FORGIVE ME PAST: The Game of Life

I know this sounds crazy but I’m on the shores of Pearl beach. Basing on the speed I was using to narrate the story, I just felt it of importance to pause a bit. Or let’s say, I have been forced to, to breakdown the events that compelled me to be here instead of being at the check-in of those boarding the 7pm flight. Actually that is the whole reason for my contemplation of life and how it moves.

About three hours back, as the uber driver was speeding our way to the airport, we found a wreck that had just occurred on the road at Nkumba. The uber driver told me we needed to make a detour via a dusty road that branches off the main road at Nkumba. I confirmed his idea but only to be executed a few minutes after a short ‘break’. I didn’t need a break; I just wanted to find out more about the accident.

There was a multitude surrounding the scene, so I had to weave my way through the thick wall of people into the busy ‘nucleus’. The first sight dumbstruck me! I had never seen a live human brain, more so squashed and soaked in dirt. That was such a terrible sight! We, the observers, had been restricted by a rope put by the helpers of the situation. They had already rushed the severely injured to the nearest medical centre, and the rest, the less injured and those at peace, were being given first aid and last office respectively, by the road side.

What disturbed my mind was those three sets of people had faced different fates as the aftermaths of suffering the same accident. Such injustice still beats my understanding. Why do some people have to suffer more than others, yet they are living the same life, breathing the same air, praying to the same God, etc? Imagine being in the same taxi with others, and when a catastrophe happens, it’s you who becomes the sacrifice, and the others, the saved. Funny, right?

Actually my neighbor, a loud ugly woman I found at the scene, who narrated the whole incident to me told me that, after the collision of the taxi and the double-cabin, all the four who died were from the taxi, yet the double-cabin only had casualties. Anyway that’s a proof of what I’ve been saying: life is not fair. The game of life is surely a losing one, and death is it’s prize. I had to return to the car and continue with the rest of the journey with uncontentment weighing down my heart.

The rest of the journey has been a flash. I think this is because my mind had abandoned my body to a dimension of milk and honey. After the gloomy incidences in my past, my mind developed a standby system that births thoughts of joy and happiness to prevent any flashbacks. After a series of nausea and shooting pulses, we finally reached the airport. Life started anew for me.

This was my first time to reach the airport. Although I frequented beaches near it, I did not either have the ‘time’ to visit it, or I just had an inner fear that it’s not a place for people like me. I have to admit that I always thought the airport was made for a certain calibre of people, the high class—which I am no way near—and that’s why I didn’t bother visiting it. Well, I was there a few minutes back, and on the list of those going abroad! How sweet is the sound of that truth!

But, even in moments of extreme happiness and laughter, a tear always finds a way: I have just realised my flight is at 10pm, not 7pm. I think I had got a miscommunication—such incompetence from people who think they saw more blackboards than us! Why would someone make the mistake of giving such false information on such a sensitive matter? Anyway that’s the reason as to why I’m at Pearl beach, and not the airport. I had to leave my things with a friend I found there, who I’ve learnt is going to the same destination as mine.

Pearl beach is a kind its own. There’s a way the gentle waves kiss the shore with such might, as though they had been longing breathlessly for the moment. The sight of that makes me travel through time to the days of enjoyment. I wish I could at least have those moments back, and like the sky and the water meet at the skyline, the past is joined to the present, but in reality, their bond doesn’t really exist, so the best I can do is wish.

I miss the days when the Victoria was a bit further, and there was a lot of sand to build ourselves a heaven for a few hours… Now, it is coming too close and there’s hardly any sand left. It is as though the world has come to an end and I’m the only person still standing. Hmm… Indeed good and bad dwell in the same place! My mind can not abstain from reminding me of the hells I created, the bodies that bled from my touch, the expectations I elated with my empty promises, and the eyes I wetted with my ego.

Don’t judge me for I know each of my crimes by detail. Actually, you should praise me for the efforts I’m putting in to make right all wrongs. Even though I don’t deserve her, I have the beautiful most beautiful woman, Rachael, to build a new life with, and our baby on the way, expecting to be fathered by me, also, I think every devil deserves a second chance. If those reasons are not enough to prove my revival, I don’t know what will.

I know there are a lot of unanswered questions in your mind but I promise you I’ll unburden you of them, with the continuation of my narrative. For a moment I thought I should stop writing it because I might be penning down confessions that may be used against me in the courts of law.

On second thought, I have decided to continue because I know that none will be able to read this—not when I’m still alive. I’m surely going to destroy this book before I board, however much I’d like to keep it, because of uncertainties. If anyone is reading this, that means I didn’t board that plane, and there are only two possibilities after such a misfortune: life imprisonment or death!