Outside, the two guards sent to take him to the main palace, jokingly shoved each other pretending to play fight. He whistled his readiness and sniggering over something both men came to him, one on each side, lightly holding his arms. As they took the walk up through to the palace, he eyed the bustling, sprawling courtyards, the neat apartments for those of royal lineage and finally the high, imposing terracotta palace building, its conquests depicted in brass plaques embedded on the front view of the roof. He swallowed a bitter smile at the cruelty of the gods.
Inside, he was made to stand in a room before the Oba and his councilmen. A small river of accusatory stares followed. Oba Odion’s voice boomed “Tell me what has brought you to Benin.” Sully did so, calmly, with the right intonations of humbleness and disbelief at his misfortune. Inside, he locked away twinges of pleasure as he held his audience rapt, watching their doubts fall to the ground like fish scales. He told himself that sometimes you had to take the beginning you deserved. This was his.
Say Anon
I began calling my uninvited guest Anon. Somehow, weirdly, I’d adjusted to having another presence in the house. The blackboard in the kitchen was full of sightings; the wooden floor had small areas cordoned off with white chalk. My bedroom ceiling bore splatters of purple paint from attempting to capture her body using colour. Traps I’d set failed. Buckets of water placed in corners of my living room so she could fall inside her own image and drown. Instead, the water rippled from her breath and sometimes her wet mirror images left the buckets so there were four of her wandering through the flat. Water versions of Anon eventually collapsed into puddles I mopped dry with shaky hands. Sometimes when I turned the radio on and listened to LBC she swallowed the frequency using silence the weight of a room. And I found myself beneath it, arms and legs flailing to survive.
The days became darker.
I played drunken bingo with Mrs Harris, mulled over what to do with my inheritance money and ignored Mervyn’s phone messages. Anon persisted, she dangled off cobwebs in my throat with one finger and inserted her gap-toothed smile in the mouths of people I shot. I functioned, the way a person carrying broken things inside them does, until they start bleeding from a big wound on their face that has seemingly arrived overnight.
One evening I lay on my blue sofa, my mother’s throw covering my feet, watching a rerun of Deal or No Deal on More4, playing with the key from the fish. I rubbed it as though it could grant wishes, Anon sat in a single wooden chair on the side. Noel Edmonds wore a ridiculously loud shirt, the clothing equivalent of a box of Smarties. In between the boxes opening on screen, with revelations of blue or red cash values inside, I listened for heartbeats Anon may have borrowed from someone else. I was resigned to us living an unsettling co-existence.
The heating was on full blast; subconsciously I thought I could make her sweat until she evaporated. The smell of weed lingered, what was left of the slim roll burned in a glass ashtray on the floor, its tiny specks of orange light with smoke curling into the amber iris of a third eye. I drained half a glass of Baileys and set it on the floor, next to it I laid two flattened cereal boxes, Cornflakes and Rice Krispies. I’d planned to use them to make robots but got distracted by my vices of weed, alcohol and television. From the kitchen, the bottle tops stuck to my notice board of weird collages rattled, releasing whispers.
Anon unfolded her limbs and walked to the kitchen. I slipped the key into my trouser pocket. In my mental fog I could straddle two planes. I was aware of her movements, a series of scratches wearing skin, rummaging through the cutlery drawer. She appeared by my side wielding my sharpest knife, the one I used for cutting stubborn pieces of meat. I saw a green vein reflected through the blade, from tip to handle. It throbbed; I couldn’t tell if it was hers or mine. A purple haze floated into a parachute, hovered above us. I felt a slick of sweat on my neck, heard the scurry of unidentifiable things in holes. Anon held me and it was like holding myself, the gleam of a blade sat between us. She pressed the knife to the left side of my head, made an incision just above my ear. She placed her mouth on it and spoke into the cut.
I found myself on a dusty, lengthy road, warm against my bare feet. Broken stones dug into them. The dark fell in swoops then broke off into marauding limbs. My blue living room curtains billowed against an anaemic moon, swirling dust tainted part of it red. Static from the TV ceased, swallowed by my eardrums and Noel Edmonds voice waned in the distance. The silence around me spun like a colourless kaleidoscope. A river situated to my right rippled gently washing over rocks that could have been heads barely bobbing above water. I saw a cluster of large terracotta buildings situated in sprawling grounds surrounded by tall black gates. The gates were flanked by guards in traditional clothing, their eye-catching material of a golden leafed design and the leaves curled up as if they intended to crackle into life. I heard a faint murmur of chatter between the guards. Angular pieces of stained glass window fell from my mouth onto a path of coloured glass. I walked tentatively on the glass path, even though I had a feeling that if I ran it wouldn’t have broken.
The guards held wooden spears with sharp, brass tips. As I drew closer, one signalled to the others. They’d been sucking on oranges, sharing anecdotes and swatting fat, hungry flies. Another guard spat orange pips into his hand. I stared, expecting an orange tree to bloom from his palm. My throat constricted, a nervous habit. I stopped myself from chanting aloud, just. For one, I didn’t want to appear crazy and two; it wasn’t a good idea to jar men holding weapons. I drew my shoulders up, prepared to spin a lie from the small bank of wool that resided in the scars on my wrists. Wearing respectful expressions, the guards opened the gates.
“Good evening,” they each said in turn.
I nodded, walked through. My pulse hummed, I stayed quiet. I didn’t want to talk and give myself away. But these men seemed to have mistaken me for someone else. One foot stepped in front of the other, guided by an invisible hand. Voices filtered from the surrounding smaller apartments. Noise slipped out as if the rooftops were lids that weren’t closed properly. I wandered into a square courtyard where footsteps were still visible. Vines crawled up tall pillars and whispered to the drawings of battles won, etched in a golden undulating ceiling. I wanted to go down and talk to the footsteps, to see if they’d move. For some reason, I felt I knew who they belonged to, that the lines were telling me. I grabbed a handful of earth and it ran through my fingers, warm and real. Sweat coated my body. I knew this place. I sensed the new and familiar all at once.
I knew that the short copper-toned flight of steps outside the main building led to a room I’d visited before. Brass artefacts were mounted on walls near the stairwell; they shifted under the sly night light. I’d been thrown into something incongruous, like a piece of time landing in a glass bowl. I walked up the steps to the first floor. A guard sat snoozing outside a room tucked behind a golden arched doorway. One eye flew open as my gentle steps approached. He stood groggily to attention. Tightened the knot of the green cloth he wore at the waist and wiped some crusted drool off his chin.
“When I last checked, he was still awake.” He edged the door open slowly.
I entered the large bedroom, closed the door. A dishevelled, raised wooden bed dominated the room. Two brown mats lay on either side. Carved wooden masks hung on the walls, watching with the expressions of Gods. In the thick of the heat I gathered my breaths and smelled palm wine in the air. On a dark stool with a low gaze, a kerosene lamp rested. Its flame flickered, bending in a glass bubble. I heard a rapping noise, a fist knocking inside my head. A small river in my left foot threatened to leak out. The tingly sensation of pins and needles pricked my skin.