The Party on Abudu Smith Street

Chapter VI

"God. I call on you.  Please, save me from this nightmare. Please save me from this hot mess. Please."

"God. Can you hear me? Please God. I don't want to die... now. Please."

"God-"

"Quiet."

That was the first time the guard spoke since Flo was brought into the parking garage behind the house.

Flo waited for a minute and started praying again.

"God. I feel like you hear me but won't answer. Please. God-"

"I said. Quiet."

"What is the worst you would do? Tape my mouth? Gag me?"

"Keep your mouth shut."

This time he spoke in a dominant whisper, the kind that portended the fiercest threats. Folarin had to resort to his mind's voice. What he feared was that that was what made people go crazy. When they are not allowed to speak and have to spend all the time in their minds that now appear to have a darker shade of gray every minute that passes.

What better thing to do than pray?
Or hope that CJ and Dele were doing something to find him? How, though? It was 4am and very unlikely to get help in Lagos. I was quite efficiently drugged with nitrous oxide, blindfolded and stolen away from my house. I could be in Ogun state for all I know. What will become of me? Are they going to kill me?

It was already happening. A darker shade of gray with each minute.

Flo was already deadening himself at this point. He felt that there was no hope, so he began to cry.
He sobbed in the most emotional way that the guard couldn't have told him to keep quiet this time.
When you hear such a cry, you allow the person to have it. It could be their last, either in a good way, or the other way.

"That's enough. Quit crying."

Flo indeed had had enough and he felt surprisingly better. He knew what that was. It was the freedom of resolve. The kind that a fresh shower of rain gives to the earth, that's the same kind that happens with the human body's earth, its mind, the right dose of eye rain refreshes it at its core.

He started to hum. He hummed "Otherside" by Beyoncé, for obvious reasons. He wisely did it at whisper level, which made the tune even more appealing to sing and apparently, to listen to.

The guard stayed quiet as ever but this time he had another aura he emitted. He listened.
Something about that tune made him pay attention. Flo sang the lyrics and they made even more sense to him at that moment than they ever did. Rookie's face was all he could see. His handsome, genius, young lover. What he would give now to see him sip his blue wine and intermittently laugh at a joke he himself was telling.

By the time he had gotten to the end of the second verse, it came again, like clockwork.

"That's enough."

Flo was content with the little time he spent at his altar. He felt ready now to face anything that was brought to him. And then it hit him.
God did hear.
And now, he had the peace of the Lord that made all things well.
Flo looked to the ceiling, to the single light bulb and said "Thank you."

There was utter silence across the space they were in for the next 20 minutes. Flo sat still. The guard stood still, motionless like he was one of those figurines you would arrange on your desk to commemorate World War II. Flo had no other reason to speak as it was, but his stomach thought otherwise. The churning sound it made was loud enough for the guard to hear and then he moved.

"Wait here."

"Well, it's not like I'm going anywhere."

The guard almost smirked at the witty response but his disposition disagreed.