Around her, I had to keep my eyes wide open
“I think he is dead. Doesn’t he look dead? Oh my God, he is dead, isn’t he?”
“Shut up and let me think,” I overheard him say.
“He can only be dead. No one sleeps for 24 hours. Now they are coming for us. You killed him, you idiot,” Betty continued to cry.
I could not remember the events that led me to the dirty floor in what looked like an abandoned warehouse. A dirtier cloth had been used to gag me. A fetid smell emanated from underneath the tiny reed bed on which I lay naked, with my head hanging about three centimetres from the floor. I could barely open my eyes, I imagined they had been gouged out. The back of my neck hurt like hell’s fires had been lit at the spot. My left leg was chained on the wooden bedpost.
She was still talking. He was still barking, his voice pregnant with mischief.
“I told you he was some random sweet guy I had just met at the game. He was kind enough to allow me to share his crisps and stuff. This is the kind of jealousy that had me leaving you, Jerico,” she said.
He had a name. At least now I knew I was dealing with someone with a name.
“How many times have I told you that you are mine and mine alone? That I would never share you with anyone?” he asked. “One of us has to die and today is his turn.”
I tried to force my eyes to open and for the umpteenth time failed. I wanted to see the man who had kicked another man in his unmentionables; one who would punch a grown up man in the ribs, cracking them and leaving him for dead.
She said she understood and that she knew he loved her. She loved him too but there was nothing she could do because they were not meant to be together.
“You have now ruined my shot at a real relationship,” she hissed.
He told her to shut up once and for all, lest he would make sure that the baseball ‘which failed to crack my skull open would land on her ribs’.
He then started walking towards the tiny reed bed. I could tell the distance growing shorter with each hard step he took, her softer footsteps following. She was urging him to spare my life, insisting I was not worth all the trouble.
She threatened to call the police and other authorities if he continued to behave the way he was at the moment. But he was not having any of it. He told her he had plans of where to dump what remained of me. Then she threatened to take her own life. He stopped walking a few feet from where my head hung almost detached from the other parts of the body.
I became afraid. Afraid that the slight movement I made with my eyes in an attempt to see what was happening had attracted Jerico and his bat.
I was afraid that if Betty does not stop talking, she could end up next to me on the shaky reed bed, battered and toothless.
He poked my broken rib with the bat.
I groaned and silently asked for forgiveness. Dogs in the background barked.
“What did you say? Speak up, like a man,” he said.
She poked my ribs too, and asked me to wake up.
“That was one hell of a nightmare,” Betty said when I finally woke up. “You kept tossing and turning. I became worried when you started sweating and speaking in tongues.”
I frantically checked myself for injuries. Having found none, we cuddled and went back to sleep. Only that this time I kept my eyes open until the first cock in the neighbourhood crowed.
