I Lost One Ball After Dumping Franca: A Lagos Driver Ghostly Debt.

 

The scene

Tony was having a blast on the road. It was late at night, and the highway stretched empty before him, a rare gift in Lagos where traffic usually turned every trip into a five-hour nightmare. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cruised like this without gridlock choking the life out of his engine. A savage grin split his face as he pushed the battered danfo bus to 160 km/h, the wind howling through the open windows like a chorus of freed spirits.

Suddenly, the radio crackled to life. Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love" poured out, piercing the night. Tony hummed along at first, but the melody twisted like a knife in his gut. Melancholy clamped down hard; a single tear traced his cheek. "How could she do this to me?" he murmured, reaching for the warm Diet Coke in the cup holder. He took a swig and sighed. Love is a bastard, he swore inwardly, replaying the shards of his broken heart. Franca. He'd surrendered everything to her—his time, his savings, even his dreams of upgrading from this rickety bus to something better. How could this song ambush him now? He blamed his village people, those invisible enemies always plotting against his joy.

His foot slammed the accelerator. 200 km/h. The bus roared like a beast unchained. "FUCK YOU, FRANCA!" he bellowed into the void. Just one little misunderstanding—a heated argument over her late nights and his suspicions—and she'd walked out cold, no second glance, no goodbye. He'd thought it was another of their dramatic fights, the kind they patched up with passionate make-up sex. But days turned to weeks, and she was gone.

Then he saw her: a woman in white, standing dead center in the road, arms outstretched like a crucified angel. Brakes screamed, but at that speed, it was futile. The bus plowed through her. Tony's heart seized as the vehicle passed over... nothing. No thud, no crunch—just a swirl of smoke dissipating in the rearview. "Blood of Jesus!" he shouted, veins bulging in his neck.

He floored it, chest heaving like he'd sprinted a marathon. Glancing back, he nearly swerved off the road. She was there—in the back seat, pale eyes glowing in the dim dashboard light.

"This isn't happening," he gasped. "It must be a dream."

"It is happening," the woman whispered, her voice echoing like wind through a graveyard.

Blackness swallowed him.

When Tony woke, he was sprawled on a beaten bush path deep in some forgotten thicket, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. He was practically naked, a scrap of red cloth barely covering his privates. A crude symbol—interlocking circles and jagged lines—was smeared in what looked like dried blood across his chest.

"What the hell!" He tried to stand, but chains rattled around his wrists and ankles, biting into his skin. Panic surged as he twisted his head. A low humming filled the air, growing louder. Out of nowhere, a black cloth materialized, snaking toward his face to blindfold him.

"Please don't do this," he pleaded, voice cracking.

"Shut up," a gravelly male voice snarled. The whine of a chainsaw ignited, its teeth screaming for flesh.

"Please, I don't want to die!"

"Yeah, if you say so." The man approached, the saw's roar deafening.

Tony's bladder gave way in a warm flood. Terror blacked him out again.

He came to in his own bed, the familiar sagging mattress and peeling wallpaper of his one-room apartment in Ajegunle grounding him. Sunlight filtered through the threadbare curtains. "What is going on with me?" he muttered, scanning the room. It was real—his scattered clothes, the cracked mirror, the poster of Arsenal FC peeling from the wall.

"Ned!" he called to his younger brother, who shared the space.

Rustling clothes, a banging door. Ned burst in, wide-eyed. "Bro, wetin happen?"

"How did I get on my bed?"

"A woman bring you come. Say you owe her life debt."

"A woman?"

"Yes o."

"I'm dead oh," Tony whispered. It had to be the ghost. "Ghost?"

"Never mind. Any message from her?"

"Yes."

"Bring am now, hurry!"

Ned returned with a crumpled envelope. Tony tore it open. His stomach lurched as a nut-sized egg tumbled out—bloody, veined, unnatural. He gingerly shoved it back and unfolded the note scrawled on the envelope's inside:

In order to save you, I sacrificed one of your balls.

Tony swore, a guttural roar that shook the walls. His hand flew to his scrotum. The asymmetry hit him like a sledgehammer—one side full, the other... hollow, aching with phantom pain. His mouth gaped in shock and disbelief. Then the tears came, hot and unstoppable, as the weight of his cursed night crashed down. Love had taken everything—even his manhood. And somewhere in the shadows, his village people laughed.

“You pay a huge debt for treating our daughter bad,” a voice whispered in Tony’s ear as he cried his heart out from the loss of his ball.

“I never treat her bad, please return my ball!”

“The price has been paid, there is no going back,” the voice said.

“I’m dead!” Tony cried out as his brother Ned looked on, confused by the gibberish coming from his brother’s mouth.

“I no even know say she be coven babe oh,” Tony murmured.

“Wetin be the matter na?” Ned asked him.

“Oboy, Franca na witch oh, na my ball them pluck oh.”

“Oboy, na big wahala oh. How we go do na?”

“Go find Franca, make we beg her.”

What do you think Franca will say? Please comments.