{"id":1244,"date":"2016-10-28T22:50:23","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T22:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adauzoije.com\/?p=1244"},"modified":"2016-10-28T23:30:16","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T23:30:16","slug":"the-thing-on-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/?p=1244","title":{"rendered":"The Thing on the Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Ada Uzoije<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something on my road, but I don\u2019t know what it is.\u201d<\/strong> <\/span>I glazed through the little opening of my curtain to evade being seen. The nearest street light was far away from it, so I was unable to see the whole of it. From the little I could see, the thing on the road had an unfamiliar shape, which I couldn\u2019t describe. The thing on the road was incredible tall, naked as in flesh but, that thing is not human! I sensed something sinister! I recently moved into this third floor apartment in a rundown town with no community spirit. This town is full of noise and littering at every corner of the streets. Somehow, the noise does divert me from thinking deeply about my situation. The voice of the vehicles and pedestrians remind me that I am not alone, thus serve as my night nurse to a good night\u2019s sleep. But, tonight I was unable to sleep. I just woke up a few minutes ago at 1:45am, because something in my head told me to, \u201cLook through the window<\/em>\u201d<\/span>. And I obeyed this voice. That was the worst mistake I made since two months ago, when my long-term fianc\u00e9e found out that am a regular at the local brothel. She dumped me and threw me out of our 3-bedroom beautiful home. Now, I am living in this tiny studio. I am still paying the mortgage for our home and maintenance allowance to our 5 years old twins. I\u2019m very bitter about my life, but I will never apologize to her.<\/p>\n

I am a 27 year-old handsome young man, who thinks life is for living. My name is Boris, but the ladies call me \u2018Hunk\u2019. My fianc\u00e9e says I am an idiot not a hunk; she is so cruel. I still love her \u2013 the mother of my children. Still staring from my window, holding the curtain with my right hand, I noticed the thing on the road had remained still in the exact spot since I had been watching. It\u2019s has been looking straight at one direction and had not stir. Its presence was undeniable creepy and I marvelled on why the few passing vehicles and pedestrians had not noticed it? Then, \u2018Bang! Bang! Bang!\u2019<\/em><\/span> the sudden loud bang made my heart jump. I was quickly distracted from the window and saw myself staring at my room\u2019s greenish door. I disliked the green colour; it makes the room uninviting. I was going to repaint the door with white but kept forgetting to buy the paint. The knocks were getting louder; I decided to investigate but couldn\u2019t help discern, \u2018Who is knocking on my door at this hour<\/em>?\u2019<\/span> My feet started wiggling as I felt some rush of sweat battling to explode from within. I wiped the moisture from my forehead with my hand, but that didn\u2019t stop more from exploding. I took four steps forward and inspected my reflection in the wall mirror facing me. My six-packed stomach made me look tough. The truth was bitter; I am tough from the outside but weak from within. If it were armed robbers behind my door, I was so finished. I am better off practicing playing dead.<\/p>\n

I looked through my door\u2019s magnifier hole and saw the landlady with two policemen standing outside. \u201cOpen the door, Boris,\u201d my landlady shouted. I knew she had heard movement in my room, so I opened the door immediately. The two officers greeted me with an amusing smile, and I suddenly knew why, when my landlady said in disgust, \u201cPut some proper clothing on.\u201d\u00a0 I felt embarrassed, rushed back into my room, banging the door behind. I quickly wore light red jeans and a white shirt. When I returned back outside, my landlady had left, and it was just the two officers. This time around, my confidence quickly surfaced as I led the conversation, \u201cHave I committed a crime?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am Jake and this is my partner\u2026\u201d Jake pointed to his colleague, who appeared to disliked me \u201c\u2026Derek. You are Boris?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

I paused for a second with annoyance. The officers are pissing me off by not replying to my question, so I replied, \u201cThat will be me. Are you here to arrest me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Sir! We need you to come with us outside the building.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not coming with you!\u201d I leaned back at the door and watched the officers thinking of their next move.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just recovered a stolen car, which is registered under your name,\u201d said Jake<\/p>\n

\u201cMy car was stolen?\u201d My faced puzzled with denial, as I couldn\u2019t believe the car I parked on my road 4 hours ago had been stolen.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you coming?\u201d Derek asked with authority. I hated policemen like him, rude and lacking manners. I ignored him and paid attention to Jake, who had more interesting thing to say, \u201cWe recovered a red ford mustang 2015 number plate. Is that your car?\u201d Jake asked, but immediately started coughing.<\/p>\n

I ignored Jake\u2019s cough and replied, \u201cThat\u2019s my car! Are there any scratches on it? I\u2019ve got to ring my insurance.\u201d I was about to open my door to obtain my phone when I got interrupted by the ugly Derek, \u201cWe\u2019re very busy, and we need to go now.\u201d I decided not to argue but to agree with Derek, so I made my way downstairs while the officers escorted me from behind.<\/p>\n

The outside of my apartment was unusually quiet. There was no sense of life, apart from us and the echoes from the fried chicken and chips shop at the other side of the road. The police officers had now crossed over to the other side of the road where they parked my car. They waited for me, but I hesitated when I remembered the thing on the road. I looked at both sides of the road, but I spotted no presence of the thing. \u2018It\u2019s probably the stress of living in this dreadful neighbourhood<\/em>,\u2019<\/span> I assured my mind while crossing the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you got an ID with you?\u201d Derek asked, holding my car\u2019s key.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes!\u201d I dipped inside my trousers\u2019 pocket and emerged with a brown wallet that carries my photo driving licence. I handed my licence to Derek, who made a mockery of my appearance. \u201cYou look so thin in this photo,\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n

I hated Derek more and glanced at Jake to rescue me from his dreadful colleague. Jake seemed to like me, as he eye signalled to Derek to wrap it up. I received my car\u2019s key and quickly checked the inside of my car; nothing was stolen or broken, and there were no scratches. I was very happy. \u201cDid you arrest the guy that stole my car?\u201d I asked Jake.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, he died in the driver\u2019s seat from reason we don\u2019t know. We have to wait for the autopsy result.\u201d Jake replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s terrible!\u201d I pretended to care.<\/p>\n

Derek was getting ready to walk off, but then turned round and said, \u201cI would get a cheaper car if I was you; less trouble living in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay!\u201d I said with a clear facial expression that meant \u2018Mind your business!\u2019<\/p>\n

The officers made their way to their car and drove away. I was alone. I locked my car and walked to the main entrance door of my apartment. I inserted my key into the door\u2019s knob and twisted it clockwise. An unexpected sound of an opening car door vibrated inside my ears, I looked back, and it was my car! The thing on the road was opening my car door. The thing had no face and in realisation of this finding, I screamed. The thing turned around and looked at me with an unspeakable evil. I screamed again and the thing rushed toward me. I shivered with the greatest fear I had never experienced before. Then unexpectedly, the laugher of three teenagers emerging from the chicken and chips shop walking towards my car distracted the thing as it hissed at me and flew back into my car. The thing sat motionless in my driver\u2019s seat but left the door wide open. I saw this as my opportunity to escape, so I concentrated on opening the main door, but in panic, my keys fell on the ground. As I picked it up, I overheard the conversation between the teenagers.\u00a0 \u201cThe car door is open!\u201d shouted one of the teens approaching it. The others followed her behind. \u201cI bet the owner was drunk and forgot to lock it,\u201d said the tallest of them. Confusion struck me when I questioned why the teens were blind to seeing the thing still sitting on my driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

Two of the teens sat in the back seat, and I overheard the one sitting on the driver\u2019s seat saying, \u201cThe stupid guy left his car key in the ignition.\u201d They all busted in laughter and made more stupid remarks about my foolishness, but if only they knew they were the stupid ones that couldn\u2019t see. \u201cMy car spare key was upstairs!\u201d I was very sure. I stared in dismay at the creepy thing in the car that didn\u2019t stir or move whilst the driver sat on it. I held my car key to my chin as my car slowly disappeared in the distance. My gut was telling me, \u2018I\u2019m next\u2019<\/em>.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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                By Ada Uzoije \u201cThere is something on my road, but I don\u2019t know what it is.\u201d I glazed through the little opening of my curtain to evade being seen. The nearest street light was far away from it, so I was unable to see the whole of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crazy-ada"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/The-Thing-on-the-Road-copy-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1244"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1489,"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/revisions\/1489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adauzoije.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}