By Samuel Marshall
At the inward side of a gate, I laid down on a dark-blue sheet, on an open ground, regaining consciousness. Gradually, I noticed that a group of storey buildings crammed the place. It was a fenced small estate provided with some plantain trees, plants, weeds; together with an atmosphere that was dim and shifty – one moment towards night, another moment towards evening, and back and forth.
Soon, I stood up. A dark-blue rectangular plastic bucket of modern design was in my hand, and in it, my washed pants.
I needed only some clean water to rinse the pants. Looking around for a possible sign of water pump, I caught a glimpse of the true condition of the surroundings: The buildings were all aged, earth-coloured, and poverty-stricken, with shallow gutters bearing stale waters. Loaded with garbage, the waters meandered through the buildings’ verandas .
A woman in short waist cloth walked out busily from the house before me. I courteously asked her for where I could fetch water to rinse my pants.
“You may need to take it to your place”, she advised.”I don’t know my place,” I acknowledged sincerely.
“You were the one lying down here.” she explained to me, pointing to the ground from where, a moment ago, I had awoken.
“Yes,” I said.
“You just woke up and found yourself here,” added another younger woman who was just entering the gate – an embodiment of simplicity and courtesy – wearing an old washed-out ankara mini-gown.
“Yes”, I replied, with a feeling of awed respect for her, due to her strange ability to know my circumstance.
She proposed, “Oya, command yourself to go back, naaw,” her calm aura projecting forth, subtly strengthening my faith.
But, suddenly, a simple thought of the risk of command failure, sought to defile the purity of her word inside me.
My faith withered.
“I don’t know how to command”. I said, feeling slightly ashamed.
I watched intently as she half-shut her eyes and motioned her hands while muttering words. Almost immediately, I found myself awakening blissfully on my bed, at my real residence, in Port Harcourt. Slowly, I turned my head, lifted my eyes to glance through the window of my room, and it was daybreak.***
