After a twelve-minute break, the train starts chugging along again. Bewon opens his eyes briefly to confirm the motion by staring out of the window. He lets his eyes flit over his fellow passengers, before closing them again. There are three others, two girls seated next to each other, teenagers, dressed up as if going out, and an older man, about fifty, sixty, who chats with them across empty seats.
When the train stops again, one of the girls asks, “Do you think there’s someone on the tracks?” There is worry in her voice. The old man says it happens fairly often, and the girl asks if he has ever seen a dead body. He says a friend of his hanged himself once, and he discovered the body. The second girl pipes up about her mother’s boyfriend who tried to jump on the tracks, but was prevented by police. This apparently did not deter him, and a month later he was found dead near the south ganglion, burned extra crispy. This is supposed to have happened before the Ocampo Inverter station was built over the ganglia. The train starts again.
Bewon stops listening. They announce Kinshasa station, and he gets off, feeling depleted. It’s dark, and for some reason all the taxis and okadas are gone. It’s Saturday night, why would they not be there? Posters of some pop idol in the stadium, which is probably where the kids in the carriage are going, and explains the lack of transport. He decides to walk. He cannot afford a taxi, anyhow. He has returned from a week-long interview in Lagos. Twelve candidates for one job. Travel and accommodation expenses borne by each, money that Bewon can scarcely spare.
A drone descends, checks his ID chip, and buzzes away in less than a minute. Bewon has an impulse to smash the next one he encounters, or smash anything.
He arrives at his flat in a foul mood. The two young men in 16a rush past him on their way out, brushing against his clothes in the narrow corridor. Bewon suspects them to be homosexuals and has half a mind to report them to the authorities, since it is illegal in Nigeria. Bewon does not like to touch the gays. They are filthy, and they love to… flaunt. That’s the word. They flaunt themselves and their filthiness. Bewon will have to do something about them some day. Report them to the authorities. He cannot remember their names, but they smile at him when they are not… flaunting and cavorting. There is a current wanted poster for a practising lesbian that flashes every time he crosses the supermarket threshold. Maybe he should make a poster of these people too.
He opens his flat and stumbles in, barking his shin on a wooden chest that he left in the living room a week ago. He swears, even though he knows he can only blame himself. He kicks the door shut, drops his travelling bag on the chest and flicks the light switch. Nothing happens. He feels his way into the flat and tries another switch. Nothing. He realises he cannot hear the fridge or anything electrical. Is this a blackout, or has his power been cut? He cannot remember if he paid his bill this month. This is infuriating because the government doesn’t pay anything for electricity. The alien provides it. The government just charges to pipe it into each house, and for the power station. Perhaps he can find an illegal tap later.
He goes to the kitchen, thirsty and needing some kind of relief. There is a puddle of discoloured water spreading from the foot of the fridge and a smell of putrefaction. He snatches a tumbler and turns on the tap. Then, in the filtered light from outside, he sees something growing out of the drain.
He leans in.
It is the shoot of a plant, pale green, barely alive, just two leaves adjacent to each other and a third rolled into a point and reaching for the stars.
No. There will be no reaching for stars.
He pinches the stalk between index finger and thumb, and yanks it free. As he drops it into his bin, he thinks it might be a bean stalk from when he last cooked. He thinks he may have washed some before leaving.
By the time he finishes his drink the growth is out of his mind.
Bewon masturbates after he showers. He likes the smell of semen to lull him into a sort of faux post-coital state, as if he has just been with a woman. He had a woman with him once, but she left. She did not understand him. He tells himself that he does not miss her, but on occasion even he knows this is not true.
He spends twenty minutes on the phone to his landlord, arguing about the electricity. He is from Rosewater. He remembers that there were no bills in the early days, just free juice from the ganglion. Damn Ocampo Inverter. It may be two days before Bewon can have power. He sits in the dark wondering how it came to this. He is still thirsty, so he returns to the kitchen, avoiding the fridge. He has a pen torch, but he’ll need stronger light to clean out whatever is rotten.
He stops at the sink again.
The plant is back.
For a minute Bewon thinks it is the same plant and he checks the dustbin to be sure.
“The fuck…”
This one is two or three inches taller than the first, and a darker shade of green. Healthier. That’s the word. A healthier shade of green. He shrugs, reaches to pull it out and yelps when he feels a sharp sting. He cannot see well in the crepuscular light, but he can feel the blood seeping out. He sticks his thumb in his mouth and sucks. He strikes a match and examines it in the flickering light. Not deep. He looks at the drain.
The plant, the new growth, has spines. Like henbane, only thicker, and distributed all over the stem and leaves.
Bewon is puzzled, but he thinks there must be a logical explanation. That weed did not just grow while he was in the bathroom jerking off. It must have coiled up within the U-bend, pressing up against the first plant. When Bewon cut the first plant, the second one unfurled. Unfurled, that was the word. It unfurled and made its way through the drain holes. Without electricity or indeed the will to work, Bewon decides he can wait until morning before removing the U-bend and emptying the crud that is clearly providing nourishment to the bean sprout. Except it no longer looks anything like a bean sprout.
Bewon pulls open a drawer and selects a serrated steak knife. He folds a strip of cardboard and uses it to grasp the stem at a point close to the drain, and he saws it free. The plant comes away easily. He is about to toss it in the bin when he has a different thought. He drops it on the floor and steps on it, twisting his foot as if killing an insect, revenge for the sting. His indoor thong slippers are not hard enough, so he uses the leg of a kitchen chair instead, squashing the plant into a green smear. He scoops the remains up and discards them. He soaks a rag, cleans the floor and throws that away too.
He washes his hands, keeping a close eye on the drain. He leaves the kitchen, but whirls and looks at the sink, sure that something would be there. Nothing. Silly.
He goes to bed. He sleeps fitfully and dreams of metamorphosing into a giant rocketship. He wakes up an hour later, and decides he does not want the rest of the plant in the house, so he takes the trash out—he looks at the sink sixteen times while in the kitchen—and places it in the communal can outside.
Then he goes back to bed and sleeps better.