I was a big dreamer, so it was easy..I made fantasies out of everything that picked my interest. More than once I had watched as a child the painful and rather disturbing, brutal elimination of another individual, the Pm news called it a "Mob attack". I had always imagined the sheer thoughtlessness and dead consciousness a person must possess to pound another till the streets were decorated with his blood and skull fragments. Once I had seen a woman light a man up while others helped by beating him down as he groaned in agony, his skin peeling off as the smell of burning flesh and tyre filled the air. I asked Chioma our maid what the man had done, she replied that he attempted stealing a can of malt. That odor stuck in my memory and never left...often the smell of burning tyre had me looking for a charred body with its hands twisted and mangled a testimony of untold agony and pain. As I departed for work that sunny Monday morning, I didn't envisage the events that would befall me..Oh! if only I had a glimpse but that was not to be. The day went by so fast and so also did the days choice of concluding events. Luck was definitely not paying me a friendly visit, calamity knocked on my door and I answered. Now here I lay, all I could taste was my blood. I could read the Pm news, it would say: "MAN 22, BURNT TO DEATH!" Someone would snap his fingers at the news paper stand and shake his head in a mixture of pity and approval as he read the headline, Mama at home would certainly not recognize my corpse on TV, never! Her Ikenna would never be a victim of such. With a nod she would warn Chiemelu not steal or be at the wrong place at the wrong time. She believed such fate could never befall her or anyone whe knew. If only she could see me her Doctor, her Nkem, her bobo, her "come and massage my back expert" she would realise just how sneaky fate was. Tears and blood cover my face as another stick lands on my face. I hear a pop! sound, something felt amiss in my face, my thoughts jumbled as I began to drift away. Someone yelled "put the tyre well and pour the fuel!" But it was too late.... I was gone. (Copied)