FORLORN HOPE
By
Peter-Paul Edoka
Chapter One
“Mum, we are running out of bathing soap.” Haniel said as he strolled out of the house, hurrying to school. The birds he kept as pets were singing the morning hymn for him as he passed them, waving and calling each by its name.
“Since you love to act like a father, it will be please if you could as well buy the house some tablets of soap as you return from school.” His mother said, smiling to her funny son whose back has already been turned at her. She called again.
“Acting father, did you hear me or should I repeat myself?”
“I heard you wife. But please know that the month is still fresh and money is far from coming now.” Haniel said while still standing by his birds cage. He got their food cane, threw some into the cage and waved them have a nice day.
With laughter on her lips the mother said after him. “Have a whale of time my husband. I love you son.”
Turning his face, he said to the mother. “Love you too mum, and enjoy your work-free day.”
Chris Haniel was in his last year at the university when the most interesting part of his whole life story started. He was attending Otukpa University College, the most prestigious school in the whole of that vicinity and beyond. It was at this school that you would see a son of a father telling you he is sitting on the sit used by his father years before he was born. A school full of history that generation there, at that particular time, would do all they could to secure the tradition of the school, the culture of the school and the dynamic academic excellence that it has set itself to achieve.
O.U.C as the school was fondly called, had stood over 80 years with the same zeal for prestige and academic excellence, with the keenness to come first in both sports and academic, to hold on to the name its founders had set to protect and handle down to generations that would come after them and that are watching and waiting to be enrolled into it. This is where Haniels father attended and met his wife and got married to her; and years later gave birth to Haniel. This is the school Haniel hoped to attend as he grew up and also nurturing the hope of meeting his wife like his father.
This school is somewhere in the world. And when you look closer, you could see yourself or someone like you. You could see someone who is struggling to make it or who has given up the academic pursues due to low assimilation. Because of the level of academic pursuit and competition to be at the top in sports and academic, those who could not meet up at the second term of a section either withdraw or continue to strive. In this school you could see young souls falling in love like the air we breath, and this will always be carefree; youthful exuberance they call it. This is often seen in the graduating class, those preparing to enter into the world and become what they each set to become. It has become a tradition that some numbers meet here, fall in love, and later get married. And such success the School celebrates with the presence of different dailies to take it to the world.
The day was Friday. Haniel and his mates were gathered in the school auditorium for the filling of their forms. As the exercise commenced, Haniel made a mistake on his form and needed an eraser to clean it and make correction. Standing up to get the eraser, he said, more to himself than to anyone else, scanning the figure that stood at the entrance of the hall. “My Lord and my God, who could this, be? Who is this person in whom I could see my whole self changing in just a second? Just a glance at her and I was transformed into another being.” His pen dropped from his hand as he stared on, couldnt imagine the very thing that made him to look at this girl for that space of time, and speechless. But whatever it was, I believed it to be a real naturalistic ambiance.
She was tall, slim and has a skin colour like that of his mother and sister. Her long hair too was part of her features that took his heart from his chest to his mouth, but not out. She appeared like a being that could not hurt a fly, nonetheless a being like him. Although she entered the hall, sat down and did the filling of her form, she did not noticed Haniels existence in the hall but greeted some of her friends, giving him the assurance that after all she was mayhap new to the school, new to him but not new to some students. He swore to meet her. Outside the auditorium the morning sun was bestowing on the students vitamin D. Haniel took proper look at her. She was exchanging greetings, and Haniel noticed his classmate Comfort among those close to her. She was beautiful and gentle, talked with careful selection of words that sounded poetic all the time; and smiling as if the sun rose from her eyes. And he remembered his favourite song by Celine Dion:
In your eyes, I see ribbons of colour,
I see us inside of each other,
I see my conscious moves with yours,
And I hear voices say: What his is hers,
Am falling in to you...
Walking home with his friends, he was quite and kept more to himself, which was unusual with him. His bosom friend Richard noticed his uneasiness and asked what could be wrong with him. Haniel was known to be very humorous and friendly even when everyone has reason to be angry, especially after the school football team had lost in a match. But today, Haniel seems to be far away in a world where he alone could tell the colour of the walls and the kind of birth that inhabits there. He alone can tell what he is seeing and why he is seeing what he is seeing. He alone can tell.
“Is anything the matter with you Han?” Richard asked with much attention that only a mother could give to her child, even maybe her only child.
“What can I say? Who would believe what I saw, and accept what am feeling? How can I explain what has happened to me?
Haniel was saying all these with his right hand holding his school bag at his chest like a loyal Nigerian reciting the National Anthem.
Everyone knew Haniel and his acts. But this is strange. No smiles, no curious staring; just gazing, lost-like gazing into the open space in front of him. How could he really explain this? Who would believe him? Not even him.
“You look like you have just seen a ghost.”
“May be she is a ghost. May be an angel or may be nothing. Maybe I didnt really see anything. Maybe its just my imagination and thoughts. Maybe.
When Richard had she, he pulled Haniel to himself and away from the presence of the other students. Thank God the others were in their usual state of perpetual argument concerning what football team in the European champions league played better in the last game. So they gave little or no attention to what Haniel and Richard were involved in.
In the dailies of yesterday, Avosehs Watch and The Brown Chronicle both reported a story of eight beautiful girls who were arrested by, first the parish priest of St. Attracters Catholic Church, Umarichi where the girls had gone to tempt the priest and his parishioners into sexual sins. The story says these girls were sent from the world below the earth and water, to inflict deadly diseases upon men who would take to their wives; diseases that are more dangerous than the globally acclaimed HIV and AIDS. The papers reported that some parts of Lagos state had been captured by these girls and it is by their map to invade the house of God and the faithful man of God that they travelled to Benue state in search of Fr. Ajuji Patrick-Chris, the priest with the awesome power of healing and casting out devils. When the girls were caught, they were handed over to the police. The Brown Chronicle titled the story, Beautiful Girls: Mobil House of Deadly Diseases.
The dailies of that day got to the library of Haniels school, and he, Richard and virtually all the students read it. Now that Haniel is saying to have seen she and is acting like someone sting by scorpion on the head, Richard recall the story of the yesterdays paper and was alarmed. What could have come over his friend?
“Who did you see Han? Where did you see her, and what does she look like?”
“I said my prayers this morning with my head on my mothers left lap, still feeling sleepy. But I asked in my prayers that God should bless this day for us both and make it fruitful. I prayed against the girls in the papers of yesterday.”
He said motionlessly and without looking at Richard. He continued, “But this morning in the hall, what I saw was not an illusion, and I know I was not dreaming; at least I am talking to you now.”
Richard could not believe his eyes and ears. He asked again. “Please tell me who she is. Let me know who she is.”
“I dont know her and have never seen her. But, God, she is beautiful and gentle and kind. ...”
“You just said you dont know her and now you are saying she is all this, looking as if you just got sad news?”
“Ok. She came into the hall after us this morning, smiling and looking like, Christ, like an angel. And she did fill the form too. After the whole exercise, I saw her talking to Comfort our class mate. She was ...”
“For christsake Han, calm down and be careful with your thoughts and whatever is going through you head right now. She could be anybody from the other department. You know, this is the first time in four years that students in all the faculties would be gathered together to perform a common task. She could be anything.”
Haniel could not bring himself to think of her being any other thing than the beauty he saw. She couldnt have been any other thing. How could she be something else other than a loving person who should be his girl, his wife, the mother of his children. He made Richard shared his thoughts.
“If only I could see her, I would ask her just one question: Be my wife, the mother of my children.”
Richard laughed until tears rolled down his cheek. He laughed and laughed and got himself a sit-on a trunk of tree close by. Finally he said.
“If only you could ask her the one question. Here you are planning to ask her two separate questions.”
“No its one question.”
“Be my wife and be the mother of my children are two different questions my friend.”
“But there is no way she could be my wife and not the mother of my children.”
“You are wrong Han. She can be your wife and not the mother of your children whom you have given names too even before they were born. No, even before you met their mother.”
Haniel had a jotter that accompanied him everywhere. In the jotter were all his thoughts as they come. There he has written the names he intended to give his children, six in number. His sister too developed this attitude of given the unborn names that they will bear. Their father did the same for them, but the sister chose to do so because her mother did not do what her father did. And she had developed this habit of fighting for the right of women, to do that which the world conceded to be solely for men.
What is good for the gander and the goose is also good for the gees
Haniel was still in his lost-mode and spoke with lazy speed. “Richard, you need to see her. I wonder why you did not see her even. She was ...”
“If I had seen her and she cast a spell on me like you, both of us could have been fighting over none existing being. Or maybe ...”
“No, she didnt cast a spell on me Richard. I fell for her charm, her beauty, smiles, and the attention she gave to other ...”
“But did not give to you.” Richard cut in.
“No, I did not go to her for her attention, I stood afar and watched.” Haniel said with a conviction that only comes when his mother promised to get him and Richard to attend the same institution abroad for their masters. It has been the only thing he asked his parents on his birthdays marking, to save the money meant for the cake so that Richard can attend the same school with him later.
Richard had known Haniel for the better part of their childhood. He had known how close he was to his parents and how important he is in the family, the last child and the only male child. His parents had told him how they met and encouraged him to look up his sleeve for possible reoccurrence of the yesterdays. Richard spoke now, more seriously.
“Look Han, am not saying you should not do what you had always been advised to do by your parents. Am not saying you should not fight to repeat the pleasant life your parents had and are still having. But you should also know that things dont always turn out the way we want them to. And your father too had said it times without number in my presence; that we should always make plans, make two plans in case the desired one fails to come by. That way we will not be surprised or socked when met with failure. Now that you have seen this girl, please let us just keep it cool until we meet Comfort and enquire about who that girl is.”
“And that would be next week Monday, right?”
“Right.” Richard answered with the tone of an elder brother who obviously knows more and better that the younger one.
Like a child who had been lured into accepting to do what it was asked to do but refused earlier, he said.
“I have never doubted my friendship to you. You are my brother that my mother did not give birth to. You are that guardian sent from above to watch and direct my steps. And you will be my best man if you help me get that girl to marry me.”
Richard laughed, saying between laughter, the danger of Haniel hurting himself if that girl turns to be someone or something else. But Haniel told him, love is like death, until you get involved in it you will never understand how it feels.
End of Chapter One
