Story by Obinna Oke
Today, I feel so light with overflowing joy and relief. I finally pulled off the burden that had yoked me for the past five years. I was able to visit Joshua's family again!Joshua was a friend I would never forget my entire life. His father had died soon after he started school. Back then in secondary school, Joshua was the Chapel prefect. Before the appointment, everyone knew it would be him. He was a Catholic charismatic. He sang and prayed every minute; while on bicycle to school, while copying notes. All the time, he mumbled hymns and prayers. At the assembly ground, Joshua would preach with so much conviction about the supremacy of God and his unflinching love for us, until he lost his voice. He would finish, leaving everyone shaken.
'SP, any announcements?' He often said to me. And as I stepped forward he would whisper into my ears while zipping his big bible: 'God loves you, my SP!'
He was aware of my languid attitude towards God and prayer, yet he swore to convince me. The fact that Joshua was a true Christian was one thing I never doubted. In spite of our parallel opinions about religion, he remained my confidant, and when I saw fears, he was always the person to call. He was always there to dowse them. It was at such moments that he gained my attention to his bible citations about heaven.
Joshua interpreted my dreams. When I dreamt of catching two huge grasscutters in one hole, Joshua said that two good things would happen to me. Later that year, I got endowments from two levels of government. I dreamt again where I was plucking ripe guavas on a ground surrounded by people's faeces.
'SP, God has a beautiful future for you,' he said, 'but be careful of the people around you especially as you pursue your aspirations.'
I wouldn't tell here what later happened, but he was right again.
Joshua always looked so lanky, had a protruded belly and bony prominences everywhere. He looked pale. Always pale. But ever cheerful.
He visited me quite often. I would serve him a plate of garri and the watery soup I often cooked with zeruwa. I won't say he but we both would lick our fingers down to our elbows. And soon after eating, Joshua would pull his shirt, and fanning himself with it would shout: 'SP, you're a rich man. You're such a big man!' And I wondered the sort of big man I was, who only cooked either soup or rice with ram canda and bonga fish, on the best days!
One day, I scheduled to visit Joshua. I saw the one old and torn hut they lived in. It looked like the shrine in a compound next to ours. I almost crawled on my belly to enter the ever dark inside, no matter how the sun shone brightly outside. Everyone was expecting me, the big visitor! So they had prepared their best.
That day, I learnt that the only difference between palm oil and vegetable oil was temperature. Heat palm oil very well and you get vegetable oil. Joshua was beaming with smiles as they set before me the plate of broken rice sprinkled with dark oil and white-eyed crayfish. I took a spoonful and my teeth hit a strong stone. I managed to bear the cringe, and swallowed the rest of the rice as much as I could. Throughout the following two weeks, I couldn't chew anything with my teeth. Joshua sat before me, smiling and rubbing his knees in an overt feeling of surety that I was enjoying their sumptuous delicacy.
I had never come close to such a low life!
Joshua was the breadwinner of their family. He would miss school some days but won't tell me why, until I found out that he was often sick. That he had sickle cell disease.
One day, I dreamt. I was standing on a grass field when I saw Joshua passing. He was a few metres away. I called him frantically but he didn't answer. Not even a turn. The following evening while reading a copy of an Awake magazine, a swooping force clasped me like a noose. It threw me into a sudden trance, and Joshua appeared to me and was shouting: 'Obinna, who told you that I'm dead? Who told you that I'm dead?'
Within thirty seconds I regained consciousness. I was scared. I knew that all was not well with Joshua.
I rode straight to Joshua's village the day after and what I saw broke me.
I threw my bicycle on the other side of the bush on sighting the hip of red earth in the middle of their compound.
'There lies your friend!' Joshua's mum cried, pointing at the grave. 'Call him out! Tell him you're looking for him!' She screamed, breaking into tears. I joined her momentarily. We both wept.
'Joshua didn't do me well. Joshua decided that I should die in misery!' She groaned.
And so it was. They said he died in the evening, two days back.
For three years after Joshua's death, I visited his family twice yearly with whatever thing I saved. His mother had always expressed shock over my show of charity. On my penultimate visit, his mother had asked me if I and Joshua were in any form of covenant. I told her no, that I only felt inclined to help. She mumbled it in. But on the last one, she threw her baseless suspicion open, insisting that I confess if I owed Joshua anything before he died. I had felt so hurt and embarrassed. So, I ceased to visit them anymore, for five years until today. I had often times felt terrible over my decision especially when I grew to know that poverty doesn't live without ignorance.
She screamed with joy on seeing me today. She hugged me, saying: 'My son, why did you abandon us? Why?'
She was so happy, and I saw no need of opening old wounds.
She told me of Joshua's siblings; that Sunday was an apprentice barber at Asaba and that Blessing had been loaned out as a house help. From my left are Jacob and Nkiru.
Mama Joshua complained that she wasn't seeing clearly anymore and that her eyes itched so badly like the devil himself had poured sand inside. She had a cataract too in both eyes. I assured her that there was hope of relief.
My experience with Joshua and his family has thought me a lot in life: that life could be so bitter as it could be sweet, that some people only eat fish on Christmas. Yet many have so much money that the banks cannot contain and build an underground storeroom for it.
I learnt that the easiest way to be close to God, to achieve happiness and attain one's desires in life is to reach out to the helpless. Note, the churches and mosques already have more than enough. Just look around you; in your neighbourhood, on the streets, in the villages. And don't ever get discouraged when helping, knowing that poverty is always rivetted to ignorance.
When I stood up to go, Mama Joshua pointed at my phone and asked if it snapped photo. I said yes, and she said she would love to snap photo.
'But Mama you haven't taken your bath nah?' I cajoled.
And she laughed, asking if she was being used to cook soup. And the bike man gave us a hand with these shots.
I wish to end this long story with the words of Denzel Washington: 'At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.'
See how happy and hopeful we all are!
I feel so glad to call off my two weeks break on this joyous note. The burden is over!
All for the love of Joshua!
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