Both I and my friend were tense as there was little time to reach the examination centre on that particular strike-day. No vehicle was available on that day except the lone cycle rickshaw. We rode on it and asked the rickshaw puller, "Move fast."
The rickshaw puller strained on his legs but he was too old to carry both of us. I got off and paid the rickshaw puller my full share.
My friend argued, "Come on, you will be late."
But I continued walking ahead, almost running. After dropping my friend near the examination centre, the rickshaw puller picked me up again.
I was thirty minutes late, but the old man's relief and my friend's smile were more worthy than anything else.

“But everything looks so tired and worn. I remember it being so gay.”
“You were the one who wanted to come to Paris to die.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
I took her hand and pointed. “There it is. That’s the café.”
We pushed through the crowd at the door and found a table for two.
“Everyone here looks so old,” she said.
“Except for the beautiful girl dancing at the bar.”
“ Madame et monsieur. Vous desirez?”
“You speak English?” I asked the waiter who had materialized at my elbow.
“Yes. I speak English.”
“Who is the beautiful girl dancing at the bar?”
“Monsieur, that is Death.”
“But I thought Death was...”
“Monsieur, the older one gets the more beautiful Death becomes. Has Monsieur or Madame come to dance?”

Dreams come true someone once said. Olajumoke did not dream. Hawking bread on the streets in Lagos was all she did to feed her family.  As she did her rounds, tray piled with loaves, balanced on her head, the dream found her.  One sunny afternoon, there was a photo shoot on the street, with a visiting British musician, Tinnie Tempah as the subject. The bread hawker unwittingly got in the frame, and the scenery blossomed.

Reviewing the pictures later on, the musician and photographer were amazed at the effect this waif like woman had. They searched for a fortnight and found her. A cover shoot, followed by a modelling contract landed quickly. Bloggers, Fashion Editors and the Social Media buzzed with photos and articles about this interesting discovery. Olajumoke now has a new challenge: dealing with the publicity and the fact that she can no longer be the girl next door.

Once again she found herself drawn back to the flickering of candlelight, enticing her to remain sitting on the chair for minutes longer. Her translucent curtains slowly beating in the wind, she runs her hands slowly up her arms feeling the hairs erect on her skin; the cold air kissing her causing her skin to quiver. 
Her shaking hand picked up her pen and she began to draw. Ink drew from her veins as she poured her heart across the paper, her blood seeping into the fibres. She fell into a trance where time passed her by fluently like the Scottish winds in her air when she wandered aimlessly at 3AM. 
Nothing usually happened at 3AM, it was only once or twice that she heard the shattering of glass, those muffled screams of faded gunshots from across the city. Perhaps a whisper from the wind occurs often, for her at least, the voices of those who stood before her, leaving messages to transcend for someone to find, like dragonflies carrying messages between worlds. She felt the boundaries of this realm and beyond, she was in between, one of the outsiders – they whispered to her often. 


He knew as soon as he laid eyes on her that she saw beyond the edge of the world. He saw that not only the physical here touched her; he knew the spirits called for her.
Occasionally he would find her sitting on the windowsill leaning out, the wind pulling her hair to the sky, holding her, energising her, as though sleep was never a necessary evil to her. “Darling, come back to bed, are you all right…?”


She remained silent for a few moments before looking back to him with a glimmer in her eyes, “yes, I will soon, they’re calling me again.”

Using thought-speed Len placed himself on the unknown planet his mind imagined was somewhere out there. All he needed to do was use his imagination of what the ideal planet looked like, enter that into his time-thought machine that was his brain. He locked in his imagination of this ideal planet knowing it would then take him there.

It was a planet with no crime where everyone loved everyone else. It had beautiful sandy beaches of all the ideal colours, rivers and mountain ranges beautifully entangled according to the season. The air in the mountain ranges crisp in the summer and ideal for climbing. They would be snow covered in the cold months, ideal for snow activities.

Their research scientists had worked out all the necessary physical theories which medical scientist cold use to solve medical problems that beset earth, and physics smart engineers could use, and did use, to safely overcome transport difficulties – well there couldn’t be, and thus weren’t any on this unknown planet.

He arrived on Golden Beach thinking he was ready for everything but was immediately sized by a robot that took him to the decontamination room and decontaminated. To his dismay this process was not amenable to using thought speed. Disinfection was a biological process and thus took the time it takes on earth to undergo such a process. They knew how to do it but decontamination is a biological process, and thus not fast. It took three months for them to release Len onto that beautiful Golden Beach. His troubles then started; because looking for work his skills as good as they were on earth, were outdated for the needs of the unknown planet. He needed food now that he was no longer incarcerated and fed.
​
His mind then turned to thinking about theft, but on this unknown ideal planet that was not possible.

That was because in his imagination there was no crime other than begging, that even on earth, was not a crime and thus possible. So he begged and so survived. He added to these gains by caddying at the Golden Beach golf club – something he could do for the local golfers for pay. This lacked the personal pleasure his imagination promised it would be when back on earth. He started longing to be back on earth.

The problem to getting back was, he found, due to fact that his powers of imagination had dwindled. This seemingly rendered him incapable of generating thought-waves in sufficiency to be able lock into thought-speed to be able to think he was back on earth. Realization of what he could do on earth then made him realize he had to just think what he did there in his glory days, and so in a blink it came to him. He was an expert at telling kids stories. In the next few months he went to the beach after caddying and gathered kids around him, and told them stories, which they loved because this was a top skill Len had. Remember, on the unknown planet this gathering of kids would not be a crime, because there wasn’t crime. Soon, with this story telling and its needs, Len’s imaginative thoughts again were enhanced to the level where he was capable of generating thought-speed.

Enigma then reigned; stay on planet unknown, because he was now seemingly in heaven on the unknown planet, or return to earth back to his mates.

The bubble then burst and Len woke up in a sweat.