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Trainwreck (Flash Fiction)

“Approaching Murtala Muhammad Train Station, Alagomeji. Please…”

Shit. David hadn’t stuck the camera to the roof yet.

I felt like slapping urgency into him, but the purpling gash across his face, courtesy of The Gambia, would make anyone unthink confrontation.

The men stashed somewhere in Alagomeji had probably thought enough. So, this final photo was now or never.

“Amina, I’ll ensure you’re fine.” His drill was still harassing the cabin’s roof.

I wished I had that job instead of being in a burqa clutching a beretta—our contingency plan, if Ahmad, sprawled like road-kill on the floor, awoke before cue.

A month ago, David’s plan for Trainwreck approached my hidden lens outside Lagos Pension Commission where I was demanding any available justice for my mum. He told me about Ahmad and how he had been priming the young man for today.

“David, I won’t be fine.”

I could be fine if David's photos were published before the President signed Mutkar Bello’s "innovative" deal, demoting Nigeria into a casket for tech waste with putrefying radiation. Bello had done this in The Gambia. David’s work would expose him.

But I couldn’t be fine because I had finally found work that made me feel alive. I needed to continue.

“Photography won’t pay!” Mummy had threatened.

But this gig would pay for her cataract surgery. Not my soul-sucking bank job or the cheap birthday shoots I crammed into Saturdays. This gig.

When Tejuosho began to roll by the windows, David jumped off the ladder and knelt beside Ahmad’s ear.

“Ahmad Bello, at the snap of my fingers you will look up at the camera, point at the poster on the ground, and rip your t-shirt.”

The t-shirt had “Amina Demba” in bloody letters; the first Gambian to die of radium poisoning; 2023.

We backed into the luggage hold, giving Ahmad privacy to domino his father’s undoing for the Theta Z1 staring down at him.

When Bloomberg says David specializes in 360 photography, you hardly guess this process.

Snap!

Ahmad rose.

“We have arrived at Mur…”

One minute to shoot and hide or get shot. Fantastic.

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