THE BERMUDA CIRCLE
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in Ile-Ife. We just got back from church, where my immediate elder sister just saved me from one of my biggest stage performance flops during the children's choir ministration (a story for another day). We lived in a small flat, planted in a serene communal environment , where neighbours borrowed matchsticks they would never return.
The entrance of the house welcomes you into the living room, which inturn ushers you into a passage-way that leads to the other rooms. This passage-way, day and night, was always dark. The reminiscence of which still traumatizes me like Mtshali's Night Fall in Soweto. A darkness so intense and hazy that you could almost touch its essence. By one side of the wall in the passage-way, lied a monster lurking in the gloom for its prey: my father's old Honda Belly Motorbike. All members of the family had mastered the way through this shadow of death. Only an intruder would fall prey, and jam the snake in the monkey shadow.
As a "wakabout" that I am. I had passed through this dark passage (like we called it) a couple of times this very Sunday afternoon. But a particular trip gave the devil the chance to recruit me for a special purpose that boomeranged! A friend came to invite me for our usual Sunday afternoon "monkey-post" football game. As I rushed into the house to get my tattered soccer shoes, and through the passage. I got my right leg lost into an unexpected Bermuda circle that had me tumbled down like Pompeii. I quickly rose up. Thank God, I was not wounded.
With my two arms stretched apart, I stooped, groping in the dark to find the little demon that knocked me down. Alas! It was a spare tyre of the motor-bike. "How did it get here?". "Whoever carelessly placed this tyre here must be very wicked". I murmured to myself. Then, like a bridegroom taking the marriage oath, I made a solemn decision. "I will not go down alone. Another person in this house must experience the same thing. I shall not be the only one to fall this way".
I proceeded, took my soccer shoes, came back to the spot where I fell, and gently laid the tyre again. Hoping it would be someone else's turn to fall. My father had gone for his townsmen "parapò" meeting. Two of my elder sisters gisting in the room, and my younger brother innocently playing outside, were the targets. I thought to myself with a grin, "I shall hear the gist". Off to the street of play I left.
About 25 minutes of soccer play, I was tired and profusely gulping "ogbonoic" saliva that bemoiled my throat. I knew I had to get water. Taking no permission to disappear, I rushed to the house. Jacked open the front door, rushed through the living room, into the passage.....Arggghhhhh!!!! There I was, tumbling down again, like an Iroko tree struck down by a furious thunder. With my aching bones and bruised elbows. I went to get the water anyway, and set the tyre again. "I shall not be the only one to fall today".
With deep frustration gotten from a self inflicted pain, and a heart ready to transfer aggression. I met my younger brother outside, doing something I deemed wrong (whatever it was had escaped my memory now). I reproved him, but he was proving stubborn. My anger rose from the foundation to the roof. I quickly decided to report him to my elder sisters first. As they were always apt to defend him any time I disciplined him. Back into the house I dashed. From the living room to the same place: the passage-way.................this time I strained my left leg, hit my head against the agbarigo chest of the bike. Hearing the sound of the fall, one of my elder sisters called out from their room, "tani yen?". "Emi ni o, but I'm fine", I bitterly cried out. That was how I fell innocently once, and backfiredly twice. While one of my elder sisters was nursing my strained ankle with a semi-hot water. I thought to myself, "if she knew what I did, she would not even pity me, not to talk of nursing this ankle for me".
Because your relationship broke or you got a divorce, now in your mind, all marital relationships in this world should scatter by fire. You lost your job, now you're wishing your "shakara" neighbour the same so s/he can know how it feels? If after your fall, all you could wish others, most especially the ones closest to you, is to have the same ill experience as you. You have just put your misfortune on a replay.
Even in your low estate, wish others well. That it may be well with you again.
©Joe Ademiju
The entrance of the house welcomes you into the living room, which inturn ushers you into a passage-way that leads to the other rooms. This passage-way, day and night, was always dark. The reminiscence of which still traumatizes me like Mtshali's Night Fall in Soweto. A darkness so intense and hazy that you could almost touch its essence. By one side of the wall in the passage-way, lied a monster lurking in the gloom for its prey: my father's old Honda Belly Motorbike. All members of the family had mastered the way through this shadow of death. Only an intruder would fall prey, and jam the snake in the monkey shadow.
As a "wakabout" that I am. I had passed through this dark passage (like we called it) a couple of times this very Sunday afternoon. But a particular trip gave the devil the chance to recruit me for a special purpose that boomeranged! A friend came to invite me for our usual Sunday afternoon "monkey-post" football game. As I rushed into the house to get my tattered soccer shoes, and through the passage. I got my right leg lost into an unexpected Bermuda circle that had me tumbled down like Pompeii. I quickly rose up. Thank God, I was not wounded.
With my two arms stretched apart, I stooped, groping in the dark to find the little demon that knocked me down. Alas! It was a spare tyre of the motor-bike. "How did it get here?". "Whoever carelessly placed this tyre here must be very wicked". I murmured to myself. Then, like a bridegroom taking the marriage oath, I made a solemn decision. "I will not go down alone. Another person in this house must experience the same thing. I shall not be the only one to fall this way".
I proceeded, took my soccer shoes, came back to the spot where I fell, and gently laid the tyre again. Hoping it would be someone else's turn to fall. My father had gone for his townsmen "parapò" meeting. Two of my elder sisters gisting in the room, and my younger brother innocently playing outside, were the targets. I thought to myself with a grin, "I shall hear the gist". Off to the street of play I left.
About 25 minutes of soccer play, I was tired and profusely gulping "ogbonoic" saliva that bemoiled my throat. I knew I had to get water. Taking no permission to disappear, I rushed to the house. Jacked open the front door, rushed through the living room, into the passage.....Arggghhhhh!!!! There I was, tumbling down again, like an Iroko tree struck down by a furious thunder. With my aching bones and bruised elbows. I went to get the water anyway, and set the tyre again. "I shall not be the only one to fall today".
With deep frustration gotten from a self inflicted pain, and a heart ready to transfer aggression. I met my younger brother outside, doing something I deemed wrong (whatever it was had escaped my memory now). I reproved him, but he was proving stubborn. My anger rose from the foundation to the roof. I quickly decided to report him to my elder sisters first. As they were always apt to defend him any time I disciplined him. Back into the house I dashed. From the living room to the same place: the passage-way.................this time I strained my left leg, hit my head against the agbarigo chest of the bike. Hearing the sound of the fall, one of my elder sisters called out from their room, "tani yen?". "Emi ni o, but I'm fine", I bitterly cried out. That was how I fell innocently once, and backfiredly twice. While one of my elder sisters was nursing my strained ankle with a semi-hot water. I thought to myself, "if she knew what I did, she would not even pity me, not to talk of nursing this ankle for me".
Because your relationship broke or you got a divorce, now in your mind, all marital relationships in this world should scatter by fire. You lost your job, now you're wishing your "shakara" neighbour the same so s/he can know how it feels? If after your fall, all you could wish others, most especially the ones closest to you, is to have the same ill experience as you. You have just put your misfortune on a replay.
Even in your low estate, wish others well. That it may be well with you again.
©Joe Ademiju
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