Death in a Range Rover

Death lurks
At the corner of Akoka Road
You will not see her coming
She will come in a Range Rover
Driven by a drunk University of Lagos law student
Who is listening to loud music in a car saturated with weed and Vodka
His girlfriend of three years
Has finally left him for a handsome Lebanese man
You will not see death coming
You too will be consumed with the thoughts of another woman
Tinuke
How her name still sounds like a song in your mouth
How she stopped answering your calls and put a picture of her baby daddy on her DP
Your heart feels heavy and worn
You have never felt this way before
Not even when your mother died
You will not see death coming
You are standing at the curb
Lagos is alive all around you
The street is busy with cars and pedestrians
It is wet with puddles after a brief shower
You can hear the faint sound of Flavour's voice coming from a kiosk down the road
You can smell akara and dundun frying under an MTN umbrella across the street
You will not see death coming
You wave down a keke napep
It purrs to a stop a few feet away from you
You climb in and immediately perceive the body ordour of the elderly passenger sitting with a black nylon bag clasped in his hands
His eyes are sunken in and yellow
His lace kaftan is faded and soiled at the edges
Your other leg is still outside the keke napep when you suddenly feel yourself being propelled forward
You don't know what is happening
You hear loud screams
You hear the driver of the napep yell, "Jesu!"
You hear tires screeching
You see the lean hands of the elderly passenger jerk forward, then his head follows
Another bang
More screaming
More tires scraping asphalt
Then silence
Then nothing
Darkness
Death lurks
At the corner of Akoka Road
You will not see her coming
She will come in a Range Rover
And Tinuke's name will still sound like a song in your mouth