I began to visibly shake, unsure of what fate lay for me now. My only hope was lost. All thanks to my dirtiness and clumsiness.
What on earth made me drop the money beside the pack of pasta?
Oh, dear lord, just shoot me with an arrow!
"Hey, be quick with it. Smells like a garbage dump in here." the comb guy muttered.
His tone was ruffled and I couldn't help but bring my gaze to him to see the reason for his muffled voice.
He had his hand covering the better part of his nose.
Did my room smell that bad?
"Urhmm…" I began, swallowing my fear.
Impatiently, "Where is the money?" he demanded harshly.
Reminded me of those scenes in movies where robbers harshly command their victims.
Was there any difference between robbers and these men who were making me pay a debt I did not owe?
I took every bit of my time as I gently brought the tattered notes up for him to see.
The arch in his brow rose higher. "Where is the damn money?!"
I shook the notes in my hands for him to clearly see.
"I mean the pay you were coming to your goddamn smelling room to get?"
Again, I shook the notes whilst ensuring my face held a serious look just so he knew I wasn't playing.
There was silence — it was very much needed. And... Expected.
Aggressively, he yanked my body up by pulling at my hair. It was so painful that I had to wince out in pain. If only he knew I had not washed my hair in days, he might have thought twice about tugging at it.
"Get your ass up, girl!" he cursed when the weight of my body made his hand cringe.
Perks of being overweight, huh?
He began to storm out, fuming all the way. At least, he dropped me.
"Where is the money?" the leader inquired with a devious glare the moment I stepped into the living room.
Just as I had done in the room, I outstretched the torn notes and shook them in their faces.
"She is playing with us. Those are torn notes!" The one who had gone with me to the room said.
The leader began to walk towards me while I, in return took some steps back. He looked like a demon who was coming over to me to possess me.
Father, save me!
"You better start explaining before I tell my men to take the payment for their stress on your body." He was seething.
I heard the disgusted remarks from the other men.
"What? I'd kiss a pig before banging her." The other guy said.
The comb guy spat on the floor of the living room. "Her house looks like a garbage dump, her room looks worse and smells even worse. Only a madman would copulate such a dirty fatso!"
"She is not even wearing panties. Just how many flies would have kissed her vagina in the garbage bin where we met her."
They were going to keep ranting, but the boss was getting irritated by their remarks.
"Shut the heck up you two!" he swiveled his head to them.
I saw the way they ensued decorum immediately and knew I was in soup. A hot burning and sour soup.
This man looked like he was ready to shoot anyone dead anytime soon.
"Talk!" he roared at me when my back met the wall and I couldn't take further steps backward.
He seemed to want to keep some distance away from me. I think the rotten egg smell was getting into his nose also or was it the stench I had caught from the garbage bin?
Anyway, my messiness just saved me.
His men wouldn't molest me because I reeked, he wouldn't come closer for the same reason.
In the same vein, my nature had just saved me. Let nobody tell me my ways were unhealthy!
"I have the money but they are all torn now." I simply said as I resumed the motion of lifting the money up.
If the leader was mad, he did not show it. He only stared at me indifferently for some seconds before tightening both his upper and lower lips.
"How did my money tear?" he asked, his voice surprisingly cool.
Perhaps he felt pity for me and went soft — right?
I knew that could only do so in my dreams. These men were living statues of no conscience and I wanted pity?
I sleep.
They'd be the last person to accord me any pity. All they wanted was their money with no excuses.
.
With a shaky voice, "Rats" were all escaped my mouth still.
"Rats?"
"Yes, they ate all the money."
A smirk formed across a corner of his face. I wasn't expecting such a reaction from him.
He turned his head to meet the eyes of his men before letting out a burst of devilish laughter while they sheepishly joined in doing so.
"You are so dirty that you made rats eat up my money." sternly, he said and with immediacy, the laughter ceased.
At first, I wanted to protest that I did not make the rats eat the money, but I decided against it. It would not end well. Moreover, I was smart enough to know that the question was rhetorical.
"I will pay it all next month." I declared while my mind dabbled in the wonder of what they would do to me.
The leader, like a maniac, hastened to the broken TV set and infused his leg into the TV screen aggressively.
The kick was brutal. The poor TV made a creaking sound before dropping lazily on the floor.
There goes all hope of getting it fixed.
As though he was satisfied by the result of what his kick had done to the TV, the leader sat on one of the sofas.
Definitely, he would go home with one bug or two for sitting on that sofa. I hadn't exterminated the entire house in ages. The reason for the rashes on my butt was as a result of bed bugs sucking all the juices in my body while I sleep.
Alas!
I wished for the earth to swallow me as I heard his next words.
"Beat the dirtiness out of her body," he ordered his boys, and like the guardians of hell, they approached me with horns.
I mean, they had no horns, logically, but as I saw them approaching me, I saw horns on their starved heads.
The first kick came, then the second one, and then the next one. I slumped on my face, my hands over my head as though they were a shield for protection.