'Heavenly Glitch' by Ahmad Abdullah is a must read

Justin perched by the macerated corpse on the road. He was to begin the arduous task of identifying the body. He wondered how the corpse met its fate and took a whiff of the air around the corpse.

‘Hmm, nice perfume,’ he mustered under his foggy breath. In spite of the gore, he was quite excited. The corpse’s bowel was decorated across the road. He tried visualizing the whole accident but for the first time as medical examiner, the cause of death eluded him the further he absolved the scenery. The corpse’s cloth was tattered and baked in blood, dirt and soot.

‘Did your car explode?’ he mumbled. He noticed the tribal marks, three stripes across both cheeks; he giggled and remarked, ‘fight Lion’.

‘How did you die? You couldn’t have committed seppuku while driving would you?’ He continued to speak to himself without opening his mouth.

He examined the corpse further and froze, ‘Massacre!’ He shuddered with his latest discovery. Across the corpse chest was a tattoo like a necklace and he had the same tribal marks as well as the tattoo.

‘What!’ He stood up alarmed, ‘I have been smelling my own perfume?’

A distant light came from nowhere and he heard the voice of a thousand echoes. ‘Sorry for that glitch Doc,’ the light spoke with amusement, ‘for some reason, the soul beamer malfunctioned.

‘Why? Dr Justin asked, befuddled by the whole event.

The light spoke more remorsefully now, materializing into a three dimensional structure that he had never seen. ‘Well, Doc, you simply irritate agent death! You had a knack at being extremely good at your job so death wanted to make sure no one can deduce or construe how he annihilated you.’

And everything became nothing as the soul beamer repaired its own glitch.

Ahmad Abdullah, AKA Ahmad Holderness is a medic and a writer who is about to be published. He is the director of Home Of Book foundations that seek to help Nigerian youths to read and write better. His writings can be viewed at and you can follow him on instagram at @home_of _books_foundation

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