Tuesday, December 31
Tolu Alade would rather be anywhere but here, especially at this hour. On any other day he should be asleep in bed, but he figured because it was the last day of the year his parents considered it best to spend the night praying in church. But no one ever gave him a choice because there really was none, now was there?
“We are going to praaaaay,” Pastor Oladele’s voice rang, from the stage below. “That every sorrow that followed you throughout 2019 will end with this year.”
All around Tolu, the men and women on the gallery and across the large auditorium clasped their hands in prayer, muttering their affirmation. Everyone was decked in jackets, not because of the cold but rather to ward off mosquito bites. He couldn’t recognise most of them, as many were visitors from the neighbourhood who would probably not return to church until Easter.
Such was the norm every year at the December 31st Cross-Over Service.
He tried to pay attention, but some boys playing a game on a phone a few rows away caught his eye. Tolu smirked. That’s what he’d rather have been doing if Dad hadn’t seized his phone before they entered the church. To think that somebody’s parents had no issues with that.
“Some of you don’t know the importance of that prayer,” the pastor continued. “When the Israelites were escaping from Egypt the Lord said, ‘These Egyptians you see today, you shall see them no more!’”
“Amen!” the church chorused.
“There are some things you have to drop. Some things to let go…”
Tolu thought about what he was looking forward to in the coming year. There weren’t that many great movies coming out, except maybe WW84 and Black Widow. This time last year, his mind had been taken with the possibilities of Avengers: Endgame and how its story would turn out. And while it beat his expectations, he could not think of any other movie that held his fancy in the coming year. So beyond movies, what else did he look forward to?
Ok, by this time next year he should be out of secondary school. He couldn’t imagine life outside of the six-year school bubble, but whatever lay beyond had to be better. But what did lie ahead? Exams? Maybe University? Adulthood … ugh. As far as he was concerned it could all stay in the arbitrary future where it always did.
He didn’t even know what he wanted to be in future? A pilot, a veterinary doctor, a teacher (God forbid, he thought)? He hadn’t the foggiest, and he chose not to think about it much.
He checked his watch. 11:55pm. In 5 minutes the year when he would have to face all these decisions sped ever closer.
The cacophony of fireworks and banging knockouts from outside carried on in the background. Yes, perhaps he wished he could get lost in the moment too, playing with bangers bothering not the slightest about anything. Why did the future always feel scary and abstract?
Well, here it comes.
Pastor always did this, getting them into a prayer point that would keep them all praying as the seconds ticked past midnight. It would be about five praying minutes into the day that he would then shout, “Happy New Year!” and then the church would be agog with everyone greeting their neighbours, hugging their loved ones and altogether welcoming one another into the New Year.
Tolu clutched his eyes shut as the seconds ticked.
The prayers faded to a lull.
He opened his eyes.
And blinked. Two things dawned on him in that moment.
First, there was a power outage and church was cloaked in darkness. The only light in which he saw were the rays of moonlight casting patterned shadows of the window frame into the building as they filtered through. Power outages were commonplace in his country, so that was not the biggest surprise.
He was taken with the fact that something was wrong with everyone else. They were still standing where they were alright, but they were … flickering. One second they were there, they were gone for two, back for another two, gone for a microsecond, and back again.
Perhaps it was the lighting, but there was none. Tolu turned. It was happening all around him. And they weren’t moving either. They were frozen in their last pose, and they flickered.
Tolu rubbed out whatever sleepiness remained in his eyes.
Is this really happening right now?
He looked down at his hands, but he wasn’t flickering. Everyone else was. He hesitated a moment before reaching out to tap the huge man beside him.
His hand went through. The man still flickered, but then something changed. The man was gone. And so was everyone else. Tolu was alone now.
Now he knew that he truly was in trouble.
What just happened?!
He was standing among seats in the gallery of his church auditorium, and he was alone. Church was empty. The last strains of the murmur of the crowd faded away like a distant echo. Everyone was just … gone. He really was alone.
He felt a chill run down his spine. His pulse thumped in his chest. God…
He hurried away from his seat scanning the rows around him, trying to make sense of it all. He stared over the balcony. Church was exactly as it would have been, except that now it was empty. A microphone was rolling off the stage. The bass guitarist was gone, but his guitar lay broken on the floor. There were no clothes on the seats, just Bibles and bags. The whole church was empty. The silence around him was deafening. His breathing thickened.
No … it can’t be!
It took all he had to keep himself from vaulting over the railing. He hurried down the staircase, high on adrenaline.
“Mum? Mummy?! Daddy!!!”
The moonlight shining through the high windows illumined the empty seats before him.
Everybody’s gone! How?!
He ran through the auditorium passing rows and rows of empty chairs, his footsteps echoing in the vacuum. A buzz still played from the audio speakers. He picked a phone from a chair. 23:59, the lock-screen read. Where was everyone? Where were his Mum and Dad?
This has to be a dream. Please let this be a dream!
He had grown up hearing stories about a Bible prophecy that when Jesus returned all the true believers would vanish and go to heaven, and the rest of the world would remain, or something like that. They called it the Rapture, and that was the only idea that played at the back of his mind.
“No … no…” He stared at his quivering palm. What is going on?
He struggled to breathe as he sank to the floor, picking through the details he could recall. Within a second something had caused the power to go out and simultaneously to make everyone flicker out of vision. Were they just invisible or did they just disappear? Was this a prank? Had they planned this? Was it even possible? There had to be some explanation. He needed to come up with an explanation. He frantically searched the chairs around him again.
Now he screamed.
“Hello?”
He turned. There was a boy seated a few rows away, his eyes shut.
Oh, thank God!
Overcome with the relief of seeing someone, anyone, and desperate to hide his fear Tolu rubbed the tears from his own eyes. “Hey! Hey, did you see where they went?” He hurried towards the boy.
“No,” the boy’s voice squeaked. “Where did everybody go?”
Tolu wasn’t up for comforting, so looking out for the kid’s feelings was the last thing on his mind. “I don’t know. I don’t understand. Did you see it too?” The boy shook his head. “You didn’t see them vanish? Disappear?”
“I didn’t see anybody disappear. I closed my eyes and was hiding here.”
The boy’s eyes were still shut. Did he think closing his eyes would change what was going on around them? Was he that afraid? “When you closed your eyes, how will you see?” Tolu sat beside him, more to calm himself than the boy. “You can open your eyes.”
“No…”
“It’s dark but we can still see. Ok? Just open your eyes. We have to find—“
“No!”
His sudden retort jolted Tolu. “What?”
“NO! I don’t want to!” His face softened. “I don’t know what to do.”
Tolu was confused, but he had more to worry about than the insecurities of a scared brat. His insistence was becoming irritating by the second. “I don’t have time for this.” Tolu hissed and hurried out the church door. He could come back to check on the kid later. He needed his parents. Where were they?
Where is everyone? Was it a prank? Could they even do that?
All the apocalyptic and dystopian stories he had watched and read collided in his mind. Could this really happening?
The paved ground of the church compound stretched out before him with cars parked in formation along the wall. No streetlamps were on, except for a strobe shining into the sky somewhere in the distance. Probably an End-of-Year rave. Papers wafted in the breeze, but there was no one in sight. Not even a sound. The dark night sky still loomed overhead and he shivered in the cold breeze. It was eerily quiet outside. He struggled to breathe. It’s going to make sense. It has to make sense.
He ran to the gatehouse. Uncle Stanley, the gateman was there, thank God, but he was flickering too. In his last pose he had been leaning in to his radio and was still stuck there. Static radio noise blared. He was flickering. Outside the gate everyone else was frozen, flickering. Some mid-jump, some grinning, everyone celebrating the coming New Year, but now frozen.
He ran back in and saw people back in church, flickering. He grabbed his head in his hands.
Was this happening everywhere?
Frantic, he paced back and forth trying to understand all of this. Someone was playing a cosmic joke, and he was the target. His hands were quavering now.
In his mind he asked God’s forgiveness for his sins over and over.
—–
Riley gripped the steering wheel of the Suburban as she made her way over a bumpy road. She was in unfamiliar territory now, but that didn’t matter anyhow. The world had gone insane for her hours ago, and she was getting used to knowing that losing her grip on sanity was the closest thing to a grip she would get now.
Insane? So was the world. The town zipped behind her in a blur as she sped. There were more potholes here.
How long had it been now? She checked the clock. 11:59. Why’d I expect something different?
The bottle on the dashboard filled her vision, but the last thing she could afford right about now was to drive drunk. But she really could use a drink right about now. When the flickerings began she had first thought she was high, but this was the worst trip she had ever been on.
She sniggered. ‘Trip’, ha. I made a funny.
She peered at the sky again. The beacon still appeared further away.
But something caught her eye. A dark boy sat by the curb ahead, hands resting on his knees, rocking back-and-forth. It was after she was a few yards ahead that she realised why he stood out. After hours passing flickering after-images on the road, this was the first person she met that was actually still moving.
And he wasn’t flickering.
She swung into reverse and pulled up beside him. He raised his head and his tear-filled eyes widened as realisation dawned. She recognised the feeling, but she was more relieved to find someone else.
“You’re not flickering,” she noted.
He shot to his feet. “Oh thank God!” He had a weird accent. “Thank God! Please … what’s going on? Do you know?”
“Not a freaking after-image…” She reached out to touch his hand.
He recoiled. “I-I don’t know what’s happening. We were just in church for Cross-Over, and everything started happening. Everybody started disappearing and appearing. I thought I was running mad. I thought I was left behind. I thought I was alone!” He was crying, trying to squeeze his words in.
“How long’s it been?”
“I don’t know. Thirty minutes? My watch is broken.”
“Makes two of us.” She shoved her phone in his face. The clock on the lock screen read 11:59. He actually looked more confused, if that were possible. But Riley was on to something else. “For me it’s been hours.”
“HOURS?!”
“Have you seen the boy?”
“The boy? Which boy?”
“Ten-ish? Annoying? Talks in rhyme?”
His shock answered her question before he did. “That boy? Him? He was just with me here…” He turned only to realise that somehow this was not where he thought he was. “Where’s? I was just… Where am I? Church was just … here!” He paced frantically, his hands on his head. “This is a nightmare. This is mad!”
The first time she saw the reality shifts she too had thought she was going insane.
“I know it’s a lot to take in, but I’m going to need you to answer me, and fast. Now do you know where we are?”
He ran a hand across his face. “I was … we were in Bodija.” He must have seen the confusion on her face because he continued. “Ibadan … Nigeria?” He was still pacing. “What is happening?! My family was in that church. I have to go back! I have to…”
Nigeria? Ah, here we go then. She shook her head, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. Her theory was correct. “Ok, this is how it’s going to be, so listen well. Somehow you and I are stuck in time at 11:59. Reality is shifting all around us because time has stood still. For us at least. In case you don’t get the gravity of this all, I was in Brisbane just hours ago and I’ve only been on the road all this time. I don’t understand it all, I’m piecing it together as I go along, but the only thing I have to go on is that that portal over there—“ she pointed at the strobe that lit the sky in the distance. “— is our only way out of this. I would tell you more but my understanding is that we have a window and it probably closes in 24 hours. I don’t know what happens when that window closes, but I sure as hell don’t want to wait to find out. Now, you can sit here crying your eyes out wasting the hours we have like I did, or you can buck up and get in because I’m leaving now.”
He looked about as confused as he probably felt.
“Now, kid!”
>> The journey continues here.
While It’s new and refreshing
