You’ve been living in your head all week, it’s the weekend and you need an escape —from yourself, 45% Alc Vol doesn’t cut it anymore, so you turn to the next best thing: your neglected dust-gathering bike, the one you swore would change your life.
Take a cup of rushed Nescafe coffee (with enough creamer to make it borderline illegal), then tweet about how real men only take their coffee black. Grab your headset, and hit the road.
A few minutes into this escapade you’ll hate yourself less, you’ll hate the drivers more — why can’t they just get off the road? You’ll hate the reckless impatient keke drivers, you’ll hate everyone, but above all, you’ll hate this city.
For a moment, the wind in your face makes you forget the ticket you’ve been wasting time on, that other deadline you need to meet, and the existential dread that comes with being alive in this city. Until a keke driver cuts you off while trying to cross a junction and the illusion shatters. Lagos giveth and Lagos taketh away.
He’ll shout at you “ibo lon lo!” (where is he going!) and you’ll sharply shout back “ibooro ni!” and make the dangerous crossing anyway, you’ll trust that he’ll slow down for you, you have to trust that, or else you’ll be there for a long long time.
This city stinks. And you’ll really really hate that shameless shameless man taking a shit by the roadside. You’ll hate how good you’ve got at ignoring beggars, that’s not really who you are (cope), the stupid road bumps that force you to slow down every 3 minutes.
A parked BRT forces you onto a one-way road, where you’re face-to-face with koropes (yellow-colored buses) that seem like one of their front tires will pop off any minute. You can’t let them know you’re scared, so you steadily ride on. You’ve done this before, Lagos boy.
The road is free now, put your headset on and play a random playlist on spotify, make a video for your fans on Snapchat, and you can finally enjoy your ride as you sing along loudly. But watch out, a white bus is driving towards you, on a fucking bike lane, you’ll make a loud sigh as you try to ride by the curb as close as possible like your life depends on it (maybe because it does). You can’t but hate this city.
A little boy pulls up beside you on his little bike, grinning, trying to race, you’ll have no choice but to stunt on him, it’s unfair but so is life. A win is a win. You pull over, breathless and grinning, and mutter to yourself, ‘Fuck, I love this city.’ And for a moment, you almost mean it.
