I saw a dead man today.

I am shaken.

No, this isn't the first time I'm seeing a dead man; during my secondary school days in Badagry it was normal to see dead people on the express occasionally, then there's my late grandpa and grandma. But, none of those compares to what I felt seeing this man sprawled lifelessly on the floor, knowing fully well that less than 10 minutes before that time, he was full of life and riding his bike to God knows where.

I closed late from work, as is my recent tradition. I was trying to wrap up what I was doing to a certain extent before calling it a day. I picked my first bike and hopped on the next one shortly. Normally, I prefer to be the only passenger, but my wallet isn't allowing that at the moment so I joined the young man on this next bike and we were homeward bound. After some 3 minutes of riding, we noticed a cluster of people just ahead of us… this isn't a shocking sight, it was probably some street fight or some other minor thing. But as we moved closer, I noticed the slim old woman who kept stomping her feet on the ground and biting her index finger, I saw more people begin to gather and scream. By this, I knew this was not going to be a usual sight. I was totally unprepared.

The car was red, it had swerved from the road toward the left, almost ramming into a small shop just beside the road. On the floor, there were several mechanical objects scattered about. Just a little closer and I saw him. He was wearing a black round-neck and blue jeans. He laid face up on the road, his arms and legs spread wide like a bird.. His bike seat between his spread legs and a pool of blood just by his head. He had beards and his eyes were closed. We didn't stay for long before my co-passenger hurried our bikeman away from the sight.

By this time, I had paused my music and I was shivering. I couldn't stop thinking; Did he know he was going to die? Did he see his death coming just seconds before the swerving car hit him and sent him to his maker? What were his last thoughts as he felt his slip from him? What of the driver who hit him? Was he alive? How would he feel knowing he's killed someone? How would he live with this reality? Just a few streets down the same road, I saw some young guy and girl trying to buy suya, laughing and talking. It made me think of the dead man's family, I imagine he has one. What was his wife doing at that very moment? Was she cooking for him, expecting to hear the familiar sound of him parking up soon? What of his children? His parents? What were they doing at that exact time he died? How would they take it?

My co-passenger wouldn’t keep quiet. He went on and on with all sorts of rambling; from shock, to hisses, blaming everyone from God, to the government, to drivers and pedestrians. I imagine that he’s pretty shaken too, and all the talking was just him processing it. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to say 'thank God he wasn’t carrying a passenger' but that didn’t seem appropriate, neither did any other thing I thought of. At the end of the day I settled for a simple prayer

"May the Lord comfort his family and help them through this, Amen".