MISERIES

THE PART THAT FELT LIKE HELL

LANRE

I used to think the world revolved around girls, modern technology, traditional art and being astute.

Don't get me wrong, i still do.

But something else has made its way up that list. So high it is, that when asked, it's the first thing that comes to your mind.

I should have known from the start that the plan working smoothly was too good to be true.
No plan, involving something so big should work as smoothly as it did.
It's meant to be rocky.  I wasn't meant to be feeling warmer and warmer.
It was supposed to follow the normal procedure. Warm,cold, ice, warm,cold,hot.

It all seemed surreal now that i carefully look at it.  I had been so clouded at the anticipation of being a free man once again and the fact that it was going on well, that i never sat down to ponder why they weren't covering their tracks as skill fully as the carried out their mission.
It was almost as if they wanted us to know. To lure us in. Because they know how curious and stupid our young minds are.

It had seemed like the perfect idea.
I had planned out everything. Given my all to it.
All through the bathroom break we had not long.
Instead of relishing the temporary let-out we hadi had resorted into drowning myself in thoughts concoting how feasible and possible it would be to turn this break to a forever getaway.

I should have known.
It shouldn't have surprised me when Amina called solo-ride. When Tobe said he'd rather focus on getting his grades up. When Princess slammed the door on my face and foot. When Ife just didn't find my company worthwhile any longer.
When Amar had gone full MIA.

When i had received the letter.
A death-threat with a simple message and a very disturbing gift.

Stop looking.

Attached with my sister's promise ring from her ex.
One she had foolishly glued to her fingers all in the name of never taking of the first gift from the love of her her life.
One that could only be removed with care and surgery or a glue dissolver or by just cutting off the had.
I had desperately wished it was the latter, but for the dried stains all round the ring made me think otherwise.

It was meant to make me back down. Make me scared and witless.

And make me scared, it did.

TOBE

There are things that just happen to be a constant k in your life that at some point in your life, you dont feel uneasy and uncomfortable when it eventually takes place. No matter how it thinks it will taje you unawares.

For me, it was attention. Spotlight. Stares, glances, snickers, side talks, glares, eavesdropping.
At home. In school. In the streays, inner circles i don't belong to, even in the church.
At one point in their never ending trails of discussion ( i call them glorified gossip), i had been the juicy topic.
My life was an unscripted reality TV show.

But this was different.
Half the time, in the past, I never knew why my name was on their lips. It never once crossed my mind to stop and ask why i was being called stupid, pitiful and hot all in the same semester.
I wasn't bothered.
I was probably high most of the time.

But this, this i was fully sober. Fully aware of my surroundings. Not one comment flew by without my ears catching on.

They were talking like as if things like this never happens here.
Like they have never seen a battered and bruised boy pasiing by with a tattered shirt soaked with the mixture of both his blood and that of his attacker.