A woman, a dead man and a mob: (Short Story) Written By Isaac Kunmi Olamiju

Straight as an arrow, her shrill wail shot upwards, aimed at a heaven going about its course unmindful of affairs below. With each heaving cry, she rocked the bloodied form cradled in her arms. Clinging tightly to it as if, somehow, with enough will the still limbs could be made to move again, and life imparted to the glazed eyes staring unblinkingly at the crowd gathered round.

That extraordinary silent signal capable of rousing entire neighborhoods  from sleepy lives and directing their steps to events of an unfortunate nature had been broadcast, and with each passing moment the mass of people gathered on the community main road (narrow, unpaved and eroded for much of its length) swelled.

It was about the time of day school children returned home, and so it was, young and old stood side by side glutting on the macabre scene.

Clustered in groups, the cause of the accident was disputed by the more vocal section of the crowd. However, the various ‘eyewitness’ accounts differed.

Some claimed the motorcycle rider had internationally thrown his passenger overboard, and only pretended to fall after this. The justifiable question that followed — what purpose that would serve? — was met by harsh glares and low mutterings of people’s understatement of the wickedness prevalent in the world.

Others said the motorcycle rider had been moving at a high velocity when he hit a pothole, causing the motorcycle to somersault, flinging both the rider and passenger to the hard-rugged surface, with one fatally landing on his neck.

While a crooked elderly man leaning on a broken pipe for support, stubbornly claimed he had seen a black dog appear in front of the motorcycle out of thin air, and it was when the motorcycle rider swerved to avoid hitting the dog, he inadvertently crashed, the black dog as mysteriously disappearing as it had materialized. But the old man had a local reputation for making up fantastic stories. His favorite being how as a young man in England (“in those good old days!”) he rejected a marriage proposal from the queen who had fallen in love with “the dashing black man” on first sight. This was rather hard to believe, because the old man had had a bad back throughout his life and never a complete set of teeth, so no local person took his testimony seriously.

The common consensus, regardless, was that the motorcycle rider could be held responsible for the accident.

Unemployed youths, therefore, finding themselves in a position that demanded the exercise of authority and temperate reasoning for once, were bent on avenging for the conscience of the people and in accordance with a law given long ago, proscribed, yet engraved on the hearts of men — a life for a life – the grave deed.

Their blood lust stoked, they shouted down the rider’s pleas of innocence and need for medical aid as he clutched his obviously broken arm, with cries of, “Epo! Epo! E mu tire wa!" Petrol! Petrol! Someone bring a tire! the standard and accursed paraphernalia for executing jungle justice.

The rider’s plea became desperate and he beseeched the mob in a mixture of pidgin and Standard English, revealing he was a married unemployed graduate fallen on hard times.

“na the man dey shake! na him make us fall! he was epileptic! e tell me say he neva use him drug today! drug wey go stop the epilepsy! say make i hurry! i've seen it in school before! it can happen at anytime! the road sef bad! e no make me balance well! abeg! abeg! no kill me o! i get wife and two pickin! who go take care—?”

“Enough!” roared the bloodthirsty mob. “After you kill a man, you ask for mercy?”

A stone clouted the motorcycle rider on the head, drawing blood and knocking him unconscious. Mercy indeed, as emboldened by collective assent, the mob descended.

With the smell of burnt meat in the air, and the mesmerizing effect of the flickering flame rising from the impromptu bonfire acting upon their senses, the mob seemed to lose its purpose.

Avoiding eye contact, every man, woman and child hastened home with shuffling steps to resume their daily struggles, the frustration from living in a broken society temporarily forgotten. As uncommon as it was, justice had been served that day. A cold ruthless justice, but justice all the same.

And so with the approach of dusk, the crowd melted away. The distraught woman, her faded green wrapper soaked now to a dull red, seated on the brown earth, still clutching the lifeless form of a man, long forgotten.