BEYOND THE UNTHINKABLE

It was dark stormy night when I heard the voice of an unknown person screaming far off my house. Although, the person seemed to be in a traumatic pains but the fearful night hindered my effort of helping the fellow. “This voice might be that of a woman? Oh yes, it should be a woman”, I said to myself in my cubical room. I opened the small left hand side window to see through the thick night if I could see the one crying for help. But the voice kept moving away. The repetitive phrase the person used that I could help her instantly instilled in me the boldness of the Biblical Sampson.

I quickly came out of the room to go to where the screech was emanating from. I almost stepped on the puppies on my door due to my rush. “You can save my life”, the person said again slowly. I entered the kitchen to pick up the little knife my mother had used in the evening to chop the fresh green cocoyam leaves for the stew. I ran as fast as I could towards the direction I heard the voice but it still continued to move away.

At long last, I beheld something like a lady between her early twenties being dragged by four aggressive masculine men. The sight of the first man I saw; who has cut the hair to the skull reduced my braveness instantly to that of an infant. What even threatened my braveness to the deteriorating level were the tainted black spectacle and the gloves he was wearing. His costume duly informed me about what they were up to. I thought they have not seen me due to the cover of the night but not-knowing, the one holding the two hands of the lady had already spotted me. He shouted on me to stand where I was. “Stop there! Hey stop there!” he shouted. I considered my personal safety paramount at the moment. While also taking into consideration the life of the lady, something occurred to me to move on without listening to the command from the fearful rascal.

In order to build self confidence to overcome those macho men, I also shouted back at them though with panic shaking voice. My rude command got the one with ‘Jah bless’ inscription on his tee shirt very annoyed. He started moving towards my direction. I looked back to calculate the distance I was about to run incase my strength fails me. When I got closer to them, I saw the lady’s face but she wasn’t from our town. The two long shallow tribal marks lying diagonal to her cheeks clearly made I to believe that she might come from the northern part of our country.

When the men saw me moving slowly towards them, they released the lady to deal with me. The lady took to her heels to the nearby forest when the men’s focus shifted on me. I also thought it wise to run away. The man with “Jah bless” inscription on his tee shirt who I believe was the leader of the thugs ordered them to chase me. The ground wasn’t favourable for running because it had rained in the early evening. The first man I saw also demanded for his gun. This demand by the man nearly caused me to discharge excrement on myself. I ran as quickly as I could. The men equally gave me a hot chase.

Three meters away from the cemetery road that leads to my house, the first man I saw almost got hold of me but the slippery ground came to my rescue. He fell down sprawling his big tummy flat on the ground. The other man with the gun gave a fearful warning shoot and asked me to stop moving. He was pointing the barrel of the gun at me while moving directly to where he shouted on me to stop running. He started to pull the trigger after they have interrogated me for a while. Out of fear, I suddenly screamed violently. All of sudden I heard voices of people shouting all over me. I got up only to realize that my dress was soaked with water whilst other people were running looking for herbs to use on me.

My mother and my siblings were weeping bitterly shouting my name. “What is happing”, I asked them. The only response I got was, “You conked”. I didn’t believe what I was told, but it seemed my question alone put some smiles on their bitter weeping faces. “Jonas! You really scared us”, my father uncomfortably said to me. “But father, why am I in this wet dress?” I questioned him. He waited for a while before answering my question. “Your younger sister came to report to us that you were lying motionless on your bed when she brought your supper. When we came to your room, you loudly screamed and became stiff with whitish effervescence coming from your mouth. We made all efforts to revive you but you didn’t respond to any of them”, my father replied. The crowd I saw around begun to leave when I started to talk. When I became conscious, my mother asked me to tell them what happened to me.

“My son, what did you see”, she soberly asked me. Meanwhile my elder sister had gone to my room to get me a chair. I sat on the chair to narrate everything I saw in that terrible nightmare. After narrating my encounter with those four guys, my father was so happy that I managed to save the life of the lady and also escaped from the thugs. “It’s good you saved that woman’s life. You did very well”, my father said. “Saving a woman’s life in a dream is a good thing”, my mother added. I could tell from the faces of my siblings that they were heavily gripped with sadness over what happened to me.

A table was set before me to take my supper. A short while after I had taken my supper my father asked me to join him in his room but I objected the idea to be in my own room. At dawn, my parents came to knock at my door to see if I was there kicking. “Jonas! Are you alright?” My parents shouted at the back of my door. I got up. “Yes. I’m ok”, I responded in the room. “We came to see how you are doing”, they said happily.

In the morning when activities have begun as they always do in our village, handful of my friends came to say hello to me. I didn’t see my friend Emma whom we had planned to travel to the city for a job. Staying jobless for barely three years after completing university was not only insulting to me but my family as well. Some people even thought I was either sacked from the university I claimed to complete or was just deceiving them of attending a university.  

We initially planned of going to Kumasi but later on, Emma brought a different idea to change the venue to Accra. The little money we gathered from writing letters for people was enough to take care of our transportation cost.

Emma came later with Fiifi and Kwamina around 11 o’clock am. “We heard you wanted to join your ancestors”, Fiifi jokily said. We all burst into laughter. Emma’s face wasn’t encouraging. I wanted to ask him but we didn’t want anyone to know our secrets so I thought it wise to do that later when we are alone. Fiifi and Kwamina asked to leave for their construction work which they have always persuaded us to join them. Despite the fat money they promised us rather than writing letters, we declined the offer due to our academic status. “Jonas, when are we going to leave this town?” Emma asked. “‘Shallbot’”, I responded to him in our usual phrase. “Had it not been this unfortunate incident, we wouldn’t have been here by now”, I said. “Did you inform your parents about the journey? Emma asked. “Oh yes, I did”.

My younger sister brought us ‘Ampesi’. Emma however could not help laughing when he saw the content of the food. I invited him to join me but he told me he had eaten before coming to my house. When Emma left my place, I decided to see my parents in their house near the chief’s palace. Some distance away to the house, I saw my father sitting on a bench anchoring his elbow on the lap. I realized there was something bordering him. I planned of finding out when I got to him.

“Father, is everything all right”, I asked. “Yes, my son”, he replied. “You said you saw two tribal marks on the ladies cheeks?” my father asked. “Yes father”, I replied, describing the lady in detail. “Ok no problem”, he said. I discussed my intentions of travelling to Accra with him even though I had told Emma that I had informed my parents earlier. My father and mother all lauded the idea. “I had wanted to inform you yesterday before that unforeseen event took place”, I said. He smiled and nodded his head in acceptance.

“My son, he said, this is a brilliant idea. It has always being good for a man to look for job so as to cater for himself and the family. But my beef is the place you are going. You know I don’t have anyone there in Accra whom you would have gone to when you get there”, he explained. “Emma has arranged for our accommodation in his uncle’s house”, I replied. “That’s ok. Please, my son, be careful with women when you get to Accra. If you really want to be successful in life then consider it twice when dealing with women. I have had a terrible encounter with woman in my youthful age that’s why I’m saying this. Treat all people with respect especially northerners”, he said. “But father, why?” I asked. “Just as you rescued a northerner’s life in your nightmare, I was once saved by a northerner in Accra some years ago when you were not born”, he tried to convince me. “How did it happen?” I asked. “I was attacked by some men in UTC when I had closed from work one evening in Accra. They demanded money from me and when I refused to give them, they started beating me up. A certain lady was passing by saw them beating me. She spoke the language which the men were speaking and pleaded with them in their language to leave me. We became friends and she left to her hometown after a little misunderstanding between us”, he replied.

“What brought the misunderstanding?” I asked. “My son, it’s not necessary now”, my father said. “Have you heard from her since she left?” “No! Jonas”, I met her in Accra. I don’t really know the particular town she comes from”, he replied.

After he had told me his encounter with the northerner, I told them I will leave the next day. I asked to leave for Emma’s place. When I got to their house, I saw his parent busily peeling some cassava for ‘gari’ under their big silo. “Good morning”, I greeted them. “Good morning our son”, they responded. “We heard about you yesterday. Sorry for that”, Emma’s mother said. Emma came out of his room sweating all over. “Why are you sweating like this”, I asked him. “I’m just packing my things”, he said tiredly.

  

“Take things easy. We are going to only Accra and not the next planet”, I humorously said. I joined him in his room until his fiancée came around. He escorted me to some distance while we talk about our plans of leaving at dawn.

At dawn when cocks begun to crow, I had already taken my bath and was ready for the journey. In no time at all, Emma came to my house with his old bag. He took the rag in front of my door to clean his dusty shoe. “You and your gentleness”, I laughed. I showed him a chair around the corner. Give me few seconds to polish my shoe just like yours. I picked the brown liquid polish on the table to use on my shoe although my belt was black. “Hurry up”, Emma shouted. 

After I had finished applying cosmetics to my fairy hairy body, I picked my old school bag. Because we had told our parents already, we didn’t bother ourselves going to inform them again. We went to the bus stop on the Accra -Cape Coast stretch of road to pick a vehicle. On our way to the bus stop we met Pastor Hatman doing his usual dawn preaching with his mega phone. He called my name. Emma was still going. “I called the two of you”, Pastor Hatman said. He walked to us and asked us to kneel down for prayers. We thanked him for the prayers and asked to leave. We went to the bus stop. The first car we stopped was having only one vacant seat so we couldn’t join it.