Angel Without Wings
Manuel sneaks out of the hostel and hurries down to the canal close to the E-library building, behind the lines of food vendors. There, he delves into his backpack and takes out a book, padlock, and a twelve-inch-long chain, which he tightly bound his hands with at the mouth of the bridge running over the canal.
My senses heighten and I can feel every weight of emotions pressing against his mind. He looks up to the moody sky and somehow, I perceive he’s imagining God frowning down on him.
He takes a moment to gaze into the horizon before climbing over the bridge’s balustrade. A painful tightening erupts within my stomach when he plunges headlong into the raging canal. Horrified, I gesture to stop him, as if possessing the power to pause time.
The landscape suddenly blurs around me. I jerk up to find myself in a friend’s sweat-soaked bed, a pillow clutched tightly against my chest.
It takes a minute for me to absorb the colour of the dorm wall and the furniture therein, and even more, until I realize I’ve had this nightmare twice this week.
I step out of the hostel to clear my head in a dark corner, under a willow tree. The night is quiet and the moon bathes the earth with an eerie bluish light.
My head swells with memories as I recall familiar deaths. I was eleven when I dreamt of my father’s accident. And three days later, he died in a car crash.
On my fifteenth birthday party, I zoned out and had a vision. In it, I saw a strange man hauling my best friend into a van. The news of his disappearance reached me on the third day. He was never found.
I’ve had no such dream ever since, until now. Perhaps God gave me a gift greater than the eye. Or maybe these experiences are mere happenstance? But, what if they aren’t?
For the most part, dreams about death scare me. My heart aches badly. Tears sting my eyes. I wish I had done better, been better. I wish that I had not pretended to be asleep when I heard him sobbing silently atop his bunk two nights ago.
The lines are beginning to un-smudge, and now I’m starting to realise that the rouge marks on his left arm could’ve been self-induced. It hurts that I’ve built a protective wall around myself when I could’ve built bridges instead.
It hurts because I chose to turn my eyes away from the signs. I’ve noticed he has been moody for days, walking with sluggish steps as though his limbs were heavy with the weight of the world.
No one else knows, or maybe they do but decide not to care. They were making fun of him in the room when I left because of their earsplitting noise, our roommates—all four of them—as they almost always do during their customary late-night discussions.
I trudge my way from under the willow tree back to my dorm room. Manuel is sitting on his bunk, neglecting the onslaught of insults and staring unblinkingly at the orange-coloured wall.
They say he looks weak and ask him why he walks like a girl. They say we hope you’re not like those people who like boys? His response to them is: what if I am? They say he doesn’t belong here then, that the hostel is for real men. And who knows, he could molest one of them while they sleep.
The last part breaks him. I can see it in the way his brows soften in defeat. He doesn’t say another word. Beside Manuel lies the Bluetooth speaker he loves so much, playing a song that hangs in the air like the feeling of depression.
I trudge past him to my bunk, wondering how long he’s been sitting there, thinking, absorbing, and listening to the saddest song I've ever heard. Over and over, Justin Bieber’s Lonely plays on repeat.
But one part paralyzes me, sticks with me. The chorus. It floods my mind with frequent waves of sadness. I feel powerless at its slow tempo, its acerbic rhythm, at the scary romance between agony and hopelessness it exhumes.
As the song continues to carve its doleful signature in the air, the urge to rebuke my abusive roommates boils in me; to ask why they disturb the poor boy’s peace.
But Manuel is quiet, too quiet. Perhaps it's that time in life when one just wants to be left to the silence of their howling thoughts, when one just wants to listen to bullies spill their truths and lies altogether.
Even so, the signs are all there. Visible through his daunting eyes, his melancholic gestures echo in every whisper as he begins to sing along to Justin Bieber, obviously trying to put an end to the conversation.
I sense a loneliness; a wound that wouldn't heal. Only if I can immediately overcome my fear of confrontation and stand up for him, maybe then I’ll say something that might help lighten his mood.
Right now, I want to be the shoulders he can cry on, the body he can pour all his worries into without judgment or persecution. But the bigger boys scare the hell out of me.
Turning my head sideways, I catch sight of the backpack in my dreams, leaning against a pile of books on my reading table. That’s where he hides the journal he’s always writing on. Whatever dark thoughts he’s thinking, if he’s thinking any, the journal is my best chance of finding out.
I wait until he’s not looking before digging into his things, then I hurry out with the book, back under the willow tree.
II.
Lost in my thoughts, I shudder frantically at the sudden feel of a hand grabbing my shoulder from behind, and I become conscious of everything around me. “Jesus!”
Jolting up, I turn without a moment's hesitation to know who startled me. Oh, it is Temisi, the hall chair, a four-hundred-level medical student. He’s backing away frighteningly. The tightness in my chest relaxes.
This is the first time he’s approaching me, a freshman. The first day I saw him in person was at the fresher’s orientation ceremony, held at the conference centre.
That day, he gave a speech about the Ethics and Conduct of an “A” student. I didn’t know who he was at the time until I moved into the hostel. Then afterwards, I began recognising him in the sun-bleached posters on the bland walls that line the narrow entrance to lecture halls. "Why are you alone in this dark place?” he asks, gathering his composure with quick breaths. “You should be inside the hostel by now.”
A quick squeeze at my smartphone’s power button and the screen flares up. 10:47 pm. It’s forty-seven minutes past bedtime. “I know,” I answer.
He clicks his tongue as though meaning to say, “No, you do not,” but thinks against it.
Should I tell him? Will he understand? This is too much a burden to bear alone. I have to tell someone. I need to. The uncertainty is galling, and my nerves resurface, making me fidget. God, please give me a sign. The wind blows with a sudden strength, coursing over my face, whipping my hair, stinging my eyes, throwing dust and leaves from the willows above my head.
I am tempted to believe it’s the validation I just prayed for, but it’s not enough sign. After all, it’s about to rain for the fifth time today. “Is something wrong?” I hear Temisi’s voice, tender and small. “There’s distress written over your face,” he says.
My eyes rise to meet his. Lightning flashes and brightens his shadowy figure for a second. A crack of thunder sounds in the distance. There’s a vivid look of concern on his face in that split moment it lights up. It‘s enough proof I need, an excuse to share this overwhelming torment with another; to exonerate myself from the singular burden of doing something to help my roommate, something beyond my brain can think of.
“He will kill himself,” I murmur, trying and failing to suppress my rising panic.
I feel a substance aching in my chest as if a lump is steadily growing within. Temisi’s gaze is intense—all the calm gone, now replaced by an unreadable expression.
Strange muscles deep in my belly clench suddenly. “He will kill himself,” I repeat, failing to hold back the deluge that has welled up in my eyes over again.
Temisi draws close to me and places a hand on my shoulder. “Who—Who will?” his voice breaks, and I feel, to my surprise, he genuinely cares. “My roommate, Manuel,” I respond.
“Are you certain? How do you know?” he asks without pausing to take a breath. I stretch a hand to him.
“What is that?”
“His journal. This is how I know he'll do it.”
He receives it and doesn’t as much as open the cover.
“We must hurry to the Dean of Student Affairs' lounge to notify him. Quick, follow me.”
As I trudge slowly behind Temisi, stories of the dean’s nonchalant attitude towards student'’ affairs flood my mind: how he’d reported a student who confided in him about his failing grades to his parents, how he’d used another’s HIV status confession as his last year’s matriculation speech, going as far as mentioning the faculty and department the student belonged to; and how he’s feared by students and lecturers alike.
The drive to involve the school authority ebbed away, leaving bloated panic in me, and I imagine an alternate world in which I never stole the journal or told Temisi; an alternate world where I let Providence flip a coin, just like it did with father and my best friend.
I look up at the frothy sky, hoping the clouds will vague my thoughts, and then back at the hall chair, plunging ahead in fast, faltering steps.
III.
We arrive at a house, a yellow-painted bungalow. A flicker of light catches my eyes, and I look up. There’s a camera blinking red over an electric pole, overseeing the vast grassy compound.
On my left is a Toyota Corolla parked just outside the house. We walk together down the footpath where the grass is a morbid grey, the greenness tinted by constant hammering of muddy shoe soles.
Standing at the entrance of the house, under a bulb cutting the night with sharp, swift rays, Temisi gives the door a hard conk. The urgency in his gesture marvels me. He’s worried about my roommate, as though they share blood ties. Of what cup of experience have Temisi drunk from? What bitter memory floods his mind this very moment? Because I feel, deep inside, he seems to be reliving the misery of loss over again.
“Who’s there?” a voice echoes from inside the house. “Who’re you?”
“It’s the hall chair, sir,” Temisi says.
“Of which hall?”
“Hall two, sir. Medical hostel.”
Identifying as a medical student ends the inquiry. Soon, there’s the shuffling of feet towards us from behind the entrance. The door rattles and shakes, followed by the violent clinking of keys and unlocking of bolts. A head pops out through the half-opened door, examining us with huge, bulging eyes.
“Sorry for disturbing you, sir,” Temisi apologises. “We had no choice.”
“Who’s that with you?” the dean’s eyes dart towards me. “A medical student, too?”
I shake my head in reply and to simultaneously gather my dwindling wits. My heart is pounding at a frantic tempo, and for some reason, I’m tense under his steady scrutiny.
I’ve never been to this part of school before, neither have I been graced to come face to face with the wickedly renowned dean of student affairs.
“He is a first-year medical student,” Temisi responds on my behalf, shuffling forward. “It’s urgent. A matter of life and death, sir.”
“Come on in,” the dean says with hesitation, grudgingly standing aside to allow us through the door.
Taking a deep breath, I enter the living area of the bungalow. The hugeness catches me by surprise. There’s an opulent, plush seating area, all overstuffed couches and soft cushions, an elaborate coffee table with a stack of large glossy books, a study area with the latest-generation Apple laptop, and an enormous painting on the wall.
On the left beside us, by the entryway, is the kitchen area, all white with dark wood worktops and a breakfast bar that can seat six.
“Take your seats,” the dean instructs, pointing to a place at the study area.
We make our way across the room and sit down opposite him as we've been directed. The table is laden with another set of books. He’s been studying.
The dean has his elbows on the table, and his chin is resting on his long, steeple fingers. A slight frown mars his brow.
“Please, go ahead. What is this life and death situation?”
Temisi clears his throat. “It’s—it’s a student,” he stutters. “He plans to take his life.”
The dean shifts uncomfortably on the chair, moving his hands off the table and placing them slowly on his laps. “How did you know?” he asks.
“With this book,” Temisi replies. “It’s in here somewhere.”
The dean stares at me, a hand greasing his clean-shaven chin. “And you’re this student’s roommate, I suppose? The one who reported the case?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you open this page where the suicide plan was clearly written?”
He stretches his hand and grabs a mug from behind the stack of books facing us. He takes a sip, but doesn’t take his eyes off me.
Temisi hands me the journal. A wave of guilt washes over me. This is private property, and it isn’t meant to be read out loud. Plus, it doesn’t just feel right with the dean’s reputation of indiscretion.
My hands are trembling as I think of my roommate, the secrets he has hidden all his life, about to be spilled by me to another. It’s hard not to think myself foolish for hoping the dean would take our words for it, for grooming the thought that upon the revelation of an impending suicide attempt, he’d instantly return to the hostel with us.
But here he sits, questioning, doubting, demanding extensive proof. Temisi didn’t require me to read the content, nor did he himself, yet he believed me right away.
“Maybe it’s too much for you to handle,” the dean says, as if reading my thoughts. “But you have to understand that a case intensity has to be verified by an official of the school before appropriate action is taken to address the subject of concern.”
He takes a sip from the mug, wipes his mouth with the back of his other hand before dropping it behind the stack of books. “You don’t have to read all of it. Just where it clearly states or projects the notion, he plans to take his life.”
“That’s the problem, sir. . . I don’t know. I randomly flipped open a page, and it stared back at me.”
He regards me shrewdly and then shakes his head in a mocking manner. “If what you say is true,” he says as he glances into his now blazing phone that further illuminates the feature of his meaty face, “then you better provide solid evidence.”
“I swear. It’s true! I had a dream he would.”
Temisi shudders at the abrupt revelation of my dream, probably demoralised and disappointed I never mentioned it to him.
The dean instantly sits upright, as if frightened by a sudden voice in the dark. “You had a dream? Is all this because of a dream?”
“No. Yes. I mean, I saw it in my dream before stealing the boo—“
“Have you read this journal before now?” he cuts me off.
I shake my head negatively. He sucks the inside of his teeth. “Have you ever considered that his journal might’ve been for writing fiction? Or for documenting random thoughts?”
His eyes are intense, probing, demanding even. I’m quacking like a leaf, stunned and angry that he actually doesn’t believe me.
“I’ve known him for about . . . eleven—no, eight weeks since the hostel allocation and he, he. . . I swear, I saw it in the book, the. . . the—”
Unable to continue, I cup my palms over my face and sob into them. Over the years, I’ve struggled to live with my fear of losing control. There’s a tightness around my heart, the way I always feel whenever I’m tensed, or whenever I choke over a gale of dust.
I travel a hand down into my baggy-Jean pocket for my inhaler. And then draw a long, deep breath through the mouthpiece, easing the rapid, painful throbbing in my chest. “Relax. Do what he wants,” Temisi says, his hand tender on my shoulder again. “There’s no time to spare. If we’re called liars for doing the right thing, it doesn’t matter a bit. Think . . . think of where you saw it the last time.”
He sounds determined, unconcerned that the dean can hear snippets of his disgust for the so-called due process. Motivated, I open the diary and flip over pages. Just as I near the middle of the book, a familiar page catches my attention. I clear my throat to begin:
“Do I deserve this pain? The endless bleeding of soul and body?
When day and night warred for transcendence, did they cast a shadow
too complex for tongues to voice?
Who knows if shadows are flowers waiting to bloom into white;
white into red; red into orange; until it becomes a sentient that
exhumes all seven shades?
Or are shadows just black, nothing more than a symbolism
of everything evil? Death! A destination where the caged go to be
finally free. Liberty sinking into blood and dirt.
Hell wheezes frosty breaths on my scalding heart. Perhaps I
should melt into puddles, of maddening surge so my name is never spoken again under the sun, but cheered in alien places where I could’ve been pink instead of blue.”
“Is that it?” says the dean, cruel sarcasm lurking below his words. “Is this the note you read and was convinced your roommate is suicidal?” He hurries through his speech and concludes: “I don’t have time for folly.”
For a long time, I’d fought against my tears, but now it spread as mist to blur my eyes. How do I tell the dean to close his eyes and open his heart to truly see without sounding insane?
The words are there, glaring, written in a language even the blind will comprehend if spoken out loud.
Can’t he see them, the seven colours signifying the search for identity? Can’t he see that Manuel regards himself as the shadow and wishes he was born pink instead of blue? Can’t he see he no longer wants to exist anymore in a world with a sun?
The Dean takes another sip from the mug and wipes his mouth with the back of his other hand. His eyes are on Temisi now. “I am profoundly disappointed. I can’t believe you came all the way here to knock on my door at this ungodly hour because of a dream and—piece of poetry.”
“Siiir!” I jerk up at the sudden roar of the hall chair’s voice. The journal slips off my hand to the tiled floor. My body is weak under the weight of my trembling legs.
Temisi pauses to catch his breath. “We should be heading to the hostel with a team of security men to first restrain him, and then help him back to a fit mental health later on. A student’s life may be in danger. This is no time to play the game of doubt. What if he’s right? What if the student really needs help? Right now.”
Skin-folds of anger appear on the dean’s face. “Are you telling me what to do?” he asks, his voice steeling as he shifts his big body to the edge of his seat, like he is ready for a fight.
Temisi meets the dean’s glare with the force of his own, rage building, mouth speaking without utterance—a grievance hidden inside words unsaid—and for a split second, it seems like he means to smash his fist across the dean's meaty face.
There’s a tale coming off Temisi’s dark gaze, of one who has drunk from the cup of negligence. Picking the journal off the floor, Temisi stands. “Let’s go. Midnight is upon us. We can help Manuel ourselves.”
I stare at the dean’s horror-stricken face—creased like an army commander confronted by the lowliest soldier—before hurrying to catch up with the hall chair. And together, we dash into the ghostly silence of night.
IV.
The wind is dull, and the air carries a sense of mourning. The leaves rustle and the breeze nuzzle my neck, leaving traces of cold and warmth as we walk into the hostel.
I think about the impending shock on Manuel’s face; how he’ll react when he finds out I stole his journal and shared its content with strangers. Worst still, I am no different than a stranger—no more than a face he sees but has never known.
My mind is flustered with the probable aftermath of tonight’s event. But one stands out from the rest: the deathly grudge Manuel will bear against me till the end of days.
Standing in front of my dorm room, I slam the locked door. Behind me, Temisi’s feet shuffle restlessly, like one thirsting to fetch water from a well lined with people. The door opens to reveal one of my roommates. Not the one we are hoping to find. He rubs his eyes sleepily as Temisi throws questions at him.
He yawns aloud, as though threatening to swallow us whole if we dare to come close enough. Antsy, the hall chair curls through the length of me, pushing the yawning boy gently inside the room.
For a moment, time seemed to slow down, gaining speed as I turned here and there in search of Manuel.
I investigate the room harder, discovering deep truths out of nothingness, truths too dark for light to illuminate.
“Where is he?” Temisi asks, eyes burning into mine.
“I...I don’t know. He was here, right here. They were all here when I left.”
The hall chair jerks my other roommates awake. Question after question he asks:
—What did you guys say to him?
— When was the last time you saw him?
— Did you notice anything odd about him earlier today? Give me a clue. Anything?
And they respond:
—We didn’t say anything bad. We were just talking about how gender dysphoria is not a thing, making harmless jokes about it all.
— We saw him about an hour ago. For some reasons unknown he was mad and went to bed before any of us.
— Yes. He made a post on WhatsApp, a picture of a body floating on a river. Above the body, there was a rainbow running across the cloud. His WhatsApp post with the caption, urm, what was it again? Ah, yes. The caption ‘they are humans too; a shadow of many colours, and they bleed red’ prompted the late-night argument. We just couldn’t understand why he took it so personally.
My gaze is fixed on Temisi, watching how irregular curves form on his forehead, wondering what puzzles surge through his mind.
I sense that he’s caught between what to do and where to go. His hands are trembling, and the golden lights on his face are bleached crimson.
After a few moments of silence, he hurries out of the room. The urgency in his gait is frightening, yet inspiring at the same time. Stirred by his persistence in the face of disbelief, I step out in pursuit, only to discover he’s going from room to room, knocking thunderously upon doors, calling on the occupants.
Soon enough, the hallway is full with the waking faces of students, men and women alike.
Murmurs of questions spring up. In front of the crowd, Temisi stands. “Can I get your attention, please?” he says, before I get a chance to wonder why he summoned virtually all inhabitants of the hostels.
I almost freak out at the secret he intends to spill until he begins crying (beads and beads of tears trickling down his cheeks), begging for their help finding a missing student. The tone of his voice, like one broken into irreparable pieces.
He deliberately leaves out the suicide part, an act that reassures me he can be trusted. They’ve never seen him like this before, one of the students says. Never heard his mouth pour out words that exhume broken desperation, another adds.
He was always strong. Strong! But now he appears weak. And for this, they incoherently echo their support.
V.
Our voices reach the heavens, like thunderclaps in the open sky, roaring my roommate’s name. We continue the search for minutes, diving deep into the heart of campus. Flashlights stab the mourning night with bleached knife; it bleeds white over dark buildings, corners, and bends.
I take my time to digest the scene as I trudge slowly behind: Strangers weaved into a soulful basket, guarding consciousness against the pollution of illiberal soil, working for one aim, walking with one foot, calling with one voice.
Suddenly, we hear a scream from afar. The shrill voice provokes night birds off trees nearby. The sound is not of fear or terror but of one laden with frustration and hopelessness. We hurry down twists and turns until we arrive at the mouth of Malabor’s steel bridge.
There, a few meters away, Manuel stands, the shock in his eyes too dense for words.
Below us, the water swirls, curling upon itself like a nest of boa constrictors, pouring sprinkles at our feet. Beside his feet is the familiar backpack. He has his hands tightly gripping the rail, his face over the protective guard of the metal framework. Frosty wind whizzes against his shirt and trousers like the flutter of flags high above poles.
Soon, he begins to make his way over the rail. The air zapping through my lungs becomes instantly heavy. Blurred images from my dreams flood my mind, translating gradually into vivid pictures.
“Don’t do it,” Temisi whimpers. “You deserve to live. Please, don’t do it.”
The rest of us will our legs forward, edging closer to my roommate. “I know how it feels to be lost,” he continues, his voice teary. “I’ve known loneliness too. I’ve known rejection. Please, have hope in yourself. God loves you.”
But the closer we get, the higher Manuel climbs. One step. Two steps. Three. He glances sideways to stare at us with screens of mist blurring the black of his eyes from under a blazing lamppost. And at four, he—he let himself go.
There’s no splash, as if the water is not a surface but a mother incubating bones and sinews. His damp body wriggles up and down the canal, sailing the narrow watery world that flows all the way to the Cross River. The image of him struggling against the tide seems to zoom out, as though I’m a spectator in my own reality.
I swallow the scream back down my throat as the current drives him toward the spot we stand. And at a split second, before he sails beyond salvation for the Cross River, Temisi dives expertly over the railing and grabs his arm, all the while holding onto the bottom balustrade with one hand.
The hall chair didn’t let go, even though the current threatened to claim him too.
His arms stretch from end to end. The muscles of his face shape into crinkles of determination. My head spins in fearful wonder.
“Help me!” Temisi yells to the rest of us, gazing in awe. “Grab my arm.”
Immediately, we form a human rope—hands holding hands, strength pulling strength. We pull with so much of our might until the hall chair grabs hold of the arm in front of the line.
Then, one of us seizes the opportunity to curl over the upmost balustrade and take my roommate’s weight off Temisi.
Now free of Manuel's weight, he begins to climb up the horizontal poles for solid ground. It takes a while, but we finally manage to drag Manuel out of the raging canal.
Temisi is drenched from head to toe, shivering from the cold. Yet, he hurries for Manuel, whose knees kiss the ground and places a hand over his shoulder.
They share a deep, intimate stare for a moment. There’s electricity zapping through them. I can sense it from where I stand.
The oneness; it’s like pouring a droplet into an ocean, which creates a ripple that breaks Manuel into tears.
Temisi wraps his arms around Manuel’s shuddering frame, shushing, tracing a finger along the lines of his clothed spine, like an angel without wings.
