Lagos Nights: A Desperate Encounter and Its Devastating Consequences This story is set in the Victoria Garden City, one of the more posh neighbourhoods in Lagos, Nigeria. Like most of my stories, it is based on near truth experience. Again constructive critcism would be welcome. Enjoy! THE BLIND DATE It was a dark night that was as silent as a graveyard as the clock struck midnight. The din of the old church bell reverberated through the starless night, stunning the night creatures into an unholy silence. A gentle breeze wafted through the plains, making a solemn hymn of whistles and flutters on the pines and palms that littered the countryside as it blew away the remnants of an otherwise dead day. The night was at peace with itself. As the breeze died down, a shuffling of feet could be heard on the asphalt, and by the sound of it, the owner of those feet was either very tired of walking or standing or maybe even living; either way, whoever it was that was taking a midnight stroll needed to rest, and fast. The street lamps, that were the only source of light on this dark night, cast their golden glow on the only soul plying the midnight road, shifting focus from everything else to the young lady who had her broken shoes and a purse in her hands and clad in a torn blue dress. She looked every bit as tired as her feet told us. Her hair, dishevelled as it was, was adorned with broken twigs and dried leaves; her face, though pretty, was an image of sorrow, with tears and blood flowing freely down her face. Her dress, that only few hours ago, was a stellar compliment to her stunning figure, was now a piece of rag that hung off her body on some threads that seemed to be all that kept her from the seemingly inevitable advent of insanity. At a precursory glance, she looked to have led a team of axe swinging albeit highly fashionable Valkyrie clad in Vera Wang gowns and Gucci shoes against a horde of barbarians and lost. While her noisy shuffle was the one minor disturbance to the quiet of the night, in her heart, a storm was raging, and in her mind, the tape of the battle, that had left her an eyesore for the first time in her life, played in a constant loop. *** It started like every other evening could have started. Having dinner and sharing a bottle of wine with a guy across the table from you seemed pretty normal, right? …but everything was about to change
