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| Credit: Slumphotos Mr. Alhijo |
Twenty Four (24) years had gone by off my life that I now begin to reflect deeply. Not as a regrettable man but as a person who can't reverse that moment in my life taken away with a terrible incident I hardly will forget. Hardly will this be the end or the beginning of it all.
For me, I can't say either. But as a person who want to share a part of his life. I have to expunge the cap of it all for the world to read along with me the Twenty Four years of a life cut off from its very beginning. This 24 years is like "eyes see, yet mouth can’t paddle water down the throat"
It was 3am on 8 August, 1994 in the worst of lives one can ever experienced. Living inside the box of reality that you cannot easily forget whenever the flashes of it stroke you with thunder in your mind. Mr. Alhijo I know him to die terribly and helplessly in the middle of the darkest night, was cut off the parchment of existence.
My mother and I were helpless, dumbfounded to do anything that hour where darkest was monster. We can't shout. We can't wail. All my siblings were not with us. Because of the hard living condition then (which is not any different from today, many working class families go through). Extended families took some of them under their custody hoping, at least to reduce the pressure a home losing a leaf.
But unfortunately, the saddest news hit every one like a truck smashing an ant before dawn that Mr. Alhijo as he was popularly known died miserably. I can't cry that day. I tried to look for words to console myself but I could not find it. Everything around me that moment stopped making sense. I was cold to the bone, watched my father struggled in that "matchbox" room we squeeze ourselves to live in.
He struggled to say a word. At least something of worth. Something at least to possibly spirit my mind to keep it on. But he couldn't. He fought harder, laid helpless in that bed. That mattress the spring weep for the weight of this man, Mr. Alhijo my father I won't say was dead in my memory. He wept as he died that morning. Standing. I can't bear this pain. This lost off my life.
The whole room was dark only a lantern shinning at the part of his face. A classical life of a working class family under the system of inequality, exploitation and poverty, people are struggling to survive under the economic hardship and poverty the system of capitalism inflicts on the poor, which is a global battle that the oppressed people are fighting harder with a revolutionary programme to overthrow.
I could vividly remember. Two days before my father died and left a hole in my mind. Mrs. Rosemary who up till now still worship her Christian God sent me in an errand to call an extended family of hers, who was Necromancer to report the lover's condition was very critical. That she could not understand or interpret the health challenges of her partner.
Understanding the situation before us, I had to sail my feet down to this place to fetch her at Ijora Badia: one of the poorest ghetto in Lagos. I could remember it was Sunday evening. Within me, I watched my world collapsing. My planet dying to the grave that I couldn’t save it. My dream walked into the wood as if to commit suicide. Then, I saw my world tore with Arsenal in the middle of Berlin Wall.
Immediately, I got there. She gave me a cup of water to drink and asked what brought me here. My first and second sentence before it would fall at her feet, she quickly captioned it. Quickly she said. I understand. Your Dad's health is very critical. No need to wait too long. Let's start going. Within me, I developed this thought of saying can this woman save this dying man with incantation?
My mind was never independent then to decide what to do or proffer a solution to the problem. Instead, I was to follow suit of everything concerning how to save a man that was dead without a word. When she got to our "matchbox" room with white gown she dressed on. She came with some candles for the rituals. Immediately, she started praying, calling on all kinds of invoked spirit to intervene and save the dying.
I couldn't easily remember the numbers of hours she spent praying and the words used. But one thing I knew was she spent time in the incantation. Where I stood looking at the laid body of Mr. Alhijo. Many things went around in my mind especially the dead could not be revived. Within me, this was it. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t move. He just laid there helpless. The picture of it still flashes into my mind.
The woman who came to rescue my Dad said the cause of his sickness was spiritual. That this problem came from the village and it was from the dynasty of the family. The belief on this was accepted because then a solution was needed to rescue that man. No money for medical treatment. I remember then. Mrs. Rosemary will have to deep hand in her petty trade to feed the house.
Every day she hope her partner would be revived. Not after two days later the man became "dead without a word". A world she ever dreamed she would have, was stolen from her 24 years ago. And left a hole in her planet she never stops feeling the pain of that saddest night that locked happiness against her. This also tell the exact experience of a working class family like in "The Jungle". What the poor masses go through in a society where inequality feasts on people.
By
Fidel Davy
SLUMPHOTOS
By
Fidel Davy
SLUMPHOTOS
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