Coco had just lit a cigarette. She leaned back on the plush white leather couch and crossed her legs. She held her glass of champagne up to the photo of her husband on the wall. He was out. He was always out. Working. For her. She laughed, scratching under her itchy wig with her long-nailed index finger. Scritch scritch. It was spiky, dark red and short and no one in his or her right mind would wear it. She got up and looked at her reflection in the glass that protected her husband’s photo. Her skinny jeans and t-shirt fit wonderfully snug. Her face was flawless. And her hair was power.
“Mwah,” she said, blowing herself a kiss.
She ambled into the living room where two fans were blasting. She stood very still between them, her wig’s “hairs” blowing about her face. It felt secure, despite the blowing air. She shut her eyes and inhaled deeply. Behind her eyelids, she could see. Then she began to draw it in from…
The busy street. People sitting in bustling bush taxies and perched atop hundreds of okada motorbikes. Market women walking alongside the road. The mish-mash of old and modern buildings of Lagos. Disabled beggars in the road. Boys playing soccer on a field.
When she opened her eyes, they glowed a deep green and the wig glinted an electric blue. The blowing fans made the heat from her wig more bearable. Her cell phone went off and she nearly jumped. “Hello Moto” it said as it played its dance music.
“Ah ah, what now?” she muttered. But she was smiling. The wig. It always left her feeling so good. Minus the heat, which left the actual wig feeling like a burning helmet. She ran to her cell phone on the couch. It was Rain. What did she want now? In her mind, the wig showed Rain standing outside her compound looking worried. The woman always looked so worried; she should have been at the top of the world.
Coco held the phone to her ear as she brought out some lipstick. “Hello?” she said, smearing on a fresh coat. She grinned, sure of what she’d hear. She frowned. “Hello? Rain, what is it? Speak up.”
But she heard nothing. She held the phone to her face when it suddenly became like a chunk of ice in her hand. “Iiieeey!” she exclaimed, throwing it on the couch. As she stared at it, appalled, the cell phone began to dribble green smoke. A text box opened on its screen. Coco squinted trying to read it. It looked like rubbish. But, like Philo, Coco understood what was happening.
“Oh,” Coco said, out of breath. “You want to play now, eh? Ok.” She threw her lipstick on the leather seat, the lid still off. It left a smear on the pillow. “Someone will die today, o. And it will not be me.”
She disappeared.
*
I have made my choice. That’s why I am still here, standing in these lilies. I run my hand over my shaved head. Waiting. The sun shines bright and happy in the sky, unaware of what’s about to happen to me. Unaware of what I have done and will soon suffer the consequences for. Unconcerned.
Philo appears. She is standing on the lilies, mere feet away from me.
“What is wrong with you?” she shouts. She looks beautiful and ghastly in her tight brown dress that probably cost more naira than a market woman makes in two years.
“I’m…” Fear pumps through my veins like adrenaline and blood.
“Why is your wig off, eh? You look horrible.” Her wig flashes as the digital virus tries to cripple it. Notice I say “tries”.
“I took it off,” I snap. “This is wrong, o! This is wrong! Wake up!”
Philo chuckles. “And what is wrong about it? We have everything we want.”
“Stealing from people is not what I made these for! I made them to help us give! To cure the deep seated culture of corruption by giving people hope and a sense of patriotism. Remember??”
She looks at me as if I am crazy. The wig has made her forget. Na wao. Tricky tricky things, these wigs.
“Put it back on,” she says, pointing a long nail at me.
“No,” I say. “It has made us cruel witches. Look at you!”
Coco appears behind me. She hisses like a snake. She is in no mood for words. Her wig flashes. The virus is not working. When you mix juju with technology, you give up control. You are at the will of something far beyond yourself. I am done for.
See how it all ends? Or does it begin? I am watching them approach me now. I tell you while my life hangs on its last thread. I am putting my wig on. It is so hot. I should have paid more attention to the cooling system when I made these. I hear the heartbeat of everyone around me now, including the irregular rhythm of Coco and Philo’s. But oh, the power. It rushes into me like ogogoro down the throat of a drunk.
See Philo bare her teeth. They are indeed sharp like those of a bloodsucker. The virus is working through her wig now. But something has gone very wrong. They are both smiling. For a year, we have been psychic vampires but now as they come at me, mouths open, teeth sharp, I see that they have become the blood-sucking kind.
I feel my own teeth sharpening too as I prepare to defend myself. This is new but I can’t think about that right now. I tear the wig off and throw it aside.
“Come then!” I shout. Then, I…
T
he End
