Depositors

The uproar was still high and rising every second. Many still cowering from the scene, the women folks seem to by their nature born for this kind of disorganization. There is no doubt that they are born amplifiers. Good actresses from the womb, but this time around, they were not acting out and their antics are not even enough in comparison with what lays before everyone on that Onitsha T-junction that dull October morning. 

About eight dead bodies lay askew in haphazard manners. One still hanging from the window of the mini bus he was thrown from. The onitsha city seems to have such ghastly accidents as their portion once Ember months comes around. That Tuesday morning, four young men and three young ladies were the chosen ones. 

About seven minutes into the uproar, the siren started blaring and many that had gut to gather around started dispersing in a hurry. Common knowledge one learns in this city is that, inasmuch as one needs to be his brother's keeper, you must not be that keeper unto death or unto detention house. Onitsha city police is notorious in that area. Detaining innocent people till they bail themselves with hefty monies for trying to be good neighbors.

But just like most things we do in life, some by their nature don't live by common or general rules. They don't even store experiences that trigger any flight in them in any similar circumstances. Nay. Each incident is an experience unto itself and afterwards, it fades forever. 

Three guys stood their ground eyeing the corps and arriving officers as the rest fled. No one was expecting ambulance services, such services don't exist in Onitsha city. To the authorities in the city, any injured, or the dead that did not like where he was can always find their way to where they like to be. No hospital is known to have rejected the injured or any morgue ever rejected any ghost that finds its way through their door. Once you come to them, they will attend to you with all pleasure but waiting for them to come to you? Forget it. 

The officers on clarion call, about five of them descended from their rickety bus, their faded uniforms were all obvious to all, some letters on their bus bearing their name have faded and state of the bus is clear to all from the groans emanating from it. They marched towards the corps. One, too eager from the way he was ahead of others suddenly halted in his stride as it seems he remembered something or heard a voice in his head. He talked to the one by his right and that one went back towards their bus. From the way he was ordering others around, it's clear he is their boss. The one he talked to earlier came back with a tiny Nikon camera. From its size and the way it has worn out, John observing with the crowd afar has no doubt that its manufactured date will not be anything below early '80s. It still uses polaroid films. He took the pictures of the dead from four angles and seemed to be playing to the gallery. Then, he turned towards the three guys staring at them within four feets and aimed his camera at their faces. Two covered their faces and one minded them not. Click! Click! Click! Came the sound from the old machine. Like animals which their zoo doors were just opened after months in a cage, three officer rushed the dead bodies feeling them from head to toe. One saw a wallet on the dead guy and pocketed it. The other was lucky with the dead girl. He saw a wad of naira in one thousand dimension tied with a rubber band and pocketed it too. The other one was busy gathering the bags and purses in the buses and hauling all back to their bus. 

Afterwards, they turned their attention towards the three guys' direction and saw only one, the defiant one still standing there eyeing them. One officer went towards him with his notebook opened, pen poised, halted a few steps near him and started asking him questions.

      "Are you on the bus with them?"

 "No" eyes locked with the officer without a flinch. "I see. But how come you have blood on your shoe and some in your hands?" He asked again, eyeing the man that stood his ground without flinching with an expression on his face that oscillated from anger to irritation. That expression made the officer to halt further advance and asked his questions from the spot he was. "So, where is your two friends?"

" I don't know them, i am on my own helping along" "That is good of you. Please, come help us load the dead in our bus" 

The man hesitated before walking towards the corps. When they were through, the helping guy made to climb down from the police bus but one officer beat him to it and locked him in from the outside. They zoomed off, siren blaring without clearing the mangled buses from the road. 

When they turned towards the mogue route, a few houses to it, they stopped in front of a police wagon parked beside the road there and transferred the man from their bus to the wagon and both zoomed off in opposite directions. 

The morgue attendants came to help in offloading the corps and from the way they exchanged pleasantries, its obvious they know each other for long, obvious they use that morgue too often. Five hours later, the depositors returned to their station laughing at the joke one was cracking oblivious to the new cars in the parking lot. 

They halted in their wake in seeing their boss with another figure they know not seating in the common room talking and joking too. The depositors were surprise to see their boss out of his office. He hardly leave that room each day only in the evening when he wants to go home. He is the kind that pays no heed to anyone he has nothing to do with and hardly halt for three minutes in the common room when passing through it to his office. Greetings were normaly answered with a nod of the head and croaked sound coming from somewhere at the back of the throat. Some at times wonders if he believed there's virus on loose there that will infect him if he halts for few minutes. Seeing him sitting there talking with a man that doesn't emit any fraternity odor is strange to the depositors. He seems to be oblivious of their presence and they refused to salute from experience, interrupting the man when he is busy is offense that warrants detaining you for three months in the station there without field work. 

The man he was talking to seems from his face to be almost double his age and the way they were talking and joking, their knowledge of each other's existence on this planet dates back decades. After about thirty minutes more, with the depositors hurdled in the far corner, behaving themselves. The boss bid the man farwell and went back to his office. The depositors came alive with their colleagues that had been behaving too and the whole common room went back to its normal temperature.  After about one hour, the depositors have not made any recording of what they recovered from the accident scene, and don't even know the name of the dead despites packing all their properties and their phones. 

They were still yakking off when the defiant man they had handed over to the group that will do away with him as usual entered with John, showered and on new clothes. They entered their boss office without halting to greet anyone.  "I said it" was what dropped from one of the depositors mouth before the intercom ushered them into their boss office with about five other fresh faces they did not know either on their heel.