We Are Able

Episode 20

I pulled at the gate and got into my aunty’s compound.

That verandah was waterlogged as usual. Since my
aunty’s husband’s death, she hadn’t had enough money
to put it right.

I looked around, all the clothes on the line had been
drained. All the undies had been blown off the line. I
began to pick them up to hang them back one after the
other. I had to stand on tiptoes to put them across the
wire.

I traipsed to the door. It was locked.
Does that mean my aunty hadn’t arrived yet? I
pondered. I checked the time on my little digital
wristwatch. It displayed 88:88. It was strange to me.
“What do you mean?” I whispered to the watch. No
response. If it had replied me, how would I have heard
its voice. I checked the watch, water resistant.
I sprawled beside the entrance door. The tiled floor
was unusually cold. I shivered uncontrollably. My teeth
shook like bomb blast. It was as if I would freeze up in
the next minute.
The memory of the event came up in my head–why did
I leave the venue that way? Anyway, I still didn’t feel
any guilt that I spoke against God. I would even do
more if situation warranted it, I hissed.
I remembered Moses. He was the boy who helped me
to the Egbeda bus park while I was in Ejigbo–first time
a male would assist me; Bode and John weren’t so kind.

He even paid for my transport fare without my
knowledge. Were it not for the bus conductor who
refused to collect my transport fare when I was
alighting, I wouldn’t have known that he had paid for
me.

I read out the name he wrote on a sheet of paper he
handed to me before leaving me alone. It contained his
name and home address:
Immaculate Moses; Plot 5, Estate Road, Lekki.

My attention was shifted to that moment I was in the
Egbeda bus waiting for it to be filled up. A boy peeped
into the bus from the window. He was dressed in an
outfit lacking taste and glory. His hair was curled up like
popcorns. He wore a long chain on his neck carrying a
laminated write-up: I Am Deaf And Dumb, Pls Help Me
The boy saw my face lit up, then he knew I had
interest. He quickly gave me a piece of paper and then
an envelope. I read what was in the paper:
He is a Deaf and Dumb Student of the Ejigbo Deaf and
Dumb School. He needs some money to pay his school
fees. Please Help him with any amount. Deaf And Dumb
Association of Nigeria
I smiled. It would take a thief to catch a thief, so I got
into action, pushing the sliding window aside and
putting my hands out of it.

“What is your name?” I asked him in sign language. No
response. I had just used the British sign, perhaps he
didn’t understand that, so I made use of the American
sign, still there wasn’t any response.
“Don’t you have a name?” I kept saying. He was a
novice, yet he had claimed to be in a deaf and dumb
school. He knew I had already discovered his secret,
so he moved on after protruding his lips as if he wanted
to have a kiss with somebody, definitely not with me. I
knew what he just did; he had just hissed at me.
I am surely a bad market to him, I thought.
I began to freeze in the cold. My spirit and soul had
departed my body. I would have to continue the next
episode in the land of the non-living.

My eyes flashed open suddenly. I was on a bed, my
bed. A candle was lit few inches away from me on a
table. My arms could reach the candle.
I gazed at the ceiling. It was my room. How did I get
in? I set my eyes at the watch and it was a shock to me
when I found it to be 2am.

If I could talk I would have yelled ‘What!”
I threw my hand away aimlessly and inadvertently, it
brought down the candle upon the rug. The house was
on fire but I wasn’t aware. I didn’t even know that the
candle had fallen
I turned at the wall and sq££zed my eyes together. I
needed to sleep. I would ask my aunt in the morning
how it all went–the graduation ceremony.
I turned around on the bed and I saw hell beneath my
bed.

Am I dead? Am I in hell right now? God why? Why did
you bring me to hell just because I spoke against you
once, yet I have spoken well of you a thousand times
before and you didn’t take me to heaven?
I woke up from my dream. No, I wasn’t dreaming–it is
real; the house is on fire!
I couldn’t quench it. I ran out with a scream and two
souls came in a rush; my aunty and my classteacher.

We fought the fire like the firefighters–water, sand,
Omo and anything we could think about all to no avail.
Few street dwellers even assisted. They called the fire
service but the response they heard were snores from
the other end of the line–they were drunk with sleep. I
don’t blame them, since it was midnight.
When my aunt’s husband’s house was completely
brought down with the raging conflagration, I ‘heard’
the devil’s voice: it was time for me to flee to the
nearest lagoon.
I ran like lightning, heading to nowhere in particular, but
my teacher raised an alarm and I was caught.

My aunty didn’t speak a word all through as she watched
her only hope go up in flames like Cain’s unacceptable
sacrifice.