The Horror Of The Shores Behind

It had been a long dreary day. As usual, work was tiresome yet fun; loud house music, rainbow lights and sometimes, drag queens. Throw in a bunch of hunks and you have the setting. Me? I’m the guy making the cocktails and flirting unabashedly whilst doing so. I love my job. It pays the bills whilst I’m pursuing my dreams. I get to enjoy the admiring and sometimes not-so-subtle advances of strangers. It’s divine.

Worried about my insomnia kicking in before I got a chance to rest my weary bones, I’d popped a couple of organic, natural sleeping aid tablets a couple of hours earlier.

On the bus ride home, I read the update on the Owode 42 and the latest dramatic turn of events.

Nigeria, I sighed.

I soon got home, stripped, hung my day’s wear on my clothes hanger and settled naked into bed. Normal routine observed, La La Land.

It was bright and sunny. My long ombré-blond hair was even longer, almost mid-back length with shaved sides. My body was beautifully toned, skin aglow, if I do say so myself. I had on a pair of ripped blue jean shorts and a risqué sleeveless tank top. My footwear was trainers, croc skin leather trainers.

Looking this good, I stepped through the door at Muritala Muhammad Airport and got hit with such a gust of hot air, I felt like I had stepped into a grill.

My little sister dashed toward me the moment she spotted me. My god, she had matured since I last saw her. She was picking me up from the airport so that she could fill me in on all the latest juicy bits of gossip about home. We’ve always been close like that.

However, there was a look on her face that scared me. Her Oakwood-brown eyes had a sense of urgency in them as she pulled me to the side of the vast building and told me to start deleting all evidences of my sexuality from my phone, as the Nigerian government had mandated that everybody in the country be subjected to random checks, and sexual deviants were being shipped off to concentration camps.

I had an instant panic attack. My phone is the den of iniquities.

Just as I was about to unlock my phone, my Grindr app blew up with notifications.

I froze. I felt the air around me expand and contract at the same time, sending bolts of electricity throughout my entire body.

Enough to jolt me awake.

I looked around the room I had gone to sleep in and whispered a heartfelt “thank you” to whatever god was listening. Thankful for having left the shores of that zoo and hopeful for those still trapped there.

Written by Deviantus