WILD WEST OF THE HEART

T W O

Jazzlyn Pius was a woman.

She was a woman before she was anything else. Anything that society thought her to be. A nuisance, incorrigible. An unrepentant unbeliever. A sinner.

Far beyond the roads and the facades of Abule-Egba residents, were people that judged for a living. People that always condemned the others.

They looked to Jazzlyn and called her names. Slurs, and threw her things. She mostly stayed on the streets but she was anything but deranged. She had a home where she'd go to. But she loved this place.

She was born here, by the side of the road where her mother had unconsciously slipped into labor while tending to the fried yams for the masses.

She had not a canteen but a shed, under which Jazz was born, as a man, as Mohammed Akbar by the side of the road.

And as ironical as i wanted it to sound—

—it was also where she met her end.

-

It was a fateful day in 01, one that held so much promises and possibilities to Ola. But it was when the night fell, his hopes and heart did too. He thought he had only witnessed a robbery, but what he feared, was right. Alas, it was more.

It was a gruesome murder by the edge of the road.

He'd watched from the windows as instructed by his father and a few other residents gathered. He bit nervously into his nails and chewed the insides of his mouth as he paced around the room.

He tried to stabilize his breathes as his chest rose and fell uncontrollably. He fell to the ground, his back against the door, wallowing in a panic attack.

It was just then his mother walked in.

Perhaps she might have heard him from the corridor, she held up a glass of water as Ola clutched his chest. "What's going on?" He asked.

And she kept silent, hefting forward the glass of water as Ola stood to his feet. You could hear his heart racing from a distance, and sound of the gulps down his throat. He burped, putting the glass aside.

"What is it, mum?" He asked as she walked to the windows, tieing together the drapes and letting it fall. All to prevent him from looking outside.

"It's nothing" She plainly said.

"Nothing?" He echoed. "What do you mean nothing? All that blood, the sound of the yelling and the screams—"

"Sadly, it was the mad man that passed. The one i showed you today on the roads" She walked him to his bed and sat him down. He couldn't believe it as he looked to her.

"Passed? You say that like it was easy and peaceful—" He whispered and she reached for his hands.

"He was murdered. Some people think it was a robbery went wrong. But he wasn't sane"

"So who could blame him?" She asked.

"A robbery? What could a mad man possibly have" Ola wanted to ask, but he was too stunned to speak.

"But he—" Instead he paused, wishing to chew on his words. "He was a woman with—" He stuttered, trying to fathom what had just happened and put it in mere words. "No, my dear" His mom relieved.

"He was a callous man that wore dresses and make up and wigs. A nuisance to the community" She added and he arched his brows at her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" She asked, hefting up his blankets.

"Is that why he was called insane?"

"Well, will a normal man wear heels and trail the streets like an ashewo?" She threw back a question and he went silent. "You should get some sleep"