MIRRORS

The demons in Musa’s head never let him sleep a full night. They have a church bell installed, and a bellringer stationed, right beneath his medulla oblongata, whose sole duty is to ring the bell at every hour during the course of the night. At the third hour after midnight, they take a tour to his intestines and devour whatever food they find there.

Some days, with a stroke of luck, he would turn and go right back to sleep. On such nights as he is not lucky, he would toss and turn, listening to the quiet sound of the night. It was only at such hours he gets to experience the serenity of his room, or shago, which was located just by the roadside attached to his parents’ house. The sound of crickets replacing the persistent baran almajirai, in their pitiful voices begging for just a morsel of food, the swoosh of the wind becomes prominent as the consistent sound of automobiles seize at that hour. The vacant sound of the night was a peaceful replacement of the noise of the First Gate market right outside his room. During the notorious rainy season that Jos is blessed with, he listens to the mating calls of the frogs in the puddles that have formed in the street. It was on such nights he took in his sparsely furnished room with pride. The room he had inherited from his uncle when he had come of age, which had come with only a single bed and a worn out mattress. Over the years he has added his touch to the room. A carpet he enjoyed sitting on to eat, a bedside drawer where he kept his valuables, a loudspeaker he enjoyed blasting to drown out the noise outside or in his head, and his beloved mirror. Of all the things in his room, he loved the half length mirror most. He had acquired it from an elderly man passing through the daɗin kowa First Gate market. Unlike other hawkers that scream “buy this, buy that”, this old man had passed quietly, his back hunched by old age and a large ƙusumbi, holding unto his mirrors as though they were his most prized possessions. The reflection of the fading sunlight bounced off the mirror and caught Musa in the heart, he fell in love right there at first sight. And without much haggling he bought the biggest mirror the man was holding.

“You have an exceptional taste,” the man had beamed, exposing a set of strikingly white teeth. “You've got a good one.” Giving it one last caress before handing it to Musa and pocketing his cash.

And on nights he struck very bad luck with the demons in his head, they host a party, their speakers on full blast echoing through his skull. Once they even had a durbar celebration, the hooves of their horses pounding his cranium. Their nonstop algaita trumpets echoing and bouncing off the walls of his skull and ringing in his ears.

It was on such nights that he got up angrily, searching furiously through his sparsely furnished room with the help of his torchlight phone for panadol. He didn't find it in his bedside drawer. It wasn't in his leather bag hanging on the wall. Neither did he see it in the indomie carton he usually kept by the door. 

If he didn't find it on the mirror, he had resolved to give up his search and bear his cross till the morning came. Because just like the vampires that they are, they disappear and give him peace as soon as the sun graces the eastern sky. 

But just as he passed his hand to search the kit, his reflection caught his attention. His hand had appeared lighter in complexion. When he focused on the mirror image, he realized it was just the reflection of the red flash light of his phone. His eyes were red, which was not surprising, because all that durbar going on in his head was bound to raise such dust that’d cover everything red in its path. His head spinned, causing him to close his eyes for a bit and hold onto the edge of the mirror.

When everything settled, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. It took him a moment to get his orientation. He was standing on the other side of the mirror, looking at his room as though from a window.

He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes to soothe the pain, and massaged his temple, He felt a cool wind across his face, he took a deep breath and looked around. He was outside, in the dark. The fields were endless and the air echoed around him. He turned back and the window/mirror to his room had vanished. He turned back to the vastness of the space he currently occupied. But instead he was in a living room. Children were roaming