Just One of His Eyes Closed
Between The Rich and The Poor it is the former who would most likely be seen walking around with a squad parading fast guns for blowing out the brains of hired killers or those carelessly acting like them. Also, between The Two it is the former who could be found in the company of unarmed but brilliant, muscular bodyguards, whose presence mean unlikelihood of their intimidation or interception on the way. Scarcely, The Poor bother their heads over such precautions, sometimes find it laughable protecting themselves in a like manner and occasionally would want to know how these feared paid assassins look!
Tall like trees? Hard like Igneous Rock?
From The Poor you could get “A Sharrap! Stop saying that a bodyguard has that much bulging muscle for anticipated trading of blows and still
“A Sharrap!” or even something worse, if you should contend that escorts of millionaires and The Multi- often earn twice or thrice what the country’s Top Civil Servants and Perm Sec are spared at the end of a month. Something nearly exact one got from Ephraim Chigozie in 2015 still a resident of a stigma-wearing suburb of Aba Town in Nigeria’s East. Then, Ephraim was poorly financing and as poorly running a Palm Wine-Dominated Pub in their Alika Suburb from his Educators on The Rich’s enormous craving for security he would funnily seek more derails for the sake of it but sometimes for the punitive purpose of stressing their Adam’s Apple, inwardly happy that he would never be found making similar ridiculous arrangement with hard-to- find money over Assumed Insecurity. There were, though, times Ephraim’s Educators on the subject got him biting envious lips and even shedding what one might call A Half Tear. At such times, his educators needed to be forceful or particular in their picturing of escorts’ acute preparation for emergency exchange of accurate gun-fire with dreaming killers of their subjects of protection. Thirty-Nine-Year-old Ephraim, who had repeatedly seen The Late Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean clip could keep painfully feeling any courageous comparison of the way millionaire-protecting bodyguards cleaned their handguns ahead of a shoot-out with The Late Michael’s pointed dusting of his shoes ahead of planned amazing dance steps. At such moments, in Ephraim’s faculty would be storming reflections on the possibility or otherwise of some Trained Armed Protector just for his own sake and Life enduringly cleaning his shotgun and cartridges for the dusts and particles that should not put him at risk of mishitting his hired killer, when such will have been an unforgivable blunder. But mainly Ephraim had his Pub Business Stuff to mind, not his Unenviable Life. Alika Suburb had little for luring rich people, who would in turn lure hired killers. Yes, Drinkable Water has not been their denial or portions of land on which the Average Alika Resident could float a choice business… But what of Good Tarred Roads infinitely helpful to Mushrooming Industries and Electricity Supply not made fitful?
Relative Higher Cost of Living in the other sections of their Aba Town made Ephraim seek shelter in her Alika Suburb for a pursuit of his goals - Hopeful Ephraim Goals - in a town he trusted her ability to transform a poor but industrious man into something worthy of his industry but not background. For the same reason, at first, Ephraim quartered in Alika, ran his palm-wine serving pub business with praiseworthy vigor, spending more hours in his shop than at home – all to summon with spontaneity A Better Tomorrow. Wickedly, A Better Tomorrow was not in a hurry to shake hands with Ephraim Chigozie or flash him a beatific smile. With that his hope began to lose its sharp edges - its intensity - Ephraim’s willpower lessening.
Fifteen days into June 2015, Ephraim, Fifteen Years Old in Aba from their discarded village, had become a Human Resignation to Fate. Accordingly, he began to find unusual pleasure in unrolling his mat outside his rented Ten-by-Ten and sprawling his defeated six-feet frame on it; apparently, for a catching of Good Blasts of the Evening Breeze
But as a practised idea of leisure, it began to be oftener by December of the same year with his concerned neighbors, who would not want him harmed, finding time to fearlessly point out the invisible mistakes in this new decision of his. By early 2016, Ephraim would not pick himself up from his mat, until the long and the short hands of the clock had made it to Twelve and Ten. Later, he began to stretch the thing into the very late hours of 12:00am and the wee hours of 2:00am. On everyone’s lips was the question: “Doesn’t Ephraim a dime care about Night Marauders and their guns?”
Coincidentally, the period was the time robbers in Aba were having a field day with their blood-freezing nightly operations, their automatic shotguns blazing forth, the bullets in them singing their rat-tat-tat.
Still, all these mattered little to Ephraim. If robbers run into him and slugged him, “well, that’s it! The Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish he had been steadily praying for! His killers will have saved him from the shame and dishonor of dangling a taut suicidal rope from a ceiling or from the top of a tree that should forever rid him of his omnipresent poverty.
“Hah! I’m not surrendering this salubrious Evening Breeze to any goddamned robber with or without rifle!
Ephraim Chigozie never figured that Fortune would remember him, let alone enfold him in her Comforting Arms. Thrillingly it did, making him a Money Bag: in a space of three years. A Hotelier Extraordinaire! This was after a millionaire mourning his late mother contracted him to arrange for The Freshest Palm Wine for a named number of Cooling Vans at her funeral. It was a life-changing deal for Ephraim: one which saw him bring his Connoisseur’s Tongue to bear on a purchased thousand gourds of palm wine. It was to easily spread his name to the uttermost limits of their Aba Metropolis, on his feet dropping one big contract after another! Soon, Ephraim began to count his money in Six Figures, found out that he could buy any car he wanted and quickly vacated his one-room apartment for a nice bungalow of his.
Then, one more thing happened! Ephraim began to dread staying outdoors after 6:00pm. Started manufacturing excuses why he could not surface at certain places alone and even start wielding a pistol for self-defense. As for the sporadic gunfire by robbers at evenings, they became a source of panic for him and a reason to spend the rest of the night with just one of his eyes closed!
Comments