🇳🇬 # File 008 — Moti sẹ ri ati ailagbara
*Reconstructed from military psychiatric evaluation forms, personal letters never sent, and witness testimonies collected at Enugu Military Hospital, Eastern Nigeria. Subject: Second Lieutenant Adetola Ogunleye, 22, Nigerian Army Engineering Corps. Date range: August-October 1973. War ended January 1970. Subject remained on active deployment.*
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**Psychiatric Intake Form — Enugu Military Hospital — 14 August 1973**
**Presenting Complaint:** Patient reports persistent "feelings of repetition." Claims to experience moments he has "already lived." States: "I keep dying but I'm still here."
**Physical Examination:**
- Weight: 54kg (down from reported 68kg at enlistment)
- Blood pressure: 148/95 (elevated)
- Hands tremor when at rest
- Cigarette burns on left forearm (self-inflicted per patient)
- Sleep deprivation evident (bloodshot eyes, slowed response time)
**Mental Status:**
- Oriented to person and place
- Confused about time (believes war is ongoing despite 1970 armistice)
- Affect: Anxious, hypervigilant
- Speech: Rapid, pressured, repetitive phrases
- Insight: Poor
**Initial Assessment:** Combat fatigue. Possible temporal lobe epilepsy. Recommend observation.
**Patient's Own Words (recorded):**
"The checkpoint. I've cleared that checkpoint before. Same evening light. Same goat crossing the road. Same child in yellow cloth watching from the compound. When the truck came around the corner, I knew. I already knew. But it happened again anyway."
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**Personal Letter (Unsent) — Found in patient's footlocker — Date Unknown**
Mama,
I am writing this but I don't know if I wrote it already. My hands remember holding this pen. The paper feels familiar against my palm, like I touched it yesterday, or maybe tomorrow.
The war ended. Everyone says the war ended. Three years ago they tell me. But Mama, I am still here. Still in Enugu. Still on duty. They tell me I volunteered to stay, to help with reconstruction. I don't remember volunteering.
I don't remember many things anymore.
But I remember things that haven't happened yet.
Yesterday—no, this morning—no, I don't know when—I was walking to the mess hall. The red dirt path, the one with the drainage ditch on the left side. I knew before I turned the corner that Corporal Bello would be there, smoking, his uniform shirt unbuttoned to the third button (never the fourth, always the third), and he would say: "Adetola, you look like shit."
And when I turned the corner, there he was. Third button. The words came out of his mouth like I was reading them from a script.
"Adetola, you look like shit."
I vomited right there in the dirt. Bello laughed. I think I've heard that laugh before. I think I've vomited before. Many times. The same vomit, the same laugh, the same red dirt.
Time is folding, Mama. Like when you fold fufu dough, pressing it over itself, over and over. The layers stick together. I can't tell which layer I'm living in anymore.
I tried to tell the Captain. He said I need rest. But I've rested before. I've had this conversation before. He'll say "You need rest" and I'll say "I've tried resting" and he'll look at me with that expression—concern mixed with annoyance—and then he'll assign me to checkpoint duty.
The checkpoint where the truck comes.
I've died at that checkpoint, Mama. I know I have. I felt the explosion. Felt the heat. Felt the metal going through my chest. Felt my blood in my mouth, tasted like coins, like the iron nails Papa used to keep in his workshop.
But then I wake up. Same morning. Same breakfast (yam porridge, too much palm oil, not enough salt). Same walk to the checkpoint. Same truck coming around the corner.
How many times can you die before you stop being alive?
Your son (I think),
Adetola
P.S. — I don't know if I'll send this. I think I've written it before. The words feel too familiar.
---
**Witness Statement — Corporal Ibrahim Bello — 18 August 1973**
"Lieutenant Ogunleye has been acting strange since... well, since always, now that I think about it. But it got worse this past week.
Three days ago, he was assigned to checkpoint duty on the Enugu-Onitsha road. Standard stuff. Check vehicles, verify papers, wave them through. Boring work, but someone has to do it.
I was smoking nearby when I heard him shouting. Not at anyone—just shouting at the air. He was staring down the road, at nothing, just empty road and heat shimmer.
He kept saying: 'Not again. Not again. Not this time.'
I asked him what was wrong. He grabbed my arm—hard, his fingers left bruises—and he said: 'When the truck comes, run. Don't look back. Just run.'
I told him there was no truck. The road was empty. Had been empty for twenty minutes.
He looked at me like I was the crazy one. He said: 'It's coming. Blue Peugeot truck. Dented front bumper. Driver wearing brown kaftan. Two passengers in the back, both young men, both wearing..." He stopped. Started shaking. Then he said, quiet-like: 'I remember their faces when the bomb goes off. I remember how they scream.'
There was no truck, sir. I swear it. The road stayed empty.
But Adetola dove behind the sandbags anyway. Covered his head. Started counting: 'Three, two, one—'
Nothing happened.
He lay there for ten minutes, crying, saying 'Why didn't it happen? It always happens. Why didn't it happen this time?'
We took him off checkpoint duty after that. Captain said he needed psychiatric evaluation.
But here's the thing, sir. The thing I can't stop thinking about.
Two days later, a blue Peugeot truck came through. Dented bumper. Driver in brown kaftan. Two young men in the back. We stopped it for routine inspection.
The truck was clean. No weapons, no contraband. Just farm supplies. We waved it through.
But when it drove away, I saw Adetola watching from the barracks window. He was crying again. And he was saying something I could read on his lips:
'Next time. It happens next time.'
What does that mean, sir? Next time?"
---
**Psychiatric Session Notes — Dr. Chinwe Okafor — 20 August 1973**
**Session Duration:** 47 minutes
**Patient Presentation:**
Second Lt. Ogunleye arrived 15 minutes early for appointment. Was waiting outside office, standing at attention. When I opened the door, he said: "You're wearing the blue headscarf today. You always wear the blue headscarf when we have this conversation."
This was our first session. I was indeed wearing a blue headscarf, but how could he know this was habitual?
**Key Discussion Points:**
**Dr. O:** "Tell me about the checkpoint incident."
**Patient:** "Which time?"
**Dr. O:** "Corporal Bello's report. Three days ago."
**Patient:** (Laughs, but it sounds like crying) "Three days. Three weeks. Three hundred times. It all loops back. Do you want to know what happens? I can tell you what happens. Every version."
He then described seven different scenarios, all involving the same checkpoint, same blue truck, same two passengers. In his narratives:
- Version 1: Truck contains explosives. Detonates when he approaches. He dies.
- Version 2: Truck is clean but returns at night with armed men. Firefight. He dies.
- Version 3: He lets truck pass without inspection. Truck bombs a market. He's executed for negligence. He dies.
- Version 4: He stops the truck. Argument escalates. Passenger has a gun. He dies.
- Version 5: Truck is clean. He waves it through. Later, same truck appears at the checkpoint with different passengers. This version, he doesn't die. "But I feel like I should have. Like I missed my cue."
- Version 6: He shoots the driver preemptively. Court-martial. Execution. He dies.
- Version 7: He abandons his post before the truck arrives. Desertion charge. Execution. He dies.
**Dr. O:** "These are anxieties, Lieutenant. Worst-case scenarios your mind is creating."
**Patient:** "No. They're memories. I've lived all of them. I can tell you what your office smells like in each version. In some versions, you have a fan by the window. In this version, no fan. In three versions, there's a water stain on the ceiling. In this version, the ceiling is clean."
I looked up. The ceiling was clean. But something made me check the storage room later. Found our old office fan, broken, hadn't been used in years. The previous office location (we moved six months ago) did have water damage on the ceiling.
How did he know these details?
**Patient:** (Growing agitated) "The war ended. Everyone says the war ended. But I keep dying in the war. How can the war be over if I'm still dying in it?"
**Dr. O:** "You're not dying, Lieutenant. You're here. You're safe."
**Patient:** (Stands abruptly) "I've had this conversation before. You say I'm safe. I believe you. Then I walk out of this office, and twenty steps down the hall, the mortar hits. I've felt the ceiling collapse on me. I've tasted the dust. I've choked on my own blood."
**Dr. O:** "Lieutenant, please sit—"
**Patient:** "In another version, I make it outside. But there's a sniper. I've felt that too. Clean shot, right through the temple. In another version, I make it back to the barracks, but I have a heart attack that night. My heart just stops. Twenty-two years old and my heart stops like an old man's. I've experienced that death too. The pain in my chest, the tightness, the darkness."
He was hyperventilating. I tried to calm him.
**Patient:** (Quietly) "I think I'm dying in every possible timeline. Every choice, every moment—they all end the same way. Death. And somehow, I remember all of them. I'm collecting my own deaths like... like you collect patient files."
He pointed at my filing cabinet.
**Patient:** "How many Adetolas are in your files, Doctor? How many versions of me have you treated?"
I checked later. His file was the only one. But the file was thick. Too thick for one patient with one intake session. When I opened it, there were multiple psychiatric evaluation forms, all dated differently, all describing similar symptoms.
Some dated before he was assigned to this hospital.
Some dated before the war even ended.
**Assessment:** Severe dissociative disorder. Possible psychotic break. Recommend immediate sedation and observation.
**Addendum:** Patient refused medication. Stated: "I've taken those pills before. They don't work. They just make the loops longer."
---
**Incident Report — Barracks Night Watch — 23 August 1973 — 03:47 hours**
Disturbance reported from Lieutenant Ogunleye's quarters. Found subject standing on his bunk, marking the walls with charcoal. Had covered approximately 6 square meters of wall surface with identical markings:
A date: 4 October 1973
A time: 14:22
A location: Checkpoint 7, Enugu-Onitsha Road
A single word repeated hundreds of times: **MOKU** (Yoruba: "I die")
Subject was non-responsive to verbal commands. Appeared to be in trance state. Continued marking walls and muttering in mixture of English and Yoruba:
"Mo ti ku. Mo tun ku. Mo maa ku. Mo maa tun ku."
(I died. I died again. I will die. I will die again.)
When physically restrained, subject became lucid. First words: "I'm sorry. I'm practicing. I need to get it right this time."
Asked what he was practicing.
Response: "Dying. I need to learn to die correctly so it stops repeating."
Subject was sedated and transferred to secure observation.
Wall markings photographed before cleaning. Photography Corporal noted: "The handwriting changes. Same message, same wall, but different handwriting styles. Like multiple people wrote it. Or the same person wrote it in multiple states of mind."
---
**Letter to Dr. Chinwe Okafor — Found under patient's pillow — 27 August 1973**
Doctor,
I'm writing this during a lucid moment. I know you think I'm insane. I know what the reports say. But please read this carefully. I need someone to understand before it happens.
The checkpoint. 4 October. 14:22 hours.
I'm going to die there. Not "might die"—will die. I've seen it from every angle now. I've tried changing it. I've tried running away, fighting back, doing nothing, doing everything. Every choice leads to the same moment.
The truck arrives. Blue Peugeot. Dented bumper. But it's not the truck that kills me.
It's me.
I've realized something, Doctor. The fear is what's killing me. Not bullets, not explosives, not disease. The fear itself. It's so strong it's creating the loop. Every time I'm afraid to die, I die. And then I wake up to be afraid again.
I've been dying since the war started. Maybe before. Maybe all my life was just the moment before death stretched out into years of anticipation.
Do you know what that does to a person? To be terrified every second because you remember every death you've ever experienced? I've been shot, blown apart, stabbed, beaten, drowned in my own blood. I've died slow and fast, painful and mercifully quick. I've died brave and I've died crying like a child.
But I'm tired now, Doctor.
So I'm going to try something different.
On 4 October, at 14:22, at Checkpoint 7, I'm going to stop being afraid.
Maybe if I accept it—truly accept it—the loop will break. Maybe I'll finally die and stay dead. Maybe that's what I've been trying to achieve all along. Not survival.
Just an ending.
If you're reading this, it means I'm already gone. Or I'm still dying somewhere else. Or I'm about to die again tomorrow.
Time doesn't work the way we think anymore.
Thank you for trying to help me. In some versions of this conversation, you succeed. In most versions, you don't. But I appreciate the attempt.
In one version, you understand what's happening to me. I hope you're living in that version.
—Adetola
P.S. — When it happens, please tell my mother I wasn't afraid at the end. Even if it's a lie. Let her believe I died brave.
---
**Military Police Report — 4 October 1973 — 18:34 hours**
**Re:** Death of Second Lieutenant Adetola Ogunleye
At approximately 14:22 hours today, Second Lt. Ogunleye was found deceased at Checkpoint 7, Enugu-Onitsha Road. Subject was discovered by Corporal Ibrahim Bello during routine patrol.
**Circumstances:**
- No signs of violence
- No wounds visible on body
- No evidence of struggle or disturbance
- Subject's weapon still holstered, unfired
- Position: Sitting with back against sandbag wall, legs extended, arms at sides
- Expression: Peaceful (per witness statement)
**Witness Statement — Corporal Ibrahim Bello:**
"I found him sitting there. Just sitting. At first I thought he was resting, but then I saw his eyes were open. Staring straight ahead at the road. No clouds in them, no movement. Just... stopped.
There was a blue truck parked about 50 meters down the road. Peugeot. Dented bumper. Driver said he'd stopped because he saw a soldier sitting there and thought something was wrong. Wanted to help.
By the time I got there, Adetola was already gone.
The strange thing, sir—and I know this sounds impossible—but when I first saw him, I swear he was smiling. Like he'd just understood a joke. Or figured out a puzzle.
There was a piece of paper in his hand. Held it so tight we had to pry his fingers open. It had one word written on it:
**ÒWÓ** (Yoruba: "Finished" or "Complete")
No note. No explanation. Just that one word.
The medic said it looked like cardiac arrest, but Adetola was twenty-two years old. Healthy. No history of heart problems.
It's like his heart just... decided to stop.
Or like he decided to let it stop."
**Medical Examiner's Preliminary Findings:**
Death by cardiac arrest. No underlying pathology detected. Toxicology negative. No physical trauma. Heart appears structurally normal but ceased function abruptly.
Cause of death listed as: **Sudden Cardiac Death — Etiology Unknown**
**Unexplained Finding:**
Subject's watch stopped at exactly 14:22 hours. Battery was functional when tested later, but watch had ceased operation at time of death.
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**Supplementary Report — Dr. Chinwe Okafor — 11 October 1973**
I visited Checkpoint 7 yesterday. Felt I owed it to Lieutenant Ogunleye to see the place where he died.
Corporal Bello was there. He showed me the exact spot. The sandbags. The view of the road. Everything exactly as the Lieutenant had described in our sessions.
As we stood there, a blue Peugeot truck drove past. Dented front bumper. Driver in a brown kaftan.
Bello went pale. He said: "That's the third time this week. Same truck. Same route. Same time of day. Like it's stuck on a schedule."
I asked if he'd checked the truck.
He said: "First time, yes. Driver was clean, just a farmer making deliveries. Second time, different driver, but same truck. Also clean. Yesterday, same truck again, but I couldn't bring myself to stop it. I just watched it pass."
We stood in silence for a moment. Then Bello said something that's been haunting me since:
"Ma, do you ever feel like you're living the same day over and over? Like no matter what you do, you end up in the same place? I've been having that feeling since Adetola died. Like maybe he didn't escape the loop. Like maybe he just... passed it to someone else."
I told him that was grief talking. Trauma. That he should come see me for a session.
He smiled sadly. "Maybe I will, ma. Maybe I already have. Maybe we've had this conversation before and neither of us remembers."
I left feeling deeply unsettled.
When I returned to my office, I found Adetola's file on my desk. I know I had filed it away. But there it was, open to a page I didn't remember writing:
**"Patient reports: 'The fear is contagious. It spreads through proximity. Anyone who gets too close to someone stuck in the loop risks getting caught in it too. The checkpoint isn't a place. It's a moment. And the moment is looking for someone to live in.'"**
I don't remember him saying that.
But the handwriting is mine.
I've scheduled myself for a colleague's evaluation. Something is wrong. Either with me, or with my memory, or with...
I don't want to finish that thought.
**Addendum — 14 October 1973:**
I'm writing this quickly. My hands are shaking.
This morning, I was walking to my office. The same path I take every day. Red dirt. Drainage ditch on the left. And I knew—before I turned the corner—that I would see someone standing there.
Someone I recognized.
When I turned the corner, there was a soldier. Young man. Uniform clean but too loose on his frame, like he'd recently lost weight. He was staring at the hospital building with an expression I can only describe as recognition mixed with dread.
He looked at me and said: "I've been here before."
I asked his name.
He said: "Second Lieutenant Adetola Ogunleye."
But Adetola Ogunleye is dead. I filed his death report myself.
I asked him again.
Same answer. Same name. Same rank.
I checked the intake logs later. There's a new admission: Second Lieutenant Adetola Ogunleye. Transferred from Enugu garrison for psychiatric evaluation. Presenting complaint: "Persistent feelings of repetition. Claims to experience moments he has already lived."
The handwriting in the log is mine.
But I don't remember admitting him.
I've scheduled our first session for tomorrow morning. I'm wearing my blue headscarf. I don't know why. It felt important.
Something is wrong with this place. Or something is wrong with time. Or something is wrong with me.
But I need to understand what happened to Adetola. What's still happening to him. What might happen to me if I stay too close to this case.
Tomorrow I'll ask him about the checkpoint. About the truck. About the date: 4 October.
I know he'll say he's already died there.
And somehow, I know he'll be right.
---
**Final Entry — Found on hospital dictation recorder — Date stamp corrupted — Voice identified as Dr. Chinwe Okafor**
[Sound of shallow breathing]
"This is Dr. Chinwe Okafor. It's... I don't know what time it is.The clock in my office has stopped. Stopped at 14:22. That's Adetola's time. The time he died. The time he keeps dying....
But it's not just the clock. I looked at the charts. All of his progress notes. They are identical to the notes I wrote yesterday. And the day before.
The tremor in his hands. The cigarette burns. The quote about the goat crossing the road. Identical.
Moti sẹ ri ati ailagbara. I have seen and I am powerless.
I thought I needed to understand what was happening to him.
But he was the patient. Now I am.
I went back to the intake log. Second Lieutenant Adetola Ogunleye. Admitted. My handwriting. But I don't remember writing it. I remember seeing a log that said that.
That felt like the correct log. The one I knew to be true.
I know what happens next.
I will schedule a session for tomorrow. I will wear the blue headscarf because I already remember wearing it. I will ask him about the checkpoint. And he will answer. And I will write it all down. Again.
Again
And Again and Again, AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AND AGAIN
--
But who wrote the first entry? If I am writing it now, and I will write it again tomorrow, who wrote the original?
It must be me.
It was always me.
I run out of the office. The hallway is long, sterile, white. The fluorescent lights hum—a low, mechanical song.
I know the smell of old antiseptic. I know the wind. I know the sound of my own footsteps. Perfectly.
The humming stops.
I freeze
I turn.
A figure stands at the end of the hall.
I whisper his name. "Adetola."
The thing does not answer.
I tried to run, walk? No standing still.
I am not walking. The floor is walking under me, like a conveyor belt of ice.
I am walking home.
----
[Final word on recorder: Moti sẹ ri ati ailagbara.]
## Closing Notes — Dr. Nikolai Dvitra
Dr. Chinwe Okafor vanished from the Enugu Military Hospital on or around the date of this final transcript. Security footage from the hospital grounds showed her walking into the east wing at 14:23—one minute after the final time-stamp on her dictation recorder.
She was never seen exiting.
The patient, Second Lieutenant Adetola Ogunleye, was discharged that same day. The discharge note stated: "Full remission. Patient reports total resolution of repetitive and anxiety symptoms. Cleared for immediate return to active duty."
I am no longer the keeper of the files. I am the archive. And the archive must be corrected.
If you are reading this, you are part of the patta.... NO you would be carefull.
And I tell you as I write this, the pattern has already begun to read me.
End of File.
For now.