Ms. Dinta

I’m still learning to get used to phone ringtones. I still struggle with people knocking loudly on doors. Trauma is grave.

It was one of those full-moon nights in 2021. I was a university student then. I was at home with my roommate, and it seemed like a normal night until it wasn’t.

Around 2 or 3 a.m., there was a loud bang on our door. We both jumped.

Then we realized we were surrounded outside the house.

It was very hot at the time, so our windows were open. We saw sharp flashlight beams cutting through the darkness and aiming straight into our room. It was during the season of rumors; stories about sons of women violating daughters of other women in the neighborhood. Those were terrible days.

I looked at my roommate and I was scared to my bones. She was too.

We pressed our backs against the wall to hide from the light now sweeping through our room. Then we heard voices of men.
While all this was happening, the banging on the door remained persistent.

My roommate tried calling her boyfriend who stayed a few blocks away. I didn’t have a boyfriend to call. I couldn’t think of anything I could do to help the situation.

I was also menstruating, and in the middle of that panic I could feel blood pushing out with pressure and dripping past my already soaked pad.
We whispered and cried while the voices outside kept ordering us to open the door or they would break it down.

My roommate whispered through tears that I was lucky I was menstruating, that maybe I would be safer.
It wasn’t the time for logic. I cried at her words.

She kept dialing her boyfriend, and even the sound of pressing the phone keyboard felt loud because at that point, a pin drop could sound like a gunshot.

The neighborhood was quiet, which meant that everyone was awake. But nobody came out.

Just then, my phone rang. It was my girlfriend, who also happened to be our neighbor.

My ringtone seemed to anger the men outside because I heard one of them say:
“Dem dey inside, break the door.”


She kept dialing her boyfriend, and even the sound of pressing the phone keyboard felt loud because at that point, a pin drop could sound like a gunshot.

The neighborhood was quiet, which meant that everyone was awake. But nobody came out.

Just then, my phone rang. It was my girlfriend, who also happened to be our neighbor.

My ringtone seemed to anger the men outside because I heard one of them say:
“Dem dey inside, break the door.”

My roommate and I avoided the flashlight beams and crawled into the bathroom. We locked ourselves inside. There was no way out.

Just then, we heard our front door crash to the ground.
They had broken it down.

Soon they came for the bathroom door too, shouting threats.
In defeat, my roommate and I stepped out like roasted chickens.

Lo and behold.

They were armed men from NDLEA, or so they said.
We stood there shaking while they questioned us.
“Where is he?”
We stared at each other, confused.
Who was he?

They searched our large room and found nobody. Then they said they wanted to search our bags.

I ran toward my box, but they stopped me and said they meant our handbags.
I knew then that they were only trying to make it look procedural.

They searched and looked disappointed. They weren’t expecting women.
Then they asked who owned the male palm slippers outside.

My roommate explained that they belonged to her boyfriend and that she had worn them back from his place.

Then they saw my boots beside my wardrobe. They asked who owned them. I told them they were mine.
They checked the size.

At that point they finally seemed convinced there was no man hiding anywhere.
Then they turned to leave.

As I looked outside, I saw my next-door neighbor in handcuffs.

Apparently, they had caught him out late at night with things he probably shouldn’t have had. They brought him back to identify his accomplice and search his room.
But he pointed at ours instead.

All right.

This is the real account of that night from 2021.

But that wasn’t what I remembered for a long time.
That wasn’t the nightmare that kept me awake for several nights.

Yes, they weren’t who we thought they were, even though they acted like them.
Yes, they didn’t touch us.
Yes, they didn’t steal from us.

But our minds had already gone into survival mode against the people we believed they were.

For months afterward, my memories of that night became distorted. I couldn’t even talk about it.

I don’t even want to think about the aftermath, or about how some people wanted to benefit from my vulnerability.

It’s been five years.

My phone has still never rung out loud.

I leave notes on my doors asking people to knock gently, or I tell neighbors myself.

Everyone else knows.