Not By My Power

A smile graced Musa's lips as he stepped into the elevator. He faced the shiny side that reflected his image and gently, almost unconsciously adjusted his jacket. Just before the doors to the elevator pulled together, a hand jutted out, when it slid back open, she walked in. It wasn't her fair skin or how pretty her eyes looked, it wasn't even about the contrast of her black niqab with her fair skin, it was the power she exuded in standing up straight and her aura, it reminded him strangely of his sister, the one who had been auctioned into marriage at the age of sixteen to the highest bidder.

Nafeesa caught his eye on her a few times and she fought her usual battle on whether or not to go into her friendly mode or just remain quiet and continue counting the numbers with the elevator. 9...8...7.

"Did you come for the meeting?" Her friendly mode won. "I didn't see your face in the crowd." She added when she saw his brow lift.

The lights flickered, followed by a loud rumble that had them reaching for the vertically placed steel bars. The lights went out and Musa reached into his pocket for his phone, a phone he had recently purchased, not with his money of course, it was money he got from his usual hustle, in Nigeria you either dine with the rich or serve the rich, and Musa certainly wasn't serving the rich, if he so much as wanted, he could buy the table. "Probably a burnout or something."

Nafeesa caught herself before she could let out a scoff, he speaks, praise Almighty.

"I didn't come here for the meeting." Musa finally said after seconds of silence. Nafeesa nodded, coupled with the bright light that shone only on one side of the elevator and her niqab she knew he didn't see it and she didn't bother to speak, the moment had passed. She watched as he slid down the wall of the elevator and finally settled cross-legged on the ground. Strangely, she wasn't in a hurry to leave and neither was he judging by how comfortable or almost comfortable he looked.

"What was the meeting about?"

She wasn't sure he had spoken until he lifted his head up to look at her.

"Rights for the LGBT society."

He looked at her like she had suddenly slapped him and called it a good luck charm.

"For this our Nigeria?" Musa exclaimed, throwing all sense of "prim and proper" out the window, he rarely ever spoke anything but fluent American English, the life where he spoke pidgin was in the past and he would do anything to bury it there. Nafeesa laughed and sat down opposite him, imitating his style. He took off his jacket and with the way he aggressively fanned himself with it, if given the chance he would've taken off the shirt too no doubt, but those scars were meant for his eyes and his lover's eyes alone.

Nafeesa resisted the urge to fan herself as the air got hotter.

"You'd be surprised at the number of closeted people in Nigeria." She finally provided an answer. Musa shifted uneasily, wondering if she could see him for what he truly was. Surely she couldn't know why I had come to this hotel, he thought.

"Uhm, what's your name?"

She eyed him cautiously, "Mohammed. Nafeesa Mohammed." She finally tugged off the niqab, thankful that she had remembered to wear a scarf. Musa was momentarily destabilized by her beauty, he was confirming it firsthand again that Fulanis were beautiful, as though they had been sculptured at a different pace.

"George." Musa said, he couldn't tell her who he was, she'd be disappointed, he wasn't sure she would understand even though she might be a part of it and he wasn't certain he could deal with another dose of disappointment. He'd had enough.

"Why did you come?"

"Hmm?" Musa felt his body become hotter all of a sudden, he pulled at the neck of his shirt uneasily.

"Why did you come here?" She repeated.

She noticed his uneasiness then as his eyes darted back and forth as though wishing the elevator walls would melt and he could race out of it, leaving her to inhale his dust.

"A friend."

That was it, two minutes later and they had settled into silence, it wasn't uncomfortable but it felt to her as though it needed to be filled.

"Do you stay here?" She asked.

Musa focused on her then, she didn't look like she was older than him but he felt she was, Fulanis never really aged. He could thank their strong genes for his strong features, although unlike most Fulanis he had come across, his melanin was a lot darker, enriched if you may. He even got lucky with his curly hair, it was harder to hide that he was obviously of Hausa descent but he tried.

"Yes. I have a house up at Angwan Rimi." He answered.

"You stay with friends or family?"

Musa creased his eyebrows again at her thirst for information, even he who hungered for information so he could spice up and ginger his stories wasn't rushing for it as much as she was.

"I hate silence." She said, with a small smile and nervously darted her eyes around. She finally settled with fingering her wedding band, Musa didn't know what to classify the look as but it certainly wasn't joy.

"No friends, all I have is connections. My family? Bunch of poverty-stricken jokers." Here I am sharing bits of myself with someone I barely knew, he thought.

"In Nigeria, that's all you need to survive." It came to him then that she didn't have a Hausa accent--maybe she had been among those rich children to make their way to abroad for their education which prompted his next question--it was just plain fluent almost British English.

"Where did you school?"

She laughed revealing her gold tooth even more and playfully rolled her eyes.

"Not you too. I did everything education-related in Nigeria. I didn't go anywhere else."

"We can add you to the list of people who proudly rep this country then."

"We're not all bad." Nafeesa said. Musa wanted to argue but held himself back, she wasn't done.

"My son used to say that a lot. Even when everything was at its worst." She smiled sadly. "He was a good kid."

"What happened?"

Minutes passed, Musa had even placed his phone down on the ground so the light would shine up and reflect.

"He died."

Musa hated passionately to hear about death, he loathed the subject. It made him feel like he was in control of everything but how his life ends. He could attribute that to almost a hundred poems he had written on it, each reflecting his anger and disappointment. It always felt good to release that energy, maybe that's why he had gotten so much back.

"Was he sick?"

"No." She looked at him and made sure he was looking at her, "They killed him."

It was as though his mother had poured a bucket of cold water on him again while his father prepared his koboko to give him another "good" beating.

"You know, I'm here because of him." She chuckled but it was devoid of humor, "I came here to speak at that meeting because of him."

Musa wanted to reach out and hug her but he wasn't sure he whether to, she looked fragile yet so strong but not so strong to not fall apart if he tried to hug her.

"He was...he..." Musa struggled to say.

"Usman was a good kid. His father, Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji' un." Musa caught himself before he could say amin, you've come this far, he thought.

"We decided to homeschool him. We showered him with so much love, more love than we had received, both of us combined." She stretched her legs and rested her head against the wall. "We thought it would be best for him to at least attend Quranic school alongside his peers, it would be good for his buildup." She paused and smiled, without a doubt, Musa knew that she had recalled a memory.

"He was doing so well, everyone liked him and once in a while we'd make some snacks together and take them there." She let go of her wedding band and made eye contact with him then.

"His father slumped one day and he just didn't make it. Despite how hard it was I tried, I tried so hard to keep everything together. I took a job that allowed me to work from home full-time, every day, so I could focus on him solely."

Musa had decided that he didn't like the way this story was going. Everything about this setting, them stuck in an elevator looked like something out of a movie or even a spiced up book.

"When he turned thirteen. Things didn't really change much which I was grateful for because I had heard different stories of how teenagers turned against their parents."

Musa wanted to laugh, maybe he would have if it had been presented in a less tragic situation.

"I got a frantic call, it was a few months after he had turned thirteen. The woman, I had never met her before, she was hysterical over the phone, said she was given my number by one of the teachers and that my son was involved in something."

Nafeesa held her legs firmly, her fingernails digging into the fabric of her baggy cotton pants and into her flesh as she tried to keep her emotions at bay. Musa moved close to her then and gently touched her shoulder, when she lifted her head, his heart broke for her.

"She wasn't making much sense so I drove to his school in a hurry, I almost hit some people on the way but all that didn't matter, this was my son we were talking about." She sniffled. "I got to his school and there was a crowd, some were wailing, some disgusted and some stood from afar and shook their heads. Nigerians and not minding their business was what I first thought. There was a strong smoke smell in the air though, it was fresh."

She held onto his sleeved shirt.

"They had burnt him alive." The sobs came them, hard and heavy. It hadn't come this hard when she had spoken to those people in there, she didn't know what had changed. Musa swallowed and blinked his eyes, he needed to comfort her. She was the one who had lost a son, he was just a listener.

"When I woke up I was in a hospital. They told me then why they had killed my son." She shook her head painfully. Her eyes were now a shade of red.

"He was found with one of his classmates, a boy. They were kissing. The head of the school was infuriated. So infuriated that what Islam used to be was starting to change and that an example needed to be set." She inhaled deeply, struggling to calm her insides. "So he burnt them alive."

Musa discreetly wiped his eyes. That could've been me, he thought and dismissed it almost immediately.

"He was so young. If they had said something to me first I'm sure I would've been able to turn him away from that path." Musa squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.

"I know it may look like I was homophobic but I would've done anything, anything to have protected him. I would've given my life for him."

"Is that why you came here?" Musa asked. She wiped her face with some toilet paper and folded it neatly before placing it in a section of her purse.

"With everything that I had and everything I acquired I fought against that school. It's still an ongoing battle and with me and the other boy's mother starting up a solid society of LGBT+ we're definitely going to win it."

Musa wanted to tell her then that he hadn't come to see a friend, he had come to see his boyfriend, that despite him being twenty-two and legal he was scared shitless that if he so much as came out he would be lynched. He couldn't even tell her that he was once a Muslim and that he had run away after his father found out that the "girlfriend" they thought he had was a guy.

He wanted so badly to comfort her with the words: I'm gay and I'm sure your son would've made a perfect gentleman but he couldn't, he wasn't that bold. He couldn't even stand up to his father when he had locked him up for a week and gave him nothing but constant beatings. In a way, running away from everything made him feel like he had tried, like he had made a stand. Everything he was and everything he owned down to his very boxers was bought by the man whose heart he had stolen and him likewise. He would never bring himself to say that the day he ran away from his house was the last time he ever called on Allah, he had moved to another religion, one that if he had switched to while he was still at home he would have been killed for. The decisions you make must be ones you can live with, his father's words rang clearly in his mind. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't rid himself of his past.

There was a lot wrong with his country, he had finally come to the conclusion. They were blessed with so much yet they lacked a lot. Maybe he would someday tell someone else, might not be her that he had tried to seek peace in Christianity, he had felt it for a while but now he was dwindling. It was as though he lost focus of what he had always held unto, something he thought he'd grow up focusing on, it infuriated him to know that that also was out of his control.

Nafeesa sniffled beside him, she wondered what had made him stare off into the air like that, maybe like her, he was struggling with a lot.

The lights in the elevator flickered on. Neither of them got up, Nafeesa was still trying to gather her thoughts and Musa was lost in them.

He finally pulled himself out of his thoughts and got up first, he waited for her to wear her niqab back before pulling her up.

The elevator dinged and slowly it slid open. Musa offered her a small smile. Nafeesa hesitated before finally wrapping her arms around him. He mirrored her actions before embracing her. It had been nice to let it off their chest, even though Musa hadn't said much, he felt a little better and felt like maybe, just maybe he's life was worth it.

Just like that she was gone, Musa looked around and pinched his arm lightly, no, he was wide awake and he had just comforted a stranger by the name Nafeesa. Nafeesa Mohammed. He stepped out of the elevator and breathed in deeply, back into his shell he goes.

Musa knew that when he sat down tonight, he'd write about Nafeesa Mohammed, the strong fearless Nigerian who lost everything that mattered to her, and how being African didn't stop her from siding with non-heterosexuals and he would give her a happy ending. She certainly deserved one.

Maybe someday too, he'd be able to comfortably talk about his life and how his first kiss with Paul back home had made him feel and how the man he met after would later be his husband, regardless of the fact that he was a full-fledged Nigerian, and how they started a family of two.

He dug his fingers into his back pocket for his wallet only to produce a very colorful card, the wallet was in the other side, behind the card was Nafeesa's number and in front were the words, welcome to the family.

For the second time that day, Musa smiled and a few seconds later, it was a full-blown laugh.