rolled in by her brother. "Sorrys" and "Eyaahs" echo all around. I drop the phone in my hand. Her left leg is bandaged and set in a cast.

My heart begins to beat rapidly. My forehead burns now. I feel intense pain in my chest and left arm. I slump to the ground, overturning my table. Before I slip away into the quiet, I feel the laptop smash into the floor, and the keys scatter about.

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