I sat and watched in silence as he poured a white powder into the calabash of sea water. He stared into it intently, as if it held the answer to the mysteries of life and death, which indeed it might, then he looked at me and said, ‘You’ll know when your time comes. You are lucky, not many people are given that privilege. You’ll also see Israfael, the Angel of Death, when he comes for you.’

I have been seated here all day, looking out through the window, sipping Coke. I watch each face that enters – one of them might be an angel disguised as a mortal. They are said to do that when they come to earth so as not to scare people with their terrible countenance. The sky above is becoming overcast; soon it will rain. Perhaps I should go home; maybe this is not the place appointed.

Sudden loud shouts draw my eyes to the street.

‘Ole!’

‘Thief! Catch am o!’

A mob wielding cudgels and cutlasses is hot on the heels of a youth who desperately crosses to the other side of the road, narrowly missing the fender of a truck. The mob follows, growing bigger as it goes. The youth, looking over his shoulder as he runs, crashes into a light pole and falls senseless to the ground. Before he can regain a second wind the mob is on him. I watch the cudgels rise and fall, I hear his wailing, ululating scream finally turn into a whimper. They pour petrol on him and set him ablaze. I watch the fiery figure dancing and falling until it finally subsides on to the pavement as a black, faintly glowing, twitching mass.

The Angel of Death is in the neighbourhood, and soon it will be my turn. But not in such an ignoble fashion. I want to go in a way that, a hundred years from now, people will look back at with awe and say, ‘His death had meaning.’ Like those Christians in ancient Rome who submitted themselves to be eaten by lions in the arena without raising a murmur. I call that symbolic death. If only I had a way of choosing the manner of my own death, if only I could make it spectacular and momentous…

Outside, the clouds have descended lower in the sky. Lightning flashes every once in a while, like a tear in the dark fabric of the sky; people hurry to get off the street as huge pellets of rain begin to fall. The bar is filling up fast: people with nowhere to sit line up against the counter, staring at the flickering TV screen behind the barman. Then suddenly the screen goes blank; the announcer’s image is replaced by spongy white particles.

‘Change the station,’ someone shouts.

The barman changes to another channel – he keeps turning the knob, but no image appears.

‘Maybe they’ve no light,’ someone says.

‘All of them? Impossible.’