The splattering of rain on the roof, the fresh earthy smell of dust, the ding-dong of the doorbell: these were the signs that would usher in the feasting season. But not this year -not in the last ten years. Now, you just lay in bed and watch the sun rise. It is this same routine from the beginning of December, when your office forces you to take a break, till the second week of January when you’d be back, but this was with exception to the days when you would blackout: the anniversary days, you have learned to call them. Your therapist, the one Ini referred you to in Ikoyi, called your routine Depression. That word still doesn’t sound right, especially since Decembers are the only times that you feel it, but maybe that’s what the other word is for. Trauma. “You’d be shocked how many people have experienced trauma and how long it takes them to learn healthy ways to deal with it,” Dr. Akin had said, a smile on her face, the smile you are still learning to decipher -if it is meant to be reassuring or meant to mock you. Today, rain isn’t splattering on the roof. If it is, you cannot hear it -or you do not want to hear it. And there is no smell of dust thirsting for water. There are no signs ushering in harmattan fully, except the sun that rises at 6am these days and sets long after your curtains are drawn and you are cuddled on the couch, TV remote in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Until ding-dong, there is someone at the door. 

Kemi has made it her life’s mission to get you back out there, to “sweep you off the streets” she called it. You used to object, especially after you’d noticed a pattern during the first four years, but you have learned to let yourself give in -or so you think- and you have even gone on a few dates, dates that would always end up meaning nothing. When you told Dr. Akin about these dates, she’d given it a name you don’t remember now, something along the lines of withdrawing, fight or flight: some kind of response really. All you remember is that you always tell her you are going to try something different, something not centered around a man. But really, you say this every year, and right now, you can hear Dr. Akin reminding you for the umpteenth time that this is just your way of avoiding dealing with your issues. You chuckle silently: if only she knew that this was the only way to deal with this issue, that this issue was truly your only issue if you counted all the sequence of events as one event. And you wonder too if you know what ‘something different’ really means each time you say it. After you let Kemi in and you sit back down, she begins to talk about the latest man she has for you. “A date with a hottie,” she calls it, and you chuckle because you are wondering if her definition of ‘hottie’ changes with every new man she finds for you. 

“Where did you get this one?” you ask, catching your half-empty glass of wine as it tips over and some of it spills on the leather. Briefly, you mutter how you’re grateful you hadn’t ordered the swede-clothed couch on Jumia. 

“You know that protest we matched for yesterday nau? Can you believe this guy was the only man there? In a women’s rights match o!” 

There was that excitement in her voice, a genuine one. You wonder how many more times you will have to watch her fawn over a man doing the bare minimum. 

“Just because he was there does not mean he truly supports women’s rights Kemi,” you say. But she has moved on, is now telling where you will be meeting him for dinner since she has decided for you. And you don’t hesitate to agree, although to be fair, this isn’t your decision to make. You also wonder what ‘something different’ would mean this year: a second date maybe, one where you are actually interested in what they are saying and not what the chances of a third date could be. “Fine,” you say and Kemi is shocked. “Where has this version of you been?” she shrieks as she makes a mock-attempt at praising God. It’s funny because she does not believe in God, and because she says this every year. So you laugh, as you do every year. Your drink spills again but this time, you do not notice. 

Chika looks like a buff man and that is what catches your eyes first. In the room swimming with people begging to be noticed, he floats towards you with such confidence that probably gets him seen before anyone else. His thighs, proudly showing off in the ankara shorts he is wearing, are what prove that he is buff. The rest of him -his upper body- are hidden underneath the oversized long-sleeve shirt. This is a major turn-off: Chika is dressed like a schoolboy. You turn to find Kemi but she is no longer there. That girl moves like a ghost. You mutter “fuck” under your breath before you remind yourself that this is you trying something different, a man in a schoolboy’s clothes included. 

“You must be Nebechi,” he asks although it sounds more like an order: I command you to be Nebechi. 

You nod. “And you, Chika. Kedu?”

He smiles, as if in approval of you responding in Igbo. You definitely disapprove but you have to finish what you have started. He leads to the bar and he offers you a refill. You blink away the memory in your eye as you turn it down. He doesn’t push though, and that is one something different. He begins to tell you about himself, lingering on the glass every time he sips. You wonder why but you say nothing about it. And then, he asks about you, about the last time you dated. You chuckle when you say “last December”, hoping he does not probe but willing to take whatever comes anyway. 

“That’s awful long. Why? You date seasonally?” 

He is smiling, an invitation to laugh because he is joking, but you don’t. “I do, actually,” you say. “It’s a little unconventional, I guess, but yeah I only do dates in Decembers.” 

He raises an eyebrow, as if in agreement, and you let yourself wait for his next statement -an expected beckoning for a second date in January. You remind yourself that you are open to it, that you are doing something different, but something is starting to creep in the back of your head: that fear that has become familiar. You look around, to make sure you are still here. “Name five things you can see,” Dr. Akin would encourage. And so you start to name things, in your head, struggling to listen to Chika while he goes on speaking about his time in Cote d’Ivoire and how many boxes of menstrual pads had to be distributed to make sure they wouldn’t have to be back for another six months. 

Four things you can hear: sirens in the background; the voices attempting to speak over each other in the room; Chika’s voice as he mentions now that he actually schooled in Oxford, then the silence as he waits for you to be shocked. Three things you can feel: the rising heat in your palms; the trembling of your feet; your head on the floor when you fall backwards. 

Two things you can smell: chemicals -cleaning chemicals. And the strong scent of someone’s perfume -it could only be Kemi’s. When you open your eyes, you know where you are. You have come to get used to this, especially being the only one who remembers. Dr. Akin called them blackouts, after months of trying to get you to redefine them as just your own point of view of how these events always turn out. ‘Blackouts’ acknowledges that something always happens, without necessarily needing someone else’s perspective on what something is. But now, you wonder if it still matters that when the night began, you were open to trying something different. You still have no idea what you’d expected to happen but one thing is sure, that you will always curse the day you met Kayode. Had you not met him, you would not have had to drive home drunk that night just because he’d made up an excuse and left you by yourself. And you would not have hit that couple minding their own business. You would not have had to dispose of bodies on your own for the first time. Sure, there have come to be other times now that you seem to be drinking more often, but Kayode was the idiot since he’s the reason you’re now in this life. He should have been there to hold you accountable. 

The thing is creeping back into your head now. You look forward to it every year. First, the darkness. Then, the reliving of every incident, one by one, starting from the first. You are laying in bed, here in the hospital, but your mind is elsewhere -back on Ikoyi bridge, as your car rams into the other; as you drag the limp bodies and throw them over. No cars stop, not to ask what the hell you’re doing. Although you learned to be more discreet, more private. You learned to find unsuspecting couples, preferably in cars of their own, and you always found them in the most discreet places. Obviously, they were less likely to be made a fuss for, less likely to be mourned by the world. And years after they have been declared missing, no one has come knocking on your door to make you recount it all. Except them, same time, same day, every December. You quit two years ago because you began to consider yourself too old for it, but they have only haunted you more ever since. You thought being open to something different tonight would change the sequence of events but it didn’t. Dr. Akin would not laugh at you, especially since she has no idea a serial killer is her patient, but you hear her laughing anyway, in your head. And you laugh too. You also have no idea still why you always have to be on a date before the blackout but you accept, at least, that this is how things are going to be for you forever, maybe. You believe this is your karma for killing every happy couple you found in Lagos during the festive season, and you are learning to accept it with open arms. And couples in Lagos seem to have learned that December is bad for dating. You know this because even though you have not killed anyone in the past two years, the places you used to know to be discreet are now more likely to be empty. December is bad for dating, and you are the unknown notorious reason why. 

One thing you can taste: bile. You turn over to vomit into the bucket by the bed -your vomit tastes like blood. Next year, Kemi will find another man for you and next year, you will still think you can do something different. Next year, you will end up here again, with the taste of blood in your mouth.