Crash
“Sango, Toll Gate, Pleasure, Ile Epo! Sango, Toll Gate, Pleasure, Ile Epo!” the conductor screamed as he walked towards Toyosi, his right hand stretched out, shoulder slouched. She squeezed her face and eyed him, his white singlet stained with black and brown spots and streaks. His fingers were dark with engine oil and dirt stains, his fingernails half eaten. He pulled up his shorts to his waist but it immediately started falling off again. His singlet, rolled up slightly over his belly, revealed his dark midriff and his even darker, loose boxer shorts; they too were almost falling off. He stretched out his right hand again as he approached Toyosi as if he wanted to help with the bag she was carrying but she tried to avoid him, swerving and throwing her face away. She wasn’t about to let him contaminate her goods.
“Iyana Ipaja?” she asked.
“Fifty naira. Enter with your change o. I no get change,” he said, pulling his right ear, head tilted to the side as if warning her of impending doom.
“Na 500 I get o,” she replied, dragging the ‘o’ like a heavy bag of rice on the floor.
“I don tell you now,” the conductor retorted. “If you like, no hear word.”
“Una no dey ever get change,” she mumbled as she lifted herself and her sack full of vegetable leaves onto the bus. Her weight noticeably depressed the bus and as she took a seat on the second row beside the window, the bench creaked in protest. She was sweating profusely and needed air. She slid the window forward with force like it had offended her and she wanted revenge. There were two people at the front beside the driver, three people on the front row and no one at the back. It would take another 40 minutes for the bus to get full.
This was Mark’s second time on a plane and he was as nervous as a pilot on his first trip. It wasn’t because of the job interview he was going to Lagos for, that wasn’t until tomorrow, he could fret over it later tonight, and it wasn’t because he hadn’t flown often. It was because of the airline — his first flying experience was with them and it wasn’t pleasurable. The plane experienced turbulence too many times, it seemed the pilots didn’t know what they were doing, and the flight attendants weren’t helpful either. They did their best to regurgitate what they’d been taught to say during turbulence, but the fear in their shaky voices betrayed them, so Mark wasn’t confident in this airline right now, but it was the only one he could afford. He’d gotten the ticket money from a cocktail of sources — his father, his best friend Julius, and his rainy day account. A lot of preparation and prayers had gone into this interview. He’d resigned from his job as a Network Engineer ten months ago and his brief stint as an entrepreneur selling laptops and computer hardware ended in his current state as a debtor to his father, a former colleague and the Akwa Ibom Microfinance Bank. He was 750,000 naira deep in the Red Sea of debt. This new job he was aiming for promised a monthly package of 520,000 naira minus bonuses and benefits, that was 400,000 naira more than he earned at his previous job. This was it. This was the job that would get his life back on track. And maybe he could start thinking about marriage and get his mother off his back.
The plane had taken off from Uyo at 8:45 AM and the flight attendants had finished giving out safety instructions. Mark’s tummy grumbled. He placed his hand on his stomach and patted it. “Calm down, brother, calm down,” he said.
Ten minutes later, a flight attendant rolled the trolley to Mark’s row. “Coffee or tea?” she asked. “Coffee,” Mark replied, “With a lot of sugar and no milk.” He wanted to stay awake. If he would die, at least he would do it with his eyes open. He shook off the thought. “I won’t die, in Jesus’ name,” he muttered.
“What?” the attendant said, leaning forward to hear him more clearly.
“Nothing,” he said, “I was talking to myself.”
“Oh, okay sir,” she said, with a smile on her face.
She was beautiful, her complexion just a shade darker than the colour of the morning sun outside the window. Her hair was black and packed into a bun, her eyebrows neatly drawn with a black eye pencil, and her red lipstick popped, almost begging for attention, her lips full and her teeth white, she smiled a lot. Mark briefly thought about what it would be like to have her right there. Then he dismissed the thought as quickly as it came.
She handed him his cup of coffee and a box. “Enjoy your meal,” she said, revealing her white teeth again, and then moved to attend to the person beside Mark. “Thank you,” Mark whispered, assuming she heard him.
He opened the box and in it was a pack of two cupcakes, a small box of Ice Tea and two sweets. This is what 25,000 naira gets you on a flight in Nigeria.
The last passenger to get on the bus was a young lady, not more than 23 years old by Toyosi’s estimation. She looked snobbish and rude, with earphones stuck in her ears and her hair hanging loose. Doesn’t she know she should have packed her hair? Now the breeze will be blowing it into the other person’s face, Toyosi thought, like it was any of her business. They weren’t even going to sit close to each other.
The conductor hopped on the door frame, the driver revved the engine and it made the most irksome noise ever like it had whooping cough and a dry chest, then the bus jerked forward, throwing the passengers back and then forth as it begun its slow acceleration.
What kind of slow nonsense is this?
Toyosi reached into her handbag to take out her purse, picked at the squeezed naira notes in it to see which was the 500 naira bill. She had change, one 100 naira note and two 50 naira notes, but she wasn’t about to give them up. She would need them at her vegetable stand. She hated looking into her purse because it reminded her of the sad state of her business. Vegetable trading wasn’t exactly the work she dreamed of. She’d hoped for more. Before she got married to her husband, he promised he would open a supermarket for her, she wanted to be a madam, hire her own help and order them around. But life and death had their own plans and now she was stuck selling vegetables outside the bus park in Iyana Ipaja. In a good week, she’d make about 3000 naira, but this week had been far from good. The unpredictable but usually dry weather meant that by evening when the majority of her customers had the time to visit her stand, most of the vegetables she sold were pale green with iodine-coloured spots like they were diseased. No one wanted to buy diseased vegetables.
Up ahead, she could see the traffic. She sighed. Traffic and Lagos went together like amala and ewedu, only they weren’t as pleasant. The bus slowed down as it approached the queue and she could hear sighs and hisses from her fellow passengers. Like they weren’t used to this.
It was 10:25 AM and the plane had been in the air for too long. Mark shifted in his seat for the one-hundredth time in 10 minutes, his eyes and head darting around the cabin. Murmur filled the air and people who had ignored each other for much of the flight were now talking to themselves, looking sideways, some getting up to talk to the people sitting behind them. One man got up from his seat and walked up to a flight attendant. Their conversation went on for a while, both had grey clouds of worry hanging over them, just a little while longer and chaos would start to rain down.
The man sitting to Mark’s left folded his arms across his chest, his eyes widened and looking straight ahead. It had been ten minutes since the murmuring begun and neither one of the pilots had said anything. Mark walked up to the flight attendant that served him. “What’s going on?” he asked. She looked straight at him, her eyes teary and full of worry. “I don’t know,” she said. “What?!” he said, trying not to raise his voice, “What did you just say?!”
“I said I don’t know,” her voice was louder now, louder but shaky with fear. Mark turned and walked away from her, suppressing the urge to scream in her face. He moved quickly towards the other flight attendant in front. Halfway there, the plane jerked forward and threw Mark on the floor. His head connected with an armrest and he blacked out immediately.
“E boole!” someone screamed, snapping Toyosi out of her nap. When she came to, she saw people rushing off the bus. “E se kia!” another person shouted. One was trying to get out through the window beside the back row. Adrenaline kicked in and Toyosi joined the frenzy, still unaware of what was going on. She pushed the man in front of her to the floor and jumped off the bus. That was when she saw the yellow ball of fire in the sky. Before she took another step, a thick metal sheet wrapped up in flames went through the roof of the bus and stabbed it into the ground. Toyosi’s heart thumped hard against her chest as she tripped and fell, crawling on the floor, and then stumbling to get up and continue running. Then the bus exploded, its impact pushing her forward and back on the ground.
As she sat up to gather herself together, she looked up and immediately saw another ball of fire descending. This time, it did not miss.
