Stowed Away

Chapter Three

A loud bang rang through the air. Similar sounds followed in that order. Eno was used to the noise and the crackling of firecrackers – accompaniments of the Christmas holiday in Nigeria. During the festive period, children, teenagers and even adults would flood the streets and hold firecrackers till they stopped firing. They were called bangers. The daring ones would throw bangers in front of unsuspecting people, or into stores, just watch them run and get a laugh out of it. Eno used to wait for the weeks leading to Christmas. To watch the colours exploding, and the familiar feel of the body of the bangers her hands, as she tried to show that she could get all the rounds out of it without throwing it to the ground to die. She earned blisters the first few times, but gradually grew to hold the firecrackers like a professional, before throwing it to the ground to die its full death. The last round, or two, signalling the end of something that was very alive seconds before.

Eno scoffed at the resounding sounds. It wasn't even a week to Christmas yet, it was about two weeks to Christmas. "What's with the bangers," she said, not exactly waiting for a reply. "Christmas came early?"

“Eno – ”

Eno turned her head around at breakneck speed. Something in Pauline’s voice did not sound right. It sounded urgent, too urgent for a normal call.

She frowned. “What is it?”

Fear swam in Pauline's eyes and her lower lip trembled. She pointed a shaky finger at the window she was close to. "The sounds, they are not firecrackers; they are gunshots. I can see the gunmen."

Eno stopped chewing. Her throat closed up completely. Liquid trickled down her back. Pauline was right, they were indeed gunmen outside the restaurant. What on earth was happening?

“Everybody down!” someone shouted.

Everyone galvanised into action, sending tables and chairs flying in all directions. Screams and cries cut through the evening air, like a choir turned on electrically with an unseen switch.

A middle-aged woman close to Eno bawled. Someone called for Jesus. And another. And about five people. There is something about fear that transcends religion, or in most fearsome situations in Nigeria, converts a majority of people to Christians.

“The door,” another person screamed, making no attempt to move. “It’s unlocked. Someone should lock it.”

“Someone close to the door should lock.”

Nobody moved. Nobody was ready to be Jesus, or bell the cat. Each person was resilient in their struggle for life.

The people close to the door were as still, flat on the floor, with their hands over as the head, waiting for what could be avoided by someone reaching over and securing the lock.

The scuffling continued as the gunshots sounded even closer. The people in front scampered to the back.

“They are here,” a woman shrieked. A man in his fifties tripped over a chair.

Eno was sure there would be a stampede at this rate. How could they get out without being shot?

The large windows they were sitting beside were no option. The latch seemed to have melted together with the whole frame. Pauline was balled up under the table, her eyes unfocused.

The gunshots no longer sounded from a distance. It sounded like the thieves or kidnappers, whatever they were, were in the restaurant with them. Eno spotted a table at the extreme end of the room and alerted Pauline. They were safer there.

They both made for the table, backs bent, hand-in-hand. They were almost at the table when Pauline’s hands slipped from Eno’s.

“My ring.”

“Your ring?” Eno asked. “We’ll get it later.”

Pauline said nothing.

Eno gritted her teeth. “Pauline, I swear to God…”

The words had barely dropped from her lips when Pauline dashed forward. The ring had rolled to a stop several tables away from them.

“Pauline, what the hell is wrong with you?!”

Something whirred in her ears. A gun had gone off, Eno was sure. A light switch turned off in her head. She could hear someone screaming Pauline’s name, it sounded like her voice.

“Down,” a man said, his hand on a pistol tucked in his holster. Eno dropped to the ground, and placed her hands over head. Her heartbeat raced on, like a horse afraid to stop.

He dragged someone roughly to their feet. Eno’s heartbeat became regular. It was Pauline. She had not been shot.

The man pointed at her. “You.”

Eno’s eyes widened. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” he said. “Come here.”

Eno swallowed and walked to him. Her legs wobbled slightly. Pauline had a pleading look in her eyes. Something tightened in her chest, she could not get over the fact that Pauline would, could have been shot and she would not have been able to do anything about it. The thought of Pauline lying on the floor, wounded, left a bitter taste in her mouth.

The man motioned towards a man Eno had not noticed. He strode over to them, his gun cradling on his shoulder. Eno’s stomach tightened into knots. She could feel her dinner in her mouth. She had never imagined that she would be kidnapped, not like it was something one would imagine happening to them.

“You don’t have to do this, sir,” Pauline said.

He turned to look at her, his lips curling in stunned amusement. He shook his head and nudged his equally amused partner.

“Round them up, Seth,” he said. “Nobody gets out of here. Not alive."

They trudged to the black van outside the restaurant, like lambs to the slaughter. "Lagos was not for the weak," she had heard people say and used to say herself.

It just hadn't occurred to her that she would one day be the one facing the end of a gun barrel, with nobody coming to her rescue. It was something you saw and shook your head, and in Nigerian parlance, say "Eeyah," or "Hei Gawd," because it was simply something you did not imagine happening to you. To an average Nigerian, the kidnapping reports were simply a part of the day; the ups and downs that characterised the country. The only time it rings really close to home is when it rings close to home.

Eno wanted to be understable. Would she hero-walk into a restaurant and ask the potential abductors to stop if she were on the other side of the table? She wouldn't. The most she would do was mark herself safe on social media, and tweet something about how she was close to the area where it happened. As one of the many keyboard warriors - an association of desensitised people, merely abetting a failing country. Like a wife watching her husband cough, with the cough ointment in her hands, it gets to a point where one wonders if she poisoned her husband, or does not know she holds the ointment.

She would probably also tweet about how insecure Nigeria kept getting every day, and use a tag, like #savethepeopleadbuctedinreese, #wheresthegovernment. Then she would sit back, discuss it with one or two people, and would go back about her life like it never happened. Until it does again, she would then return to her keyboard and advocate for those who were abducted.

She knew what would happen, hours would pass by and the Police would come tearing down the streets, blaring their sirens, as though to alert the criminals that they were now around and should wrap up whatever it was they were doing. And like that, she would be a face on the news. Not even a name, one's name was simply forgotten when kidnapped alongside a lot of people. Like that, tweets about the abduction would surface, only to fizzle out a few weeks after.

One simply does not feel Nigeria happen, until it happens and strikes one down, like a writer intent on ending their play as a tragedy.