I August 13, 3AM. Uwem pried her eyes open. The continuous blare of a horn grated on what was left of her nerves, and with an effort of will, she pulled herself off the steering wheel, the honking cutting off abruptly, and leaned against the headrest. Without care, she tried to sit up, but a stabbing pain shot through her left arm. The blood had sopped her sleeves and she wondered just how much she had lost, but even more than her bleeding arm, she had a stiff migraine and felt she was on the brink of retching her insides out. More cautious now, she reached for a switch by the door, flicking it and the dome lights came on. She lifted her right arm, glanced at her watch, and found the time was 03.00hrs on the dot. In that moment, she felt coldly alone, her memory blank. She couldn’t make out where she was or what had happened to her, so she sat still for a while and it felt comfortable doing so in the brand new Ford Mustang Shelby. Her sensibilities were not far gone from her as they came home, limply at first and then, at quite a pace, in a matter of moments. It was her Mustang after all, a gift she got herself earlier that day to celebrate her fortieth birthday which had been a week ago. She had felt she most certainly earned it, so taking that whooping sum from her savings for the sports car wasn’t such a waste of effort. The Mustang was another addition to her collection of SUV’s. She could remember vividly how bloggers had gone on and on about the car, shooting their mouths off on all sorts of means by which an investigative journalist could keep up with such expenses and when they were out of options, they resorted to crude pettiness — rumors about affairs with statesmen, musicians, or the like — but Uwem wasn’t in the least bothered. In fact, she enjoyed being the center of attraction. She thought that was quite the society she lived in. Men worked so hard that they made something out of themselves and the women bunch too. Getting way up there in such a society, you were either a man pretending to be a woman, or you had a coat rack and hat stand that would be handy for your guests, the favors of whom you were made of. Uwem thought that being a woman here was a lot like hurdle race, and everyone watched keenly, expecting you to trip on your shoelaces. She surmised that when they watched her step out of her house in the morning, going about her trade, they had their minds busy with schemes to get close enough to know if she truly stank of aftershave. Such, she had long come to a conclusion, was the life you led if you were a woman, successful, and with a claim that you were single. Uwem shifted a bit on the cushion. Her left arm had grown stiff, but the pain seemed to fade as she got her mind occupied. She thought she would have had a break by being just a woman and successful. Perhaps, she wouldn’t have had all this nosiness around her had she had a man, she thought. It peeved a good lot to hear about how single she was, but what was she to do if there hadn’t been a man willing enough to stay? When she had turned thirty-eight, she was almost certain that she was going to get married, but some dreams remained dreams. And for the past two years she had been sort of single. There was Joe, of course. He was twelve years younger than she was, preferred nighttime to day, not just because he had eyes full of dreams, but because he got into the beds of wealthy, older women whose husbands had kicked the bucket or weren’t just sufficient enough, and woke to a morning that promised fuller pockets. Uwem had met Joe two years ago through a girlfriend of hers who was married to a man she claimed could give her the world but nothing in bed. Joe made the right bed partner, but Uwem wondered just how long this would go on, and she had mistaken him to be one that wanted to be kept. She had asked him once, after a romp that was more intense than they had ever had, to get married to her. “This is just business for me. Don’t get it twisted,” he had said. When it got light, he took his money and left without the decency of leaving her a goodbye, and that was enough telling that he wasn’t ever coming back, so she didn’t bother calling him. Albeit, with a man or none, Uwem’s job was most important to her, and she wouldn’t trade that for anything. She went about it with an aggressive persuasion that made up for the masculine presence she was short of. And this job of hers, she thought, was going to be the end of her someday. Here, in her big-ticket Mustang, she sat, nursing a slug in her arm. Staring at the bullet wound, she guessed the only thing that would save the bastard that did this from having the devil to pay was if she died tonight. II July 16, 9.45AM. Uwem found parking and pulled up. She slid out of the Dodge Challenger with a smile so wide that you could see it on her face from a mile away. She stood for a moment to dote on the four-wheeled beast, and thought cream white was the perfect choice. It had been a year since she shelled out twenty million for this, but it still seemed new to her. She thought her next buy would be a Mustang. She ran her hand over the chassis, eyes closed, whispering prayers for its safety. Afterwards, she turned and began her mechanical walk to