"I Haven't Slept Since Chapter 400," Says Fenella Okwuosa
The Yaba writer posts a chapter every day at 14:00. Today's is number 431, and at 6:10 a.m. it is not started.
At 6:10 a.m. Fenella Okwuosa is typing with one hand and holding a boiled yam in the other. Chapter 431 is due at 14:00. It is not finished. It is barely a rumour.
She writes Salt Road fan fiction. The show ended two years ago. Her readers did not hear.
"I have not slept since chapter 400," she says. "That was thirty-one chapters ago. I counted. It was the last thing I counted."
Chapter 400 went up on 1 October. One a day since. She says she naps. She does not count naps as sleep. A nap is work with the lights off.
Her room in Yaba faces west. By 14:00 the sun reaches the laptop and the generator is already loud. The thermometer by the door says 34. She posts anyway.
Readers gather in the comments from 13:00. At 13:02 someone writes, "is it time." At 13:04 the same person writes it again.
Her cousin comes in with tea and leaves without speaking. This is the arrangement.
Asked what happens in chapter 431, Fenella chews for a while.
"The ferry is late," she says.
It has been late since chapter 212.
