Tales By The Brothel

Episode 8

I woke up suddenly to notice that a lot of people had gathered around me fanning me with their clothes and all what not.

My body was drenched with sweat and water and it was obvious that they must have splashed me with water to revive me.

I flashed my eyes around and instantly decoded what happened.

I was sitting on the floor and the morgue attendants were busy fanning me.

“Please what happened?” I asked with my heart thumping in my chest.

“You just fainted,” someone replied from the crowd.

I was taken to one corner where malt and milk was mixed for me and I drank and got better.

“You will help us contact the parents of the deceased,” one police officer said to me after I had finished drinking the malt and milk.

My heart flew out of my chest as soon as he made the statement.

I had never met Ijeoma’s parents for one day and I didn’t know anything about them.

I had never been to Ijeoma’s house before and didn’t have any of her siblings’ phone number.

“I don’t have her parents’ phone number,” I replied calmly to the policeman.

“U dey craze?” The policeman asked staring angrily at me. “No be u the girl com find? Abi no be u be her next of kin? Contact her parents now or be prepared to take over her parental responsibilities!”

My legs wobbled as the officer made those pronouncements. There were other officers hanging around nearby and they were all fully armed to the teeth.

Fear gripped me and I panicked.

Ijeoma had one very close friend which I happened to have her number due to the fact that she sometimes picked Ijeoma’s call to explain Ijeoma’s whereabout in Ijeoma’s absence. So most atimes if I called and Ijeoma didn’t pick, next thing I did was to call this her friend.

So with the tension mounted on me by the police, I called her and asked her whether she had Ijeoma’s parents’ phone number.

I didn’t tell her that Ijeoma was dead and luckily for me she had the phone number of Ijeoma’s mum which I then gave to the police…