WASTED REMINISCE
CHAPTER ONE
'His eyes where bloodshot, very red and very still, he clung on
to the piece of wood for a survival instinct that came into his head in
trickles, he could only remember to breathe and be alive…. As he
breathed, the “hands above” seems to hold him down, pushing… wanting him
to drown…yes! Wanting him to die…. And he was drowning; his fingers
touched a metallic substance, almost immediately the taste of raw bile
taste of death filled his tongue, his lungs contracted rapidly…He was
sure going to die…
Marcos awoke with a start, the shock
of this nightmare was excruciating, he could not fathom the essence of
this dream, his stoic manliness was suddenly inept, cowered as he went
for a cup of hot tea mixed with caffeine,
...Anyway ‘Dreams’ were
figment-derisive representation of thoughts from the mind he recalled
the words of his mentor IDI ‘AMIN
With renewed sense
of vigor and optimism, he took a shower and paced the entire length of
his 5ft, 10 inch room, with a coffee mug in hand he decided to go and
see Braham Pradesh the renowned crystal ball gazer in Katanga... The all
seing eyes from Vahalla...
“After all, a frog is not seen
running in the day for nothing, it is either pursuing something or the
other way round” he mused aloud to himself. As he approached the revered structure, the learned ‘eyes’ pinnacle near river Tiber he saw the unexpected. Two couple where at a corner making out: the
interesting drama was the face of the woman looked familiar...
"What!" is this not Ijeoma my sis...?!
What a travesty of justice! --- His eyes swallowed the entire scene, a bizarre phantom he wished to wake up from. His baby sister was been straddled like a horse, it was so fulfilling
and captivating that she did not noticed the entrant of the intruder,
her euphoric moans of ecstasy and delight reverberated like an
echo…“…oh… aaah…. Soo…oo...ooftly…Mnnnhmm… y...yes!
This was too much eyesore, and it really got on his nerve, an evil
thought crept to the top corner of his mind or was it just a
feeling? Almost immediately, he decided to delete the entire scene from
his memory, by putting a full stop on the life of the “man” and “horse”.
Always wielding his "material" that street sense never left him due
to the harrowing experience in night mile a year ago: he got himself a
licensed gun for survival
‘This never happened! He said to himself
Bringing out his .22 semi-automatic magazine calibers, he aimed at the
man’s temple taking a full 360 degree twist-turn; he turned the man’s
temple into a bloody pulp of arteries and neurons after a cataclysmic
sound…whimper…. from the dying man. Marcos thought very quickly, this
girl must leave here alive, sister or not... Or am finished.
Almost immediately, as though she read his thought: She rose briskly,
flummox, with her breast dangling, the nipples peeked out from her cheap
Bra, like a flat slippers compressed by the soles of a fondling
carefree rapist, an alarming swiftness that a woman her age cannot
possess she made to run to the entrance with the turgid flesh in her
hand, But the swift, black and steady hands on the trigger was not
mistaken as the movement of pellets from the lethal weapon with sudden
alacrity and exactness hit the base of her nipples, created a neat chasm
that made the area look more like a cadaver cut open.
A soft cry
escaped from her lips as she trembled uncontrollably, released the
turgid penis she held, then…the scream!
But the words never
came out, as she fell face down on to the marble floor, convulsed
sporadically as if epileptic or possessed by demons in their numbers,
she smiled…. and was still.
Still…stiff!
Marcos was
suddenly alarmed, he just committed homicide; the nausea he felt from
seeing the unwholesome tragedy of his sister mutually conjugating with
that bastard, from Malaga hall back then in Ambers college coupled with
the hysterical nightmare of yesterday and the acidic smell of death came
to his nostrils, he coughed, spat out, dialed the lousy 911 digit and
immediately spoke into the receiver.
‘Hello commander Viking!?
The voice at the other end was expectant… but Marcos was suddenly dumb,...
"Hello".. Who's there?
The receiver said politely: almost sensing the caller must be deranged: as he is used to such prank calls daily.
Marcos severed the line, did the best thing he thought he could do…
dug a grave for two, buried them and then cried for his loss.…. He
regretted his action, the crocodile tears kept pouring...
He sat
down with tears-moistened eyes, then slept into a restive sleep where
shadows of his past crept once again into the conscious part of his
mind.
He remembered his days in primary five when he was just…mayhem…
Madness and Raw Mayhem!!!
“Back in the class, he was a staunch masochist, though hard working
in physical athletics, sports yet he loved crime and he naturally had a
flair for being malevolent, he is hereby suspended indefinitely”…
He remembered this statement above as the report of his head
teacher in Ambers Secondary School, Enugu while reporting her students
activities to the head chaplain, he hissed and touched his eye, an
action he does absentmindedly whenever he was in a fix.
‘They never
understood me’!
He shouted as though he was conversing with a spirit
being, he coughed spasmodically, the blood from his epiglottis came to
his mouth, a terminal disease he has from his days at night mile
"thug-in"
He sucked it in and stood up to his torso length,
washed the other blood stain away from his Ankara designer’s denim and
burst into the street as a new man with no sin, a complete saint, eyes
squared and heads held high, he navigated the shortest route to Braham's
cubicle…
That’s all’ he said to himself,
"Time will heal all wounds"
He smiled, showing his gaping tooth. The sun was beginning to set,
the gentle sea wind caressed his body making him numb, he touched his
crotch erotic wise… he forgot he has done the unthinkable.
He felt his spirit soar...
CHAPTER TWO
His footsteps was bold and very strong clearly under lining the
strength emanating from the young man approaching, The crystal ball
gazer could see the man through a semi-transparent opening which gives a
vivid silhouette of the person outside without the person getting to
notice, Braham Nonoil had seen worse days
…He remembered
1967 during the supremacy war later nicknamed the Biafra war with the
khaki men in shorts, the pain and misery his step mother made him pass
through which led to the vicious mark on his left eye, he remembered
Sandra… little Sandra! His loving sister and how she was defiled in
turns by those savages…
He remembered the death of his
father as he was sacrificed for leading the troop that tethered the
creation of the dreaded ‘OBUNUNIGWE’ right at the heart of princess
Alexandria hall, Nsukka
"Papa,... papa" his voice faded, as a khaki
man took him away; the last glance he had of his father was a man
smiling even in pain.
‘The memory lingers’
He spoke to outer space; his teeth clenched, not moving, his eyes were distant...clueless
Holding a piece of sacred white cloth and a cowrie coin, he was
momentarily gone as the scene played back again… the agonizing sound and
profuse tears shed by his father as his two eyes were plucked out
neatly till there was no tears again but blood
…Dark, red blood!
At the background was a little tape which plays at interval
different kinds of hilarious and hysterical sounds which can send chills
down the spine of any human, a sound shrouded in mysticism; an occultist
tune.
Marcos walked in, the eyes of the guru was distant
and his face shone like a million stars, his white sacred cloth was
placed directly atop the sacred ball giving him an enhanced feature of
Zeus the Corinthian god.
He feigned ignorance,He did hear him walk in…
"Hello"?!knock, knock...
“Why do you disturb the spirits that sees with both eyes closed?
Why do you choose to stain those fingers with blood; before you came here, your hands were full...
He kept ranting uncontrollably: this he did to ensure he captures the mind of this young mind:
"Yes"! Full of fresh, sizzling blood…
hmmnn!”He gyrated like a man in a trance...
He paused for a brief second as if sizing the after effect of
his question and with a rave of thunder in his rumbling voice he roared
the word
Why!!!?
It took all the courage
he could project not to take to his heels, but with a calm that
surprised even him and a voice that was also a caricature to his big
frame
"What do you see Old’ eyes"?
Braham released the
pulley with the bewildered Marcos looking on rather sheepishly: the
increased audio level of that tape created an eerie effect on both of
them, thunder reverberated, Marcos shivered for a minute or two.
The sound from the tape changed to that of a rushing wind which was like a respite to the sound heard before…
‘Go home; do not look left or right! Greet nobody today…they pursue you with all venom, they might kill…kill…kill…kill……
"Come back with a white dove, two turtle skin and hyenas fats...And a thousand naira note: Crisp, virgin, no stain.
" I will explain your dreams"….
Marcos could not believe his ears, he had not explained anything
to this erudite seer but he already knows his predicament, proffered
solution and even seen his evil, he shivered again
‘Thank you s—
Don’t thank me’ he said ‘go home. And with a look of victory that a predator countenance chars on the face of the prey he crossed his legs. Drops the whole amount on him at the base of the sacred ball, he
half stood and half ran at the same time,
Braham grinned, counted the
crisp naira notes on the floor, he stopped the tape player and dropped
his sacred white "This is just the beginning to a good plot, my people
needs ‘help’…
my ‘help’ they must get”… hahaahaaa!(Reeked of sarcasm)
CHAPTER THREE
He saw fire and brimstone… the chairman with a three forged fork
poked virtually all the occupant in that enclave… the place was
evil…black and evil. He screamed as the apex of a neatly sharpened drive
penetrated his bronchioles… fresh tears welled up his eyes as he ran
from the chairman. But, he was so fast like a man on a spring another
drive sent his spluttering…blood, he cried but the chairman only licked
the tip, laughed hysterically ready for another drive, stoo…o…op! Marcos
cried.
With tears in eye, he awoke looking more
puzzled and speechless than he looked the night before. He remembered
the word of the seer and immediately the words “they pursue you to
kill…kill. Kill…kill!!…”
Resounded like an anthem somewhere in
his head, almost immediately he realized the procedures he was to
undertake in order to regain his perfect self was daunting as he could
not afford the items needed.
The idea fizzled in like a
rushing wind, he thought of stealing? Yes! Steal what you need, make all
things ‘ceteris paribus’. Almost immediately he drifted to
another fit of nostalgia, recalling those words of REV. ANTHONY INHERE
the hallowed bald preacher…
" Listen to the newborn’s infant
cry in the hour of birth then juxtapose it with death struggles in the
final hour--- and then say if what begins and ends in this way can be
seen as fulfilling… as…enjoyment"
Marcos could swear he
heard the voice of that man as loud as it was many god forsaking years
ago, he at this point concur that life is completely meaningless…
There is virtually no need to fight this darkness that has tried beyond
all odds to overwhelm him, no need to make Braham Pradesh a little
richer….
Life is just in one word--- HOSTILE.
As a good
literature student quite promising in this field in his younger days… he
recalled the poems of the revered W.B Yeats: I balanced all, brought all
to mind, The years to come seemed
waste of breath, A waste of breath
the years behind In balance with this life, this death. Marcos broke
down again in tears, he has been crying much too often this days, what
has suddenly happened to the symbolic “rock” of Ambrose college. THE
CHAMPION as he was called by all and sundry …oh! “Things are really
changing” he reflected pensively What the cause to this womanliness? He
pondered aloud; he decided to go back from where he came “a man” after
all the words of that preacher was real…“Life is worthless, an everyday
cosmic struggle and repetition of a triangular pattern which could lead
to monotony and boredom…
Finally, the candle burns out…”
He remembered some weeks ago his own self idol left planet
earth… he thought about Michael… oh! Poor Michael Jackson! He did it!
Why can’t I? He had to prove a point if not at the entrance then at the
exit.
He hurriedly took a bath, shampooed his rich, dark skin till they
shone like glass. with a bravado that surprised his ‘maker’ he picked
the sharp thronged fork and plunges it into his carotid artery till they
severed like when one kills a chicken…like when a wired connection is
forcefully removed… like when you disconnect a ‘patella’ from a kneecap.
HE SLEPT… still remembering what a brave man he was, going into the
thick void he could now see, quite elated : he has done something right
for the very first time, with his last show of courage and vigor, while
the watching world laughs hysterically at his mundane, derisive display
of cowardice and shame…..A life fizzles out… and then truly...the candle burns out…
leaving behind a sedated, humid smoke, another soul lost after Michael excesses, how many more to go..
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