Abby:
I know one isn’t supposed to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help it. The three men I let into the apartment, whom Chief addressed as SAN — Senior Advocate of Nigeria — didn’t seem like the usual visitors. The last man carried two large suitcases, which Chief instructed him to leave in the corner before returning to the car. The others sat, and the mood shifted. I quietly left the door slightly ajar and sat nearby, trying to listen.
Chief asked, “So what’s the situation now?”
Now, before I tell you what I heard, let me just say this: sometimes I look back and laugh at myself, and other times, I cry. The level of naivety I displayed still shocks me. I ignored every red flag, every sign, and just kept driving down a road that eventually became an expressway with no exits.
What I heard that day chilled me. One of the SANs said, “Chief, you have no choice. You’ll need to lie low for a while. The good news is that this property is in your wife’s maiden name, so she and the children will be moving in with you tomorrow.”
My heart dropped.
Then Chief asked, “What about my girl?” referring to me. One of the lawyers mumbled something I couldn’t catch.
An hour later, after the lawyers left, Chief called me in. His tone was soft. “Baby, my darling, please sit down. I have something to tell you.”
He began to explain, but as the truth unfolded, my whole body went cold. I was frozen. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, until I heard him shout my name and shake me.
“Chief… I…” hmmmm
Chris:
We rode the waves all night, switching between the two guides who managed the motor-powered dinghy. They seemed to know what they were doing, using a compass to keep us on course. But after 15 gruelling days at sea, people began to fall apart.
It started with vomiting. First one man, then another. And then diarrhoea. Soon 11 of the 14 people left were heaving, weak and crying.
The nurse we had onboard was the first to name it: cholera.
It hit me like a slap. Where had it come from? That’s when we realised — the only people not affected were the guides, Thomas, myself, and the nurse. The rest had drunk from the shared water container after the dinghy capsized.
Turns out, one of the guides had topped up the water with seawater when we were running low. He said, “I’ve done it before. Nobody died.”
But this time, people were dying.
The nurse came to us with a small packet of tablets. “I only have enough for six people,” she whispered. “There are eleven who need it.”
She handed us sticks. We had to draw lots.
I wanted to scream. Why should I get to decide who lives and who dies?
We picked.
Two days later, five were gone.
There were no funerals. No goodbyes. Just the sound of bodies being pushed into the ocean.
I cried until I blacked out.
Thomas didn’t cry. He stared into the sea and muttered, “Survival of the fittest.”
Only much later did I realise he was deeply traumatised. He just couldn’t process it.
…hmmm
