After a few seconds, realization dawned and complete recollection of where I was fully came back. From the darkness, I knew it was not dawn yet, so something else had stirred me awake.

I turned on to my side and discovered that the whole side I lay on was wet, soaking wet.

Aha! The heat, it was sweltering hot. It was almost unbearable. Then the noise, my God! It seemed like a hundred generators were on at the same time, rumbling away into the night. How could people sleep through this chaos? How?

I changed position again, ignoring my rumbling stomach, hoping to find sleep once more but I had no such luck. Tired, I got up and picked up my phone by the bedside where I had left it charging. Using the torch, I looked at the room I would inhabit henceforth.

On a stool nearby, I found a tray with a covered plate of food. Aunty must have had it brought in while I slept. I said a silent prayer that she had decided that it should be left in the room.

The rice and chicken stew was already cold, but I didn’t mind, I wolfed it down with relish, polishing it off with a bottle of water.

Grateful that I had gotten rid of the hunger pangs, I went into the adjoining bathroom and took another shower to cool off. After stepping out of the shower, I didn’t bother to towel my body dry because the heat was maddening, and if I could, I’d dump a bucket of water on the mattress.

I thought maybe the windows were shut and that was why the room was so stuffy, but I thought wring, the windows were open. However, there was no chance of fresh air entering the room because on both sides, the house was flanked by high rise buildings that looked like they were populated with a lot of people, just like our building.

I concluded that we were all just recycling one another’s carbon monoxide, because I didn’t believe there was any oxygen left.

Back in Akure, even when there was no light, we never ran our generator all night like my Lagos neighbors were doing right now.

There was always cool breeze wafting into the house, a small bungalow with very huge compound space. Most other houses on our street were the same. I reckon that the occupants of two buildings here would make up the entire population of our street in Akure.

In the midst of all this reminiscing, I found sleep again. Sunlight was peeking reluctantly through the blinds when I was rudely roused from my sleep at dawn by angry voices screaming at each other on top of their voices.

No cock crows to herald the arrival of dawn, just angry neighbors. Good morning Lagos.