A Butcher in the Rain

The perfect storm.

The stories say it wasn’t always like this. They say the end of the world wasn’t sudden. It was a culmination of easily preventable events. In the end, the world came to its knees because of human greed and nothing else.

First was the virus, it was sudden and devastating. We would have hoped we had learned lessons from earlier pandemics but humanity was nothing if not consistent in stupidity, and the virus was like nothing we ever dealt with before. It was crippling, affecting both plant and animal life and the warning signs were there. The scientists asked for the halting of transportation but that would mean the halt of trade in a world that was unavoidably interconnected. So, even in the face of overwhelming odds, the greed of humans trumped everything.

When the realisation of the intensity of the virus came into full view, it was too late. All reactionary measures were futile and in a matter of months, widespread death and the breakdown of human society followed.

Then came the erasure of law and order. In Nigeria, the greed of our leaders meant that we fought over basic resources. Showing a barbarity that lay dormant in our genes from pre-industrialised eras of civilisation. We quickly descended into anarchy as scarcity and death brought out the worst of us.

They say the end of the world wasn’t sudden, No. It was a culmination of easily preventable events.

A better time.

My father’s father hated being called ‘grandfather’.

“It makes me feel old.”

he’d say, as the lines etched by time distorted his face. So we called him Yakub Pa while we sat him down around the fire, coaxing him with another round of roasted cockroaches in exchange for a story. A story about better times, a story about when the coal-covered streets strewn with semi-decaying corpses were not the norm. A story about the times when the peace of the morning skies were not disrupted with sirens. He joyfully obliged, and while the sound of an exoskeleton being crunched between his yellowing teeth echoed, he began. By the flickering fire, his voice, a balm against our harsh reality, painted vivid pictures: giant machines soaring through the air, magical devices allowing distant voices to travel on invisible waves. He spoke of abundant treasures, of eating mythological animals like chickens and cows whose flesh gave nourishment. He described a magical era where a man in Kano could speak to another in Abuja, where information and voices traveled on the air. These stories, from our current reality, seemed implausible at best. Mere tales for children. Yet, we listened every time as if it were the first, because they always served as an escape from our harsh reality, even if only momentarily.

The reality now was the colony, brutal and scarce. But as I knelt with a dead man’s throat in my hands, I couldn’t help but think of Yakub Pa’s words, desperately hoping they could still grant me an escape.

The colony’s rhythm.

The rain fell gently, as though the clouds were a scared child holding back tears. It fell in tentative drops, wetting us nonetheless. I glimpsed around and took in the environment I had become fairly familiar with: the middle of a circle of men. Men who stared at me with an insatiable hunger. Men whose eyes were starving for an escape from tedious lives, from wives and homes, from the responsibilities that weighed them. I served them that escape.

Sadiq walked around collecting bets. His white kaftan had the yellowish shade that accompanies overwear, but he walked with a certain swagger, the type of swagger that comes with the entitlement of power. He owned all the fighters. He groomed us from our ghettos and never hesitated to remind us who was in charge. Like a farmer keeping weeds in check, Sadiq treated our egos. He had to. If we dared to believe we were more than just his tools, if we imagined a life where we didn’t kneel to him, the illusion of his control would shatter. In this brutal world, control was everything. He couldn’t afford for us to grow too confident, too independent. He controlled the food supply in the colony; that meant he controlled life itself.

I hated Sadiq. I hated that he made us do so much for so little. Hated that he treated us unfairly. Morality, I learned, was a privilege.

Fights were organized every week. They had grown to be the most looked-forward-to thing in our colony. Suffocated by depravity and poverty, the allure of violence was enticing, drawing the men of the colony out in hordes. Sadiq reveled in the importance. He was the most crooked man I had ever met, a man who had gotten to the top by taking advantage of the worst human tendencies. I had grown to hate and respect him at the same time. I hated that he took advantage of us and got away with it. We did all his dirty work, after all, and at the end of the day, we left with the scraps he deemed us fit to have. The money we got was barely enough to get by, but he knew we had no choice. He knew it by the look on his face when he sneered at us, “Leave nah, dey do like say you get where you dey go.”

But I had to respect him. It took a man of considerable wisdom to take advantage of the environment we were in, and this was where he thrived. He was able to exploit the most base human tendencies and twist them, shaping us all into something lesser. He knew our hunger, our fear, our innate desire to survive at any cost. He made us believe that becoming monsters was not just necessary, but a twisted form of virtue in our current reality. The colony itself was a reflection of Sadiq’s will, a place where the lines between right and wrong blurred until they vanished entirely. We were all complicit, forced to play our part in his gruesome theatre where he controlled resource and behaviour.

Survival.

At the other end of the circle stood my opponent, Dauda. He glared at me with eyes full of hatred, and how could he not? I stood in the way of his livelihood, after all. But one of us had to survive, and it had to be me. Kubaka was the name of our combat.

In the moments before we began, all I could do was overthink, chew on all the reasons why I had to stand here and subject myself to this. Ma always told me to hold close to my humanity. Bless her, she always believed the best in people. Part of me was happy her death meant she wasn’t here to witness her boy turning into a monster. Even I barely knew myself anymore.

Morality is a privilege.

“Man is drawn between two extremes. God and animal. The animal worships his desires and vices, holding them high above anything else. The animal venerates his vices when they call — desperate, pathetic, easily manipulated and used. The God resists all vices which call to him, thus elevating himself to a status unknown by other men. Ordinary men think the God is special and hold him to some sort of divinity, as that is the only way they can rationalize the virtue shown. Animal worships. A God doesn’t, for the God is to be worshipped.”

I heard my father’s words as I stood scared, to remember why I couldn’t give in. To give in to fear was to worship my vices. To give in to fear was to betray myself. If the fight ended too quickly, I wouldn’t get paid, and my family would starve. Dauda threw a punch. I could tell from his stance he was inexperienced. More dangerous than his inexperience, he was overconfident. He had underestimated me. He was willing to take risks and would sooner or later make mistakes. I can’t worship my vices, I can’t obey the call which so desperately yearns for me to throw myself into combat. I have to make this look competitive.

I moved back inches away as droplets of rain, following the path of a left hook, caressed my face ever so gently. He followed with another, a straight right, enraged that he missed. I could see it from a mile away, but I wouldn’t move. I couldn’t move. I had to make this look competitive. The bones of his knuckles landed flush on my face, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. As I stumbled backwards, I saw him smirk. The crowd roared, excited by the carnage. Get more excited, get more confident. He stepped closer, and I could see the excitement seeping from his body. Another punch. This time on the body, followed by a kick to the head. Even though I allowed this, I wasn’t prevented from feeling the onset of a concussion. I was dazed. Maybe now this could be competitive.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Sadiq moving around the circle, rousing up the crowd and accumulating his earnings. Dauda landed another punch, this time straight to the temple, and now I fell to my knees, dazed and bloodied. Now I could fight.

The crowd was borderline uncontrollable now. They screamed for blood, they screamed for the end. Sadiq taunted them, encouraging them to bet against me. One would be foolish not to. Bets passed hands, and I was down now.

Dauda came in for what he expected to be the finish. A punch. Inexperienced and excited. I wove under his punch and hit him on the liver, freezing the blood to his stomach, following through with a hook on the temple so he lost balance. Enraged, he stepped forward, determined and off balance. He tried to get a strike while he stumbled. I stepped aside and followed with another uppercut to his jaw. He dropped unconscious. Three punches were all it took.

The crowd was silent. I could see the once excited faces turn sour, their bloodlust unsatiated. Sadiq smirked, but his eyes, sharp even from a distance, flicked a command. An unconscious opponent wasn’t enough for the crowd, or for Sadiq. Not today.

A low murmur rippled through the onlookers, then a chant began to build: “Kill am! Kill am!” It wasn’t about winning anymore, but about sacrifice, about the ultimate release they craved. I stood over Dauda, his body limp and vulnerable as the rain washed streaks of blood from his face. My stomach turned. It didn’t matter how many times I had done this, It always seemed so needless; so wasteful. But the alternative was unthinkable: no payment, no food, and the chilling certainty of Sadiq’s displeasure.

My legs moved, heavy with a new kind of dread. As I knelt beside Dauda, the roar of the crowd filling my ears, drowning out my conscience. Sadiq came up to me. His face hovering inches to mine. His breath stunk of rich tobacco. Its sweetness hanging to his breath like a reminder that while we fought to the death for scraps, he could afford a luxury we would never know.

He murmured “E be like say you never ready chop this week”. My hands, still stinging from the fight, closed around Dauda’s throat. His skin was warm beneath my fingers, the pulse a faint, fluttering rhythm. I squeezed, forcing the air from his lungs, watching the determination in his eyes slowly turn into helplessness. As his dreams, desires, and hopes turned into his last gasps of precious oxygen, I felt a part of myself wither and die alongside him.

The crowd erupted, a ravenous beast finally fed and all I could think was how tobacco smelt like power. Sadiq’s smile stretched, a predatory gleam in his eyes. Another lamb sent to the slaughter. While I stood, his indifferent butcher. I was glad the rain fell, helping to hide my tears