It Came from Outer Space

Noise. Noise and flowers. Flowers, the smell of hibiscus flowers mixed indiscriminately with sweat and the smell of old urine streaked on the side of concrete roads. A hundred bodies pushing at each other, market women clutching babies to faded wrappers on their backs, hands attached to the baskets of plantains, yams and sacs of gari balanced on their heads.

Screams and laughter, curses in Yoruba and English, the pidgin mixing, blending with the languages till all he could hear was noise. Goat shit filling potholes lying in the middle of  dirt sidewalks. Two QC girls in too tight blue and white plaid pinafore uniforms cawing at a joke he would never know. A man in a faded navy suit typing furiously on his Blackberry as he pushed past the girls to enter a red Toyota parked underneath a rusting streetlamp.But the noise, the noise, and the smell, the smell of flowers, urine, goat shit and roasted plantains coming from the vendors squatting under mango trees at the make shift markets on the side of the roads, hurt so much.

Sharp pain shot through his abdomen, as he watched, watched and waited for his chance, the QC girls were nowhere to be seen and the Blackberry man was slamming his doors and revving up the engine of his Toyota. The noise heightened, and his head began to throb in tandem with the aching of his stomach. His eyes darted from side to side, as he wet cracked lips and, flexed his palms, body going rigid in preparation. Finally Blackberry man was driving away and Saze saw his chance, and he took it. He ran, ran over the goat shit potholes, the hibiscus flower bush, ran through the go slow, past the Nissans, the molues, the okadas, ignoring the curses of the drivers as he bulldozed his way across the teeming street. Wetness ran down his bare feet and he smelled the blood before he saw it. He ran up to the nearest stall, where a fat woman was screeching at her neighbor in Yoruba.

He glanced at her for all of two seconds, her hand fan jerking like a chicken with its throat newly slit, the sweat flooding her round face and  confirmed his earlier observations- this particular madam was not paying attention to her merchandise. Reaching out a bone thin arm, he snatched up one of the roasted plantains- always take only one at a time, greedy was dead. Head down, head down, the screeching in Yoruba continued, the smell of roasted plantains, the noise continued, head down, clutching the plantain to his chest  he ran, ran back, scrambling to make it to the other side of the street. The smell of burning rubber and roasted flesh screamed at him, the Michelin Man logo grinning to one side, the imitation silver necklace of the recently burned thief grinning to another. Head down, head down, greedy was dead, greedy was dead, but a traitorous voice whispered in his head, that hungry was dead too. And Saze increased his speed, he was almost out of view of the fat woman, just a little more, a little more.

He leapt over a wide pothole, close to freedom, elation beating against his skull, and then dismay, he'd miscalculated the distance and he could see the goat shit rushing to meet him. He fell forward, the golden prize rolled away from his fingers into plain view, into her view. The screeching in Yoruba stopped and a single word, the dreaded word, tore through the crowd, into Saze's stomach,  rushing out in the hot bursts of urine soaking his pants. "OLE! Thief! Stop that thief!" Saze froze. He was going to die. He was going to die for a piece of plantain; and as the crowd thickened behind him, his last coherent thought was that he should have taken two.



He came to in a bed, the first indication that this was not the make shift shack under the bridge he called home. Soft feather bed with pillows, real pillows, white sheets.  Pastel blue walls and the smell of food, roasted plantains and was that…fried fish? There, on a neat wooden stool, lay a plate with five rolls of roasted plantains and fried fish, his favorite, who?...Nobody he knew, knew that, cared enough to know that. There was a note, a clean blue sheet folded beside the food. Saze picked it up carefully and opened it, his eyes widening as he examined its contents, "Happy Birthday Osaze, enjoy the food and the hotel room! We also left some money in the dresser by the bathroom for you! Signed, your friendly neighborhood outer space Aliens, just passing through!"