It’s great to be back writing again. I had trouble getting the stories out of my dreams and into writing. hope you like this one, it’s quite long though 
. Please let me know what you think.
And Happy Birthday to my darling sis Elyonsgirl. I love you!
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It was late and Kola was finally heading back home
“well, iss not like iss my ‘ouse sef”
He looked at the screen of his beat up Nokia phone and knew Uncle Peter would kill him if he was not at the house in thirty minutes.
“on top say I no make money today….. I no wan die abeg”
Fortunately, his uncle’s house was close by, just two bus stops from the one the driver was just pulling into,
“Owa o” someone shouts
Kola turned and realized that it was the fish seller woman who had tried to push him out of the way when entering the bus.
“mschew.. with that her nonsense ikebe”
The conductor sat in the space created by her absence and the driver was just about to pull out of the bus stop when a girl showed up and begged him to stop
“Please I’m going to Oladinta”, she said
“Enter jare”
She squeezed in beside Kola and held on tight to the case she carried.
Kola meanwhile had been staring at the lady till she sat beside him
“Dis babe fine sha”, he thought to himself
That’s when he noticed the case she was carrying – it looked almost small enough to pass as a regular office bag but he noticed the effort it took the girl to hold onto it. He was pretty sure there was a laptop in it. Uncle Peter’s advice from when he first came to Lagos played in a corner of his mind
“Kola,toba ri any big sontin like this ehn, make sure you try to form ‘nice guy’ ehn? When dem body don cool down small jus carry the thing dey go sey you hear?”
But there was no time to make friends here, they were approaching the next bus stop which was hers
“Sista how far mehn”, he said in his best American impression, after all she was ‘oyinbo’ so he wanted her to know she was with her kind
The lady turned to him and just stared for a few minutes without replying
It was at the back of Kola’s mind to just back off and leave her alone but then he got angry
“who she be sef ehn? Cannot even answer sumbori when dia asking her sontin… I will show her today”
“oladintan”, the conductor called out
The lady indicated that this was her stop and got ready to get down once the bus stopped moving
She came down with her case and Kola followed.
As the bus drove away, she began to walk away quickly clutching the case to herself as she did
“Sista you di-no efen hanswer me when I’m talking to you that time” Kola said to her
She tried to walk away but Kola followed quickly and pushed her to the pavement. She was extremely still for a minute and a thought passed in Kola’s mind that he may have killed her.
“Please leave….” , she said
“You better give me that bag now”, he said as he brought out his knife “or else”
The lady turned and adjusted to face him. She was beautiful, and Kola’s derelict vocabulary failed to come up with a proper adjective for her – he was lost in her face, her fair skin and beautiful eyes, her long –
“you can take my phone but I need to get to Cen- I mean, home with the bag.”
“oya bring the phone” he said stretching
After collecting it, he said “oya give me dat bag too”
“please sir”, she begged “I really need to get it back home, its important”
Kola snatched the bag from her and hit her hard so she fell again
“stupid girl, you lucky say I no get ya time this night if not ehn I for show you sontin” Kola then spat in her general direction and walked away leaving her on the floor.
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“Kola, this useless boy, you wan kill me?” Uncle Peter was at the door ‘welcoming’ him home
After they had both gone in and the door was locked, Kola proceeded to show his Uncle his ‘earnings’ for the day.
“Kola, my boy” this from Uncle Peter while sizing up the case “you do well o”
“thanks sa” Kola replied. For a while, they both just stare at the case
“Open am my friend, you tink say na magic?”
Kola rushed forward to open the case and found a relatively new laptop and a black slab very similar to those expensive phones that those ‘big big people are always making noise about’
“Kola, tomorrow we will go to Emeka’s place and sell it you hear? Just hide the bag well well for inside ya room. I no wan hear ‘tory tomorrow o? S’otigbo?”
“M’otigbo sa”, Kola replied.
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Aerewee got up from the floor and wiped the tears from her eyes,
“Pretending to be a mortal is so damn hard” she said smiling a little to herself and dusting off her dress
“Such an impolite race, oh well… I guess it can’t be helped” she thought to herself as she left.
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Later that night and after a cup of Uncle Peter’s best gin to celebrate, Kola lay in bed about to sleep and thought to himself what great luck it was that he ‘found’ the case and wondering how much the ‘black slab’ phone would bring him.
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“the foolish child” she said watching him sleep
She was angry now, she had tried to be reasonable with the mortal
“I even begged, and who has heard of Aerewee begging ever”, she seethed
” I really should get Taenki to reconsider this mission”
Kola stirred in his sleep and made some grunting noises
“WAKE UP” she commanded
Kola sat bolt upright and coming face to face with the ‘oyinbo’ from earlier, he began to shiver in fear
“foolish mortal, where is my Taelin” Aerewee asked
“Ma?”
“I said where is my Taelin slab”
“oh d d d dddat tin” he replied “let me get it, ma” this while stumbling from his bed.
He retrieved the bag and presented it to her shielding his face.
She descended and unzipped the bag and took out the slab which had begun to glow in a dull amber colour.
“Now mortal, let us talk about your payment” she said closing in on him with a smile growing on her face.
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The next morning, Uncle Peter woke up to see that Kola had not cleaned the parlour yet
“Wetin dey do am sef, shey na because im go make small money abi?, nonsense”
He opened Kola’s room door and the burning smell sent him reeling backwards.
Kola’s room looked like a bomb exploded in it but the smoke and smell stayed trapped within the walls
“Kola”, he called out, fanning the smoke to clear a path to see. He was afraid now and wondered what had happened to the boy.
He could hear a whimpering noise get louder as he approached the corner of the room, there he found Kola crying like a baby and hunched over shaking in fear
“my friend get up from dier” reaching out to grab him by the shoulder.
That’s when he noticed the long bloodied gash on his back not pouring out blood but fizzing like there was some sort of acid in the gash
“Kola…. We we wwetin happen, tell me o, which kain juju be dis ehn….” He stammered
“Kola answer me now o, i say wetin happen”, he repeated .
Without a reply,Uncle Peter became hysterical and ran out of the room calling for the neighbours leaving Kola still hunched up in the corner with the putrid gash, still crying.
