There is a particular kind of lie adults tell themselves, the small and comfortable lies. The ones that help you get out of bed every morning.
Mine went something like this:
You died.
You came back.
It was weird.
Now everything is fine.
For three months, I repeated that lie so often that I almost believed it.
Almost.
Three months ago, my heart stopped.
Three months ago, I was clinically dead for six minutes.
Six minutes.
Not enough time to miss rent.
Not enough time to avoid Lagos traffic.
Not enough time to escape paying taxes.
But apparently enough time to permanently ruin my life. The funny thing is that nothing dramatic happened after I came back. No lightning, no glowing eyes, and definitely no mysterious tattoos appearing on my body.
I woke up in a hospital bed.
My mother cried.
My sister cried.
My dad…that’s another matter.
The doctors called me a miracle.
Everybody moved on.
So naturally, I moved on too.
Or at least I pretended to.
This morning started like every other morning.
Generator noise outside.
One woman shouting at somebody’s child.
Another person shouting back.
The smell of fried akara drifting through the window.
Peak Lagos operating system.
Version 2026.
No updates available.
I stood in front of my mirror buttoning my white shirt while mentally rehearsing a presentation. Today was important, very important. The kind that determines whether you continue surviving or start progressing.
I’ve been working as a software engineer for almost three years now. The dream has always been simple.
Get promoted.
Increase salary.
Escape Ikeja.
Move to the Island.
Reduce the amount of my life spent trapped inside yellow buses contemplating existence. That was the dream, nothing ambitious, and nothing unreasonable.
I grabbed my laptop bag and stepped outside my apartment, then I saw him. At first, I thought he was one of my neighbours, an old man standing near the staircase, completely still, watching me. Just… watching.
I slowed down, the man smiled, a small smile. I looked away for maybe two seconds, three at most. When I looked back, he was gone. Just gone.
Now before you start judging me, understand something. Lagos is not the city where people disappear. Rather, people appear everywhere and from nowhere, usually to ask you for money.
So I did what any reasonable person would do, I ignored it. Maybe he entered another apartment, maybe I was tired, or maybe my brain was still glitching from the whole dying experience.
Humans are surprisingly good at explaining away strange things when the alternative is admitting something impossible. I got into a bus, opened my phone, checked emails, and scrolled through messages. Normal things.
Then I looked up, the old man was sitting at the back, watching me again. I immediately turned around, looked through the entire bus. Nobody reacted, nobody noticed him, nobody even looked in his direction.
I faced forward, my stomach suddenly felt uncomfortable. Something wasn’t right, but I wasn’t interested in debugging it.
I had a presentation.
Real life.
Actual responsibilities.
Ghosts, or whatever this was, could schedule an appointment.
I got to the office, reviewed my slides, and checked my notes.
Everything looked good.
Everything was ready.
Then I saw him again, standing outside the conference room, watching me. At this point I decided the best course of action was professional denial. If I couldn’t explain him, I wouldn’t acknowledge him.
Simple.
I walked straight into the meeting, my boss was there, the management team was there, and even the clients joined remotely.
Months of work.
Months.
This project was my chance.
The presentation started perfectly.
Confident voice.
Clear delivery.
Good flow.
For exactly two minutes.
Then the old man appeared beside the projector screen, I nearly dropped the presentation remote.
Nobody reacted.
Nobody noticed.
Nobody cared.
Only me.
The old man raised one finger and pointed, not at me, and not at the screen. He just… pointed repeatedly. Like he was trying to tell me something.
I tried ignoring him, I really did, but my concentration crashed harder than a poorly tested production deployment. I lost my train of thought, forgot key statistics, answered questions incorrectly, contradicted myself twice…by the end of the meeting, even I wouldn’t have approved my presentation.
The room was silent.
My boss looked disappointed.
Not angry, not frustrated, just disappointed.
Somehow that hurt more.
The meeting ended, people left, nobody said much which was worse. I sat there staring at my laptop, humiliated.
I spent lunch angry. I bought food from a nearby restaurant and sat alone.
I wanted silence.
Peace.
A chance to reset my brain.
Instead, they arrived.
The first two dead people I had started seeing shortly after leaving the hospital.
Mama Nkem.
And Oba Adefolarin.
If chaos and dignity had children, they would be those two.
Mama Nkem dropped into the chair opposite me, uninvited as usual. An elderly woman with the energy of somebody permanently dissatisfied with humanity. She looked at me and clicked her tongue.
“Stubborn boy.”
I ignored her.
She continued.
“You think every dead person has time to follow you around Lagos for fun?”
I focused on my food.
“Ignore me.”
I took another bite.
“Continue.”
I drank water.
“When trouble enters your house, don’t call my name.”
I put on my earphones.
Mama Nkem laughed, the kind of laughter that means she knows she’s right. Across from her, Oba Adefolarin sat quietly, tall, regal, and calm, like he had personally witnessed several centuries and found all of them mildly disappointing.
He watched me for a while before speaking.
“The dead do not waste appearances.”
That was all he said, one sentence, one annoying sentence. I increased the volume in my earphones.
Conversation over.
I was tired.
Tired of dead people.
Tired of weird visions.
Tired of pretending my life hadn’t become ridiculous.
Most importantly, I wanted my old life back. The version where my biggest problem was rent.
Work ended badly.
My boss scheduled another meeting.
I left the office already irritated, then the rain started because Lagos enjoys dramatic timing.
Traffic multiplied instantly.
The bus crawled through the road.
People complained.
Drivers insulted one another.
Life continued.
I leaned against the window and put on my headphones.
Music.
Isolation.
Perfect.
Then I saw him.
The old man.
He was standing in the middle of the road, directly ahead, and watching the bus. For a second I froze, then instinct took over.
I jumped up.
“Stop!”
Passengers stared.
The driver turned.
Too late.
Everything happened at once.
A horn blasted.
A truck appeared.
The bus swerved violently.
People screamed.
Glass shattered.
The world spun sideways.
Then…
Nothing.
Silence.
The bus stopped.
Breathing.
Heavy breathing.
Confused breathing.
Everybody checking themselves.
Making sure they were alive.
The truck had missed us by inches.
Inches.
A little closer and the evening news would have had new material.
Slowly, I looked through the cracked window, the old man was gone.
Just gone.
Again.
The journey home felt longer than usual. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Who was he? Why was he following me? And why did I suddenly feel like that near accident had something to do with him?
That night I lay in bed staring at the ceiling as sleep refused to install. My brain kept replaying the day, the presentation, the bus, the old man, over and over again.
Then I heard chewing, slow chewing.
I turned.
Mama Nkem was sitting beside my bed.
Eating groundnuts.
Of course she was.
At this point, I wasn’t even surprised anymore. She cracked another groundnut, looked at me, and then smiled.
“Now that you’re ready to listen…”
She tossed another groundnut into her mouth.
“…let’s talk about the dead man.”
And for the first time all day, I felt something colder than fear. Because deep down, I already knew. The old man wasn’t following me, he was looking for me.