On the outskirts of the 3rd Mainland Bridge, the old lady dropped Alohan off. For the weeks following, he wandered around, vagabonding the peripheral roads stemming out of the bridge, astounded by his fate. What had Erasmus been doing with acid?
Had the acid really been part of Erasmus’s photography development lab materials, or for something else? Why had the man not warned Alohan of the acid prior to their scuffle? There’d be no opportunity to ask Erasmus these questions.
Well, at least now Alohan was as far away from the man as possible. What he had lost because of Erasmus was not quantifiable; it was not money. One could never assign a monetary value to one’s body parts.
But neither was the loss as all consuming, as total, as when he lost his parents or Ivie. Still, it was a profound loss. To lose parts of one’s body was a source of intense sorrow.
Once upon a time he had a full face and a full set of lips and two working eyes. Those were the days when he took it for granted that a face should be whole and that a mouth and an eye, when commanded to open, would obey. Now, life had not only taken away a portion of his face, it had also once more reduced him to a common street beggar, to parading the roadsides in tattered clothing, listening to the incessant yapping of oka n’ube vendors who lined the roads.
And the way the vendors talked! It was astonishing to Alohan that people could talk so interminably. He wandered silently, trying hard but failing to ignore the sounds around him, constantly feeling an urge to weep.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
