By Ifunanya Achimalo
“Thank God it’s Friday,” I thought to myself as I entered my room, worn out by the marathon lecture that had just ended. I sank into my bed wishing I was in a spa about to get a massage, but sadly I was in my room in the school hostel, with tons of assignments that wouldn’t do themselves. The noise in my stomach confirmed what I already knew – I was hungry. I warmed the little soup I had left and made eba. Alice! Alice! My friend, Amaka, pushed open the door. “Alice, you won’t believe what just happened”. She removed her wig and threw it on the table where it landed into my plate of soup. My jaw dropped. She continued, “Joshua just gave me an Iphone 6 and two VIP tickets to the concert tomorrow. One for me and one for you, and he even promised to drive us there and back.”
“Are you kidding me!” Her indifference to my plate of soup was unbelievable. Worse still, she didn’t stop grinning despite the frown on my face. “Do you mean the junkie Joshua or is there another Joshua I don’t know about? I finally said.
“C’mon, don’t call him a junkie. He’s not…” as she rambled on about him I didn’t know whether to get mad at her for ruining my meal or for accepting such an offer from a junkie, one we made fun of occasionally. Either way, I was too hungry and tired to argue with her.
“You know I don’t trust anything that comes from junkies,” I said to her.
“Alice relax, he’s not as bad as we thought, and we both know how much you really want to attend this concert.” The latter was true, I had been talking about the concert for a week, and here I was with a free VIP ticket to attend it with my closest friend.
“How bad can it be?” I thought to myself. “Fine, we will go to the concert with Joshua,” I said reluctantly.
“Yes!” Amaka jumped and hugged me. “Just look what your soup did to my wig,” she said as she stomped out of my room with her wig dripping soup.
It was Saturday, the day of the concert, I wore my best outfit and was ready to watch live performances by musicians I loved. Joshua drove us to the place and it felt like the whole world was there for the concert. We made our way to the VIP section which had guards standing at different spots. I turned to the stage and saw 2face getting ready to entertain us. After 2face’s performance Joshua asked us to follow him to meet him backstage. We were so excited that we were going to meet a big star. As we walked through the corridor leading to the rooms where the entertainers were, four tall macho men appeared in front of us, stopping us from going any further. They all wore security uniforms complete with tasers , pistols, and their mean looking faces. “I am here for the exchange,” Joshua said to them as he pointed towards me and Amaka with a cruel smile on his face. The macho men smiled. A particularly huge one grabbed Alice and me by our arms, and another handed Joshua a black bag. My hatred for Joshua soared to new heights. They used a taser to immobilize Amaka as I watched in disbelief. “Had I known, I would’ve have trusted my instincts,” I thought to myself as the shock from the taser ran through my bones.
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