We Are Able

Episode 47

It was on a Sunday, I had the chance to play with my friends,
Biodun and la!de, all because Mrs Omotayo their mother had
been to the fellowship. She even invited Toyosi and John that
day and they had all gone.

Bode didn’t go with them. He had a friend, Obinna, who often
come home with him from school. Obinna came that day to
play with Bode. They would scatter the whole house and
expect me to tidy things up. Obinna was a bit older than Bode.

He was also a troublesome type. I wondered why Obinna
didn’t see things the way I see it. He would also join hands with
Bode to make fun of us, calling us several names which I
couldn’t hear.

Obinna cut many different species of leaves and stuck them
into his mouth all at once to mock me. I sounded my gibberish
to him as a warning and he laughed. I didn’t know where the
suggestion was coming from—I just felt like going in to take a
metallic object with which I would bash his head. I controlled
the urge, because the sermon we heard in church just in the
morning that Sunday spoke about endurance.
Obinna came to Biodun and knocked him on the head. Biodun
lost balance and fell. I rushed to the scene and pushed Obinna
aside as I began to raise Biodun up, but then, Bode had tied
la!de’s wheelchair to a pole. He was laughing.
I was fed up.

Taiba was inside the house, sleeping. She was the type one
would wake for an hour without success. How was I even
going to tell her that Bode and Obinna were dealing with her
mistress’ children? Even if I wrote it down, she would not be
able to read it because she was a stark illiterate.

I challenged them to a fight, but they beat me easily. Obinna’s
bone was stronger than I had expected. Sometimes back, my
mother told me that the Ibo people were strong because of the
Akpu they eat frequently. Back then, I didn’t believe her, but
now no one taught me to do so. Even Obinna alone would
have beaten me up, let alone the two of them.
As Obinna sat on me and kept punching me, Bode came with a
pack of sand, which he had gathered at the backyard with a
packer. They were going to pack them into my mouth. I held
my mouth tight as Bode came close. My two hands were
behind my back, being held strongly by Obinna. Bode tried to
force my mouth opened, but it was very tight for him.

I turned my face around and saw Biodun approaching. He
must have been hearing my groans and he thought he could
come and suffer with me. la!de was shaking like an epileptic
patient on the wheelchair where she was fixed. If only she
could move now, she would have wheeled herself to me also,
to avenge me. I was cold with self-pity. What wrong have I
done to merit this? I thought silently as Bode eventually made it
and put some sand into my mouth. I thought I was going to
die.

I stared into the sun which was already at the west. Who
would help now? Help does not come from the west or east or
south, I thought. Then I remembered God. If only he could
save me once more, just the way he did me three days back in
the hands of the kidnappers.
To my shock, Obinna rose swiftly and rushed away, as well as
Bode. They collided with Biodun who was standing by. They
were off to the gate. Shockingly, Taiba fluttered out of the
apartment too and went after them. Maybe they saw her
rushing out, that was why they took to their heels so that she
wouldn’t beat them up, but no, I was wrong. Biodun too was
trying to flee. Why was he trying to flee when he had no eyes
to see that the others had fled? I coughed out sand and began
to rise. I had managed not to let the sand get into my throat.

I turned my eyes backward and saw la!de. She seemed to
have died on her wheelchair. I was shocked. What could have
happened? Why was she not able to move her body again? I
asked myself. I was confused about which of them I should
first attend to—Biodun on the floor or la!de who seemed to
have collapsed on her wheelchair. I rushed for la!de first,
believing that Biodun would get up from the floor soon.
I shook her but she didn’t respond at all. I rushed into the room
to get salt which I poured into a bowl of water. I poured some
water into her throat and sprinkled some on her body and she
coughed back to life. I loosed her wheelchair from the pole she
was tied unto and pushed it close to Biodun. I tapped him to life
too. He raised his head and I let him lay it on la!de’s lap. They
were restless.
I thought Taiba would return from the chase of Bode and
Obinna which I thought she was out doing, but twenty
minutes had come and gone, yet she couldn’t. I rushed into
Biodun’s apartment and made a lukewarm tea. I sat before
them and began to spoonfeed them one after the other. Just
then, the gate opened and three people entered in a rush—my
father, Toyosi and Mrs Omotayo.