That one I bit the other day has started looking at me too much. I know she goes to Rosco’s danfo on those days that he does not call me in the night. That is why I bit her for calling me “Reveren sistaa” when I know both of us are enjoying Rosco’s big thing. She thinks I am mad but she is foolish like Rosco. Maybe the load of her agbo that she hawks in the mornings is too much for her head. He doesn’t even give her 100naira like he gives me. Instead, she is the one that gives him free alomo early in the morning. That is when he pounds her while those mosque people are saying their strange words.

A lot of mad people pass my frontage, like that man in the big, painted car. One boy hit the man’s car at the back with okada right here in front of me. It’s the boy in the other gang whose buttocks can never hold his trouser. I did not know those men in the big painted cars too can behave like boys in the gang. The man quickly removed his suit, and was shouting ‘were ni e’ you are mad and was running around and wanted to fight. If not for people that begged him…

If only my uncle was still alive he would have helped me stop this growing problem the way he did that time. I am scared to tell that Rosco whose brain has been locked with his hair. He will only stop calling me in the night. Bad thoughts again! Devil go away. I will stop it myself the way my uncle told me some girls do it. He described it in three words. Coat. Abortion. Hanger. I cannot remember how he arranged the words.

It is not easy to light a candle when the breeze is blowing so much but I did it. I have already cut the straight metal from the hanger. After burning one end of it with the candle, I will spread my legs and put it inside me. It will burst the place where this problem is growing and everything will come out. The cloth I will use to clean the blood is beside me.

The blood and pain have refused to stop. I am screaming for help. People are gathering. My eyes are shutting. I don’t want to die!

I don’t know what is happening. My head aches, my legs ache, my stomach is burning. I can hear mumblings about fainting and blood loss, hospital and psychiatry, government too. I heard some of those words when Fashola’s people came to carry the lacasera woman. I cannot open my eyes but I know I am moving. Wait, I think something is moving me. It must be Fashola’s people taking me away in a car! I just hope they don’t think am mad like all those people think.