Mr. Original Swag

Say yes to Mr. Original Swag, and he will hold your hand, fit his rust-orange fedora on his head, and dance you out of the world. Take you to his arena, outside space and time. Yes, that’s his name. It’s what everyone calls him. And it’s how he introduced himself to me. I don’t know what it means. Maybe, he was the first being, Big Bang still young, with swag? Mr. Original Swag, and he’s responsible for all the statues appearing around t—do we need the lights? Too much for my eyes. Too bright. Better. Thank you.

I am not used to this.

Where was I?

Yes.

Mr. Original Swag. He targets the youth, you see? He knows how vulnerable we are in this town. He walks about, looking, searching for young, poverty-battered men and women, for those drowning in the putrid pools of dead dreams.

Good question.

For a being made of pure luminosity, held together by that immaculate, blinding orange suit and those silver boots, it makes sense to wonder how nobody spots him on his surveys. Right. Now, he has his tricks, Mr. Original Swag. Magic. Science. Only dips into the visible spectrum to those he deems worthy or desperate enough to take his bleak stage.

Which brings us to me. I was one of those desperate souls.

Okay for me to smoke?

I have a book of matches somewhere. Here we go. Nicotine in my lungs…makes it easier to talk, of hell…

As I was saying. I was one of the desperate souls he approached. It was two months since I came back from Pa Demba Prisons. Kroo Town Road Market. Drenched in sweat, neck muscles on fire. I had been delivering bags of rice all afternoon. You know the scene. I was thinking about going off for kukri when Mr. Original Swag came up to me. His face and hands looked like the burning heart of a star—back then, I had no idea what the hearts of stars looked like, and he only reminded me of fluorescent bulbs about to explode from excess electricity. Exactly. As they get right before EDSA ruins your appliances. First, I was afraid. I wanted to run the other way. But then he said my name, and my heart stood still.

He introduced himself, simply, as Mr. Original Swag.

As he spoke, the sound surrounding us began to morph into music, its true nature and vibration fading. A song I had liked growing up replaced the noise and chatter of the street. I think he played it to manipulate me into further calmness. He gets like that. Angel by Alonzo—you know it?—played in the background as Mr. Original Swag explained to me.

“Win, and I will make you the richest man in all the universe. This suffering will be over. Just say yes to me and take my hand…”

“Are you a god?” I asked Mr. Original Swag.

“Think of bags and pens and banana grooves. You know me by another name. He laughed. “On my stage, you will kill gods, gentleman.”

“And how will I do that?”

He offered his radiant hand. “Say yes to my game…”

I said yes. Yes to his games with rules so surreal I couldn’t fully understand them. Yes to a strangeness in which I could die. But would I say yes again, with what I know now?

I took his hand, my only thought, at that moment, being how much struggle and hustle this city had put me through. How many nights have I needed to sleep on cold market tables? What hope was here, in Freetown, for me? I have a degree, but look at what I do. Hundreds of stories out there like mine. Maybe in another world, I would have stopped myself from taking his hand. In another country. In another city. Maybe, all the others would have said no to Mr. Original Swag.

But how many statues are out there? Take your cameras to places like Bombay Market. Ghettos East-end. Ghettos Lumley.

Tells you something.

Sparks, as soon as I touched his hand that day. The adhesive holding the fabric of the world together melted away. We walked out of the world, fog and darting light ribbons everywhere.

Of course. I know it’s hard to get your head around the idea of Mr. Original Swag, but tell me, where do you think the statues come from? Right, right.

I only put it together when I returned to blood and flesh. Mr. Original Swag and the mysterious statuary around Freetown. They started showing up way before he came to me. Correct me if I am wrong, but has this not been ongoing for four years? I didn’t see the connection that day at Kroo Town Road, but this is what I learned while away and since I came back—when Mr. Original Swag walks off with you, it is your soul and not your body that he travels lightyears with, that he takes across dimensions and quantum fields. Your soul. Or whatever energy lives beyond the physical. You want to know more about that? Okay. Too much description could affect the pacing of the interview. Nevermind. You know better than me, anyway.

It was a beautiful journey with Mr. Original Swag, I will not lie. Down or up a vertical boulevard lined with merging dreams and realities. I saw a child who called me father. I saw my mother with a smile; she was proud, or would be, of what I had or would become. I saw myself as a boy, nine years old, and for so long, I had been crying in this life. I saw all the good things I could have. Pasts and presents and futures falling or rising around me like petals in twisted gravity.

But the body.

The body is left behind, transformed into a statue. Skin and bone become marble. Frozen in odd positions, stooping, nodding off, hands dangling, daring to lean toward hope, like the leaf toward sunlight, even if illusory, even if ephemeral, even if fatal.

All these statues you see…

Good question. I can’t say whether Mr. Original Swag is evil, but the place he took me…the place he takes us is. So much pain. A place where angels weep. Where gods perish like flies. And humans…most of us would choose days in hell if it meant a chance at half an eternity in heaven…and those statues, they will never breathe again. Unlike me. All of them. The thing he puts us through, is evil.

Yes. I won.

I won his game.

That is why I came back.

Mr. Original Swag kept to his word, and, yes, I am now the richest man in the universe.

No, I will not talk about the money. I am sorry.

Yes, I live unfathomably better than before with regards to certain necessities.

Will I give it up?

What—you ask if I am proud, if I am happy, about winning?

That look on your face. That look—on all your faces. No, I am not evading your questions. It’s like you want me to convince people to love Mr. Original Swag.

I don’t want this to be an…advertisement. I want it to be a warning. I returned with scars no money could heal. They may not be on my body, but could you think of anything worse than a burning constellation of thorns hidden beneath your skin? We must keep the youth away from Mr. Original Swag. Do not take his hand when he comes. Papa government, if you are watching, do something. Anyone. I understand the appeal, don’t get me wrong, I am no hypocrite. Di grun dray…

But I still have nightmares…nightmares of all the heads I decapitated in his arena, all the wings I crushed, the f—the blood, the dying, the dead, and of all the times I stared into the consuming eyes of my own death.

I fought black holes and giants.

I betrayed aeon-old stars.

I tricked djinns and galaxies to their wretched demises.

Mental fights. Physical fights. I won it all. But only God knows the toll it took on my soul.

I have even contemplated s—

How?

You ask me how?

Are you listening to me? Are you paying attention? Look here. Even if I understood the true mechanics of how I found my bastard victory, I would never say. Never. An answer like that would lead more people to think they have a chance in his game. Again, that isn’t why I am here. Do not give in to Mr. Original Swag. If he comes, with his music and dancing, his orange suit and silver boots, his magic tricks, his promises of better days, run, run the other way.

Know what?

This was a mistake—

***

“No, no, no. You have been perfect! Go on. Please. I wish I didn’t have to interrupt.” The voice, smooth and playful, and radiating from all around us like the Muslim call to prayer, belongs to Mr. Original Swag—why am I speaking like this? Turn off the cameras. Why are you not reacting? The entire studio had frozen around me. “You have done such a good job in this interview, a miracle, painting pictures even the blind would appreciate. Honestly, quite honestly, you’ve made me interested in hiring my own personal bodiless narrator. But until then, you have to do me the favour, yeah? I have always loved your theatrics, reminds me of me.”

What the f—

I can’t help myself. Narration bubbles out of my throat.

Lights in the studio tremble, ripples, as their constituent photons converge into the sudden shape of a man. Orange three-piece suit. Hat. Boots. Gleaming man, long limbs and bony shoulders. There are no features on his face, no mouth, but I can tell a smile would have been etched on his lips.

Mr. Original Swag says, “And you will be correct! A smile…and an apology. I love consent. I love transparency. But I had to lie. I did not play fair. If you haven’t figured—the game is still on. Last part. You are yet to truly win. I let you return, but you are still part of my domain. Wanted things to feel as natural as possible. Why do you think the thought of sharing your riches with the youth never came to you? Had to clip that out, for the plot. And honestly, I gave you an easy task, you know, because you are the first human to come this far in my games. Probably the last.

But, before my final reveal…a dance number! Yeah? Sorry, again.”

He clicks his fingers of light.

Percussion. Strings. Seeping from the very walls of the television studio in New England, engulfing the eerily still air and crew members—Let Me Love You by Bunny Mack. Yes, neither do I. I have no idea why he chose the music. And Mr. Original Swag dances, alone. Gyrating, pulsating, forward, backward, his motion in glorious and dreamy sync with the bassline of the song.

He has always been in control?

“Yeah. Can I call this segment, ‘The Shattering of Truth’? No?”

I don’t want to win his game.

I don’t care what his final reveal is. What about the money? The money. Maybe I should embrace it, with all I have already been through?—No. I stand with my words, I stand with my warning. I wish I had never been a part of this.

“But it is already toooooo late!” says Mr. Original Swag, still dancing, swerving, evil, but never missing a beat.

Two minutes and ten seconds, and he only begins talking again when Bunny Mack takes a breather, and the song becomes all drums and distorted slap bass notes. “The interview, you see, I am going to show it to you that day at Kroo Town Road Market, back in time and time and time…and to win, to truly, truly, get your money, rich boy, your warning should be enough to make past-you say no to me. If past-you says yes, you lose, you die, statue.” Bunny Mack creaks in the background about taken bodies and taken souls. Mr. Original Swag dances on. “I will play the interview up to the bit before my silly interruption, obviously. I think you did well. Hmm. But personally, I would have focused less on the details about me, or our journey, or how you saw glimpses of your mother and your unborn daughter, too pretty, and spoken more on your ordeals since your return to blood and flesh. I planted these questions, but you could have fought harder! Talk about your paranoia. The shrieking faces you see in crowds. The phantom stench of dying stars. How a million lifetimes will not be enough to get over the things you have done and seen. How the simple clank of cutlery gets you balling on floors, screaming about the flaming swords of fallen saints and angels. But, oh, well. Time for me to go, see you soon.”

I—I just wanted a way out…

Mr. Original Swag disintegrates.

The chords and voice of Bunny Mack fade away. Your face relaxes, but you vanish, too, the universe quaking. The walls of your studio detach from each other, dropping, dropping like playing cards, dust clouds, revealing—

Black—

I lie naked on a rock, on an asteroid, drifting through the viscous red darkness outside space and time. Mr. Original Swag has not left me in pure silence; from the void creeps Emerson’s Borbor Pain, ominous, repeating. I listen. I wait for the outcome of my interview… Had I been convincing enough to get myself, to get anyone, thinking beyond their hardship and misery?

What will it be?

Will I become the reluctant winner of unimaginable wealth and all the lifetimes to enjoy it with these ghosts…or, die and my body, my statue, marble nomoli, one of many, nameless, on those graveyard streets of Freetown?

My tears float into the void.

END