New years did not mean new beginnings to Folake, it just meant the January contribution had started again. She tried to condemn herself in her mind for wishing Akin dead, but her emotional threads were spent and weak after years of being pulled taut, she felt disconnected from empathy, yearning only for freedom as she sorted out her monthly expenses in her head, after all it was baba's fault for indulging him from a young age, what business did a boy have playing drunk with beer bottles and snuff containers, now his pretend acts have turned to their reality leaving a family of broken necks and hunched shoulders from carrying all his burden. He who started it is dead and decaying or "gone to rest in Jehovah's bosom" as her uncles said, but as she sat looking at the blue and gold design of her mobile bank app, her eyes looked out the window and sought her father's grave, she scornfully read the inscription on his concrete tombstone, "Here lies Pa Jaiyeola Igbadunlaye, a loving father, husband, brother and friend, may his legacy of warmth and wisdom rest eternally" she gathered all the spittle her mouth could hold, spitting it out with vengeance she cursed the dead, she directed her eyes back to the mobile app and clicked on beneficiaries.

     She clicked on her mother's name knowing her mother was already ansty about her delayed payment but she couldn't care less if the old woman pruned thin with anxiety, it was her money, she was the one spending hours in the factory packaging goods and operating machines that she could swear were after her blood, she had scars to prove it, literally, if she didn't have the power to decide how her money was spent, she at least had the authority to decide when it was spent. Folake could hear her mother's voice echoing in her head "Fola, do you want to kill my only son for me? is it your plan to watch your brother die convulsing from shock? didn't you hear the doctor say he could die from a cardiac arrest? Ah! Folake just know that my God is bigger than you and your plans will not work. Folake laughed despite herself, she couldn't believe her mother thought "that" was her plan, I mean it was she did have dreams of dancing at Akinlolu's funeral while being hailed by the live band, she even had an aso ebi color ready, her plans for his funeral grew and grew till she felt like a pressure cooker that was a few minutes away from whistling, so she started journaling to let out steam.

     She pulled the book from under her table and smiled at her brilliance, nobody would have guessed the details of the book at first glance, she had journeyed through the dark holes of YouTube to find the best DIY videos for secret journals, her brother's funeral book which she themed "His death My Celebration" was made from an old magazine, she went as far as adding a few pages of the original magazine should incase anybody wanted to skim through, she opened the book and saw that her plans were on pause because she was yet to decide the type and color of the coffin, she saw a beautiful white mahogany coffin a few days ago on tiktok, she remembered thinking to herself that even if this person was going to end up in hell, the coffin was the best way to make an appearance, it even had gold flowers dotting the edges, she decided to consider it for Akin's funeral, but that was food for another day's thought. She saw her mother's text of thanks followed by prayers that always made Folake roll her eyes so hard she could almost see her occipital bone, don't get her wrong she thought prayers were nice, but prayers to increase you just so they had more to deduct from you was the kind she felt even God scorned at.

     Incase it wasn't clear, Akin struggled with both drug addiction and alcohol abuse. Despite being labeled the "trophy child" by his mother, who fondly dubbed him a glorious offspring, he was nothing special if you asked her, nobody did, but these were the words that made people think Folake was a witch who flew unfailingly at 12 midnight and she sometimes wished she could. Akin tasted alcohol for the first time at the ripe age of five, his curiosity got the best of him one day when baba asked him to dispose one of his alcohol sachets, he suckered on that sachet and made a choice that altered his life, while his mates spent their money buying frozen blocks of saccharine and greasy snacks, he bought sachet liquor and nicotine sticks. He moved from sachets to plastic bottles then to big beer bottles, his throat widened and deepened as he grew, word on the street is that Akin had the capacity to consume a reservoir of alcohol effortlessly, requiring nothing more than a glass mug and a robust chair. Akin's drug addiction came later on, it began with nicotine cigarettes and escalated to the kind of drugs people hid in obscene places in airports and planes.

     Folake believed Akin was a lunatic, which was why they all had to contribute money monthly to prevent him from entering the streets barefoot and naked, her mother always claimed the contribution money covered her shame, "May the world never witness Folake's shame," she fervently prayed, always concluding with a resounding "Amen." In her heart Folake knew that this was the kind of shame she would allow the world to see, it was the kind she would never conceal and gather people to witness, if she ever had a child who was a addict and teetering on the edge of lunacy, she would never squeeze her family members dry to fill a bottomless hole, instead she would leave the doors wide open and let the streets have him, after all, the mad people populating the streets were also brought into this world by a woman. Moments like these made Folake wonder just how psychotic she could be, but she was Nigerian, the entire country was a bit mad, in her eyes, she was just a mortal, hardly one to resist the collective insanity.

~Tolu-petu