The Pamphlet

After lunch, she wore her headset and drifted into the land of euphony. Her head slowly moved to the rhythm of the music, savoring the sweetness of the meaning of its lyrics. Watching her brought a smile to his lips.

At least, she decided to try something different and something she loved doing to ease her boredom.

Pulling out the pamphlet from his rectangular leather bag, he walked up to the tablet-arm chair by her side and sat on it while placing the pamphlet in her front. He looked up at her and found her lost in the music that she did not even notice the movements around her. It was not until he unplugged the cord that she looked at him. His eyes settled on her front and she followed his gaze to the pamphlet.

'What's this?'. She asked in curiosity as she picked it up to look at it.

'Everything you need to know about your destination country is cited in that pamphlet'. He resolved the first part of her curiosity and picked up the cocktail drink he had carried with him before coming to meet her.

'You mean Nigeria?'. She asked again as she turned the five-page pamphlet and skimmed through the write-ups.

'Your dad certainly did the 'right thing' by heeding your grandma's advice'. He replied, sipping on the drink.

'What do you mean?'. Intense curiosity glimmered in her eyes as she meet his question.

Drinking the last few drops off the glass, he kept it elegantly on the tablet. And turned to fix his eyes on the roofing of the aircraft. 'If you were to hide something dear to you, where would you hide it?'. He turned to look at her again.

If she was to hide something dear to her, where would she hide it?. She looked up at the roof for answers. If that's where he got his questions from, that's probably the best place she could get her answers.

'I will hide it in a place, no one will imagine it to be'.

'And how, if I may ask, would you describe that place?. Safe or conflicted?. Unassailable or equivocal to the eyes?'.

Safe? If she was to hide something, it will have to be in a safe place. Things are kept away in safe places, so she would opt for a safe place. But the problem is, how safe is the places?.

'It depends on the quality of people, I am hiding it from'. She nodded a thank you to the air hostess that had come to give her the strawberry milkshake, she requested after eating.

'Let's say you are hiding it from an enemy than a close friend or relative'. He placed his emptied glass on the tray and the flight attendant left them.

'I would rather choose a conflicted place'

'Why?'

'Who would think that you would hide something in a place where people are fighting and killing themselves?'. She turned to him and his male generically sculptured face. His eyes were fixated above as she earlier did. 'How is my dad doing right now? Even you were not in support of it when I told you...wait'.

He shifted his gaze slowly to look at her. Elated deep down that she was able to unravel the answer before he could.

'Wait...are you saying that my father suspects that mother's death was rather staged than a coincidence?'. She held her question in a whisper as her father who sat away from them about five feet could hear them.

'Nigeria, lately, has been under attacks from a popular terrorist group known as Boko Haram. A few years ago, they kidnapped some school girls called Chibok girls and after about seven years released some while some to date are still in the hands of their captors. This group of terrorists has done much more wickedness than that. They've raided towns, killed the innocents, and bombed places of worship and public areas. Killed their victims in videos that they sent to the world. Their cruelty exceeds any other'. Diva turned the pages of the pamphlet as she listened attentively to him.

'Why would they kidnap school girls?'. She halted on a page and started reading it.

'Well, according to foreign policy.com, they see it as an effective way to raise money for their broad operations across northern Nigeria, due to the gains in widespread media coverage and the way it puts the federal and state governments under pressure to release the victims at any cost....your mother's killers will think it futile or foolish to think that your dad would be hiding you in a country like Nigeria'. He concluded and went back to his staring routine.

Diva continued reading the pamphlet. She finished reading the page she was at and turned to the next. 'Hmm...this sounds pretty interesting. More than two hundred and fifty ethnic groups and over five hundred indigenous languages are spoken in Nigeria. This country looks multi-ethnical'. Dawin nodded to her findings.

The pilots maneuvered the plane through the sky to their destination.

†

Present-day- S&L Groups Int'l

Everyone was on their toes, running haphazardly in the twenty-three-story building of the name of S&L Groups Int'l. Documents upon documents were being carried in hand or cart to the storeroom. Some were busy with their computer, typing and sending to the printers, some stood at the printers, recovering the printed papers and arranging them batch by batch, others placed them in carts or carried them straight to where they were being kept.

'Come on people. Let's hurry, we got not much time left. The chairman is already on his way. You...'. He called to a staff who was passing by. The staff went to him, shuddering to his core. The man hit the document that was in his hand against his chest. 'Take this to the records department and make sure it is documented in the systems'. The staff held the document when the man removed his hand, bowed to him, and left afterward.

After walking a few steps, he reached out to the phone in his pocket and placed it by his ear. 'Yes, any news...okay..okay. That's very nice. Make sure you forward it to me when you are done'. He placed it back in his pocket and walked straight to the elevator. Tapping the twenty-second button, the elevator went up.