WAHALA CHRONICLES,hotel drama

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Here's the scenario,

I got to Owerri at about 6:30 that evening.
I knew I was late. Any self-respecting Traditional wedding would be winding down by now. I thought.
 As I approached the venue, I could see a lot of Traditionally Attired people leaving with wine bottles and weird looking souvenirs.
CRAP!!!
The wedding was over. Alex was going to kill me. I thought to myself.

I had left Port Harcourt about 8HOURS earlier. So why was I late? Well traffic coming into Owerri was just UNBELIVEABLE, like something out of The Book Of Revelations. I was stuck in traffic for at least four hours sandwiched between a large trailer and a very rickety Bus with insane LOUD SPEAKERS.
The ugly-metallic box on wheels  kept on playing; ''JAMMIN'' by Bob Marley- over and OVER AGAIN!!!I must've heard that song at least over Five Hundred times that day. The damn thing was on repeat like some hellish tune. Each time the song played, I thought  of MURDERING the Bus Driver. And if I had, I am fairly certain the other drivers would've helped dispose of the body.


Coupled with the scorching heat of the sun that afternoon,  the trip was  less than pleasant .At some point, the Air Conditioner in my car stopped working. In seconds the inside of my car became like the interior of a small tent pitched in the middle of the Sahara.... during the day..
Sweat poured down my body in waves just as another session started again; "......and I hope you like jammin too....!"

"Oga nawa oh! ya music no dey finish??" came the voice of a frustrated driver from somewhere in front. After that,other voices joined in
''Dis kine music for dis kine heat nawa o," came the voice of an angry woman
"This is wickedness,.Oga are you a Christian??"shouted another man.

Seconds later, the music stopped.
The silence that followed was like a sea breeze of peace, love and tranquillity. almost immediately the heat and the traffic didn't seem so bad.
A huge sigh of relief swept across the road.

Then just as we were getting used to the peace,.......... the music started again......this time it was a different reggae song;
"....no bodi can stop reggae ,no bodi can stop reggae....!!!'
This went on for another hour, to the frustration of me and the other drivers.

Anyway, so there I was at the venue wondering what my cousin Alex was going to say to me for showing up late for his traditional wedding.
He wasn't happy sha.
But after  I had explained every thing to him, he ''mellowed out'' a little. I apologized to his bride(Chinyere, nice pretty girl....wish she'd smile more though)

Anyway I knew going back to port Harcourt that night was out of the question.t was already past 7pm and it was my first time in Owerri.
I needed to find a hotel.
In hindsight, I should've asked my cousin Alex for directions to a decent hotel, but I decided (in the spirit of adventure) to find a hotel myself.
I recalled passing a few fairly nice looking ones on the way. I'll check them out. I thought to myself.
BIG MISTAKE!!!

And by the way, for some weird reason, I couldn't get that song out of my head;
"......no bodi can stop reggae ....." , it was annoying.

Anyway, I finally found a hotel. the building looked nice enough, lots of trees and lights everywhere I figured it couldn't be so bad.
Besides, I was already feeling sleepy.

As I entered hotel lobby (if you could call it that) it struck me how humid the place was.

The girl at the front desk looked like she'd just awoken from a Marijuana/Heroine induced sleep.
She literally looked like she didn't know what time or day it was.

''Good morning sir,'' she said with what in my opinion was the longest yawn in history. She stared at me like I were a blank billboard she'd just discovered.

'' GOODEVENING'', I corrected.
Either  she was deaf or a large portion of her brain was still in the blissful slumber of ''La-La Land'' where Night and Day were One. And Reason, Logic, and Hearing were non-existent.

''You want a  room?" she asked staring at me BLANKLY.
I was about to answer,.....
''We have rooms of 10,000, 15,000,and 25,000''
She spoke  like she were a Drugged Hostage made to recite a Ransom Demand.

All of a sudden, everything about this place gave me a bad vibe, the building, the trees, the heat and Junkie-looking receptionist.
I really wanted to leave, but my eyes were heavy and the prospect of driving around Owerri for another hour wasn't appealing.
I mean how bad could the hotel room be .....really?
'just give me something very comfortable'' I said finally.
''....no bodi can stop reagae, no bodi can stop...."'
there it was again in my head.

Well, I paid for the room and she led me upstairs through a hallway that had several dead bulbs and thick cobwebs. The place was unusually  quiet. That's when it dawned on me.
''is there anybody else around?'' I asked.
Everything about this girl was Slow; her voice, the way she walked. She probably "Thought'' in Slow Motion.

''People are around, sir,'' she said as we got to a room door. She inserted the key-card and opened the door.

The interior, like everywhere else in the hotel was humid and a little stale as if the air had been trapped in there for decades.

 I tried the air conditioner.
It made a loud rattling  sound as if somewhere inside, a small colony of rats were being displaced.
The air that came out was warm at first, then slowly began to cool.
I sighed and sat on the bed.
It wasn't the Hilton, but at least it was ''sleepable''.

''Can I have something to ea....?'' I began, but soon realised I was speaking to an empty room. Mrs Slow  had left me and the door was wide open.

 I peeked into the deserted hallway.
I couldn't believe she just left like that.

Anyway, seconds before I dozed off, I heard the song playing in my head again.

''......no bodi can stop reggae.....''
Then I slept.

A  ''Buzzing'' sound woke me( or rather several Buzzing sounds).

There seemed to be a LOUD on-going dispute between the various groups of mosquitoes in the room over "sucking-rights''.
Now, these weren't the regular  sounds that tiny mosquitoes make.NO.
These were ''husky'' Buzzing sounds of mosquitoes probably the size of Blue-Flies.
I literally felt their THICK-HEAVY bodies slamming against my skin.

All I had on were a pair of boxers, but I was drenched sweat.

Two things struck me as I woke up.(aside from the Monster Mosquitoes all around me);

1.The room was dark... and I didn't recall putting out the lights(unless of course Mrs Slow had come in to do that which would've just been creepy).
AND
2. The air conditioner was off(hence the unholy heat of the room).

There was no electricity.

''SERIOUSLY??" I said out loud in the empty pitch dark room.

There were scuttling  sounds of something( or several things) moving on the floor. My heart froze.
The sounds were too pronounced to be cockroaches.

I reached for my  phone, which was only a few inches from my head.
"Please still be on" I prayed.
The light from my phone was  a little was re-assuring(save for the fact that my battery was at 12%)

I raised the phone to cast its light on the direction of the noise..

The light caught TWO dark...no BLACK,  large and furry figures on the floor.
The light reflected off their eyes adding to their menacing appearance. These rats were large enough to make a fully grown dog a little cautious.

They regarded the light from the phone with a mild degree of curiosity, as if to say;
"hmmmm!!!"

A Third and much LARGER Rat  joined them as they sniffed around MY SHOES.

''Sh#t!!" I said under my breath.

In an instant, they were gone.
Darting away from the light into the darkness at speeds I didn't think they were capable of.

I could still hear them in the darkness. They seemed to be fighting over something and I had a creepy feeling there were at least FIVE  of them out there.

More sweat oozed out of me. The heat in the room was thick...I could barely breath.
More ''Husky-Buzzing'' Sounds were around me.

 I felt a SHARP stinging sensation on my left arm. Honestly, I think those mosquitoes must've had BEES for ancestors ,because it reeeeeally hurt.

The scuttling sounds on the marble floor were louder too.
This was a nightmare, I thought to myself.

I remembered seeing a landline phone by the bed when Mrs Slow brought me into the room.
I reached for it and picked up the receiver.
It was dead.
I had to leave this place, I thought to myself. The time on my phone said, "3am''

I braced myself. Between the bed and the door were the scuttling sounds of the rats. Unless God miraculously blessed me with ''The Power of Flight'', the ground was unavoidable.

Anyway, I made as much noise as I could, alerting my ''Room-mates" on the floor of my approach.

EVENTUALLY, I made it off the bed and ran for the door(laugh all you want).
Soon, I was in the deserted and now pitch dark corridor.
The were more scuttling sounds behind me.

With the aid of the light from the phone, I managed to make it downstairs.
the lobby was deserted and the front door to the hotel was locked. I mean who does that?

Long story short, I didn't sleep the rest of the night. I basically sat on a dusty couch in the lobby till day light, fending off ''advances'' from large mosquitoes.

I left  the hotel at first light.
I have learnt my lesson.

 Some buildings we refer to as "Hotels" in Nigeria  should be shut down, burnt, demolished(preferably with large amounts of dynamite),and whatever is left  behind should be soaked in Corrosive Acid.
Of course, all this should be done right after a thorough exorcism has been performed upon the premises.

Life is a choice my friend
So choose wisely
Enough said.

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