Troublemaker's real name was Passport Visa. As in, First name - Passport. Middle name - Visa.

His mother named him so because she believed he would be her ticket out of this stifling city to the world—or so the man who told her that once she gave him a child, he would take her out of this city.

But nobody called him Passport or Visa, because, much like those two things, destiny can be denied or take too long, that it misses road and becomes something else -and sometimes that something is trouble.

Troublemaker drove a bus on Mondays and Wednesdays, a trailer on Saturday and a tanker on Sundays. 

On Fridays, you would find him at the chapel, surrounded by bottles, his fellow drivers, and his only woman - Kelly. 

Kelly’s real name was Kelechi, but only Troublemaker called her that. Sometimes, when she had made him extremely happy, he would whisper “kelesh kelesh i love you my chi girl” in her ear. Those sweet nothings, she stored up and held them tight, waiting for the day it would stop. The man she loved was a flight risk; she knew it, and everyone including Troublemaker himself knew it.

To be a driver in this city was to flirt with death and its shapes as it shifted. Today, it could be a money hungry trigger happy policemen, tomorrow a leaking tank, next week a wicked bored government official, the week ahead, your own mind telling you to drive your bus/trailer/tanker off the road into the river.

Troublemaker always heard voices in his head, and often he followed those voices, causing him to make, well, trouble.

The first time the voices became louder than the whir of the organs in his body and the noise of the streets, he rammed into another bus from behind. The driver of the other bus came down, shouting and yelling, and the sound of his voice scratched Troublemaker just right, deepening his desire for more. So he shouted back, insulting the man, his family, his lineage. 

And we all know how it goes, an insult to the family is an invitation to fisticuffs. 

The two men went at it with great gusto, and for each blow Troublemaker inflicted, the voices in his head did cartwheels, urging him to do more.

It took the intervention of three other drivers and a military officer firing a gun into the air to stop the fight.

Troublemaker showed up at Kelechi’s house bleeding from his nose and smiling with his full mouth, missing one front tooth. That night, they made love so hotly it burned into her brain, another coal thrown into the fire, roaring with her affection for him.

After that first opening the voices found their way through, it became a frequent occurrence. 

Sometimes, Troublemaker would drive for miles and miles,burning precious fuel to a town where nobody knew him, just to start trouble by causing a fight. Watching people pummel into each other gave the voices in his head a pleasure akin to cold water down a parched dry throat.

To cause a fight, you needed two things, a well timed insult and an ability to deliver reported speech in the most insidious manner - or simply put, a sharp mouth. Troublemaker had both plus a secret third thing, a nose for sniffing people with chaos sitting just under their skin waiting to break out.

So, he would walk into a bar, eavesdrop one conversation, then take the details, strike up a conversation with the subject of the previous gossip. Then steadily feed him the details on pace with the bottles of peer. He would poke and prod and push and coerce, till the man had to go and fight to avenge his sullied name, or some other variation of that type of thing.

Troublemaker would slink to a corner of the bar, watching from the shadows as men beat themselves to a bloody pulp, reveling in the glee the voices in his head were showing.

***

Trouble cannot have an unbroken stretch. Eventually, a crack must appear, a line must break, a breather in form of life or death must happen. 

The voices in his head started to get greedier. They wanted more and more. It was no longer enough to cause chaos outside. Inside needed something too. But to do that, they needed to break Troublemaker’s will. The man was stubborn, and that was why they chose him in the first place.

To ruin a man, mess up his habits, make his safe place a breeding ground for danger. So the first thing the voices did was make Troublemaker ask his boss to switch him to strictly bus routes. No more trailers or tankers. 

This would do two things: expose him to more people who could trigger chaos and cut his pay in half (what was a man without his money, after all?).

The first week of driving only bus routes was calm. Nothing serious except aggravating passengers and greedy policemen. The usual.  

The second week, the same. 

The third week, trouble started to brew. 

The monotony of problems was beginning to itch the troublemaker from inside, so he went home on Friday of that week and quarrelled with Kelechi. 

She didn’t know what to do except quarrel back, and that night, for the first time since they got together, they slept without touching. The next morning, she woke up to an empty bed. 

Those sweet nothings she had stored up and held tight came rushing back, but instead of getting her through the day, they pinned her to the bed, making her remember too much too fast and drowning her in loss.

Troublemaker had woken up early, by 4 a.m., to go for a drive. 

Early morning was the one time the voices were quiet, and he could hear himself think.

Something was wrong, and his time was ticking. He knew he could not stop it. He missed Kelechi already, and he missed his mother, too. 

Everything had changed. And he could do nothing. 

Powerlessness is one way to die while alive, and the voices knew this, and used it as their secret weapon. 

The more dejected Troublemaker felt, the easier he was to control. 

***

On the Sunday Passport Visa, a.k.a Troublemaker surrendered/died/killed himself, depending on how the person telling it saw it: the sun shone hot and bright, making everyone under it miserable and angry -the perfect set up for chaos. 

The voices in his head had sharpened their blade, ready to cut the last rope of his sanity. 

Passengers trooped into the bus, sweaty and complaining. Some greeted him. He nodded but stayed quiet.

There was nothing more to say. His time was up. 

Today’s route would pass over the bridge and just at the highest point, he would tip the bus over. 

And so it would go. And so it would end.