Agent’s Diary: My worst nightmare

Our second story in a long series of Agent’s diary dwells on the private life of a Real estate agent who happens to come from a very wealthy home. This is a sojourn into the personal life of arguably the youngest and one of the most talked about agent in Lekki; Kunle Irepodun (real names withheld). We decided to share his story not only because we feel it’s consequential to the said agent but because he is one of our faithfuls.

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In this diary he reveals his persona, life’s struggle, family ties and is struggle for prominence in his real estate job in a society that thinks less of him. He shares with us his innermost secrets. Agent Kunle as he calls himself stumbled on our site a year ago and decided that this is the best platform to publish the diary he has been keeping since 2011. These are private accounts but he doesn’t mind sharing, he was going to dispose it anyways.

Today’s story is titled; My worst nightmare, a sequel to strange cries in the basement.

Continued from last week…Read previous episode by clicking here

I woke up with a start!

My facial epidermal layers had dirty salty water gushing from its pores yet the air-conditioner had been working beyond its capacity even the binatone standing fan was struggling for recognition.

“How long had I been sleeping? Wait a minute! Did I really see a bush baby crying in my dreams?” I helplessly allowed my mind engage itself in a discourse.

And to think it wasn’t 7pm yet.

“What’s up with me and these strange afternoon dreams?”

I always had a fitful sleep whenever I can’t comprehend my dreams. This time around I couldn’t just believe I would find that creature of my childhood fantasies in my dream. I heard the scary myth of the bush baby when I was only a kid and I had almost forgotten about it till the creature appeared in my dream. They say dreams sometimes are exaggerated scenes from your thoughts and activities or encounters during the day but my day only started some hours ago and there was no way I would have been thinking about something I had long forgotten even the benefactress of the bush baby story answered the final summons some two years ago, so where did this strange baby in the basement emanate from?

Aunty Sekinat as she is fondly called, always made it a point of duty to scare me every night for three years with several spooky urban legends like the legend of madam koi koi, Wiliwili, Abiku, Eiye Jomijoke and of course the Adventure of Sassakusa –the bush baby. Those were the horror stories that beleaguered my dreams and imaginations as early as my ninth birthday and spanned till my teenage years but the one that intrigued me most was the adventures of Sassakusa-the bush baby.

Aunty Sekinat once told me of how untrue she felt the story about the bush baby was until her boyfriend had a private encounter with the creature in the woods of Gedegede in Akoko, Ondo state, while she stood a witness. That encounter not only ended her boyfriend’s life but also drew the curtains on the adventures of Sassakusa – the bush baby, but the tales live on.

Sassakusa had been terrorizing the peace of inhabitants of Gedegede for donkey years especially maidens that went to the stream to draw water in the early hours of the morning and children too. Jumping from trees, leaping out of the woods and nearby forest and crying like a baby to appeal to the emotions of would-be victims, was his trademark, hence the name bush baby. He adopted these exercises to attack unsuspecting victims though he never attacked men; Sassakusa was only a beast-like baby with dreadful teeth who happen to live in the woods, a full grown boy or man will be too much a conquest

In that community, they had been several kidnap cases involving children, worse still toddlers and newly born babies. Sometimes a mother wakes up to find the dead remains of her baby with fragile bones exposed amid mangled flesh emersed in a pool of blood. There have also been cases where the midget size frightful creature attacked maidens on their way to the village stream ripping their clothes apart just to view their nakedness. The half human-half animal creature had a weird obsession for pretty girls though Aunty Sekinat never told me how far he went with his sport.

Aunty Sekinat never-ending tales plagued my senses with a full dose of the adventures of Sassakusa in Gedegede land where she was born and bred.

There were also instances when women take to the market and men commit themselves to drowning their senses in gourds of fresh palm wine. The frightful miniature creature with eyes four-times the size of an average human eye, would steal into their homes and abduct their babies. Folks return home to find their children missing while the men scurry out into the village square bearing gongs and bells and simultaneously striking and ringing their instrument of communication as they troop into the woods; sassakusa’s comfort zone. They do this in the hope that he would return the children. It is the general belief that noise irritates Sassakusa except that which is produced when he sheds his crocodile tears.

Albeit, Sassakussa returns some of the babies he adopts only after they’ve served as his personal pets or dolls. He does this by teleporting the unfortunate baby into the basket the parents take to the farm. However, it leaves a bite mark on the child’s neck as a sign that the child will never suffer an abduction again.

Sassakusa was always sited with a raffia mat he kept around his shoulders, an item that never left his sight; if he loses it and fails to recover  it in seven days, it would mean the death of him. It was rumoured that anyone who was brave enough to snatch the mat from him would be wealthy beyond human comprehension, that’s after he must have scaled through seven days of hardship and torment from the bush baby who would try by all means to recover his most prized possession.

This myth about Sassakussa’s mat drove Tolani, Aunty sekinat’s stupid boyfriend of blessed memory to do the unthinkable. The youths of Gedegede community were having fun in the village square just under shades formed by a cluster of palm trees. The boys played a game of ‘ayo’, the girls did suwe, with the more advanced ladies swirling their  waist and moving their feet in a way that was suggestive of a bata dance to the rhythmic thumping of the bata drums of the Awotemi band. They indulged in these activities to buy time while they awaited the icing on the cake for the night; the moonlight tales of Mama Suliat.

Aunty Sekinat and Tolani had sneaked away from the euphoric convergence into the nearby woods unnoticed. Their plan was to have quick rendezvous before the night’s moonlight tales began, unfortanately they chose the wrong spot. The cashew tree that served as roosting place for their supposed sinful act was sassakusa’s interim Jacuzzi for the night

“Though my environment was almost pitch dark, the moonlight was enough to make out a shape; a beast like form of some sort yet of midget size was resting on one of the tree’s branch. I let out a distorted yell amid Tolani’s lecherous embrace, just as Sassakusa jumped down with his raffia mat. I was encountering the much talked about bush baby point blank. A cloud of hysteria enveloped my entire being as dreadful thoughts began to race through my weakened mind. Would I be the next meal of this terrifying creature that cries like my sister’s new born baby?”, Aunty Sekinat, pondered.

While Aunty Sekinat took to her heels in fright, Tolani charged at Sassakussa with only one thing on his mind; the raffia mat. Though Tolani survived the onslaught that ensued and came out of the woods with Sassakusa’s precious raffia mat, he didn’t scale through the seven day hurdle to a life of affluence. Tolani died on the sixth day under mysterious circumstances while Sassakusa and his raffia mat were never seen again.

A newsflash on Channels TV brought me back out of my reverie…

“A man in his 60’s who is believed to be one of the top shots in Lekki has been reported dead. The man who is believed to be a real estate tycoon died moments after he was felled by stray bullets from the riffle of a trigger happy policeman,” the sonorous voice of the reporter interrupted my imagination’s wild trip to Gedegede land.

If that reporter was on point with her story then the Irepodun family had just lost their jewel and if I thought the appearance of the bush baby was my worst nightmare, my father’s death had debunked that

My worst fears gnawed at me as a mugshot of my old-man appeared on the screen before.

I must have been lost in a trance while staring painstakingly at the pretty harbinger of bad news on TV as her sonorous voice went adrift amidst my imperceptible thoughts.

To be continued next week…