35. Almost Heaven

Tolu, Kabiru, and I are close friends from the same neighbourhood. Growing up, we totally believed that all the parents on our street—or, at least, just ours—had a general meeting and agreed to be overprotective of their children. We never went for parties and never stayed out past our early curfews. KB and I went to the same University where a lot of that changed but Tolu, after two tries with no admission, was unfortunate to be put in a private University which he said was no different from home. Different school issues combined, we all graduated around the same time and the plan was simple; work our way to be posted for Youth Service far away from home and have the best year of our lives, together. Tolu knew a guy.
My younger brother and I headed off to the bus park early on the day before I was to report to camp. After waving my mum goodbye, I told him to drop me at KB’s house instead. “Wetin concern you?” I shut away his inquiry. “Don’t tell Mummy,” I told him and shook his hand, handing him N500 before he drove off.
Soon enough, KB and I were driving to the airport in a Station Wagon he got from God-knows-where. When we got there, we waited at the car park for Tolu to join us. He began to jog towards the car in excitement the moment he recognized us, the tiny wheels of his trolley bag jumping up and down behind him.
“Open boot, open boot,” he yelled. “See as you dey happy,” KB mocked. “Where your popsy?” “He has gone.” “Are you sure we can still make it to Lag today?” I asked KB. “Oboy, no dey underrate this car o,” he replied as he started the engine. “If this guy didn’t go and book afternoon flight, we’d have been halfway there by now.” “I told you it was my dad that booked it,” Tolu said, playfully pushing KB’s head from the back seat. “Hey! Hey!!” KB reacted, seemingly angry. “Show some respect to the driver,” he added, ending in laughter. We all joined in and so began our first fun mission; the road trip. Abuja to Lagos, off we drove. We had only driven for about four hours, stopping at every major settlement to ask for directions and ensure we were on track and, as I expected, darkness caught up with us. We were at Ore, a town in Ondo State, contemplating our next action. Tolu convinced us to keep going. “It’ll be fun, guys,” he said. “Night journey, whoop!”
“So, what if we reach there by, like, 1AM? Then what?” I asked. “Na Lagos na. There’ll be hotels everywhere that we can go anytime. We can even storm all those their clubs sef.” KB answered. Oh, that was a really good point. So, we fuelled up the car, bought enough snacks to keep us through the night and, on, we kept. Tolu jammed good music for us, leaving us amazed at how long his phone battery had lasted. It almost seemed as if it wasn’t even running down.
“Guy, make I call my Mumsy, abeg? My phone don die.” He handed it to me and I tried but got nothing from the other end. “It’s not going through, ba?” he asked.
“Yeah.” “I got the same thing. Haven’t spoken to my dad since we left.” “Must be network,” KB said. “Connect the thing back, play jam abeg. You’ll talk to your people tomorrow.” On, we jammed.
A couple of minutes later, KB confessed that he was getting sleepy. We were already away from Ore and he was the only driver among us. “Should we go back?” I asked.
Tolu pointed at a sign. “Guy, see. It should be close by.”
‘ALMOST HEAVEN GUEST INN,’ the sign read. KB parked the car at the roadside, stepped down to stretch, and jumped back in. “Make I jigga am reach the hotel,” he said.
It was easy to find. Whoever placed the signs did a good job. Tolu kept pointing them out and KB followed, not minding that we had gone far off from the expressway.
Finally, we got to the guest house. It was nothing fancy. There were two other cars packed in the small compound, which had its gates wide open. We agreed to leave our heavy luggage in the car boot and just walked in with the smaller bags we had. The receptionist smiled accommodatingly at us when we stepped in. She was the only person I could see. She had a face that was too good for the reception of such a meh hotel. I nudged KB with my elbow. “Leave the talking to me,” I said and put on my charming persona.
“Welcome to Almost Heaven,” she said. “Oh, they should name this place Heaven,” I started, “because you, my dear…” “Don’t do this,” I heard Tolu whisper. “…are an angel.” One raised eyebrow was her only reaction.
“We’ll take one room for the night, please,” KB intervened. “For both of you?” she asked. “For three of us,” I said. She gave me a look I didn’t like before carrying on with her job. “Come with me, please.”
“Yes, Angel.” I wasn’t giving up.

KB jumped on the quite small bed and was ready to sleep, leaving Tolu and I to argue over who will join him on the bed and who will sleep on the floor or manage the small sofa at the corner. I gave it up for Tolu, plugged my phone to charge, and went to take a shower. When I got out, KB had already dozed away and Tolu went in to have his.
“JESUS!!!” I screamed immediately after settling on the sofa and opening my Twitter. KB jolted up. “Wetin?”
“Tolu! Tolu!!” I called out. He didn’t answer. “Guy, see.” I went on the bed and handed my phone to KB who was echoing my calls with his questions, ‘Na wetin na? Wetin?’ “Holy Fuck!” was his reaction. “See God work. Where him dey?” “Him dey baff.” I moved to collect the phone but KB shielded me away to take another look for himself. “Was this his flight?” “How I wan take know? Bring, bring, bring, make I read am well.” I grabbed the phone from him and read more than the ‘Lagos Bound Abuja Flight Crashes Shortly After Take Off; No Survivors’ headline. “Men, I think it could be his flight o!” “His parents must be running mad,” KB said. He got off the bed and headed to knock the bathroom door. “Guy, come and see the biggest testimony of your life.” I was on the sofa reading every detail of the news post when KB called me. “Guy, where Tolu na?”
“I said he’s bathing!” “Where? There’s nobody here.” “Tolu,” I called out, getting up to see for myself. The bathroom was truly empty. The small bucket in the bathtub was overflowing with water from the running tap. I was as confused as an award recipient getting off the stage. “Are you sure he didn’t go out?” KB asked. From his own tone, I sensed more fear than confusion. “Then who on-ed the tap?” I asked, knowing fully well that I didn’t leave it running. “Check outside,” I told him. A strange feeling struck me the moment I stepped into the bathroom. It was much colder now than when I had my bath. The water was cold, too. A couple of drops jumped on my hand when I reached to close the tap. I ran out of the bathroom quicker than I should have and I didn’t exactly know why. KB was standing by the door looking at the different ends of the hallway and calling out Tolu’s name. I looked, too, at one end, and almost at the other before the lights went off, leaving the entire hallway pitch black. “Guy,” KB whispered, “I dey fear.” I put on my phone’s flashlight and stepped into the hallway. “I’m coming.” Maybe, because my eyes were fixed on the receptionists appealing backside earlier, it felt like a longer journey to the reception than when we were coming in. I walked slowly. Step after step, I whispered ‘Tolu’. I didn’t want to wake the other guests, if there were any. Suddenly, I felt someone grab my hand. I shivered and pulled my arm away, screaming like a child.
“Guy, calm down!” It was KB. “What the fuck? You scared me.” “Me sef dey fear. I can’t stay in the room.” He reached for my hand again and I let him. We held each other tight and continued to the reception. “Excuse me!” I called when we got there. “We’re sorry, sir. The gen will be on in a bit.” Angel said, shielding her face from my light. “Have you seen my friend?” I asked, putting it away. She looked at KB, back at me, and then rolled her eyes. “Him?”
“No. The other guy.” Silence.
“We were three!” KB shouted at her. She didn’t give any response, obviously still trying to understand the situation.
“Did our friend go outside? Did you see him walk past here?” I asked. “What friend? There were only two of you.” I looked at KB with my mouth unwillingly open. My heart raced and burned at the same time and the heavy ball of saliva I swallowed did nothing to cool it. The plane crash headline flashed through my brain and sent razor sharp cuts to the tip of my fingers. “No, we… we were there,” I tried to convince myself, staring at KB for some confirmation. He nodded slowly. “I… I even told you,” I said to Angel, already unable to control my tears. “THERE WERE THREE OF US!!! I slammed her counter.
KB pulled me back. “Wait…” The lights came on. “Let’s check the car.” I struggled, looking straight at the receptionist. The vagueness I could now see in her face made me feel mad. Crazy. “I TOLD YOU! THERE WERE THREE OF US!!” I struggled even more. KB kept pulling me, stretching out my singlet. I relived our whole journey, trying to make sense of it all. Failing to make sense of it all.
I calmed down when we were out. We walked to the car in silence. We both had nothing to say, but I knew our tongues were heavy. The car was just as we left it. We looked in and around more times than necessary.
There were two other people at the reception when we came back. Angel paused from explaining something to them so they could all look at us as we walked past. Straight to our room we went.
A running tap was the first thing I heard when I stepped in the room. A certain burst of confidence pushed me to burst open the bathroom door.
“Whoa!” Tolu screamed. “Close the door!!” KB and I dashed through the hallway and past the three onlookers at the reception. I was ahead of him, heading out of the hotel bare foot in my singlet and boxers. I ran and ran, but I never reached the hotel gate which was right there.
“Frank,” I heard Tolu call. “Frank,” he called again. “Stop kicking me.” But it was my younger brother, who I share a bed with.
After waving my mum goodbye the next day, he dropped me off at the garage and off I went to Lagos.
“We go jam for there,” I told KB when he called to ask of my whereabouts.

End.

• Written by by Shaibu Mohammed Lawal