Girl.
I was traveling by road from Lagos to Ibadan a few days ago when I saw a girl lying on the road.
If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought she was just peacefully asleep in the midst of a chaos.
“Girl.”
“Yes?”
“Why are you lying in the middle of the road?”
“I’m dead.”
“How come?”
“I was hit by a bus.”
“Where’s the bus now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Right. Why were you on the road? Others are in school.”
“I’m on mid-term break,”
“No, you’re not.”
“My parents can’t afford school. So I’m hawki — was hawking.”
“What were you hawking? I can’t see anything here.”
“They’ve taken it.”
“Who?”
“The others.”
“How do you know? You’re dead.”
“And yet, you keep questioning me,”
“I’m sorry. I just want to understa-”
“They always take it when it happens. Can’t let anything waste.”
“I wish you had been in school. You’d still be alive.”
“Not necessarily.”
“What would happen now? What next?”
“I’ll go where dead people go, and my parents will have one less mouth to feed.”
