Command.co: A Short Story
What happens when your thoughts become reality?
[Image generated by DALL.E, Open AI]
Monday, May 2028
8:30 am
Her father sighs as he stirs his tea. He glances at the pink wall clock behind Halimatu’s head. “Aren’t you late?”
“I’m leaving soon,” Halimatu says.
Her mother’s eyes flip towards her, fluttering away as soon as they lock eyes.
They don’t want me around. I’m their unwanted child. The one that came last. Unplanned? I’m thirty-three. I shouldn’t be living with them anymore. Why do they have breakfast with me? To show their resentment?
12:45 pm
Halimatu thunks the keyboard on her work laptop with her pen. Why did I send the email in that format?
She fixates on her manager’s closed white office door. Her heart drills in anticipation of his bald head emerging out of the door, with his spiky fingers pointing at her to follow him back inside. What if he’s unable to hold his anger, and ruptures in front of everyone?
The pen slides out of her grip, plummeting on the table. She slips her feet out of her heels and massages her toes. She squeezes her right toe, remembering that she’s in a public place.
She checks her junk folder, it’s not impossible that his response is hidden there, somewhere, for some reason. Again, an email from some phishing company called Command.co.
She taps her Inbox again.
Was the email rude? It has been an hour. Where’s his reply? Should I check with him? I made an error. He thinks I’m incompetent and isn’t bothering with a response.
She closes her laptop, opens it again, and rapidly writes an email to her team without copying her manager: ‘I have a family emergency.’
“You’re leaving?” the colleague who sits beside her asks. He’s not in her team. He won’t get her email.
“Family emergency.”
He loosens his tie that looks like raw meat. “People like you have family emergencies?”
She giggles, unable to do or say anything else.
He rolls his face back to his screen.
They all think I’m a nepo hire. Unfit to be among them.
She leaves the office.
4:23 pm
She taps her phone, flipping back and forth on her best friend’s social media pictures. Her bed feels like twigs.
If she can post three times a day, why isn’t she responding to my messages or calls?
Halimatu toggles to her call log, and dials again. The phone rings without a sudden termination. Her hopes rise. Maybe… The ringing sounds cease.
What did I do wrong? Was it the joke? But her husband laughed. Did I cross a boundary? I did. I crossed a boundary. I’m friendless now.
8:36 pm
She eyes the plate of danwake on the table, then glances at her phone.
He’s lost interest in me.
The last time she spoke to her boyfriend was two days ago. They had an argument about her reluctance to meet his friends, but he sent an apology.
For the past two years since they transitioned from family friends to something more, he dutifully called after praying Isha’i.
He won’t call today. He’s done with me. He thinks I’m beneath him, because we speak too much Hausa at home.
4:04 am
She yanks off her hijab. Halimatu stares at her reflection and hisses.
There’s no redemption for me.
For four days, she’s been waking up to pray at night, and yet her thoughts have risen from murmurs to commands.
I’m destined for hell, chosen my Shaytan himself.
She lies on her praying mat. No hope for me.
Tuesday, May 2028
8:30 am
Halimatu’s mother rakes her fork on the table, chipping away wood. “Do you plan to pack out soon?”
Her father says, “we’ll pay your rent.” His eyes shudder, filling with glassy liquid. “Please leave.”
12:45 pm
At work, her manager screams for her before she switches on her laptop. The office takes on the silence of patient gossip, respectful in a stillness that’ll erupt after she disappears into her manager’s office.
In the confines of his office, he says, “what type of email did you send? Didn’t you proofread?”
Back at her workstation, her neighbor says, “your mummy didn’t teach you to write emails?”
Command.co, she finds has sent over fifteen emails in the past hour.
“I should get IT to check this,” she whispers. “Not today.”
4:23 pm
She stands in the kitchen, blinking at the open fridge.
Her phone bleeps, and she springs to pick it up from the dining room.
“Where have you been?”
“Halimatu are you interested in my husband? Leave me alone,” her now ex-best friend says.
8:36 pm
Fully dressed, she lies in her bathtub, watching funny videos that only make her heart fuss and quake. His name interrupts the singing cat.
“You’re unfit for my lifestyle. How do you not know the meaning of egalitarian? We’re done.”
She cuts the phone and restarts the singing cat’s video.
4:04 am
Her hijab is neatly folded on her praying mat. She stretches an arm to pick it up. She doesn’t have ablution. She can’t walk to the bathroom.
A man in a blue kaftan appears on her left. He’s standing and smiling with teeth whiter than clouds.
An object she can’t see clips her mouth.
“I’m Shaytan. Don’t be alarmed, I’m here to seek your hand in marriage. Are you… did you faint?”
Wednesday, May 2028
My parents hate me.
I will get sacked.
I have no friends.
I’m single. Again.
My only prospective suitor is Shaytan.
Halima throws her alarm against her wardrobe. It crashes and breaks apart like a gushing tap of glass fragments.
She’s certain of her lucidity. Her life is over. She did see Shaytan, right here in her bedroom.
Last night was weird. The family househelp, Faiza, woke her up from her disheveled position on the sofa. She lifted Halimatu and guided her to her bedroom door.
Before pushing down the handle, Halimatu thought: She must think that I stink.
Faiza then, as if stirred awake, untangled herself from Halimatu. She covered her nose and jogged away to her own bedroom.
Did she read my mind?
Impossible.
At noon, Halimatu scampers out of bed and creeps to the living room. Her mother is on the carpet, one leg on top of the other, reading her tablet.
She thinks I’m a failure, that’s why they want me to leave the house.
Her mother raises her head. “You’re a failure. When are you moving out?”
Halimatu gasps. Her mother returns to her tablet, as though she’d said nothing at all.
She drops her plan of rummaging the fridge and hides in her bedroom.
She checks her work emails for a distraction. There’s no way that her thoughts were coming true. No possible, realistic way.
Ugh. They’re going to fire me.
The thought freezes her. She shakes her head.
A new email with a bolded blue subject. Subject line: NOTICE OF IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL.
She can think of only two people, both don’t want anything to do with her anymore.
Two texts:
‘I’ve found someone.’
‘You’re just too much.’
Halimatu toggles to her siblings group. At 43, 41 and 39, her older sisters and brother viewed her as an unnecessary addition. Just like their parents.
They’ll remove me from the chat group soon.
A ballon pops up, announcing her removal from the chat group.
“I’m going crazy,” she says.
Thursday, May 2028
She sleeps all day to avoid her thoughts.
Friday, May 2028
Halimatu hasn’t submitted her work laptop yet. She opens the junk folder, and counts the emails from Command.co, sixty-five. She starts from the bottom, praying that her hunch about them being a phishing company is true, that they’ll hack into her former employer’s accounts and take every naira.
What she reads cuts her breathing.
Dear Halimatu,
Are your thoughts becoming real?
Congratulations!
This is an invitation to join us at No. 45, Binyamin Nasir Yahaya Crescent.
Join us, we’ll help you.
Kind regards,
Amina Danladi Tanko
MD/CEO
Command.co
It’s eleven past one pm. She sits up on her bed, reading all the emails at least six times. The contents are all the same.
“No. I shouldn’t go. I shouldn’t go.”
She closes her laptop, drops it underneath her bed and stares at the ceiling. Her eyes resist the fatigue cajoling the rest of her body. She closes them, they burst wide open. She lies face flat on the pillow, they blink in discomfort.
That jerk of a manager, I bet he’s a drug addict.
Her phone bleeps. She eyes it, surveying it as though it’s a snake, winding its way towards her with its poisonous slit tongue, hissing curses at her.
She hasn’t been removed from the office group chat. The new message says: ‘Drugs were found in Farid’s office. Anyone with information on this should report to HR ASAP.’
After the message, the admin removes Farid’s number.
Halimatu dresses in a brown batik blouse and skirt and drives to Command.co.
Command.co, a navy-blue building behind a crimson gate and grey walls. No security man outside to query her presence. She parks her car outside the gate, and steps into the compound.
The compound is green, without a garage, roofed with trees too high up for their fruits to be identified. Euphoric voices from inside flow out of the building. Halimatu, desirous of a veiled appearance, slinks to the back of the building. The scent of green apples wafts around her. She looks up at the trees, they’re not apples, she’s certain, they’re not apples.
The door at the back is open, opening to a spotless kitchen, sparkling with steel. A woman stands by the fridge, with open arms and a confident smile.
“I heard you coming in,” the woman says.
“Amina?” Halimatu asks. The woman nods.
Amina looks fifty, but she could be thirty. Her scarf is a yellow silk that doesn’t hide her shuku hairstyle. Her ankle-length blue skirt, embroidered with bird skulls freaks out Halimatu.
“It was a gift, by a very talented but pretentious friend,” Amina says.
Halimatu frowns. Can she read my mind?
“You’ll learn the art too. You’re a baby for now, a murmurer.”
“A what?”
“Come inside.”
They pass a huge hall at the brink of congestion.
“We need a new space, soon,” Amina says.
Halimatu walks behind her, looking back frequently in case she’s ambushed.
“You’re safe here,” Amina says.
Think of rainbows. Think of furniture. Think of nothing.
Amina giggles.
Amina opens a door. An office with a grey wooden furniture and a huge painting of a triangle divided into three, from small section top to wide bottom section: Commander, Echoer, Murmurer. A tall mirror hangs from the wall.
“You called me a murmurer,” Halimatu says.
“I’m a commander, took a while, yours wouldn’t.”
“What’s all this?”
Amina relaxes on the only non-grey furniture, a black sofa with brown circles. Halimatu drags a rolling chair from the desk to the door.
“I’m on your side,” Amina says. “I wonder if I was like you when I was a murmurer.”
Amina sighs. She claps, and a screen falls from the ceiling. She yawns, looks at Halimatu and says, “I’m going to think something, I’m going to tell you what the thought is, keep your eyes on the screen.”
The screen shows the new under construction supermarket in the city centre.
“The supermarket should collapse,” Amina says. “That’s my thought.”
Before their eyes, the orange bricks crumble and the screen spits out dust.
Halimatu jumps off the chair.
“Don’t worry, they’re not working today. No one’s hurt. I own the building. Check social media.”
Reports with images and videos of the collapse fill Halimatu’s phone screen.
“You planned this,” Halimatu says.
Amina yawns. “Okay, my next thought is for an ant to bite your legs.”
“What…Ouch!”
“I forgot to tell you that I thought of an ant with claws. Believe me now?”
Halimatu nods.
“Do you like money, Halimatu?”
Unsure, she nods.
“You’ll become so wealthy, you’ll never need anyone again. You’ll become so powerful in stealth that no one will stand in your way.”
“How?”
Amina throws her legs off the sofa and crosses them. “We think, and it happens. Whatever. Word got out, leaders, the wealthy, they depend on people like us to make things happen.”
“Negative things,” Halimatu says.
Amina shrugs. “It’s power Halimatu. Power. And in life, bad things happen. We keep the balance.”
“Including murder?”
“What memories do you have of people that have hurt you, bullied you, insulted you?”
Halimatu deliberates, then wrenches her eyes shut.
“Don’t stop yourself from thinking about them and thinking retribution. Why should they get a pass when they’ve left you with sour memories?”
She doesn’t open her eyes.
“You’re a murmurer now, soon you’ll be an echoer, a difficult time, you’ll feel like a rope, being tugged by the left and the right, and once you master the art of embracing your desires and uniting them with your thoughts, you’ll become a commander. At peace with what you want in your heart, and what your mind wants.
“Your family doesn’t want you? Think their disappearance, and they will.
“Your colleagues are condescending? Think their failures, and they’ll fail.
“Your best friend has dumped you. Think her abandonment, and she’ll be alone.
“Your ex has dumped you. Think of a series of women dumping him, and he’ll feel the way you do.
“You feel unworthy of forgiveness? Embrace the darkness, its light if you want it to be. Don’t pull in the power of your thoughts on yourself, push it to them!”
Did I have peace once? Love? Acceptance?
Halimatu thinks of her family, of the giggles that stop when she shows up.
Of her co-workers, and the ‘something stinks’ expressions they view her with.
Of her former best friend, and former friends, who have all abandoned her.
Of her ex, and all the ones before him, dumping her one after the other as if she was a passageway of growth for every man.
Of Shaytan, and his acceptance of her.
Of her childhood bullies, and their tinkling laughter and abrasive mockery.
Of former teachers, and their torturous teases of her childhood stutter.
Amina says, “Light, you’re finally near light.”
Halimatu opens her eyes.
“Light.”
“And freedom. You can trust me; I went through everything you’re going through. No one wanted me around too.”
Saturday, May 2029
Halimatu becomes an echoer a year after joining Command.co. A first, Amina tells her.
She wakes up from the carpet in the living room, formerly belonging to her parents. Two weeks after joining Command.co, she thought, what if my parents disappeared?
And they did.
On her siblings, she thought, what if they forget I exist?
They haven’t visited or contacted her since then.
On her former best friend, she thought of the humiliation and thought, what if her husband marries three women she hates?
The three new wives were married on the same day. Halimatu saw the pictures, but none of her former best friend.
On her former company, it should close.
And it did.
On all her exes, married, divorced and single, she thought, they should drop their lives and move to villages, never to be seen or heard from.
She checks her phone for new assignments, seeing nothing new, she contacts Amina and requests for one.
Amina sends her paragraphs of praise, and confidence that she’ll become the fastest commander in history before sending a number for her to call.
A woman picks up, a familiar voice. So familiar, Halimatu forgets why she called.
“Is this command.co?” the voice of her former best friend asks.
Halimatu pinches her nose and speaks. “What can I do for you?”
“I want you to get my husband to divorce his three other wives. He should also divorce me, after he sends them away. I want him to be in pain, to cry in front of me, no, no. He should upload a video apology online, blaming himself for the divorces. All the divorces. It should be so pathetic that he won’t be able to leave the house anymore.”
Halimatu smiled, remembering how unforgiving Siyama was.
“Standard question. Have you lost friends before?”
“Standard question?”
“You don’t have to answer,” Halima says, pulling the phone away from her ears to appear distant, as though about to drop the call.
“Okay. Okay. A few, like maybe six?”
“Before or after marriage?”
“Before, like five. After, one.”
“The after, why?”
“Really?”
“Really,” Halimatu says.
“I don’t recall,” Siyama says, genuinely sounding confused. “I think she started annoying me. I don’t know. So, no help?”
“Of course, we’ll help you.”
The pangs gripped her throat. Her head split into two from a fight between two voices, one urging her to abandon Command.co, and another egging her on to think worse things. Halimatu bit her lip. Soon, she’ll become a commander, ditching the side effects of an echoer behind.
As a commander, she’ll be one, her heart and mind connected with the same purpose: chaos for others, peace for her.
Halimatu thinks, Siyama’s husband should divorce her co-wives, then he should divorce Siyama, record a video of himself apologising to Siyama in a humiliating way that renders him too ashamed to leave his house.
Then: All Siyama’s friends should stop accepting her calls or replying to her messages. If she visits them, they should shut their gates in her face. And, their reason should be that she’s annoying.
Sunday, May 2031
“I’m cold all the time,” Halimatu says. She speaks in a whisper, trying to overlook Amina’s yawns since she entered her office. Yawns, and a general expression of disinterest.
“Why do you speak while standing?” Amina asks. She crosses to her desk, rolls out her chair but doesn’t sit.
“I’m ill,” Halimatu says. Amina twists her mouth to the side; her shoulders rise and sink.
“A doctor told you that?” Amina asks. There’s a twitch in her eyes, a quiver on her lips, as though she doesn’t want to laugh, no, she wants to roll on the floor laughing.
“Your office is normally a desert, so hot that I take a shower once I get home. Not anymore, I feel like my skin is just fresh out of the sea.”
Amina pushes her chair. It collides with the desk and rolls back by itself.
“Normal body temperature reactions are for humans.”
Halimatu sits on the sofa; she clutches her knees.
“My heart beats. I use the toilet.”
“Aww,” Amina says.
Halimatu leaps off the sofa, and saunters to the desk. She keeps a respectable distance from Amina.
“Bravo. I can’t read your mind anymore,” Amina says. “Our new commander.”
“What?”
Amina smiles, but its lopsided and evil.
“Time to sway souls honey. You’re in full control of your actions now, united with the desires in your heart and your thoughts. One body, one desire, one soul.”
Halimatu pinchs her arms, her forehead, her stomach.
“I’m still human.”
“You’re a commander, or what the humans call, “an evil soul.””
“I’m not evil.”
“You made a deal with Shaytan honey.”
“I didn’t – I don’t recall.”
“Get yourself together, we have a new murmurer to welcome.”
Veins above her eyebrows throb and sizzle. Halimatu kneels, grabs her head, and whispers for the sting’s end. Images blot in and out of her mind, voices whisper and scream, but she can’t discern their owners. Shadows in her mind strip out the voices, erasing her memory.
“What am I doing here? Who am I?” Halimatu asks. She looks up, and Amina is a few steps away. Behind Amina is a mirror that reveals a reflection of multiple limbs, squeezed into one body. Beneath Amina are shadows, not a shadow, shadows.
“Get up,” the many voices coming out of Amina say.
A chorus of voices coil around her, she’s powerless against their invisible pull. She opens her mouth – but only a whisper flits out.
Amina smiles at her.
“Listen, you go out there now, and do what?”
“Sway souls,” Halimatu says.
“Drag them to hell with you.”
Halimatu surrenders.