Jaja and Normani: Death On The 101st

The Mysterious Prick

The realization of the latest events dawned fast on Normani: One second people have been complaining about the traffic holdup. Within another, a man had suddenly collapsed and died.

Thirteen people on a bus meant bad luck.

As the situation registered on the minds of others, the reactions of everyone started to change. Evanda was weeping uncontrollably, the doctor and the photographer consoled her to no avail. The elderly man had turned his attention from the papers; he was muttering something incoherent. Normani could only pick wisps of what he was saying: "By Jove, how...he just...died...like that?"

The soldier had gone to the driver trying to calm the sobbing, balding man,  his Adam's apple rising and falling hysterically as he lamented the man's death.

"How can this man die on my bus? I don't want any trouble!" he fired off his words as his entirely strained body moved out of his control. "I'm just trying to make a living. This could mean an end to my career, to my finances. How will I take care of my family? This can't be... this can't be..." his voice died in a low whine as the soldier finally convinced him to sit.

Something didn't sit right within Normani about the man's death. She moved closer to where the body lied unmoving on the bus. Jaja grasped her suddenly, stopping her in her tracks.

"Where do you think you're going?" he queried her.

"Where does it look like I'm headed to? Let go of me." She shrugged off his arm and continued forward. Jaja stumbled after her.

"You can't be serious, Norm. Why do you want to tangle yourself in this? This is a dead man for Christ's sake. Very soon the police would be here to handle things." He paused to let his words sink. At this point any normal person would harken to him... well unless that person was... Normani Truth.

Normani moved in defiance to her sibling's warnings. She didn't wait to hear the defeated sigh he gave.

"Just exactly what I thought you'd do," he muttered, tagging along after her.

She got closer to the body, overseeing him from her position above. A few minutes ago the man's face had been a lively ebony, not the pale, deathly version it was now. Normani sighed deeply. The last time she'd been that close to a body was when her mother had been the one suffering the heart attack. Her brother had raced off to call for their father's help and she had knelt beside her mother in her final moments, helpless and wracking with sobs. Macbeth Dunmininu Truth died that day and the lives of the family she'd left behind never remained the same. Normani was sure something had died within her that same day—and something else had been awoken.

Someone (whom she thought was the Igbo woman) was calling an emergency line, requesting for help in between cries and foot stomps. She blended the noise of the chaos and the male youth corp's worried complaints into the background as she slowly knelt beside the dead man opposite the tired-looking doctor. The man tried to shield her off from the body but Jaja standing protectively behind her had pleaded for him to at least let her have a look. He had been worried at first, letting a minor have a close look at a corpse, but eventually decided against it. Several eyes were tuned on her as she was tuned likewise on the dead man lying coldly in eternal sleep.

"What do you think, sir?" she asked the doctor, "cardiac arrest then paralysis  set in?"

"Yes," he replied, marvelled by her observation. "How do you know that?"

"That, sir, is not of importance. Do you think this is a natural kind of death?"

"What do you mean by that?" asked Evanda, a curious expression crumpling her face.