Left Behind

It was one of those Friday nights.

You know, one of those nights when the hormones are on full duty and all of your armour has given way. You look for some little trouble to get into, you don’t get, and you turn to anything that has the semblance of solace.

And to complicate things, Shola had just been paid for the week. He could challenge Godzilla for all he cared.

Feelings. Feelings! Why didn’t he think of this all along? There was surely enough occupation to last him a lifetime at Feelings. He engaged the drive gear of the Acura he bought the week before, and his foot tortured the gas pedal. The protest he got from the car made the little voice in him to ask him to put himself in the car’s shoes.  Could he stand it?

The building which housed the town’s largest club was not too far away, and he was glad the car didn’t have to suffer for so long. He got out, threw the keys to the handsome valet whose looks made him wish the gender could change at the snap of a finger, and sauntered into the reception. He could already hear Lil Wayne telling an imaginary girl to give him a good view of whatever it was her mother gave her, in that sneaky mischievous voice of his.

‘Licence, please?’ the burly six footer of a hulk asked him, with a protective and friendly slur to his voice.

He reached deep into his wallet, and fished out his driver’s licence. Even before the document came out, the shift in the eyes of the bouncer showed it was not what he wanted to see. Perplexity became etched on Shola’s  face. Understandingly, the bouncer brought out a copy of what he wanted to see, and displayed it in Shola’s face. It was a new development, and people were yet to grasp what it meant.

Shola collected the plastic card, and peered into it in the revolving lights of the discotheque. It was not like anything he had seen before. To the right bore a large round insignia that bore the concentric inscription which read, ‘The World Council of Churches’.

The moment his eyes fell on that word and the full impact of what it meant registered in his head, it was like a space station which was expelling a rocket into the moon. His head gathered much heat and his hands became clammy as he handed the card back to the bouncer with shaky hands. Fainting was not necessary, but it would not change what had happened. He was halfway from the reception to his car, when his Samsung Grand let out a silent beep which notified him of text messages, along with a slight vibration. He fished out his phone. The text message read:

‘Dear Mr Shola, your application for the Master’s degree programme with the University of Wisconsin is almost through. We would like you to furnish us with the last three digits of your church licence code…’

He dropped the phone. It fell on its face, and the multiple cracks on the screen made it reminiscent of a woman who frowned when the husband denied her money for victuals. He wondered if he was going to need a phone ever again.

He got into his car, and drove soberly a few yards. It was all over. He knew exactly what had happened. Suddenly the automatic dashboard lights came on. It only did so when there was an emergency.

The fuel indicator was blazing red lights. How had he been driving this car for weeks with the gas at this level?

He pedalled softly till he got to the gas station at Alton Drive. He parked, opened the fuel door of the car and went to the teller machine nearby to get some cash.

In place of his ATM identification number, the space appeared, with beautiful neon lights, and it read, ‘church identification code, please…..’

It was now official. It had happened, and he knew exactly what had happened. The realization settled in him, took root, and he resigned himself to it. Then, suddenly, another piece of the puzzle appeared in his head-it wasn’t even a puzzle anymore. His mother had been calling him for weeks complaining that no one had heard from Dupe, his sister, but he had shrugged it off, concluding that she may have gone for one of those month-long conventions or church programmes of theirs. She had introduced him to their church, and he had actually began to enjoy worshipping there and benefitting from the wonderful insight they had into the Scriptures. But their standards were too high for him. How on earth was a full-blooded bloke like him expected to be celibate till he married, or not have a dangerous drink or two once in a while?

The first tear dribbled through his eye, and like a confluence, joined forces with an adventurous line of phlegm which tried to see the world outside his nostrils, and they continued their southward journey.

‘And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark……(Rev 13.17)