ON THE AVALANCHE
Hadiza Ndama


The little yellow lamp glowed dimly and finally went out. That was the last thing I could recall. Every other occurrence that night was obliterated from my memory.
Then I saw light. I didn’t see any trace of where it came from. As I rolled on my back, there was a hullabaloo around me, contrasting people with different facial expressions moved to and fro. The horizon stretched out like friendly piles of ice-cream. In total oblivion of the real world, I was awakened by a tap on the shoulder.
“Hello, do you mind taking a walk?”
It was a young handsome bloke smiling widely at me. He looked again, his eyes peering into mine. Then suddenly, his lovely smile began to fade away and all I could see was mere terror overcoming his confidence. Without thinking twice, I looked at myself, but alas, my extremities were all scaly and horrible claws took the place of nails. Letting out a loud yell, I went off the rails.
My skull almost cracked open as I woke up into the morning light. I heard birds chirpily hovering about and the intertwined posies looked very pleasant. Next was a wide carven, stooping before me and all at once, there was another tap on my shoulder. Who could that be?
“Come with me” the voice said. I turned abruptly and saw a face similar to the former but more mature. He pulled me and I dragged myself helplessly after him; into the carven. Arriving at the strange chamber, I was appalled; large hairy creepy crawlies were all over the place, the walls were painted with horrible graffiti, cobwebs clung to my body and if not mistaken I heard rattles. My teeth clattered, my hair stood up. What a sight to behold!
“You mean there are rattlesnakes here? Oh my!” I was terrified to the core.

“Don’t worry. You only need a form of revitalization right now”, he said, as I held him tightly – not knowing what was on ground. There was a two –feet deep pile of dead mice in a corner. As I watched in awe the structure of the whole place, fully shielded humans from nowhere appeared and grabbed me.
“Not again! Leave me alone!”, I shouted, kicking hard, but to no avail. There was a slight pain as an object pierced me. Soon, I began to hear voices talking, one after the other. The voices sounded familiar. “Why did you make such a mistake?” a voice asked, accompanied by a blurry voice.
After gaining consciousness, I pulled myself up, feeling scattered and worrisome…