The Hoary Head

Hannah was growing annoyed at the elderly woman who was standing inches to her face, talking heatedly and treating her face and nose to both the foul odour which issued from her mouth, the mixed air having no choice but to force its way into her nostrils, and spittle, which made her face a mass of little white dots by the time she took a break from facing her, turning the other way for some respite.

‘I don’t blame you! It’s not your fault at all! I am the one who made the mortal mistake of coming to this God-deserted mall to shop! To think I am getting this kind of treatment, on top of the expired things you sell here! You are staring me in the eyeball, you little imp….’

Her voice rose and rose, along with the weight of her words. They were getting to Hannah, who was determined to soak it all in and allow her finish, no matter how long it took and what she said.

The word ‘prostitute’ featured among the many words which flowed from her mouth like a leaking tap. She was determined to sieve out the others, but this one stubbornly found its way into her ears, and she turned a rainy face from the west to the centre, facing her.

She felt she had reached her limit, and was about to prepare her retort.  But she had another thing coming.

A scrawny shrunk hand was on its way to her face. If she had seen it earlier, she would have prepared for its impact. But it arrived, and found lodgement on her face. The timing was bad, and the damage was worse. It landed just when her mouth was about opening to make an effort to even the verbal score.

Her tongue was caught in between her teeth, and the contact snapped the upper and lower layers of teeth shut, digging deep and wounding her. Hannah’s frustrations heightened, and all her defences were becoming porous.

The dam broke.

Her hand started its journey to the lady’s face, and when it descended, it was a clenched fist instead of a palm, and it performed the duties it was assigned.

It was like the power switch was pressed off on a working generator: the words and rants died down as she searched frantically for space on the ground to collapse on. Her items of shopping did the same.

Hannah suddenly realized people had been restraining her and begging her not to reply that woman. Something clicked in her brain: the word ‘epileptic’ fought its way to prominence once again from the barrage of voices.

There were spasms and jerks; there was vibration and foaming. It happened for about ten seconds, and the elderly lady  turned limp, against the efforts of the staff and customers of Galaxy Stores to prevent it.

Two weeks later, in prison late one night, she shuddered as she became aware of subtle and silent opening of her solitary cell. An officer was at the door, and his silhouette did not reveal any form of clothing on him.

Three weeks ago, at about this time, a woman, after receiving a generous tonguelash from Hannah for a flimsy cause, had snapped her fingers at the direction of her house, after mumbling some incoherent nothings.

Dino Melaye: Dining With The Tigers

The wake of Nigeria’s 56^th year clocking and celebrations has come with eminent personalities airing their views and opinions on how far the nation has come, its state and the possible projections for the future. The unenviable and avoidable recession the country has been imbroiled in taking centre stage in the scheme of things, discourses converging on this subject would take longer than expected to subside, at least until the nation makes significant head way out of the doldrums.

   One prominent feature of this period is Senator Dino Melaye’s call to the Buhari-led government to give a six-month moratorium for the suspects and allegeds of misappropriation of government funds in the past administration to return the funds, the expiration of which would see the full weight of the law come down hard on them.

   In analyzing this call in its full and holistic essence, it would be pertinent to put all the facts on the table, from the immediate to the remote causes, complete with the players and actors who performed in the script that put the nation in this economic coma.  For starters, it would be necessary to note that while the hue and cry has been that the present administration has done nothing but cry wolf over the mistakes of the past one, the truth cannot but be far from the fact that the erstwhile administration was on all counts unhelpful to the saga we unfortunately found ourselves in. It is apparent that the policies of the present government aggravated the already inflamed economy and threw the populace in the low it currently is in.

It is without doubt that the nation suffered gross perfidy in the past government, and it would be unforgivable in the annals of prosperity if the corruption malady is allowed to walk the streets free, left unchecked and unquestioned. But it would also be meaningful to chase this sin in a strategic manner as opposed to the hard formula, in a bid to speedily come to the rescue of a distraught economy and people. To this end, the funds should be the actual focus of the anti-corruption fight, and Melaye’s recommendation on many counts may possess some amount of merit.

First, the nation is groaning under a grinding recession that does not seem to offer any tangibilities of hope in sight, with businesses and interests packing up faster than the speed of gravity, with the attendant ripple effects spiraling nearly out of control. Funds are immediately needed to not just sponsor the budget, but to be immediately injected into the system for a form of economic first aid.  This is one of the instances where the senator’s recommendation would hold some water.  But the truth is that the submission is like a basket out of a river, in the present Nigeria we operate, for a couple of reasons.

First, the culprits of this anti-corrup[tion drive have to be scanned and their personalities analyzed. These are people who are considered untouchables, and the formula the hunt is being applied with adds logs of wood to the inferno of their sacred-cow status. Secondly, such a call coming at this time of our lives reeks so much of helplessness on the part of government, and frustration at the futility of their efforts to recover these monies. As such these individuals are among the people who coined the laws under which the constitution is enshrined, and can perceive the body language of the government by this call, and would further be emboldened and hardened instesd of persuaded to return the country’s commonwealth. These individuals would always of course have the funds to hire the smartest lawyers to art their way out of gaol’s way, bribe their way through institutions, pay hired crowds in the name of civil rights groups to stage protests on how one human right of someone was trampled upon, and so many other things which will only end up making a tomfoolery of the entire drive and impoverishing the hapless masses all the more.

The way out would be a holistic strengthening of the institutions, massive enlightenment campaign of the definition of this monster called corruption, and a complete review of the laws that govern us. Until this is done, we would just be involved in a life-size and long-haul rigmarole; sweating without working, motion without movement.

On the flipside though, it could be time for the Almighty to do what He is known for; He might just touch hearts devoid of human effort or persuasion and the money would be returned, on the aegis of this call. The Nigerian people deserve respite, however and whichever way it comes.

Ogbonna Nnaemeka Henry

henchyman@yahoo.com

Judgmental

Judgemental...yeah that's the word
From a correctee to the correcter 
Souls roasted and tempered
Taking on that steely look 
And stance
Leave that to Whom 
It is for, they say
Don't sit on His seat, they thunder
You are guilty of worse, they boom
Soon as they are caught in Wrong's boat
Fishing on seas
Of determined iniquity.
Lash after lash
They dish
Serving retorts hot
On plates of spite 
Laced with malice 
For Truth.
On and on it rolls
Like Dangote's trailer tyres
Till evil becomes white-hot
And is inducted 
Into good's Hall of Fame
Forcefully, of course.
Correction and right
Has its visa revoked
Into myriad of souls
Pitiably.

Noel

It was that voice again.

Dino turned uncomfortably in his bed. The discomfort climbed from the physical disturbance of his early morning sleep to a sharp tug at his conscience, as the naked and spent Sheila lay spread-eagled beside him, breathing peacefully like she was born last week. He remembered his last words to his wife the previous evening as the voice from far in the street ,authoritative and piercing, sliced through the quiet early morning air.
'I am going for a marathon meeting and won't be coming back tonight.'

5.am. That same voice again.
Shola knew he could not complain in conscience that he was justifiably rattled by that voice, even though something loud in him wanted to. He knew he needed that voice, wanted it as a matter of fact, yet his sleep-reddened eyes managed to give way to a frowned face. He sat upright, knowing fully well that his phone would beep soon: the alert for payment for the sale of the Toyota Camry he had snatched at 'gun' point at Ojagu Estate would soon hit his account.

Some houses away, Gina was only too glad to hear the ping of the alarm clock. 5.am.

She rushed to her vantage position from where she could not only hear the voice in its smoothness and masculinity, but also to feast her eyes on its owner.

'Sin is unbelief, sin is not stealing or lying or cheating or fornication or murder. It is because we do not believe in what God stands for or what He represents, hence the idea of disregarding His word and annoying Him. For the same reason, God will not punish a man for being a sinner, because He knows we are sinners by inheritance, but He will punish for wilfully rejecting the remedy to being a sinner. The Bible says that God loved the world that He offered His only begotten son, so that whosoever believes will not perish. Friends, the idea of perishing is not something to be wished on your worst enemy. This is the peak of the summer, and you know how hot the sun can get, capable of causing skin cancer. But that is a tip of the iceberg compared to the lake of fire. Friends, there is one option left. Believe God, and accept the sacrifice made for you and me, and do it the Bible way, not the way you feel or choose. God cannot call something an abomination and you wilfuly do it, laying claim to grace. Treat sin as God calls it.....' the voice boomed, seizing the morning air and reverberating the perimeter of the neighbourhood.

In each of the one hundred and fifty houses that made up the Oki district, no one had the moral right to complain of disturbance of public peace, on the account of that voice. What that voice issued out was arresting, captivating, and convicting, and not in any way like what they were used to hearing from other people, the entire thirty minutes it lasted, before it faded away and was being subsumed by the sounds of a beginning day.

Today's was different.
Gina jumped from her bed like her life depended on it, and dashed to the window on the third floor of one of the three blocks of flats which the voice was holding siege. The voice drew closer and closer, and as an answer to prayers powered by expectation, soon the voice and its owner drew closer until she could thankfully make out physical features under the street lamp just by her flat, and she could match sight with sound.

She was awestruck, in a very pleasant way.

She had expected this kind of early morning evangelism to be the exclusive preserve of the unfortunates of life, the elderly, and people of such ilk. But what met her eyes, under the halo of that street lamp, convinced her of the fact that her reasoning was of the most obsolete kind. He had a hair whose neat wavy form danced and sparkled under the light, well defined hairline and razor-thin side burns which snaked down to his jaw, in a look that spoke volumes of a recent visit to a professional stylist. The hand which bore the megaphone donned a shiny wrist watch whose make she could only guess, and his general appearance reeked well being, youthfulness, and handsomeness in its profound definitions. To cap it all, what was coming through that instrument was strange and sweet, and was nothing like the prosperity gospels and motivational rhymes which was wont to precede countless calls for offerings in her church.

'Gina, I can't come to your house today', Noel whispered, hardly meeting her eyes.
'Why?' Gina retorted, lifting his face to drink in his features, for the ninth time that hour.
'I thought I could squeeze out time immediately from work to say hello to you like I promised, but I remembered we have communion service late in the evening, and by the time we are through I trust you will be way gone into dreamland.'
'I will wait up for you. Just give me a call.'
'You want those trigger-happy security men to shoot me, asking to gain entrance into your neighbourhood by 11pm? What will I tell God?'
'Okay, I will join you to church. Come pick me up when you are back from work.'
'But you said we preach too hard and long and we condemn a lot of unnecessary things. Can you handle what you may hear, that you may not like?'

Noel gathered steam and peeked at her face, hopeful. He believed this would do the trick.
'Just give me a call.'

She sashayed out of the eatery, leaving Noel distraught.
Noel, beside himself with frustration, watched with lost eyes the receding figure of Gina. He hated making promises he could not keep, but he knew he would have to sin on this one.

'I won't go back, 
Won't go back,
To the way it used to be
Before Your presence came 
And changed me....'

It was Noel's BlackBerry Passport.

Gina.

Knowing he had run out of pretexts and excuses for standing her up, he placed his bet on this last harmless one, which he delivered and waited for the worst. He knew what was to come-her spirited appeals to his Christianity and character on this matter.

He decided not to hear her rant.

'The Bible says specifically in Matthew 5.37, let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. Man of God, well done o! The God you are preaching has your case file before Him!'

'I am sorry, Gina.....I thought you would ask what happened. I developed stomach upset the minute I left that eatery. I could neither go back to the office nor make it to church. The psalmist says, in Psalms 19.13, Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me....'
'Abegi....let me hear word joor. You will always have justification for whatever you do regardless of how I feel. Anyway i need a favour, and if you like, tell me you are going to church again....'
'Shoot.'
'My car developed slow running during the week and I have arranged the mechanic to come pick it up to fix it. But I need to do my weekend shopping without that car shaming me at the mall. Could you come take me? I promise you i won't be a woman. I won't be long.'
'I will be going....'
'O shut up, will you? Be here in the next twenty minutes, or else....'

Noel slipped on his tee shirt, and grudgingly snatched the keys to the Avensis.

As soon as the nose of the Avensis smelt the gate, and at Gina's sighting, a Lenovo T5 went up to her ears, and instructions were dished out to the security men.

'Come in'.

Noel stepped into what he could best describe as alluring, to say the least. The way the one bedroomed apartment screamed feminine sweetness made him very uncomfortable. There was this enchanting waft of air freshener that tickled him desperately at the gonads, injecting a strange chemistry within him, and R- Kelly's Strip For You oozed ominously through the surround speakers hidden in the walls. Hmm....he thought, those days when.......

She strutted out of the inner room, bearing milkshakes and snacks in a tray. She was not dressed for the outing.

She was not dressed at all.

Without another word, and ignoring her offer, he made to leave the room. As soon as he touched the door handle, her voice stopped him.

'We will do this the easy or the hard way; it's your choice. For your information, you are not leaving this room without me having a feel of that magnificent body of yours: it will never happen. You take one more step, I will shout this house down. I know you are smarter than to try to run away. You are not Joseph, and this is not Potiphars house......' She continued, winking at him and smiling, yet Noel knew she meant every word.

She peeled off her last innards of covering, and tore them to shreds with feverish hands. 'You did that, for the record.'

She let it sink.

'Now come here, handsome.'

'Gina,what is this? What are you doing? Is this the shopping you asked me to help you to?'

She advanced towards him.

Noel knew something had to happen fast. He mumbled psalms, uttered prayers, as her hands tugged at his shirt, ripping them off him. He was losing grip, fast too. 
'You are being docile. You aren't a log of wood. Or do you want to be lynched for rape?'

Then it came.

Clutching hard at his chest, he forced his tongue out like a dog on a hot day. The size of his eyes tripled by some strained effort, and he collapsed plumb on the floor in an epileptic fit. He couldn't tell where saliva filled his glands from, and looking back, he concluded God was fully in support. He foamed profusely from his mouth, saliva seeping in floods onto her Persian rug and creating an already unpleasant putrefaction.

She stopped short, and regarded him.

There was squeezing, jerking and rolling, and with every passing second, conviction dawned on Gina that this was no child's play.

Five minutes later, Noel sat upright in her speeding Matrix, making cock sure the coast was clear. He tapped her on the shoulder as she negotiated a bend of the street that housed Hymax Wellness Centre. His shirt was on, and there was no sign whatsoever he was at the brink of violent death minutes before.

Both of them looked at each other knowingly.
'Stop the car.'

DINO MELAYE: OBJECTIVITY IN THE HAY

‘Like a needle in the haystack’

Each time I close my eyes to picture this saying that has become cliché for almost every shade of expression, I see stress, despondency and near-futility engraved in capitals in my mind’s eye. I can picture a 14^th century medieval mother, intent on probably giving vent to her marital frustrations on a hapless maid, commanding her to go to the stable where the horse was tethered, to look for the ‘only’ needle she needed to finish an urgent job. I can imagine the despair personified on the face of the little girl, who actually knows what her chances of success are at such a feat. Yes, a feat.

Over the past week or so, there has been so much hue and cry over an altercation between the senator representing Kogi West constituency, Mr Dino Melaye and the erstwhile first lady of Lagos State, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, also the senator representing Lagos Central. The convergence of all the spurts of spleen has been on the alleged outburst of Mr Melaye, who allegedly threatened to impregnate and beat up Mrs Tinubu, over his comments about people who decided to testify against the principal Senators in the country, Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu.

Expectedly, various human rights groups and liberty organizations have taken turns to outlaw and demonize the unfortunate utterances from a supposedly revered lawmaker, with dissociations and demands for apologies colouring and dotting the landscape and news space as it filters in.

Without any speck of doubt, the lawmaker acted in the most unruly manner undeserving of not only his mettle, political pedigree and positioning in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but also the Divine sculpting of his facial features. His gory and gross antecedents in the House make this latest no less suprising, and lends credence to snippets of slight psychological and psychomotive imbalance, which is in acute need of professional attention. But as the saying goes, the truth can have two faces sometimes.

   

   I am not and can never be a proponent of abuse in whatever colouration, hue or shade, especially when a woman is involved, bearing in mind not just the frailty of her composition which puts her in somewhat of a vulnerable position, but also the potential her complete emancipation from this vice holds for the world at large, should civilization succeed in stamping out abuse in its entirety. However, every agitation needs to have at least a rational and logical face, so as not to assume the ‘basket of water’ stance.

     

     I do not want to believe that I am the only one who can conveniently say that the attack of Mr Melaye on Mrs Tinubu was a provoked one.  Neither do I believe I am the only one who read that she called him a thug and a dog, which elicited that reaction, uncouth as it came out, unfortunately. I also want believe that I am not the only one who is noting how skewed the inclinations of people are, in favour of the ‘weaker’ Mrs Tinubu. In the news space, the report of the former first lady nearly assaulting a senator is not anywhere in the purview. Suddenly and completely, she has been absolved of every blame whatsoever. Because she sits magnificiently and protectedly on the side of general sympathy, she has the right to call a man names, with no consequence whatsoever. Of course she is the one whose attacks ought to be swallowed and masticated and ingested to nourishment. She is the woman. Because she is weak, she is on a freeway of uncensored thought, word and expression. Her faculty of self control is permissively redundant, and it doesn’t matter, afterall she is the woman. It doesn’t work like that on the balance of fairness and objectivity.

    As Stone Age as this may sound, any civilization that seeks to view gender balance with any taint of skew is unfair and unacceptable. Some of the ‘abuses’ that necessitated this worldwide demand for gender equality were at some point provoked ones. But the opinion of the critical mass, engineered deliberately by some forces with a mapped out world agenda, has been moulded to only dwell on effect and extent, without recourse to root and cause.

   Without meaning to sound misogynistic, there is a certain way nature has fashioned this cosmos, and the equality of the genders is not part of it, in any way whatsoever, Divinity appending its signature by way of the Scriptures. Because of the role of the woman in the fall of our first parents, she was to remain subservient to the man, albeit fairly (Genesis 3.16).

Dino ought to tender an unreserved apology for his actions. But objectivity ought to be concertedly hunted and rescued from that haystack.

Ogbonna Nnaemeka Henry

Lemuel 2

Feelings was just Lemuel wanted. Or what he needed to drown his guilt that evening.

Come on, he told himself as he looked, lost, at the bartender but actually miles behind the cellar behind him. The evening is still young and mingle is written in the air. Breathe it and live!

Daniel sipped some brandy, gargled it, came close to him, and in some uncouth fashion, extruded the hot spirit into his ear through the gap in his front teeth.

He came to like some voltage was passed through his system. It was no use; Daniel was already nestled   across the hall between two buxom ladies:  far out of the reach of his wrath.

He helped himself to some Tangaray.

The Lenovo appeared in his hands. He pressed the search button. He pressed ‘B’ in the search box.

Her name was first on the list. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t face her. He had to keep up the façade.

Suddenly, the Lenovo buzzed.

A text message.

He got up and took one last look at his friend and two other men in varying degrees of morally-depraved activity with up to five ladies slithering around them. He walked out, heavy.

Two thousand kilometers away in some cozy hospital, a pretty, fair complexioned lady was staring with trepidation at the electrocardiogram. The sinusoidal pattern that measured the heartbeat was ebbing flat. She looked on in horror.

 ‘Jesus! Save me!’

It picked up once again.

Lemuel walked in, crestfallen. When he saw her, he buckled and landed on his knees, sorrow painting his face.

He knew how she looked when he last saw her. He knew his eyes were not deceiving him, here and now.

She had drifted to sleep, a tired and uncertain one. He could not ask what happened.

Like a gymnast doing the final round of a series of backflip stunts, Sheila threw her bag to the far corner of the room, lifted her fit self, and landed square on the ten-inch spring mattress in the middle of her room,  all in one swift movement. She did not care that her throwing calculations were not so accurate:The bag had missed the second layer of the open closet by inches, fallen on its side, and spilled combs, her vanity box, sweets, an extra weave, and perfume.

She did not care. Today was hectic enough.

She savoured a good twenty minutes’ rest.

Here she was, engaged to the best man in the world, having a 4.87 grade point in her final semester, with the United Nations expository team  watching her academic progress with eagle eyes, impatient to swoop down on her upon graduation, parents to whom she meant the world, and an only brother who would give an arm for her. Could life be any more sweeter and fulfilling at this point?

A Lenovo ThinkPad materialized in her arms from wherever, instantly. She hadn’t networked in like a month, thanks to this hell, otherwise known as school.

She punched in her Facebook password.

Her long time friend, Kemona’s wall came into focus instantly. She had added six new photographs.

Characteristic of the epileptic Ogi network, the fractions of the picture began to fall into place one after the other like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. It started with a head, arms, which looked like they cupped something. She watched on as the image progressed to that of a lady inside the cupped arms. The lady looked fat and white initially, until she saw it was a gown, which flowed and covered like half a metre radius around her, swallowing the lower part of the man entirely, for he was behind her.

The loading progressed.

She could see the man was tall, way taller than the woman, and he had his lips buried in her mass of Brazillian weave, and she could make out a part of his shoe which peeked out of the covering of the gown on the ground. The entire picture was completely formed, but blurred.

Then it became clearer and clearer, pixel after pixel.

Sammie. Her Sammie. She checked the date. Two days before.

With a loud crash, the Lenovo fell and bruised.

Something strong and hard tugged at her heart. She passed out.

Lemuel looked up at the electrocardiogram. There was an urgent beeping sound, and the waves were ominously flat.

‘Doctor! My sister!’

Sheila’s chest received five voltage-induced resuscitations, as well as five more manual ones. But it was useless. She had stopped breathing long ago. And had crossed the divide horribly.

‘Noooooooooooooo!’

Lemuel dashed out of the ward and stared down fifty feet below him. He climbed the balustrade.

He leapt into the air before the fastest of the doctors could reach him. With eyes shut, he waited for the inevitable.

Just as he neared the ten foot mark, an ambulance braked and parked sharply below him.

A heavy thud, as body met reinforced softness.

 'Arrrrrrrrrgh!!!!' My back!!!!'

The Last Sermon

‘The minute the man of sin takes over the Vatican, the Bride of Christ should start thinking of going up to meet the Lord in the air, and I am sorry for whoever will miss that rapture. For the Bible says there will be such a trouble as there has never been on the earth, and of course never shall be. No man will be able to eat or drink unless he has that mark pledging his allegiance to the anti Christ system, orchestrated by the Pope of Rome. Nobody should be deceived into believing that it is going to be a physical mark on the hand or forehead; it is the symbolic language of the Bible.  For the truth is that the mark on your forehead means that you gave your approving nod to any doctrine that is unbiblical, and the mark on your hand means you participated in any activity that negates the Word of God. The anti Christ is not a person, but a system.  Any form of worship, education, commerce, and every aspect of life and living will be fully in the firm grips of the Vatican, and God help anyone who refuses or goes contrary to the dictates of the system…he will surely be killed.

   ‘Remember that God is not a polygamist, and as the husband of the church that he is, he cannot have two living wives at the same time. As such he blinded the Jews in part, so He could minister to we the Gentiles. When the end of the Gentile dispensation comes, which will be marked by a sudden disappearance of every Christian that has lived true to the Word of God, the Lord Jesus will turn His attention to the Jews once more. By the instrumentality of two prophets of Revelation 11, He will show his true Self once more to His beloved. They will cry and weep, and repent, and it will culminate in the salvation of the 144,000 of Revelation 7. He who has ears, let him hear…….’

    The congregation was stone-cold and grave-sober. Each man, woman and child whose ears had been impinged  by the reflective sermon that Sunday morning was lost in deep thought, and for the two straight hours it lasted, each thought and weighed his or her options of making it. Most of them didn’t even hear when the pastor, in a voice laden with emotion, made an altar call, inviting anyone who needed grace to run the all-important race.

   Every single individual rushed to the altar, as if on cue. Most of them had misty eyes.

Some fifteen minutes later, prayers over, Pastor Nick was preparing to make the final announcements, when there came some aggressive and deep noise coming from the outside. An Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) had torn into the compound, and had braked sharply, showing one nearby Mercedes 230E the mercy of sparing its rear bumper. The two elastic six-foot antennae on the front and rear were still oscillating from the sudden stop, when at least ten menacing soldiers jumped out, wielding sophisticated weapons. In the far corner, one soldier had just kicked the security guard in the butt, to propel him to obey his immediate orders to begin a five-metre frog jump. His offence was opening the gate five seconds late.

   Major Amu tapped on the auditorium door alright, but didn’t have the patience for any usher.  He kicked the door open, nearly shattering the hinges and locks, and advanced towards the altar. He snatched the microphone from Brother Emmanuel who was asking a question relating to the service.

‘Who is in charge of this place?’

Pastor Nick stepped forward, fearlessly. There was the bark of a Russian assault rifle somewhere deep in the compound, twice and short.

   ‘Can I see your license of operation and incorporation from the Christian Association of Nigeria?’

‘We do not belong to such associations, Major’, Pastor Nick replied coolly, assessing correctly his rank from his decorations. ‘Besides, I am not aware they have started issuing licenses of operation….’his voice trailed off, distributing a knowing look round to his congregation, as the import of that question dawned on all of them. Home going time!

‘May I ask why?’

‘We do not believe that what we are seeing as the church body today is a body of Christians, in the first place. We cannot afford to be in league with churches who conspire to push God out of His place by errantly disobeying His Word. For example, the Bible forbids a woman to teach in the church of the saints. Can you give me a church that is a member of that association that does not flout this commandment?  Most of the churches that gather there are masquerading occultisms with Christianity. We are a different breed here, Major. We take God for His Word.’

Despite himself, the Major could not help listening raptly as the pastor dished out a near sermon to him, but in between, he came to and had to cut the man of God short. ‘We have authorization to shut down any church that does not show us the proof we need! Every body down!’ he boomed, and a flurry of activity marked the people’s hurriedness to comply. The pastor was the last to obey, going down on his belly, but not until the American bazooka in the hands of the soldier communicated how serious he was. The bullets ate up a large chunk of the ceiling, and indeed the roof.

  ‘Throw your Bibles on the altar!’ he cried, like he was barking to some young recruits in training. Obedience was immediate, and his colleagues gathered them.

‘The offering box…where is it?’ an officer who looked younger asked Pastor Nick, and was told what he needed to hear, but when he looked up to Major Amu for approval, the menacing glare he got was all he needed to check himself. They quietly gathered the Bibles, and they ended up in the boot of the jeep.

  ‘The new directive is that no religious building has the right to operate without permission. I do not want to hurt God’s people. You had better confer with the Christian organization to get yours, or I wont have this conversation with you any more, when I return and you don’t produce it. That is if you are alive to tell the story.’

  He barged out.

   The minute the last soldier closed the oak door of the church, over one hundred and fifty members of Spoken Truth Assembly, including the pastor, vanished thinly into oblivion, seamlessly, soundlessly and immediately. Other personal effects were left behind. The remaining thirty lifted their voices, and wept bitterly.

When they prepared to drive out, two hours later, after growing bored of weeping, there was a pool of blood near the gate, and the body to which it belonged was nowhere to be found. Beside the pool stood a pair of old Cortina sandals.

More weeping and wailing.

The disappearance of people all over Omi town took residents by surprise, though the ‘victims’ were so insignificant and infinitesimally small. At most police stations, scores of pictures were pasted, while relatives and associates besieged the stations by the day, inquiring after their loved ones.

     Brother Damien sat staring into space that morning, knowing it was all over for him. He knew exactly what to expect within the next few months, even days. With this new directive, he knew everything would fall in place quickly and perfectly, and he knew life would be a living hell for him and his five-strong family. He was due to resume at the Federal Ministry of Works the following week, and he had nearly run out of supplies. O God gracious! All the while he had been progressing in fatal assumption, believing he had a spiritual claim to the Rapture. He was a minister in Spoken Truth Assembly, and had performed countless miracles that had drawn no fewer than fifty converts to the church. As he sat tear-eyed, the Technicolor image of his journey into Christianity played before him, and he was sorrowed most deeply by the part wherein his father publicly disowned him before the elders of his town, for seceding from Catholicism, his traditional family faith. The fact that he was now in the same condition with his herbalist father heightened his grief, and he felt like ending it all.

  There came two sharp beeps on his HTC Desire mobile phone.

Jolted, he picked the phone see who was texting him this early. Jasmine.

‘I know your wife is out; I have changed venue to your usual home away from home. I am waiting, you will like what you will see…..Muah’, the small lettering communicated the lewd message to him.

If only this kind of message had come just a few weeks earlier………..

  He got up, and stared out the window. Life was still carrying on like nothing had happened. The early morning street buzzed and blared, cars in the usual routine of beating traffic to get to their destinations on time.

  In the far corner of the street, he suddenly saw that soldiers were jumping down from a huge truck. One who looked like the leader had a sheet of paper, and was moving from house to house, and doing what looked like some checking. A few people were hurled from their stores and homes, and he was surprised they were neither shot nor manhandled.

He had been hearing this over and on, and he could not forgive himself. Full control was in the hands of the state now, and anything could happen from now on. He dashed to the radio, and the governor was just concluding his speech.

‘The only recognised form of Christianity is the Roman Catholic church, Islam the Ansar Ud-deen, but there is no restriction on any other form of religion. They will be in full control and determine every form of our national life, from employment, to movement, to travelling, commerce, and everything. I will call on every resident of this state to register with them for permits…….’

Damien fixed the chair, and fastened the twine to the ceiling fan.  Next, he mixed the rat poison and bleaching cream in boiling water, and filled it into an Aquadana bottle. He dropped the bottle, and climbed the chair. He inserted his neck in the noose, and dangled.

  Ten minutes, and though the grip was choking, it looked like his wind pipe was insulated from the pain and choke. This was going to be useless, as he knew and expected. He disengaged, and gulped the mixture.

The effect was two loud belches, and one long and hard fart that woke his three year old son.

‘Daddy, I’m hungry!’