PERILOUS SOLACE

It was unmissable. Situated at the most impoverished region of Lagos and crouching between other houses like an old woman awaiting her death. Osolo compound in Osodi was known for its scary structure. With its thatched roofs in disrepair, its faded walls with dark stains, caused by this year's incessant rain; It was a sight to behold and definitely not good for an already sullied eyes in the compound. It was where addicts, runaways, dropouts, and those like me, awaiting reform, lived. It wasn't a place for the treatment of any mental illnesses.

This place wasn't given its name just because the crazy landlord's daughter lived here, but rather of the dramas that ensued within.

It had passed a month since my Mom and I moved here, and not long for me to know whom to avoid, whom to make friends with, wait! Friends? I'm sure I'm spouting nonsense! There wasn't room for companionship in this place! Maybe at least to know whom to greet.

I knew a lot of our neighbours may be wondering what kind of business a single mom and her daughter who could scare some moths with their outlooks were up to in the mad house. Well, let them kept guessing. I had always liked it when I was someone's object of curiosity. Let them kept wondering. Yes, let them. Let them kept wondering like I had always wondered how the inhabitants here lived the way they do. Like how I did wonder what solace Aunty Grace, our next door neighbour derived, rising up every morning, to quarrel with everybody before going to take her bath. Thank God her dramas hadn't extended to our domain!

Aunty Grace was a kind of person that through her stance, one could detect how her feathers could be ruffled. She was sturdy like a mule, had doglike eyes and always had her nose on air like someone who sleeps in her stench daily. She was the type one should avoid most in the mad house. One of the acts she was infamous for was putting her bathing water in the bathroom without bathing, daring anyone to move it.

And I, with the most observant of eyes, had known her tricks. So I would rise up at dawn before all, to take my bath. My reputation had been sullied enough to add Jill the fighter to it. I was here for a reformation. And my mom couldn't have chosen the best place to do that!

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