A Stranger

His grip was tight.

Pulling me back urgently.

A stranger. A face I’ve never seen before, pulling me from walking into a speeding vehicle. Yes, I was paying attention, I knew the car was coming and I knew that if I walked right in front of it at that very moment, It would hit me and all the pain would go away. But he pulled me back and interrupted my thoughts. He pulled me back because he thought he knew better than I who lived this life. He pulled me back because he didn’t see a reason I should try to end it all.

But what does he know? He is not the one living this life or going through this pain. He doesn’t feel this emptiness I feel. A large empty hole in my heart that has no hope of ever getting filled.

But he pulled me back like he had a right to this life. He pulled me back like he had a reason for me to live. A reason that I knew nothing of.

How dare he! I could feel the anger in my bones. Moving like the blood In my veins, going straight to my head as I try to discern what gave this stranger the right to interfere with my decision.

“Let go of me!” i hear myself say. Or maybe I’m not the one that said that. That voice, it’s too loud to be mine, too angry and malicious to come out of my lips. My mother would’ve been horrified if she ever heard me speak with that voice. But she would’ve been horrified anyway if she ever heard about what I was about to do.

“Are you blind? You want kill yourself? If I no hold you now, you think say you go still dey alive?” the strangers yelled at me with anger in his eyes.

I’m shocked, ashamed, because I do want to kill myself. But hearing someone else say it like I’m about to do something more terrible than just putting an end to my pain makes me feel stupid. Like a child that doesn’t know the magnitude of her actions.

“I’m sorry” I say with a shaking voice. But what am I apologising for? It’s not his life I was about to take. It’s not his misery I was about to end. He doesn’t know the pain I’m going through and he doesn’t know about the emptiness I feel.

Then there was that sudden change from anger to concern in his eyes. He let go of his tight grip on my arm and held my shoulder gently. “Are you okay?” he asks with a totally different voice from the one he used to yell at me.

“where you about to commit suicide?” he asks. But I know he already knew the answer to that question. The look of realisation in his eyes gave him away.

Now the tears came down, freely from my eyes and warm on my cheeks. I had forgotten I wasn’t in the comfort my room. Mom would be so angry at me now. Crying in public was not something she applauded. No well raised daughter would do that.

“Oh my god you were about to commit suicide. What is the problem? There is so much to live for. Suicide Is not the answer no matter the problem. As long as there is life, there is hope. Where do you live let me take you home”. He says all in one breathe.

A stranger. A face that was beginning to look familiar, like a face in a large crowd. You see it but you don’t know it. But when you see it at another time, you recognise it.

“Chukwuma street” I say. Pointing in a direction. Maybe it’s reflex, maybe it’s the part of me that still wanted to be alive, maybe it’s the part of me that believed the pain can end. No matter what it was, a part of me pointed anyway. Pointing him in a direction of a lonely street. My street.

He held my wrist now, watching as the cars sped by. Probably waiting to be sure there was no car in sight before taking me across the road into the lonely street I pointed to.

I crossed with him. Like a child following her father to school. Unable to cross herself because she is not yet intelligent enough to know that everything could end if a car hits her. Walking on this dry road that could’ve been soiled with my blood. Now I don’t know If this stranger saved my life or he saved the road.

He walked with me into the lonely street, holding my wrist firmly. “Which lodge do you live In?” he asks calmly.

“Greatness lodge, room 21” I answered. Now my head is spinning, the pills I took before stepping out of my lodge is kicking in now. I’m seeing less, but I could feel his strong arms on my wrist, pulling me gently into the building, and walking through a dark hallway.

“ 1, 10, 2, 11, 3, 12, 21 should be upstairs or at the end of this row, this row has more rooms than this other one so 21 should be here” he whispers very calmly like I didn’t just try to take my life.

“Here it is. Where is your key? Oh, don’t worry it is open” he says as he opens the door and walks in with me into an empty room with a beautiful portrait at the left wall of the room. A very beautiful girl is staring at me from that portrait, her eyes were kind and beautiful, her lips full and a bit opened in the black and white portrait. That beautiful girl looked so familiar like I knew her. Like I am her.

He enters the room and locks the door behind him. He looks around the room and sits me down on the bed at the left side of the room. He stands in the middle of the room for a few seconds and walks to the fridge at the right end of the room and gets me a cold bottle of water.

“Drink it, you need to cool down” he says as he offers me the cold bottle.

I collect it and start drinking, then I lose grip of the bottle and it falls to the bed and the content of the bottle started soaking the bed.

He rushes to the bed, raising the bottle up, he says “ You this girl, you want to kill yourself in this world filled with enjoyment” he walks towards the table and drops the bottle.

“I don’t Understand why a girl as beautiful as you are with all these packaging would want to kill herself”

He says as he walked to the bed and sat beside me. “ You get breast, you get ass, you come fine on top but you want kill yourself when boys never enjoy finish, omo you no dey try oo” he says, looking at me like someone looting public aid.

A stranger. A stranger whose face I was beginning to distinguish among the crowd. A stranger I was beginning to realise I have seen several times.

“see breast now” he said as he touched my breast and squeezed it. An action that took me by surprise.

“Omo, if you want kill yourself, do am after I taste you. I don dey toast you for too long now. You suppose give me something for all these stress now” he said as he squeezed my second breast with his other hand.

A stranger! A stranger I now recognised. Months of seeing this face behind me in school, asking for my name, telling me I was “fine o” , telling me my “bumbum dey cause problem”.

How dare he touch me after months of stalking me. My eyes wear clearing now. I guess the pills never fully kicked in.

“Why are you touching me?” I ask quietly, trying not to anger him.

“ What does it matter? I just saved your life. By the way if you had succeeded in killing yourself, it wouldn’t matter” he said calmly as he moved his lips closer to mine.

My hands circled on something hard. Something wooden on my bed and I raised it and hit it on his head.

He screamed. I hit it again, this time holding it with both hands but no sound came out of him lips now.

He slumped on the floor, blood gushing out of his head.

A stranger. A stranger I just killed.