Everything happened so fast, the one minute I was in a
restaurant having a great time dining with my friends on an impromptu gathering,
the next I was running to my car, too shocked to even shed a tear, interceding,
praying that the damage may be bearable or rather within my pocket's reach.
Before I could ask what had come to be I was being convinced to report the man
bleeding and wailing on the ground for his felony and in no more than 10
minutes the officials were there, one of the security guards took it upon his
stride, after witnessing my reluctance to pursue the case any further, to phone
the police and I groaned in despair.
Was a broken window reason enough for me to send a man
behind the cold jail cells though he would perhaps be united with his mates and
laugh his way to bail? Was it enough reason for him to sleep in a bed not of
his own? Were the kicks and fists not already a steep price for the felony he
kept denying? What if he memorised my face and decided to one brutal day come
for me, dramatic as it sounds? All those supposedly daft questions rang in my
mind as I parked outside the police station, still struggling to recover from
tremor's dominion.
The last time I dared or rather bothered set my foot in any
police station was when I was applying for assistance funds through NSFAS at
the University as they sought an Affidavit and a certified ID copy to oath my
Mother's inability to pay for my fees and that was over 3 years ago, police
stations aren't at all my ideal hang out spots so I by all my might choose to
ignore that they even exist even though one is just down the road from my
mother's house, in fact I have never found men dressed in bullets, misdemeanour
and arrogance appetizing to the eye that I don't even bring them up over cups
of solitude. Apart from feeling over-dressed and looking dangerously gorgeous,
the experience peaked my fear of the authority houses beyond any known levels
and the police man insisting to write the statement for me as slow as a snail
didn't make it any sweeter, leaving me feeling as empty as a hopeless man
trying to be hopeful.
After about 2 hours,
irritation seeping uncontrollably through my pores and dodging the hooligan's
sight, I was free to go home, eat and snooze off to a place less cold and less scary.
The promises of my case number being sent to my phone in an hour’s time then
have not yet materialised as expected and I, contrary to my girlfriend's
belief, have not yet come to know the virtue of this patience that my priest
preaches about in every sermon. I will never fully comprehend why the keeping of
promises has become such a thorny task for the mankind or has the man's word
become as immaterial as life when death comes? To what do we now hold on if
even the sound of our words has become too hard to trust and grasp?
When the sun and the moon victoriously collaborated to page
the year to new, I swallowed a pebble of revival and I expected a free flow of
things as perfectly as the fish swam through the River Nile. Having made my
requests and resolutions known to God and the gods on eve of the new born child
‘2013’, I anticipated more freedom of thoughts than the confinement I had
sailed on the year ‘2012’and the sudden rain showers and bruised knees served
as confirmation that my supplications were heard and would possibly be attended
to with great urgency.
On the 1st day of the year, broken bottles told more tales
than what the voices of my neighbours could let out, while some wailed as they
bathed in regrets that the closure of an old chapter had offered them, haunted
by the walls they claim spoke to them in syllables of loud silence. I, on the
other hand, was high on life, thoroughly sunken in the goodness of my maker and
his candy sweet promises, thinking big and already living a dream that was yet
to come true as I sat in my room texting "Happy New year" messages to
whoever treats me like I matter.
My plans for this year are big, bigger than all the dreams
I've had in my entire existence of 305 months and my strategic corporate
expedition to Japan for a year attests to this and I am more thrilled than
fearful. I have additionally decided to let loose and bury myself in faith of
the higher power in all spheres of my life. Last year was a never ending
funeral in my heart, constantly mourning the death of bigger significant pieces
of my life chasing shadows of what seemed to be but turned out to be not and
any more deaths would put me to indefinite slumber so I have chosen to yield my
entire soul to the one who made this life possible from the onset, unquestioning
that He will again carry me through the stormy and sunny weathers like he has
successfully done in the past.
In my attempts to save what is still remaining of me I have
dared to believe in myself, to be comfortable in my own skin, to be perfectly
naked to fate’s embrace and to stop comparing myself with other people and with
the things the world has made more attractive than being real, perhaps that
will help mend the shattering glass of my faith. I have grown weary of lowering
my gears to a pace that everyone else but God deems acceptable as if I was
founded on men’s standards. I was not formed to be accepted and to survive, I
was crafted to live and to love and to be thankful, to live life plentifully
and with great pride, to love with less caution and augmented passion and to be
thankful of every passing second that leaves me alive.
As I put on my great armour of confidence, on the mark to
more opportunities, I'm overcome by waves of joy mixed with nerves as I let
myself drown in the truest depths of myself for the first time in my entire
being. But nonetheless I have leapt beyond the borders of ordinary in my
thoughts uncertain as to how I will hold on to such greatness by my mere two
hands that are already leaking from the earth's blessings. I deem this is that point
where I surrender more than just my burdens to my creator and to ask of him to
help me carry all the blessings He's showered me with, the most daring move I'm
yet to comprehend, trusting the Almighty with both my troubles and triumphs.
Everything that has come to be so far is enough to convince
me that the worst is crawling my way but having understood the great Alchemist
Paulo Coelho when he said that when you passionately want something the
universe will conspire in your favour, I stand assured that this truly is just
one those mishaps that should happen to a person even if its once or twice a
year so we can claim knowledge of strength and become great witnesses to those
currently drowning in our former pits of despair though I am still haunted by
the sadness of people upon learning that they were just "festive
budgets" and that the new summer love they had faith in had to come to a
close as soon as the bottles popped open in the peak of the night in honour of
the new year but how could they not have known that summer love was never
intended to live through the other shades of the year?