CHAPTER ONE
REZORBLADE IN THE BIBLE
“Kill them !! Kill them!!” The angry mob shouted.
“people like you should be wipe off the face of this Earth” a bike rider said Pointing at me with a large wood.
“ God!!! what’s this world turning into?. Look at someone’s nine months” a middle aged Woman cried out from within the crowd.
I was bleeding profusely, broses all over. My leg broken and my right arm amputated and blood oozing out. I watched in pains as peoples set ablaze Bless, my best friend. He wailed and screamed and begged yet no one listened to him. I still get tormented by his Screams each night I go to bed. Sometimes I feel like his soul lives within me because I sometimes feel the urge to kill. It comes like a drug and I will only realize later that I had done something wrong
I prayed and begged God to take me away too that very day but he seemed to have had other plans for me. We were young and innocent, what crime did we commit?
The day my best friend was burnt alive, we had gotten up that morning in our usual street and set out to stroll. That day we had agreed that we will move up to the populated area of the town and beg so that we won’t die of starvation. I was only fifteen years and my friend Bless was only fourteen. I know you probably be wondering what a fourteen years old and a fifteen years old could be doing in the streets. I will tell you.
I was an only Child to Late Maria and Jato Sabum. Just like other people were born with gold spoons, some born with silver and wooden spoons, I didn’t have any. My mom loved me so Much. At least that was the only love I felt. My mother had me out of wet luck. The author of the pregnancy refused responsibilities. My mum kept me still. But after two years of raising me she died. I was sent to live with my aunt who later felt that the responsibilities were too much on her and so she took me and went and abandoned me in my father’s house. I was six by then and that’s when my predicaments started. My father and step mother hated me so much and they never pretended even for a second.
I covered my eyes as I could feel rocks on my head and thundering stokes on my body. They made me stand up and inserted tires on my body. I had no energy to cry nor stand. When they were done they left my hands and I went crashing down the floor with my face. The tire weighed me down to the ground and I fell on my face. I knew it was all over now. I was going to finally meet my mother and asked her why she didn’t abort me when she had the chance to. I managed to turn my face to see the faces of those who had voluntarily decided to send me to my early grave.
I saw a man from a distance coming towards me with something I presumed to have been petrol. When he came closer and was about opening the gallon, a Voice shouted “Arette ça”!!!!! Meaning “stop that”.
The man ignored him and persisted on opening the gallon, then the manWith the pistol fired it on air.
“ je dit arrêté ça !!!” he fired a gun and scolded.
The man dropped the gallon and decided to run for his life. The population had equally dispersed and I was left now with just few people around. I saw a military Van pulled up, one of the military men came out of the car grabbed me by my pants and placed me in the van. He turned and looked at my best friend who was long gone and shock his head in disappointment.
He turned to me and asked in pigin English “ wati wuna do now?”. I laid still and said nothing.
“ I just saved your life and am asking you what you did and your staring at me?” he asked getting agitated by my stern silence.
“Nothing”
“Nothing you say?. How then did you end up here?”
” We are street Children, I and my friend had come her to beg Or look for work in a chantiers to earn a living. We don’t even live around here.”
“Then what happened?.”
“On our way we saw… we saw a group of boys about seven of them running towards our direction. Thinking there was something following them, we also ran too. we thought maybe there was something like an accident somewhere which made them run.”
“The people that were chasing them caught up with us and thought we were part of them. They’ve been beating us since then. Despite the explanation we gave them they refused to listen.”
“ What prove do you have that you’re not one of them?”
“But I am saying the truth sir. Bless and myself did nothing. we just didn’t want to starve to death because we had no one to feed us”
“Oh! So you prefer to take another person’s thing”. I got tired of explaining myself and didn’t answer
“What’s your name?”
“James!” I said
“James what??
“James Sabum”
“ Why are you in the streets? Another one asked
“Where are your parents?”
“ I am an orphan sir ” I lied.
I had to lie my father had driven me into the streets to wallow in poverty and die. So, as long as I was concerned, he was equally death to me.
“And how old are you?”
“Fifteen years old”
They took me to jail carried the corpse of my friend to a Catholic cemetery where they buried him there, since I told them we had no family members.
As for me I was taken to jail to await investigations. On our way they took me to the hospital where my wounds were treated and bandaged before we proceed to jail.
It was my first time in prison and to be honest I had never imagined that jail would look like that. It was never like those prison cells you see on tv with clean beds clean mattresses and beautiful walls. It was Twenty times worst than you could have ever imagined. One cell had about ten people packed in the same small room with different personalities, using the same toilet seat. It was the most nasty thing I ever saw.
I was there for a month and my cell mates made my life very miserable. Except this guy they called him Lanks .Lanks had heard my story and pitied me and so he promised to help me out so that the other cell mates will stop picking on me. He was a dark skin tone, tall and was a little chubby. He equally had a tattoo of a skull on his right shoulder. He had a dangerous look which could cause you to confess even before he asked you something.
The same day I was released Lanks had been released and so he took me along with him.
“ Perika no worry ehh na me and you de na so” Lanks assured me.
“That ya wicked pa and step Mamie go hear from we one day”
…………..TO BE CONTINUED…………….
