Oh my gosh! I still shudder at the memory of it. Standing by and watching as he was carried into the ‘Keke’, unconscious.
It was a Thursday afternoon, after the heavy downpour of the
September rain which had thinned down to a drizzle, as I sat in my
office attending to a customer, I heard shouts outside. I didn’t bother
because there was always a drama going on around my neighbourhoood not
until the gradual gathering of people, both neighbours and passersby
drew my attention. My customers were already outside, straining their
ears to catch the latest, so I decided to go out and see for myself what
was happening.
When I came out, I asked someone standing next to me, “Sissy, what is happening?”
“Nna eee, oku na adogbu mmadu”, was her reply. Ew! Electricity
electrocuting someone? It was then I looked carefully at the woman
wailing. She was the landlady of the woman from whom we usually buy
zobo. She was really out of control. It happened that her first son was
the victim. The young men who were around, hustled around, looking for a
dry stick to push him out.
“How did it happen?” I asked the girl standing next to me.
“He touched a rod at their backyard and at the instant, the rod
started shocking him”. Whoop! I don’t remember learning anything like
that in school. How can an empty rod shock somebody unless it was
connected?
One of my customers muttered in exasperation, “The NEPA should turn
off the light electric flow naw! If it were to be in Lagos, they’d
definitely notice that something is wrong somewhere and switch off the
electricity.”
“Amen”, I said, “Aba NEPA will never detect anything. Sometimes I
just wonder why Aba is the worst town for everything here in Nigeria”, I
thought aloud to myself.
At last, they succeeded in turning off the house’s electric meter and
brought the boy out. Immediately, a tricycle (Keke) was chartered and
the boy was rushed to the hospital with the sister and some young men in
accompany. The mother was restrained from joining them and kept
indoors.
Later in the evening that same day, we received news that the boy
didn’t make it. He wasn’t able to survive the shock. O how I grief for
the mother. Who could have believed that Emeka would die so soon, in a
twinkle of an eye, just like that? Someone who woke up in the morning
spontaneously with schedules, maybe he even planned to do one silly or
funny thing, now in the mortuary. Now we will never get to see those
broad smiles of yours that stretched from your ear like the smile of the
sun shining in the midday. Now we will never get to hear your jokes and
cackles that can bring joy even to a sorrowful heart. Had I believed in
reincarnation, I would have begged the Almighty that you be sent back
to us the second time.
Oh how we will miss you, I’m already missing you, even as I write, my
heart can no longer contain the grief that I feel, I am bereft, my
hands are shaking and my vision blurred by the tears welling up in my
eyes.
Now I realize the futility of life. If death could visit someone in
his home and take him, how much more outside. Chances are you may not
see the person you talked with today, tomorrow. So make the best use of
the opportunity you have being alive and reach out to the world.
Ga nkeoma nwokedima, garuo n’udo
Adieu my friend and neighbor. Your memory will remain in our hearts
and our prayer is that you rest peacefully in the bosom of our Lord.
We miss you!
