It was another rainy day in Port-Harcourt, Rivers state. It was the middle of July and the entire country was tightly held in the grip of unrelenting rainstorms. The coastal town of Port-Harcourt was already bearing the worst of the storms, with roads getting flooded and tempers running short as each day, sheets of rain descended from the heavens.
At a busy intersection, water splashed and brakes squealed as a near-impact was missed. Two taxis shuddered to a stop, the passengers complaining as the drivers leaned out of their windows and traded insults.
“You dey mad? Wetin you dey drive?”
“Idiot! Na you suppose chook head for my front? Na for gutter you get your driving license?”
“Your father there!” an arm extended, five fingers splayed insultingly. “If them born you well, come down from that motor, see if I no go beat nonsense comot for your body!”
Bheind one of the taxies, a jeep idled; white fumes rising from its exhaust pipe as a light drizzled petered down. The car hummed angrily, mirroring the feelings of the driver bheind its wheel. Slim hands formed fists around the steering wheel as the argument outside continued, causing traffic to begin to build. An inconsiderate driver bheind the jeep leaned on his car horn, adding some more noise to the commotion.
Finally, the driver of the jeep could take no more. A finger, crowned with one long artificial nail, angrily pressed a button, and the driver’s side window slid down. Furious words emerged from the vheicle in a high-pitched voice.
“Are you both insane? Will you move those metal pieces of crap you call taxis out of the way this minute? You people all drive like you left your brains at home.”
The taxi drivers stopped talking, stunned into silence as they turned to see who had insulted them both in one fell swoop. Their shock ratcheted when they realised the insult had come from a young lady who sat confidently bheind the steering wheel of the jeep. She seemed pretty, with glowing, creamy skin and long braids falling around her shoulders. At that moment it was difficult to correctly assess her true beauty because her lips were tight and her face wrinkled in anger caused by impatience.
“I said move those your milk cans out of the way, and go continue your quarrel in a beer joint somewhere. Some of us have important places to be!”
One of the taxi drivers emerged from his shock. “Come, you dey craze? See this small girl dey curse us o. Sister, you dey okay so?”
“You’re the insane people here!” came the impertinent response. “C’mon move, let me pass!”
“So because you dey drive big jeep, you feel say you fit dey talk anyhow!” the other taxi driver spluttered. “Stupid girl, your mate na my last daughter. So I no see why…”
The conversation faded as the female driver retreated into her air-conditioned car and sent the window up again. She leaned forward and clicked her music player on, content to listen to loud music as she stared out her water-dotted windscreen. The mouths of the outraged taxi-drivers moved as they flung insults her way and she spent the next minute examining her long nails and tapping on her steering wheel, waiting for the angry men to lose steam and move their cars. Letting out her frustration had felt good and she watched the fallout with amusement.
She revved her car warningly, and then grinned as she let the car jerk forward a little. The jeep roared like a barely-restrained beast, its metal grille like fangs threatening the smaller taxis. One of the outraged drivers fully leaned his torso out of his car window and slammed his fist on the jeep’s bonnet. The young lady’s smile disappeared.
Just as she opened her mouth to yell in anger, a certain familiar odour stopped her. Bewildered, she looked around, gagging as the unmistakeable smell of sulphur filled her nostrils; she remembered getting a whiff of that same smell a few minutes earlier just as she neared the intersection. She had ignored it, but now it rose up to overwhelm her and she clamped a hand over her mouth and nose.
Where was that abominable stench coming from? She wondered wildly.
Then she felt the jeep leap forward again, causing the taxi drivers parked in front of her to shout in alarm. Astonished, she looked down at her feet. They were on the pedals, both pushing forward and backwards.
She was not in control of her feet.
Her hands soon followed suit; one flopped toward the window controls, and then pressed down. The car windows slid downwards, and then up again as her hand pounded on the buttons. Her car wipers began to swing to and fro as her other hand flicked up their controls. Her feet moved and as the car jerked forward again, fear filled her. she had a very active imagination and had reached a scary conclusion because of the smell of sulphur, coupled with her limbs being controlled by external forces. Was this like somtheing from the Hollywood horror movies she liked to watch so much? Was she being possessed by demons from hell?
The thought terrified her and she opened her mouth to scream, but suddenly found she could not unclench her jaw. Her last clear memory was of the taxi drivers walking towards her car, wary of the loudly revving vheicle. The terrified driver used superhuman effort to shift her foot off the car pedals just before her eyes rolled up and she stiffened in her seat.
The doors of the jeep were locked, so the men outside stared in helplessly at the jerking young lady as the car window rolled up and down, obeying the instructions of her flailing hands.
Preye Briggs, the twenty-five year old daughter of the oil tycoon, Chief Hanson Briggs, had just had her first full-on epileptic seizure.
Check back at 3:00pm for the next episode.
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