RIPPLE EFFECT (Short Fiction by John Ebute)
iv: KILLER
The day your life is about to change, the universe usually gives you no clue. I was innocently chewing sugarcane on my way home on the day I was to become a murderer.
"Tunde! Ah, Tunde," a familiar voice called after me. "Thank God I meet you here. I don find you everywhere tire."
"Why? Is there any problem?" I asked, hoping the fear prancing in my heart didn't leak into my voice.
"You bastard. You're asking me as if you don't know what you did, abi? No worry, when I finish with you, your mama will not recognize you again."
"Ah ahn, Oga Ade, it hasn't reached like that now. Tell me, what's the problem?" As I said this, all I could think of was how often my mother had warned me to steer clear of this ruffian, who calls himself The Phantom. "He's bad, and boys like you should have nothing to do with him," she'd say.
But it wasn't like I advertently disobeyed my mother when I went into business with The Phantom three days ago. I'd had no other choice, my situation being very desperate.
"It hasn't reached like that, abi? You, this small boy, get mind to play a fast one on me, shey? Yesterday, I enter Kobo Street and people begin hala, 'thief, thief'. If no be because of my doings, Olorun, they for kill me."
My heart was thumping very wildly now. I had been found out, and The Phantom wasn't the kind of person you double-cross. Yet we were alone in this lonely path. I glanced across both sides of the street, checking to see if there was somebody to rescue me from this ruffian. There was none.
His fist buried itself on my belly, the force it came with like the rush of a mighty water. I felt something die within me, and the world in front of me suddenly became a dancing anomaly of colors and fading reality. The sugarcane fell out of my hands. But when I saw him produce a dagger from his pocket, the survival instinct bestowed on me a sudden power I never knew I could ever possess. How I deftly dodged as he lunged at me, I can never explain. Because I knew what he was going to do if he got his hands on me, I resolved I wasn't going to play defensive; it was better to go offensive.
He was charging at me again, and in the mad frenzy of those electrically charged moments, I didn't seem to know what I was doing. All I remember was kicking the sugarcane towards his path as he approached. He tripped and fell. Shouldn't I have run away then? But the energy level my adrenalin was riding upon, made me take a stone and strike hard on his head. I don't know how many times I struck the blows, but I only stopped when I was sure he was dead already.
I couldn't believe it. I was a murderer.
iii: CON ARTIST
My body was trembling, and in an incongruous way it reminded me of the hen I'd seen two days earlier, which had been severely beaten by rain. I breathed in and out for some time, willing myself to calmness. I must think this thing through, I warned myself, for death hangs over me. Fussing and worrying will change nothing. And so I assumed the mental posture of a chess master, stretching my mental muscles to the farthest limit. And then it answered.
Of course, the idea was a risky one, its prospect forbidding and unsettling. Yet I knew it was the only course open to me.
I was amazed at the ease with which I pulled it off. I had expected someone to yell "Thief! Thief!" when I pulled the phone from the unsuspecting owner's pocket in one of the busiest markets in the city. But no one saw me; no one raised an alarm. Quietly, I slipped out of the market, my obtained prize safely in my pocket.
The next step was finding a buyer, and that was the most difficult part. Who could I sell the phone to that wouldn't suspect that I had stolen it? It was Ade, alias Phantom, who surfaced as the answer to my question, the solution to my quandary. Ade didn't ask questions, like how come I was willing to sell a fairly new Redmi 12 phone for 80,000 naira only, when everything was still working fine? I guess he believed he had proudly exercised his wondrous bargaining prowess over my juvenile mind and prevailed. I didn't bother to show him that I, not him, was the con and he was the sucker. Or maybe he wasn't; the guy from whom I had stolen the phone initially had to be the patsy.
Unfortunately, it turned out the guy wasn't the fool I thought him to be. He had somehow tracked his phone to Ade, and Ade had attacked me for having successfully pulled the wool over his eyes. And now I have The Phantom's blood in my hands.
ii: PUPPET
It had started as a joke, or so I thought at first. Ojo smiling as he said, "Tunde, I need 80k urgently and you're going to give me."
I laughed. "Shebi I be your bank. See the way you talk am with your full chest. Baba, I no get shi-shi to borrow you."
"Borrow? Who's talking about borrowing here? You're giving me the money, man."
"Ojo, are you joking or what?" I wasn't finding this prank funny anymore. "Where will I see that kind of money to give you? And besides, even if I have it, why should I give it to you? Shey you be my papa ni, abi you work for me?"
"Look here, Tunde." His tone had changed, taking on a merciless edge. "I know about your dirty secret, and you know what will happen if I blow the whistle on you."
He paused, watching for my reaction. I believe my face had been expressionless, betraying no emotion, and my mien had been equanimous enough.
Pissed off that he hadn't yet been able to ruffle my feathers, he jumped to his feet, his eyes glowering like two burning balls. "Do you want to end up like Azi?"
My calm vanished, my poise shaken. I saw a smile twist the corners of his thick lips, as he savored the fright in my eyes and the tremor that ran through my body. He was enjoying this game, I could tell. I knew he wasn't second-guessing; he indeed knew of my secret. Mentioning Azi's name dissolved every doubt in my heart.
Of course, I knew how Azi had ended. The news of his death had been nothing short of a phenomenal sensation in the community. And it had endured for long, as only worthy news do. For months, everyone was still talking about it. I would never forget the image of the boisterous crowd gathered around Azi, their hands full of the perverse eagerness to harm. And they had harmed him. Poor Azi.
And here was this supposed friend of mine telling me that I would end up lynched like Azi if I didn't give him 80,000 naira. I saw the way he leaned back in his sofa, a contented smile playing on his bloated face. He knew he had an upper hand over me. He knew he had both the knife and the yam, and I was just a helpless puppet.
i: UGLY SECRET
Just thinking about my lover now, I'm aware of the tension building in my phallus. That attractive face with all its fine features, that bewitching smile, that arousing voice. A great soul, a wonderful personality, all tabernacled in an irresistible body. My lover, so flawless and perfect. Except for one thing. That he's a male like me.
Our only offence is that society fights against what we feel for each other. If the society I live in isn't so eager to roast the likes of us in a sanctimonious outrage, I wouldn't have considered going as far as playing a fast one on a dangerous guy calling himself The Phantom, and now staining my tender hands with the blood of a man.
About The Author
John Ebute is a Nigerian medical student with a passion for storytelling, a certified copywriter and a trained screenwriter. His works have appeared/forthcoming in Brittle Paper, African Writer Magazine, Kalahari Review, Farafina Blog, Arts Lounge Magazine, Ta Adesa, World Voices Magazine, Joints Anthology, Stethoscopes and Pens, and elsewhere.
He was the first place winner of TWEIN Recreate Contest 2024 (Prose category), RIEC essay contest, NIMSA-FAITH Suicide Prevention Campaign (Prose category) and first runner-up in the Paradise Gate House Poetry Contest. You can find him on Instagram @ d-penwielder and he tweets @ ebute-john 28334.