THE ADVENTURE OF AKOR
By Esther Ochoga
Episode 7
I didn’t even wait to see what touched me I started running out of my room but heard Peter laughing so hard behind me…
Peter: guy, where are you running to? Na me ooo
Me: Peter is something wrong with you? How could you be this insensitive? You know what I am going through this period na
Peter: common, I just came back from me girlfriend’s house and I decided to check your door but found it open at this time of the night, what’s the time (checked his wrist watch) few minutes to 12 and your door is open. I then decided to help your supposed ghost friend by dipping my hand in cold water to scare you…
Me: Peter, you went too far! I almost got hypertension.
Peter: calm down my guy, like I said earlier, there’s no ghost, please get that thing off your mind and focus!
Me: okay, can you leave now?
Peter: why now, I have gist for you ooo
Me: I’m listening
Peter: My new babe is a working class lady, she has been the one feeding me all this while, I told her the lie you taught me about being an “exporter and importer”… Since then, she has been introducing me to her friends and even said I should meet her family…
Me: careful Peter, na marriage dey her mind oooo, don’t allow any girl to cage you…
Peter: sharp guy like me? No girl can do that to me… The way the whole thing is going, I think with time I will just move in with her, because she’s the one feeding me, washing my clothes and doing everything…
Me: that lady is already desperate for a husband…
Peter: that’s not my business, I can’t marry her type na, there are so many beautiful ladies in my village, in short, that village own is too far, there are some very decent girls in my church that dresses very decent and are genuinely lovers of God, not the pretenders ooo because I know them all… As for my girlfriend, see the things she put on sometimes to come and pick me up, exposing every part of her body, I can’t keep that kind of woman as a wife, those types are for sampling…
Me: na true Sha, if you tell them to cover up a bit, there will tell you that is their body and there have the freedom to expose it as much as there want… “Can you eat a food that is open and flies keeps perching day and night for the rest of your life”? No na
Peter: God forbid! you have a valid point my brother, when it’s time to get married, we know where to find a good wife… Imagine the ones that comes here to fight because of you. Gosh! How can some women be so cheap? As broke as I am, see how easy it was for me to deceive Vicky, even with all the obvious signs that I am broke. with a little bit of petting and reminding her that I am taking her to Tokyo, buying her a benz immediately my “container” arrives, she is already all over me and even bragging about it… Me na to chop her and clean mouth oooo.
Me: yes na, what else?
Peter: nothing my guy, I will leave you now, let me go and try catching some sleep. Tommorow is going to be a busy day at work…
Me: okay, thanks for checking up on me brother, I really appreciate your concern.
Peter: you are welcome, take care of yourself.
Me: yeah good night…
This Peter want to kill me before my time… Now I believe there’s nothing like ghost, it’s just my imagination…
The next day I woke up and saw Peter already dressed up going to work… Peter works with an electricity distribution company know as PHCN but popularly called NEPA… I think those people working with NEPA are one of the most hated set of people in the country. I greeted Peter and he answered and told me there have an operation to carry out somewhere… I said okay and started getting ready for my office…
That evening I came back home and saw Peter pacing up and down in front of his house… I asked him what the problem is and he told me he’s tired of life and want to commit suicide…. Why! I yelled in fear.
Episode 8
PETER`S POV
Akor, remember I told you before leaving this morning that we have an operation somewhere?… immediately I left this morning I decided to branch somewhere to eat, after I finished eating, I paid the woman but she insisted I did not pay her, before I knew what was happening people began to gather because she was raising her vioce, one of the men that came didn’t even care to know what actually happened but started beating me up and calling me a thief… thank God for someone there that knows me who decided to pay the woman another money the food… as if that was not enough, I put myself together after the incident and proceeded for the operation because I know I will surely get some money from there but the worst of it all happened there. Akor, please help me with rope because I must hang myself today…
Akor: before you hang yourself at least tell me everything so that I will be able to tell the world why you killed yourself…
Me: I went with my colleagues to the location to disconnect the light of those who has refused to pay their bills… the people in that area are very stubborn when it comes to payment of their bills because there are always complaining there don’t get enough power supply, how is that my business? I said sobbing…
Akor: is that all? And please stop crying, are you a woman? Common, act like a man…
Peter: we visited different houses of which some offered to pay while we disconnected some that did not comply, everything was going smoothly until we got to this particular house, the landlord told us bluntly that he’s not going to pay and we are not going to disconnect his light… the house was a very big house with different calibres of people leaving there. We told the landlord he’s not serious and he should watch us as we disconnect the light… I was the loudest among my colleagues because I was actually using this opportunity to vent my anger on him…
Akor: go on…
Me: so I angrily took the ladder and fixed it on his pole with the help of my colleagues, before the landlord could say another thing I was already up on the ladder very far from the ground, before I knew what was happening I saw my colleagues running… I was like, “did the man realise his dog or what”, why are there running?… I turn back again and saw some gangsters holding the ladder, there started trying to throw me off the ladder but I quickly climbed off the ladder and held the pole so tight… I saw death! I was crying and begging them to please put the ladder back and promised them I will never come to that area ever again to disconnect light… all this fell on deaf ears, I started losing my grip on the pole and decided to say my last pray, that was when the landlord told then to put the ladder back….
Akor: whoa!
Me: that is not all ooooo, I climbed down and one of the guys there with a very big chest told me to do frog jump… imagine me peter jumping like a frog in front of everyone present, both adults and children… Akor, why is life so cruel to me? What if I died up there today? Is it not better I take the life before someone else take it and when there ask what killed him there will say ‘he went to disconnect light and there remove ladder and he fell to his death’?… I can’t take this anymore…
Akor: is that why you want to kill yourself? You are not serious… remember every work comes with a risk… even if you work in an office, going to work everyday is a risk because some people gets involve in an accident and died in the process of trying to get to that office… so cheer up, something like this is too small for you to be crying, talk less of taking your life…
Peter: nothing is stopping me from killing myself this night, see me na, nothing is working, I am not really getting anything from this job and can’t find another one, just look at the kind of life I am living at this my age… don’t stress yourself by trying to dissuade me from this mission my friend…
Akor: since you have made up your mind what else can I say or do, let me go inside and check if I have any strong rope… I went to my room and luckily I found a very good rope… peter, here is the rope. I will surely miss you my friend please rest in peace in advance.
Peter: thanks akor, see you on the other side…
Akor: God forbid, you aren’t seeing me on that side anytime soon because I have no plan of dying now… I looked at peter and saw him crying while looking at the rope in his hands… I said my final goodbye to peter and head straight to my room…
TO BE CONTINUED….
