We took the ride to the lady’s house and stayed the night. Weeks later we were still there and Grandpa had not shown up. I was always bothered, but I bolstered myself so as to not ruin our time there. Outside of my little world, I tried to fit in and I got along very well with the lady and her kids. I found my favorite playing spot on the veranda. I stayed there all day playing with the boys until you would come to get me. There was no problem. But alas, things started to fall apart the longer we stayed.
The boys began to infringe on the tranquility that I enjoyed on the veranda. They started to push my buttons, calling me names and criticizing my civilization. Depending on the day, they either called me a “village boy” or “son of a bastard” — pricking for my reaction. Irked, you would tell me to remain serene, to remain the calmest sheep that I could be.
I always stayed calm no matter how far the boys stretched my patience. Still, it came at a time that we just had to fight. I was resolved. I lost my serenity and we fought one time. After that, we fought every other time, so there was always a quarrel between you and their mother. Through the constant tussles, the truth was finally revealed that the lady was your mate, the fiancee of the soldier guy who came across you in the village. She was actually not the good Samaritan that she presented herself to be. In fact, she did not receive any call from grandpa — it was the soldier guy who cajoled her so that we could stay at the house.
He came home one time and met you and his fiancee having a tussle. After varying degrees of the altercation, the lady threatened you saying “YOU WILL SEE”—a statement which means something more than just words in our African culture and cannot be taken for granted. Still, you insisted on making peace before we moved out. I watched as you knelt one time and apologized to the lady as if you were the culprit of her fiance’s dishonesty. But it was out of self-reproachfulness. You quelled your relationship with the man before we moved out. But in the end that was not enough. The “YOU WILL SEE” statement meant your life, and it took it.
You didn’t die at their house—we moved out before. This made it even harder to detect where the foul was played and who played it, or if it was a normal sickness you died of. However, you had no pre-existing health conditions whatsoever before we vacated the house. In fact, the lady served us one last meal before we left—under the pose of peace and remission. She put me with her kids and served you a “special” plate, which she poisoned! But convinced that it was a gesture of farewell, you lost your shrewdness and ate the food. Afterwards, you came down with a perpetual illness which had no cure, days after we left the house. We decided to head back to our village, in hopes that medicinal herbs would help you. In reality, however, no herb could help save your life.
Your condition worsened with time. They took you from one point to another and did medical checks. Nothing was discovered. Then they took you to a local church in Ganta for prayers and anointing, out of the awareness that it was a spiritual problem. Thankfully, your condition started to improve at the church. You started to eat, communicate and recognize things. After staying weeks you got even better. You were convinced that you had recovered, so you decided to leave for the village. Walking our way back through the forest route, you began to tell me about how you made a mistake by eating the last meal the lady served—that the prayer warriors revealed that it was poisoned! In tears, you encouraged me to forgive her and not to hold a grudge in my heart against her or the soldier guy. Unfortunately, your recovery was just a pause the disease took before it returned to take your life away.
Authored by Darlington Sehgbean
