The yellow cab drove to a stop before Oakmore wellness centre. Once again she reprimanded herself for wearing a turtleneck in this heat, she was boiling on the inside the sweltering cab. The sun over her was unforgiving, sweat beaded her hair line, her face was damp ruining her makeup, she could feel her armpits dripping wet, thank God the fabric was pitch black. It was freezing this morning, besides the library had proper air conditioning, she just didn't factor in her last minute decision to try traditional Chinese medicine.

Not even the air conditioning in the elevator gave her reprieve until she got to the lounge of the acupuncture wing on the third floor. The secretary confirmed her appointment and told her to wait a little for the acupuncture practitioner. Naomi sighed settling her back against the sofa relishing the coolness and soothing music. The lounge had this monsoon rainforest theme, green cushy sofa, bamboo murals and oriental paintings. Potted flowers in ikebana arrangement placed close to the large window, the thin partitions and colourful ceiling that makes her think of pagodas. Are pagodas Chinese or Japanese? She didn't know. Maybe both.

She readjusted her back as she felt the little biting icicle of pain in her lower back. It was a good chronic back pain day when all she feels is this dull hot pinch just down there in her spine, pulsing, and waiting, like a beast of the night patient till the right moment comes to pounce. It could go like this for days, only to torment her again.

She thought of taking two 400mg Ibuprofen rattling in its plastic container in her purse but decided against it. She dragged a fluffy white rest from the nearest sofa and placed it beneath her lower back, the pain was better.

A stack of lifestyle and wellness magazines laid in stacks on a nearby shelf beside which some tall dumb cane plant floundered in the gentle breeze. She picked one that had the picture of Ini Edo at the back, she turned over to the page that detailed the celebrity's new political appointment. Naomi read a quote on the page to herself and wondered how true such things are to people like her. Not every woman is blessed with great facial symmetry and hour glass body to match, not all women could afford that. But a bit of something the celebrity said about hard work rang true; Naomi thought back on her career and wondered if she could rightly blame her weight for how slow and unfulfilling it was, or her look, her half burnt face?

Perhaps she could try the silhouette challenge on twitter, see how the world still viewed someone her size. She'd flaunt her not so impressive waist hip ratio, and spend the rest of the night nursing her rebellious back that wouldn't let her stick to any feasible exercise routine. The thoughts made some craving crowd up at the back of her tongue. She reached for the chip in her purse felt the inscription 'two years sober' and reminded herself of how far she'd come, she had a stable job though it paid rather measly, no relationship in sight yes but it was a work in progress, an independent productive citizen, there was much to be proud of.

She distracted herself from the nihilistic direction her thoughts went, and focused on the Pilates instructors on the wide LCD screen. A man in his mid-twenties perhaps, lithe, moving gracefully alongside a woman in crop top and leggings explaining the moves and the theories beside them. If Naomi had a type, she was yet to establish that, or still hoped she hadn't, her last boyfriend two years ago was bad news, a drug dealer, herself a drunk, a horrible abusive relationship that pushed her farther into the bottle till he got nabbed and found herself at rock-bottom homeless in the streets of Lagos.

Thankfully the assistant came over with a ceramic tray holding china cups and a kettle. She poured her some tea and placed some fresh leaf into it. she was carried away by the whole curious oriental hospitality that she didn't think of saying no. The content, teal tint, clear liquid, smelt like mint, and when she sipped it tasted of ginger, a hint of honey. She thought she could taste chamomile or turmeric and some taste she couldn't place a finger on. Naomi had tried weight loss teas, but nothing quite like this. a part of her wondered if it was laced, but she was certain that this is not the kind of place things like that happens, it was just tea. Some weird nice tasting tea.

Finally the therapist, who introduced herself as Miss Lee was ready to see her. Naomi realized this was the same woman in the Pilates video. She had this smile, and a way with her eyes that tells you you could trust her, she nods when Noami speaks, waits for her to finish before she talks again. Classical shrink, like the one that had recommended the whole TCM thing to her when her back pain defied orthopaedic and psychiatric intervention. Naomi wondered whatever is next should this fail, would she live with the pain, or move from one prayer house to the next hoping someday a miracle would occur and make her life right. Even with the little stress of the day she could feel the pain coming to life, reaching a vertebra higher. Her eyes hurt and she was sure if she continued to answer the woman's questions about her history she'd shed tears at some point and she'd feel embarrassed.

Yesterday's pain was worst she'd had in the last couple of months, she told Miss Lee, who Naomi guessed would be somewhere in her late forties, spotting a perfect slim stature and a short salt and pepper bob framing her aquiline face. her hair was dried pitch black in the video, Naomi later recalled.

She tried to distract herself in the intermissions where Miss Lee explains things or asks questions, that way when she answer, she could convince herself that she was talking about someone else, some stranger still in the waiting room, thinking not so decent thoughts about a hot guy on TV the kind her species are forever invincible to. Naomi however, could help being caught up by the event of the previous night when she had stayed over the toilet seat throwing sic, while her waist felt like it was on fire, every nerve in there is firing alive eating her inside, a million claws scaling her spine, crippling her. She didn't leave out how a near overdose of ibuprofen couldn't put a dent on the pain, and ask if Miss Lee was sure this could work.

"You sound like you've tried everything, most things. Acupuncture in not an exact science, but the proof of its effectiveness is irrefutable. I have helped people with cases like yours and improved their quality of life." Not much pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. Naomi thought. Here goes my money.

Miss Lee might just be Naomi favourite person of the day if this works. It wasn't lost to her that there was no yes in the woman's answer, no promises, just hope. Naomi had paid through her nose to get here, she figured she couldn't even dream of reimbursement as the advert claimed (even if that couldn't be true) if she didn't give it a try. Once more, she tried to cling to hope.

"Are you scared of needles?"

Naomi felt goose bumps on both her arms and back, she shook her head. She was once scared of needles, but that was long ago, that girl had a perfect face, a family, innocence. Naomi had neither, just her pain, and her misery.

The room was no different from a massage parlour, nothing mystical, just plain therapy. Gentle music played, a teeming aquarium stood at the corner of the room, few colourful fish going about their day, bubbles endlessly rising to the top.

It began. A soft table beneath her bare stomach, her hair pulled for proper view of her spine. The first needle came somewhere between her neck and shoulder, it wasn't painful, it was just a tap, she could feel the needle shake when she makes a slight movement, more like feeling a minuscule tug. But that was it. "Our body is a full of energy, the sort that can misalign and give rise to symptoms." Miss Lee had explained, "acupuncture is a method that seeks to realign these energies and cure symptoms like your back pain."

Somewhere between the first and last needle, the soothing violin that played in the background grew into an echo, and she was staring at fire and blood, and she could see herself trapped in a pool of her own blood staring at the flames rising, roasting her parents alive. She heard Miss Lee telling her to lay still, a voice muffled. Naomi's breath echoed back and forth in ears, in her eyes she saw the white ceiling of a familiar ward, and how her body smelt like barbecue. A blurred face, that turns out to be a nurse telling her how lucky she was to have survived, lying that her parents were fine, and for few moments she had believed.

If Naomi was certain that Miss Lee didn't put a hallucinogenic in the tea, the thought was out the window when slowly the surrounding changed. She wasn't in the acupuncture room, or the scene of the explosion, or a hospital. She was staring at this wide river, the moon gleamed overhead, the water gently lapped at her legs, just at the right temperature, she realized with a start that she was naked, devoid of her towel and bra, though there was no one around, She felt uncomfortable, she cupped her breath with both hands and stepped into the river. It would cover her, she thought, hide her. From whom? She didn't even think of looking around. Perhaps, couldn't. In a moment it was waist deep, in another she was leaning back and slowly her legs remembered old ways in the swim team, the water covered her, hiding her from whoever might pass by, she emerged with a gasp, afloat, staring at the moon. The moon on her body, on the water, on the gentle river surrounded by reeds. Reeds?

Fire glowed on two marble stands by the stairs she had descended into the river. Someone stood between, the same spot she must have stood, a silhouette against a red background. Naomi thought of the twitter challenge. The woman was her, she realized, she moved in ways Naomi could only dream of, the closer she stepped towards the water, the more unlike Naomi she looked, her form resolving into a perfect hour glass, her perfect chocolate skin gleaming in the light of the moon and torches. Naomi felt frozen in the water watching this other stranger approach till she could see her face, but it wasn't Naomi's face, it was but it wasn't. Naomi's face was half burnt, this is who she could have been, if she never had the unfortunate accident, she realized.

He eyes opened only to be blurred by tears, she felt the board soaked underneath her, slowly her surrounding reminded her of where she was, she heard the door open and soon Miss Lee removed the needles. She changed, and soon sat opposite Miss Lee who offered her another cup of tea.

"what's in the tea?" Naomi asked, after the woman gave her a slip stating her next appointment.

"Nothing, just chamomile tea with few extra ingredient, my personal recipe, nothing mind altering I assure you." She said.

"I had the weirdest dream." She tried to smile so as not to sound like she believed it was anything more than a dream.

"Memories?"

"Partly."

Miss Lee explained that though it wasn't common, acupuncture in places that had experience trauma might cause vivid memories of the time it happened. "It's rare, but it happens." She repeated herself.

"Next week right?" Naomi asked.

The woman nodded.

She took a sip of the tea.

On her way out she took a detour to the ladies' room and adjusted her make up. her phone buzzed in her purse and wondered for how long that had been going on when she saw the name of the caller. She was late. She took an hour leave, it was barely an hour yet and someone was already having trouble accessing the ever crashing server Naomi kept writing to library management about.

"Keep dreaming, keep praying, invest in yourself. So when an opportunity shows up, you should be prepared." She told herself in the mirror, in a laughable British accent. Quoting Ini Edo from the magazine. She moved her hair to cover the wrong side of her face, closed her eyes and played pretend that she couldn't see the scars that was well hidden beneath makeup, that she was Ini Edo with the perfect face and perfect body.

The Cab was near the Tafawa Balewa Library Abuja, when she noticed the unusual calm in her lower back. Could it be working? Sure, she had felt better, she had told Miss Lee, but this was something else, could it...

"We are here." the Driver said as he pulled up just past the gate. "You don't happen to be related to Ini Edo, sister, you look a lot like her, your face." the woman said before driving off.

She had rushed into the back room surrounded by her computers as she tried to fix the glitch.

Later that day a co-worker was saying something about three visitors who came to get an autograph claiming they had seen some celebrity entering the library. Naomi feared to ask if it was before or after she returned.

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AN: I hope you like what you read. Tell me what you think?