Friday, 13 July 2012
Episode 2: (More Troubles Ahead)
As
we lay in wait for the sun,
The day
grows older, and older by the second.
When
will our freedom from this darkness arrive?
When
will we be free to get out and move around?
Must
this be our continuous sad plight?
Are
we condemned to remain under the bounds of this lazy sun?
I
thought I saw a ray of the true sun?
I
thought we were finally free to attend to our business!
But
NO! It seems to me that the sun was out for fun,
And
it doesn’t mind if we remain indoors with heaviness.
* * * * *
From the look I saw on Dad’s face, I knew
that all was not well, and I could further pestering would not bring out
answers from Dad, instead, tears would be our final results. I just tried to
calm everyone down as much as my strength could go.
Aunty Bimpe, Juliet, Eunice, and Aunty
Yinka were all looking confused, and cast questioning glances at me, to which I
replied negative also, with a glance at all of them simultaneously. When
everybody had calmed down, I proceeded to ask Dad what went wrong, and where
Taiye -my twin brother – was. Daddy did not say anything; he just stood up, and
went up the stairs to his room. Mum followed him upstairs, and every other
person found their square roots too. I returned to the sitting room to fetch my
laptop, Aunty Bimpe came to me.
“Are you ready to eat Kenny?” she asked me,
an unusual occurrence. “What did you cook?” I asked her, not like I still had
the appetite, nor like I still remembered that lunch was BEANS and fried plantain. “BEANS
and plantain” was the stressed reply from Aunty Bimpe. “But you know that I
don’t like beans now!, and I really have lost my appetite.” I replied her
non-chalantly. If only I could get the full gist and details of what’s up with
Ty. I was now so desperate to know what had become of my one and only twin
brother, that I threw all caution to the wind, and went upstairs to ask Daddy
what was up, leaving Aunty Bimpe to stare at me as I mounted the stairs three
at a time.
On getting to the door of the room, I
overheard Dad telling Mum to hold herself together. I now knew that something
really huge was up with my twin brother. I knocked gently on the door, and I
knew that both Mum and Dad were startled by the sudden, unexpected knock. Dad
was the first to speak up, and he asked roughly, “Who is that?” I replied as
calmly as my voice could go, that it was me. “Come inside” was the reply, and I
opened the door gently. Mum’s face was a real story of grief and tears. As I
sighted Mum’s face, my heart skipped a beat, and it began to beat so loudly,
that I thought Mum and Dad could hear it.
“Dad please what is wrong with Ty and the
car he took out?” I asked with great burdens on my heart, and expecting to hear
the worst. Now seemingly calmer than when he first received the phone call, Dad
replied with great care and stress, “I was called that the car he took out was
involved in a very bad accident. Apparently, he and his friends had planned to
have a little race together, and he had craftily taken my car to that effect.”
“He ………”
“Is he okay .and was he hurt badly?” I
asked immediately, interrupting Dad’s long speech. “He was not the one who rode
the car though, and the person who rode it is perfectly conscious, although
with some minor bruises and injuries. It may sound awkward, or sound weird, but
I know that something was amiss, when I noticed the missing car in the garage,
but I couldn’t place my fingers on it” Dad concluded. “Right now, he is at the
Now, I could feel my breath returning to
normal, and my heartbeat rate returning to the optimal rate at which it should
beat. Deep down within me, I pondered on the facts surrounding this new
development. Taiye had always nursed the dream of participating in Formula One
(F1) races, and I knew he could go extremes just to get a taste of this dream,
but I never knew he could get to this length. If he could sneak out of the
house just to race with a few friends, he could have also been doing some other
stuff we did not know.
I wondered how a grown up baby like Taiye
would nurse the dream to be like James
Bond 007. Every time he watched a foreign film, he just got excited from
seeing the actors and actresses drive fast cars by. I still remembered how he
was behaving watching Fast and Furious,
the Italian Job, the Transporter, Drive,
and some other car racing movies. It was just like he was the one driving
those cars. The film I that even annoyed me the most with him was DEATH RACE by Jason Statham. I felt like
beating him, or even strangulating him, because with every single death in the
film, he jumped up happily at sight of their blood.
While in this my mind ruminating thoughts,
I spoke out unconsciously, “And I warned him that day oh!” and Mum and Dad looked
at me questioningly. Even with their gazes fixed on me, I did not flinch;
neither did I even come out of my thoughts. I didn’t even notice or hear Dad’s
questions posted towards me. I just continued in my fantasy flashback thoughts.
Not until Dad placed his rather warm hands on my forehead, did I realize that I
was still in my parent’s room. I was suddenly jolted back to reality by the
sudden touch of Dad’s hand on my forehead, and I found it difficult to focus on
anything, as my eyes were blurred and unsteady. It took me almost two minutes
to fully gain control of my eyes.
It was Mum that first spoke to me, once I
was fully concentrating on them. “What did you warn him on? And did Taiye tell
you where he was going? And what he was going to do and you did not tell us?
Ehn Kehinde?” she asked, only stopping at short intervals to catch her breath.
I knew they were both expecting to hear that I was on board with Taiye’s sneak
out show. I hoped my answer would vindicate me, and would prove my innocence and
clear the misty air I just created.
“It’s nothing really, only that I had
previously warned him to stop fantasizing driving race cars like those people
who act films in foreign movies.” I replied with the least sense of
apprehension. I remained with Dad and Mum for another five minutes, before I
excused myself, and went to my room. Dad said he would be going out to see
Taiye and his wounded friends in the hospital, and I said I would go with him.
“Get prepared in time, because I would be leaving in thirty minutes time”, he
responded.
On the way to the hospital, along Kingsway,
we saw the spot where Dad’s car had been involved in the nasty accident. Just
around a curve, the unfortunate driver had lost control of the steering wheel
of the sleek Camry saloon car. The car had careened along the smooth road, and
had slammed into a fence about twenty meters down the road. If not for the
timely intervention of people around, there could have probably been a fatal
explosion. The car was still there, and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC)
was right there on hand, alongside some other road maintenance agencies that
had collaborated to evacuate the car from the wreck it had become.
As we passed the accident scene, onwards to
the hospital where Taiye and his friends were, I noticed that Dad shook his
head at the gory sight his car had become. I wanted to ask daddy if he had
included the Camry in his insurance lists, but I knew this was not the right
time to do so. We continued our smooth ride to the hospital, without anyone
speaking, and all was silent, except for the car stereo which was playing cool
R&B music from a popular radio station, just right for the mood.
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