The Last Bus to Oshodi
The rain came down in sheets, the kind that makes you question whether Lagos still remembers what dry land feels like. Under the flickering blue-white light of the dying billboard ("Buy 1 Plot, Get Spiritual Protection Free!"), Aisha stood with her left sandal half-swallowed by mud and her right arm raised like someone trying to surrender to God and danfo drivers simultaneously.
The last bus of the night coughed to a stop in front of her.
Number 566.
Destination: Oshodi.
Miracle of miracles—it actually stopped.
The conductor, a man whose voice had been marinated in pure kerosene for at least fifteen years, leaned out and screamed with surprising tenderness:
"Last bus! Last bus! Enter with your destiny! No change o!"
Aisha climbed in.
Only four other passengers.
All of them pretending not to look at each other.
In the front seat sat an old woman wearing three different Ankara head-ties layered like she was expecting a coup and wanted to be ready for every possible new national colour. She clutched a live hen to her chest. The hen looked like it had already accepted its fate and was just waiting for the paperwork.
Behind her, a young man in a suit two sizes too sincere kept checking his phone even though there had been no network since Ikeja. Every few seconds he whispered "Babe, can you hear me?" to a screen that had been black since 2019.
In the middle row sat a pastor—or someone who had watched enough pastors on YouTube to cosplay convincingly. He held a bottle of olive oil like it was a grenade with the pin half-pulled.
And then, right at the back, a small girl—no more than nine—sat alone.
No school bag.
No phone.
Just one red balloon tied to her wrist with white thread.
The balloon had writing on it in black marker:
"SORRY I LATE"
The bus jerked forward.
The rain beat the roof like an impatient landlord.
Somewhere around Maryland, the lights went out.
Not the street lights.
The bus lights.
Complete darkness except for the occasional lightning that turned everyone's faces into startled ancestors.
Then the old woman started humming.
Not a church song.
Not even a Fuji praise.
Something older.
Something that remembered when Lagos was still swamp and stories.
The little girl with the balloon began to swing her legs.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
The man in the suit finally gave up on his dead phone and asked the darkness:
"Abeg... who else dey feel say this bus don dey drive for too long?"
Silence.
Then the pastor cleared his throat.
Very important throat-clearing.
The kind that announces "I have a word from the Lord."
"My brother," he said, "sometimes the journey feels long because God is taking you through the scenic route."
The conductor laughed so hard he almost fell out of the door.
"Scenic route? You never see Third Mainland for rain before?"
Another lightning flash.
Everyone saw it at the same time.
The road had ended.
Not like construction ended.
Not like bad governance ended.
Like the city itself had been folded up and put away.
There was only black water ahead.
And the bus was still moving.
Straight toward it.
The old woman stopped humming.
The hen opened one eye.
The little girl stood up—slowly, like she had all the time in the world—and walked to the front of the bus.
She touched the driver on the shoulder.
The driver—who no one had noticed until now because he had been so quiet—turned his head.
He had no face.
Just smooth dark like the space between stars.
The girl didn't flinch.
She simply held up her wrist.
The red balloon floated upward, pulling the white thread taut.
"SORRY I LATE"
The driver reached up with fingers that looked more like smoke than skin, and gently untied the knot.
The balloon rose through the roof like the roof wasn't even there.
And then—silence.
Real silence.
The kind Lagos never gives you.
When the lights came back on, they were golden, not blue-white.
The bus was empty except for Aisha.
And the little girl.
Who was now sitting beside her, smiling the smile of someone who has successfully delivered a very old message.
Aisha looked out the window.
They were in Oshodi.
But not the Oshodi she knew.
This one had no okadas.
No hawkers.
No shouting.
Just quiet streets, and streetlamps shaped like giant palm fronds, glowing soft orange.
The girl stood up.
She didn't say anything.
She just pressed something into Aisha's palm—cool, metallic, heavy.
A key.
Then she walked to the door, stepped down into the impossible night, and was gone.
The conductor appeared from nowhere, smiling like a man who has finally finished a very long shift.
"Last stop, aunty. You don reach."
Aisha looked at the key in her hand.
It had no tag.
Just two words engraved in careful Yoruba script:
"ÌLÉ TÌ MI"
(My house)
She stepped down into the warm night.
Behind her, the bus folded itself up like paper and disappeared into the rain.
And somewhere far above Oshodi, a single red balloon kept rising, still carrying its apology into the sky that had waited almost twenty-three years to receive it.