My phone alarm was what reminded me of the plan made with the mermaid while I tried to put my room together. By quarter past six, I was ready and by 6:45pm, I met her at the gate of the school. Not wanting to be spotted, I wore a cap over my head, a black long sleeve shirt with a red T-shirt over it, faded blue trousers and on my legs white sneakers. She approached clad in a black jacket with lace patterns over her white inner and jeans. All I could think was 'again with a jacket'.

"I would have said I get cold easily but it looks like you will beat the record," she pushed her round glasses up her face and let a smile design it.

"Prevention has been deemed to be better than cure," I kept a distance as she looked around, "Where are we going now?"

My lower lips was forced underneath my teeth as I gave a grin before speaking,"Uuuuh, the bridge?"

"The bridge?" Fumnanya played with the strap of the black sling bag. She looked around again and I did the same. I hoped I had not been recognized by people who were supposed sources of the school media. I could live with them having things to write about me, but I did not know if the girl could. I did not want to find out either.

Raising a shoulder slightly, I gave a nod before I fished out my phone to call a ride. With knowledge of how crowded where I wanted her to see was, I decided not to take my car.

"Bridge? Highway bridge? Pedestrian bridge? a place named bridge that I haven't heard of?Which?" Concern laced her voice, just like the patterns on her jacket. I took my eyes to it momentarily, studying how the fabric was woven into the other. And wondering how she looked like without a jacket.

"Would it be bad if I take you to a Pedestrian bridge?" I took my eyes back to my phone, almost completing what I had began with all of my teeth threatening to show at her next reaction.

She let air out of her nostrils, "What is so...good about a pedestrian bridge?"

"Uh..." I found words to say while still not looking up at her, "...it is for crossing roads. That's a good thing because people get to not die squashed by vehicles and two—what I believe is the most underappreciated use of a pedestrian bridge—it is up high, makes you feel like you stand over the world, if people just take time to take time on it."

"Tell that to a person rushing to an important occasion," she let a light laugh out and I found the opportunity to steal glances at her before my focus was taken again.

"People are always rushing to do one or two. I doubt rushing would ever stop in this part of the world and so we are supposed to make time to explore some things, like the bridge."

With more light laughter she spoke, "I don't know where you are getting at with this Pedestrian bridge talk, but if that is really where we are supposed to see I will happily walk back to my hostel and go copy the notes that are waiting for me." She managed to gesture towards where she had come from.

Infected by her laughter and her words, I let out a chuckle and manged to get hold of her hand. She was startled but made no move to withdraw it as I led her away from our spot. The ride I had ordered indicated arrival. We were both silent until I found the vehicle and opened the back door for her to get in.

"So, there's an Uber and we are going to a bridge." She smacked her lips and made no move to enter into it.

Her action made me grin, "Trust me." I caressed the back of her hand with my thumb. She pushed her glasses up her face, her face scrunched up like she contemplated the best possible action. She bit down on her lips and then finally spoke.

"Fine," my grin increased as she entered into the vehicle, I followed behind.

The driver confirmed I was his client before he revved the engine, leaving the area around school. Halfway into the trip, I looked to the girl who had her face turned to the window. I sniffed and touched my chin, not comfortable with the silence. She adjusted slightly on the seat and turned to catch me staring at her.

"What?"

"Do you go out at night?" With how she looked out the window, I assumed she hardly ever saw the street lights beautify the city of Lagos.

"Not if I can help it."

"So you don't," using semi long phrases did nit change the fact.

She chuckled lowly, "Its not safe for people to be out in the night, so much insecurity, you know."

Her words held truth and I nodded in agreement, looking away from her. Silence, my oldest foe, sneaked back in as I remembered how Jide continuously warned me to not go to places on my own in the night. I was sure he would disapprove of what I did. The thought of Jide brought the memory of her friend and the other.

"Ola...something does not seem really cool," I blurted, her name was nowhere in my head. All I remembered about her was her skin color and how she had pushed the mermaid into taking pictures when she was not willing.

"What?" My eyes found hers on me, her brows furrowed together.

"Same with the other one that I also keep forgetting her name. Jelly? Or something. Why are you friends with them?"

There was a brief pause as she looked back out the window. I caught the driver watching us from the mirror. Finally, Fumnanya spoke, "Why do you sing?" I remembered in secondary school English we had been taught not to answer questions with questions and she just did that.

"You answered with a question, that's wrong."

"Same with you criticizing my friends like you know them, that's wrong." The firmness in her voice warned me not to continue but I wanted to anyway.

"But, they are wrong for you. They are...I don't know...they and you are you. Just you."

"Oh, you mean like they are the kind of girl every guy wants and I am the kind that ends up being left alone with thousands and thousands of cats." She definitely heard my words wrong. With darkness descending quicker than normal outside, it began to get hard to see her, I squinted and rubbed my nose. The driver cleared his throat which made me wonder what he thought of the situation, maybe a couple with issues. The thought made me chuckle.

"Unbelievable." She groaned, hit her hand on her lap and looked away.

"If that is what you think then why do you hang out with them?"

"I did not think that," this time she did not turn to me.

"But you said it."

"You implied it," her eyes were still on the road.

"I only said they are t--"

"Kiishiju, it is none of your business," her head snapped in my direction. I could tell she was angry and pinched myself to stop. I sighed and rested comfortably on the chair, eyes closed. My fingers tinged and my head felt light, I knew it was the effect of what I had taken which flowed through my veins. A chuckle itched at my throat, I let it out.

"I just think you can do better," I whispered but got no reply from her. I let the silence take over, still not comfortable with his presence. We stayed quiet until the driver indicated we had arrived at our destination. She got out from the vehicle before I could rush over to her door to be a gentleman. Her face—illuminated by the colors from light of the street—held a frown. People walked back and forth, traders occupied walkways, hawkers moved around, conductors from the black and yellow 'danfo' buses called out to prospective passengers. Busy was the word to term the area.

"This is Ojuelegba." It was more of a question than a statement, I kept my hand in my pocket and looked around, the cap limited my view. I wore it backwards.

"Yep."

"Don't tell me?" She must have pieced everything together and figured it was not a place called bridge that she had not heard of. With a smile in her direction, I led the way down the walkway, away from our bridge of visit. Before we would venture onto it, there were things to get first. We squeezed through the people that made way to their various destinations. Anytime I visited here—and some other places around Lagos—I wondered if there would ever be a time fewer people walked about.

Finally, we got to where I had in mind. It was an eatery coated in blue and orange. The place was far from my favorite but that was the only one around in the area. Inside of it was full, just as I had predicated and we had to wait on the line of four persons before it got to our turn. Each time I looked behind me to confirm her presence, I saw her eyes on the TV that played music slowly.

It got to our turn and I bit my nail thinking of what to order exactly. The girl behind the counter stared at me and then spoke, not the words that every sales person was to say.

"Are you not that musician?"

I filled my mouth with air and transferred from side to side briefly. "Nope, can I get two big donuts and two big sodas?"

She stood there for a few seconds, a staring competition began between us, but she lost as she began to pack my order.

"Uh, if one donut is for me, I'd take meat-pie. I don't like donut." The voice reminded she was behind, I turned to raise a brow at her. How can people not like donuts?

"How can you not like donuts?"

She slanted her head and gave an enigmatic smile, "How can you not like fish, Kiishiju?"

I felt the corners of my mouth twitch upwards, she remembered that. "Fair play, mermaid, fair play." When I returned my view back to the sales person, I found her with her hands on her head. She breathed and giggled slowly. I sighed and rubbed my hand on my forehead, I never expected anyone outside of school to recognize me.

"Oh my god, I knew it was you," she put her hands down with knowledge that she had the attention of most of the people in the eatery. "I just knew it was you, with those eyes...oh my god, you're here."

"Well, I'm not a celebrity to not do normal things."

"What? All my guys know you. You are this generations giant...oh my god." Her excessive use of 'oh my god' caused me to rub my neck and look behind me at the girl to apologize. She shook with silent laughter.

"Uh, thank you. Can you get me the order?"

"Yes, yes. Two donuts or...no, the lady said she wanted meat-pie, and drinks."

"Yeah, thank you." I tapped my left feet and waited for her. The girl jumped a bit as she arranged everything. Even when she handed me the bag, she had a large smile on her face. I smiled at her, unsure of what to do exactly, as we made our way out of the eatery.

At once I welcomed the air into my system, grateful for the coolness. "Do you get that kind of attention everywhere you go?"

"To be honest, it only was really in and around school. But this isn't a first, its just rare." We walked side by side back to where the car had dropped us off. They were still more people even if I knew the time would be close to eight or nine.

"So your popularity is spreading past the borders where it evolved," she giggled. "Isn't that awesome?"

"Depends on what awesome is to mean."

"More fans--"

"Psychos that can hunt you, that is."

She giggled the more, "More money too, when your music is bought."

I spotted a man with a bowl in front of him. The light highlighted his brown clothes and he prayed in a language that I could not understand, while his hands were stretched to the direction of the passers.

"Money which someone like me would have no clue what to use it for." I confessed and approached the man. Opened the bag from the eatery and gave out my donut. He collected it, praying even the more.

The girl covered her mouth as we walked on. "What?"

"Nothing," but her body shook which meant it wasn't.

"I don't like passing them, okay." I defended, laughing a little. She nodded her head with her hand still over her mouth.

"You're still laughing," we diverted, headed up instead of forward. This led to the top of the highway bridge.

"Forgive me, you just keep showing strange sides."

"Giving is strange?" She composed herself as we got halfway to the top of the bridge. It was not the top but I did not want the girl to have to walk too far.

"Giving donuts is strange."

"He needed it more than I did na," truly, I had no real intention of eating the snack and giving it out was better than wasting. She laughed on, even as I handed her her snack and drink. We fell silent, our elbows on the railings and the only sounds were the vehicles behind us and the people underneath us.

I watched the people move around, multiplying every minute. They looked like tiny ants conjoined together in haste to complete their tasks and maybe they were.

"Don't you think Nigerians are like ants?"

"Ants of all things?"

"They say ants are hard working, and so are Nigerians. They say ants are plenty and so are Nigerians." I tried to think of other aspects relative to ants. When I was little, long lines made by soldier ants fascinated me. How were such little creatures highly intelligent?

"Well, if you put it that way. But I know ants work together and you see these people..." she carefully pointed towards the crowd of pedestrians, "...these people are only here for themselves."

I looked at her, from underneath her glasses the dark mark on her nose glowed. I wanted to ask her how she got it, but forced my mind back to the present conversation. "If we were all born from the same creature maybe we would work together. I think ants have a sense of brotherhood since they all come from the queen."

"Taah," the mermaid spat, "even family members born from same father and mother want to do things for themselves, by themselves and with themselves." I could argue against that. I thought to argue against that but that meant talking. And I had no intention of talking about how much we had both lived for each other. So I let her win.

"So your family does so?" She looked away from me and adjusted the weight of her body to the other leg. She kept one hand on her bag which she had worn slanted, her eyes were on her opened drink like she contemplated taking a sip from it.

"Well, yeah. Everyone does." She breathed out, "I mean, my mother was born into a family of eight excluding her father and mother with a step mother who had lots of other children and yet no one cares to contact no one or find out if they are still alive or if they are doing well or having the worst time of their lives in the new place or if they are still okay in school. So yeah, I do have family members like that."

"Have you tried to contact them?" I tilted my head, eyes still on her.

Her head turned to me and her face wore a 'are-you-serious-right-now-' expression. "Of course, why would I say they are like that if I have not bothered to do so?"

"I don't know," I confessed.

"You know, you give off this normal person vibe when someone is not close to you—physically, that is. But you are far from it."

My hand found its way into my hair, "Highly confused here."

"You're not what your 'fans' expect of you."

"Uh, I really don't know what my fans expect," I gave a wide grin before I took a sip out of my drink.

"You're weird, Kiishiju, that's what I am saying."

I couldn't help but laugh. People ended up complimenting or insulting me with that word. I wondered what hers was. "I act perfectly normal to me though. Every other person is weird."

The girl responded with a 'how will you know' and we fell silent again, our view on the people who walked back and forth and the vehicles that drove. Tired of that view, I turned to face the highway behind us. Cars drove by like automobile Barry Allen.

"So, are you my fan?" I took another sip from my drink and watched her from my sideview.

"No, sorry but no."

I feigned hurt as I turned my whole body to face her. "So you're not a fan of this handsome singer, that's really painful."

"I'm sorry..." she laughed and covered her mouth with one hand, "...but I don't hear your words so I can't decipher what the heck you say. Its all mumble jumble."

"Wow," I knew this too, the not hearing my words because that was the plan, "Thank you for your constructive criticism."

She laughed again. A smile was planted on my face as she tried to defend herself, "I only like songs that I can feel the words...you know."

Feel the words, I felt that and nodded.

"Don't worry, one day I'll sing a song specially for you." Her smile disappeared slowly, she used the back of her hand to push her glasses upwards. My eyes caught the jacket sleeve slide down a bit, a line danced on her skin before she dropped the hand and turned away from me. I raised a brow, curious to know what that was but she spoke.

"That'll be nice, thank you." She whispered and no words were said again for sometime. She cleared her throat later, "I..."

"What?" the sides of my mouth twitched when I urged her to talk.

"I read the write-up on the accident on the school blog and...uhm, I don't think its true and I want you to know I am available if you need to talk."

Writeup, accident. I bit my tongue, a flash of memory appeared before my eyes and I felt my body tremble a bit. What calmed me was far away, in my apartment. I closed my eyes momentarily and coughed to get my voice back.

"Have you ever crossed the highway while looking up?"

"Ehn?" she was confused.

I walked to the edge of the walkway and looked back at her, a smirk on my lips, "I'll show you."

With that my feet took off with speed, my head towards the sky and my hands in my pocket. I could hear the sound of the approaching vehicles and panicked screams of Fumnanya. I knew it was not extremely dangerous because it was a one lane way. A car brushed past me just as I jumped onto the part of the road cars could not drive through.

"Werey," a voice called me mad from one of the vehicles that drove past and I laughed. My heart rate was normal. I had done this a couple of times but not on highways.

"Are you mad?" the mermaid screamed from the other side of the lane, anger evident in her tone. "Don't just cross the highway like that, you could get hit."

Which wouldn't be bad except I would not want you to feel bad, I had the urge to say, instead I shouted, "You try it."

"You are mad," she confirmed—voice still high pitched—and rubbed her forehead. "You are already mad. Oh saviour, Kiishiju is a mad man and I followed a mad man to a bridge in the middle of the night," she looked up. Good thing we were high above people or they would have heard her and believed her.

"Come on. Life is not fun except you take risks."

"Risk to die?"

Alright. She was never going to agree to cross on her own. I crossed back, careful to look before doing so, mainly because I did not want to frighten her the more.

"You don't need to panic, just follow me." My hand found her arm, but she pulled back, chanting 'no way'.

She acted funny but I forced myself not to react oddly, "I promise you I'll wait till the cars are far away."

"These cars? Far away?"

"Okay, close your eyes...that makes it easier." I suggested.

"Easier to not know when you're dying maybe."

This time the laugh came out on its own, "Okay, okay. If you die I promise to let you haunt me."

She must have thought my statement was funny because she gave a short laugh. She looked left and right, rubbed her neck a couple of times and then faced me. "If I die I will haunt you even if you are dead," she warned with my words.

"Cross my heart and agree in death," she gave me her hand willingly and we both faced the road. I heard her breathing hitch and chuckled, awaiting the right moment to run across. Finally it came and my legs led the way. Horns blared in our direction and she screamed then released her hand and overtook me to the other side. One of her hands rested on the railings and the other on her chest. Her eyes were wide open underneath the medicated lens. At first her body quaked from what I assumed was fear, then little laughter grew out of her until she couldn't control it.

"Le-lets never do that," she finally managed to say, "never again."

"Fine, mermaid." I turned to the highway and watched more cars drive past, a melancholic smile taunted me.

Note to self: Cars don't stop so the bridge could be a good place.

"Maybe we should get going," her voice was calm and her hands were both on her chest when I looked back at her. I knew the suggestion was more like a command in a request form. A sort of polite command. I nodded and said "alright."

She let a sigh out and we walked a bit when an idea came to me. "The last person to get to the ending has to go out with the other again." I took forward leaps before she could get all I said.

"What? That doesn't make any sense," but I had began to make my way down when she called out. I looked back now and then to be sure she was behind and hoped she felt good a bit because, sometimes, people needed adrenaline rush to be whole again.

°°°

last update for the day.
I hope you liked the chapters.
thank you for reading.

would you cross a highway for Fun?

song is Free Spirit by Khalid

till next week
be awesome
omo