Smiling brightly on his death day

A picture of five vibrant young men, all in their early 20s to mid-20s, lounging on a couch, smiled straight at the camera. Behind them, Jidenna could see some palm trees and green bamboo sticks.

A familiar dark-skinned man sat at the center of the five men, with dreads, wearing a fitted blue polo with black trousers.

That man was him—or rather, it was the original owner.

Looking at his widened lips as he sat in between the suspected murderers, Jidenna mused, "Would he have smiled so brightly if he knew that was his last day alive?"

Jidenna kept his dark humor to himself.

Moving on from the original owner in the middle, he looked at the rest of "his friends" who were total strangers to him.

From the first person on the left, an average man with a low cut and a shrewd look in his eyes, he wore a white shirt with knickers.

The second was a lean and tall fair-skinned man, with lined beards, wearing a pink polo with crazy jeans, sitting next to the original owner.

The fourth was a man built like a bodybuilder, his muscles strained against his white polo like it would tear with the smallest twitch of his pecs. His bald hair seemed to shine in the warm light of the bush bar.

The fifth was a reserved man, even in the room. He wore a long-sleeved shirt with a slight smile plastered on his face, a part of his expression was covered by the shadows brought by the warm light.

His eyes dropped down to their table filled with pepper soup, boiled yam, and in another plate, white rice and palm wine.

His throat bobbed up and down. It might be the lightning because the food seemed to glimmer, its body like it was coated with oil.

Sizable chunks of meat gathered in the middle of the soup plate, forming an island while others sank beneath the surface of the soup, waiting to be scooped up and eaten with either rice or yam.

He looked down at the cup of tasteless and transparent water still in his grip.

The corners of his lips twitched. He suddenly despised its bland and monotonous taste.

Calling it bland should be a compliment.

He forced the enticing sight out of his mind, to more important things, inwardly consoling his stomach which threatened to rumble any moment from now, embarrassing him.

"Don't worry, bud, I'll find a way to convince Mother to prepare that goat meat pepper soup."

Trying to distract his mind, he faced his mother.

"Mommy, can you send the picture for me?"

"Don't you have it?" she spoke, bewildered. He had sent the picture for her through his social media. How could he not have it, or did he delete it?

"I don't know. A lot of my pictures suddenly went missing last week."

She paused.

Her son was one of these tech guys, carrying a laptop up and down.

He was the one who taught her how to use her Android phone!

How could he lose his pictures? What about the "backup" he preached into her ears until she started hearing them in her dreams, ever since her previous phone went bad last month.

Not believing his words but still giving in, remembering the identity of the person she was speaking with, she said, "Okay, I will send it to you."

Away from his mother, he thought of the picture again.

"Were those the suspects?" he lifted a brow. "Well, it seemed he would have to visit with them—personally."

"Whoever was responsible for his death should be ready to meet Ekwensu," he smirked, full of anticipation.

"Ah!" he shook his head.

"I can't wait."

Vroom!

A yellow bus zoomed off, raising clouds of dust behind it.

He had taken a rash decision to go by flight but when he looked at his remaining account balance.

He was forced to squeeze into a danfo, a yellow bus usually used for public transportation.

The thought that he would have to spend the next 10-12 hours in a bumpy vehicle...

He couldn't do it!

Jidenna stepped back, avoiding the spray of sand and dust. He didn't want to fall sick. He had heard and seen such cases during his stay at the village, and it was simply an uncomfortable sight. His mind flashed back to the victims from whose noses flowed a never-ending stream of thick, yellow mucus.

"Eugh!" he cringed in disgust at the memories.

During that period, they were sentenced to weeks of carrying handkerchiefs wherever they went, disturbing whichever unlucky fellow who sat next to them with

an "Excuse me" before blowing their nose with an uncomfortable sound that made their seatmate's toes curl and their eyes twitch in repulsion.

Afterwards, the person would give a sheepish smile filled with embarrassment, giving an offhanded statement about

"how bad the weather has been recently" or even sigh and educate everyone on "global warming"—like what concerns global warming and what you just did!

At the same time, did he want to receive a baptism of dirt on his arrival in Lagos?

He raised his head, using his palm to shade his eyes to know where he was.

And, honestly, he had no idea.

A few minutes later, with the help of GPS, he arrived at the door of his house.

It turned out that he was just two streets away from his house but still didn't recognize the place.

He shrugged indifferently. "Was he supposed to remember everywhere in a place he spent less than a day in?"

"But what if when he is pursuing the murderer, he gets lost or loses the person because he doesn't know the way..."

"I'll have to master this place before I strike or at least deal with them in a confined space," but Jidenna knew that carefully laid plans do not always work like how he wants.

For instance, when he first came, he planned to stay away from everyone who knew about the original owner, including the parents and friends.

But what happened now?

He was enjoying the care of the original owner's mother and father.

He swallowed, remembering the Abacha she made for him this morning before he left and the steaming Ọkpa she packaged for the evening when he had arrived.

Dragging his luggage behind him, with steady footsteps, he walked towards the house.

Behind him, the rushing pedestrians erased any trace he left behind.

"He had a lot of things to do and a suspect to kill—I mean, deal with."