ẹ̀sán

Ìbẹ̀rù ejò ò jẹ́ ká tẹ ọmọ ejò mọ́lẹ̀.

Fear of the snake keeps one from stepping on the young of the snake

The people of Lagos had this atypical look. Odion observed it on the people walking on the street as the wind blew in front of him, he hated using this mode of transportation, though, —he always felt like he was going to fall off and get run over by a trailer.

Odion was nothing if not rational.

The Keke picked him up and drove him through the Lekki - Epe Expressway, Odion looked left and he could still see the British International School, the same school his cousin went to. They moved through the road skittishly to try and avoid the traffic that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Lagos, you could say, was divided into three main parts. There was the Mainland, which housed most of everything actually was. The airport, stadium, and most museums were located there, so basically anything worth looking at. Odion liked it there, he used to live there afterall, back when he was younger, until his father had decided on a change of scenery. Quite abruptly, nw that he thought of it. There was also the Lagos Island, where he was going to to find the statue of Sango. There were lots of tall buildings around there, lots of corporations seemed to have chosen there as their headquarters, maybe due to the availability of space. Then there was the Island part of Lagos, people seemed to view anyone who lived there with reverence and awe. It was where he was just leaving. The same place that The Palms Shopping mall was located in. He had also lived there, back in the days he had a place to live. The Island part of Lagos was high-end and mostly the richest could afford to even live there. Those were the three main parts of Lagos and it seemed that they were all riddled with an unnatural traffic that seemed to plague the state itself.

It was barely past noon, Odion thought, only in Lagos would you find traffic at this time. It seemed that the only way to avoid traffic in Lagos was to not come to Lagos at all. Odion turned his head and glanced at the two other people in the Keke with him. The Keke itself was something not too different from a tricycle, a large one that is. In the back, there was ample space to allow three grown adults sit comfortably. One of them was an old gritty man who had a pungent smell, it reminded Odion of stale fish. His clothes were ragged and dusty and his slippers looked like they were being held up by tape. Odion stole several glances at the man and noticed that he was shaking, seemingly uncontrollably and every few minutes, he rubbed away something invisible from his nose with his right hand. Odion took a deep breath and tried not to think about it too much. There were different types of people in Lagos and not all of them were "good."

Upon reaching the roundabout, the man seemed to lose his patience and paid the driver so he could get out. He shuffled past Odion and ran across the street to a small shelter where a woman there sold local gin. Odion had heard of men like that. Any little money that came to their hands was quickly spent on the funding of their acts of vice and debauchery. The man had the look too, Odion noticed, but a variation of it.

The middle-aged woman who was left in the Keke with Odion was also watching the man. As he left, she hissed and said something under her breath. Odion didn't hear but he could tell they weren't word of encouragement. She was dressed in a rich buba with bright colours with a bundle of cloth in her hands. She smelt like freshly prepared food, maybe she came from a wedding?

"Stay away from people like that oo," She said in the shrill loud voice Nigerian women were practically known for. "That's not what your parents are sending you to school to do." Odion wasn't paying particular attention to her and didn't reply, he was too busy in his own mind, planning and scheming on how he'd make it out of this mission alive. And also, some Nigerians seemed to have this sense of entitlement regarding other peoples' lives and it was just irritating. She looked at him again and repeated herself, and this time Odion had no choice but to reply and say thank you. He used the opportunity to look more closely at her and noticed that the bundle of cloth that she was holding was...moving? She held the bundle of white cloth towards her face and started making cooing sounds, only then did Odion see the peeking round bubbly face of a baby from beneath the cloth. Odion's heart softened when he saw the baby and then he understood why she was so bothered about him. It was hard enough raising a child, but raising a child in a dangerous world made it an even more tumultuous journey. She was telling Odion what she would have told her son had he been able to fully comprehend her words.

Odion looked at her face and saw the look again. For a while he had been trying to use his words to describe fully what the look translated to and now it seemed that he knew the answer. The look translated into pure and utter defiance. Refusal to break. These were people who the world had threatened to break but would not yield. The look seemed to tell the world, "Really? Is that all you got?"

Odion looked at the rear view mirror and saw his face reflected back at him, and he saw—hidden behind all the apparent anger and vengeance--the same look he had seen countless times on others.

The look of endurance.

The look of Lagos.

The driver turned into Nnamdi Azikiwe St and he marveled at the tall buildings he was surrounded with. He didn't really get around much these days, but still, this made his jaw open.

He felt it before he even realised where he was. His whole body seemed to tingle as they drove into the road that led into Marina. His head buzzed and his skin crawled, there was some serious magic going on in here and he could feel it down to his very cells.

Then the smell hit him, it was like all the livestock in the world decided to have a meeting and they decided that Marina would be an appropriate venue.

The driver rode the rusty Keke into a Mobil filling station with a brightly lit sign and pulled to a shaky stop. Odion got down and arched his back to stretch, he also used this time to carefully survey his surroundings. It seemed that people had made a living on these streets. He walked a little outside the filling station towards the street and on the other side, he saw an assortment of goods, presumably for sale. Shirts, trousers, shoes, you name it. Marina seemed to be the place where everything sold. He could probably have watched the whole street dynamic all day but there was this naggy feeling at the back of his mind.

And then he rememebered, he hadn't-

"Bros, you no pay oo," the Keke driver said. Clearly frustrated by his passenger sight seeing instead of pocket reaching.

Odion didn't even need to check his pockets to know that he was dangerously broke. In fact, the only way he had gotten money was through the gang. But they were behind him now.

Hopefully.

He pleaded with the driver, trying to explain his situation as best as he could. (Hi, my name is Odion and I'm a sixteen year old and I just watched a mythological god die in my arms, fought with supernatural cursed teenagers, saw my dead parents and got transported by an evil god who now hates me. Sorry I don't have any money.)

The man was not having any of it, he stepped out of his vehicle and the woman who Odion had sat beside nodded her head, making tsk tsk sounds, as if she had known from the beginning that Odion was a bad egg.

Not knowing what else to do, he did what he did best. He ran.