The Knell I shall die tomorrow. At 5:30am. on the morrow I shall stand on the podium of death with a noose hugging my neck like a lover’s embrace. The signal shall be given and I shall dangle, swinging between the earth and sky. I can not hope for mercy to be spared the final quietus – the noose shall do its work and I shall be stilled. The night is half spent. The other half only speeds along to bring death with the rise of the sun. It is a cold night. As cold as death I guess. Through the bars of my cell I can see the sky – dark and friendless. A pinpoint of light can be seen here and there – faint, starry flickers in a moody sky-more light than there is in my heart right now. As I said, I am in my cell. Alone with my thoughts – my mind groping in the dark labyrinth of the past wondering how quickly events in life can skid to such a slippery end. And what was my crime? I loved. And for that love, this flame in me, called life must be snuffed out. She was a girl of twenty – two and I, a lad of twenty-four. We had met at a friend’s birthday party. It happened that we were the only ones not dancing, when the call came for all to grace the stage with nimble feet. I caught the form in glimpses as the dancers shuffled back and forth across the floor. She was beautiful. The way she held her chin on her palm; the way she smiled at a female friend on the dance floor who was coaxing her to join in; ebony black hair, two neat rows of white, well formed teeth; a pair of eyes that held the pulse of kind heart…… I was smitten. What was more natural than for a young man to seek the company of such a damsel. I navigated my way across the sea of dancers, the sparkles in her eyes like lighthouses urging me on. I finally got to her shores. Her name was Cynthia. And true to her name, she was as lovely as the moon goddess herself and I dare say that even the moon goddess would have paled by her that night. Such beauty it was my honour to meet that night – that night when my guardian angel in a wager with The Fates threw a dice on my life and lost. She had come to the party with a girl friend. She was as intelligent as she was beautiful. She glided from one subject to another with the easy grace of a ballerina. When we parted that night, it was with a promise to meet each other at a restaurant the next day. How I wished I never kept that date. How I wished Heaven had contrived a scheme to keep me away from her. But the last restraining thread was broken – the charm was wound up. Grim-faced, the terrible sisters – The Fates – led me resolutely on. II The night in brief bubbles burst into a web of inky mist. The herald of the morning will be some while in coming. My heart is numb within me, its chambers filled with quiet longings. For now the night reigns – dark like my mood, cold like my heart. We met at the restaurant as arranged. Two hours and a few bottles of soft drinks later and we were better acquainted. She was in her third year in the university. I was in my final year – though at a different school. She was witty; her judgment of people and issues was incisive. And best of all she was single and available. We met regularly at various times and what started of as hot coal burst into flame. I was certain that I loved her. I was also that she loved me too. I had considered myself the luckiest male biped walking the earth. How wrong I was – how terribly wrong. I can hear crow of a cock in the distance. Another answer from the opposite distance. To think those two sentinels of dawn will still be alive the same time tomorrow, when I would have fed to the cold earth bleeds my heart. She had told me she loved me – that when she is with me it is a blessed experience and when I am not there, her sweetest memory. She had overwhelmed me with those little nothings that mean so much; those trivial niceties that never satiates but tickle the heart to more longing. She had loved me, I thought, with all the passion that Heaven could give to a woman and with a desire so fiery- furnaced that it would have scorched the flames of Hell. How I had luxuriated in the Elysian field of such a love. How I had basked in the warmth of her affection. How I had wondered at her eyes – clear, sparkling and the powers within them that could arouse such passion in man. The Italians have a word for it; Jettatura – the eyes that transfix. And indeed I was transfixed – bound to a desire that I could not stir or look away from; fixed to a dream that I had no inkling could suddenly turn into a nightmare. Sweet treachery – lying goddess; blood sucking voluptuary who would not let go until my very soul was bled. In the darkness of my cell, I curse your name and utter a prayer for help for whoever you have found prey again. III They say that at the point of death, a man’s entire life flashes past, before him. I hope that when that memory confronts me I shall see some good in my life that would comfort me as I go down those walls wet with the slime of age – those wall that frame the blurred boundaries of the grave. I can hear the stirring of the prisoners in the next cell. The snoring of one of the inmates reached my ears. Sleep on my dear brother, sleep on, for this night I cannot sleep. I must count the hours as they go by on my fingers. I must stand watch tonight and flood my grief with a rain of tears and wait to see for the very last time the blink of sun rise. But soon the inevitable noose will hug my neck and make this ache inside me cease. And sleep – eternal and I hope peaceful, would be mine. IV We had a rendezvous fixed. It was a month after our first meeting. It was at the city park – all private and romantic. I had the intention of asking her to marry me. I had a ring with a stone atop, safe in breast pocket. The stars were particularly bright that night in their procession through the sky. There was a crescent moon that like curved lips seemed to be smiling down on us. There was no ripple of discord in the air, no hint that my life was about to be changed forever. The gentle evening breeze in the trees of the park and the subdued shade of the variegated light bulbs around gave our surrounding the temper of the habitation of a nymph. All was fine and dreamy until I took her in my arms. A form came out of the shadows and made towards us. At first, I mistook it for someone else who also came with a date to the park. But as he approached even closer, I turned to see. He lunged at both us and we both went sprawling on the grass-padded earth. We came back to our feet to see a man who was fuming with rage. I turned briefly to look at Cynthia; to make sure she was okay, only to see a curious mixture of fear and surprise on her face. A suppressed shriek escapes her throat. The questions and dialogue that followed are still hazy in my mind as they were that night. But the summary was this – this man whose face was set in fury, whose look was as menacing as a Panther just ready to strike, was Cynthia’s husband. The air was suddenly charged with silence. A battery of questions in a flurry winged back and forth in my mind. I looked at my beloved’s face for answers the expression I saw there did not raise my hope that there has been a mix up somehow. The angry man lunged towards her and smacked her across the face. Instinctively I held on to him and flung him off. He rammed his fist into my mid-section. I buckled over. He pounced on her again and unleashed his venom. I grabbed metal rod lying around and hit him with anger and viciousness on the back of the head. He went limp and stretched out on the ground. Initially I did not know what I had done but when he did not stir at all, I felt for a pulse – and got none. A numbing fear descended on me. The sky which hitherto was romantic was now like a great abyss with the foundation agape. I swooned. Cynthia moved away from me. I tried to hold on to her but she recoiled from me as if I was some hateful Ogre. Her scream pierced the turbid night. I heard the sound of running feet. What a picture I must painted before their eyes; the front of my shirt, red with blood and the death weapon in my hand. I dropped it. Strong hands gripped and bore me away. The sequence of events was lost to me. I ended up in the precinct of the law where in the course of investigation I discovered that Cynthia had been married to the dead man for two years. She had travelled down from Port-Harcourt to Benin to stay with a friend because her husband had gone off-shore on official assignment with an Oil Firm. He had gotten wind of what was happening somehow and had come to Benin to find out things for himself – and he had caught her in the act. Things were bad enough as they stood but what damned the whole thing was that the love my life denied that she was involved in a serious relationship with me. She said we were mere acquaintances, keeping each other company by taking a stroll in a park. Whether they believed her or not was immaterial to me. What pricked me with unending agony was the betrayal of my love for her and the falsehood of all the protestations of regard she had made to me. Earth has no greater torture. Than the agony of love betrayed I have killed a man in defense of the one I love and there she was denying the affection we had both shared in the past one month. Who would plead my case in this world – who would dare to dare in the next. The case was charged to court. And of course I was found guilty. The sentence fell, and with it my world – “to hang by the neck until you are dead” were the words of the judge. And Cynthia? She went scot-free I was the villain. Not her She killed no one. I did. But by all that is true, she was the murderer. She who could take the honour of a husband and cast it to the mud. She who killed the very soul of a man who she was eternally joined to by marriage. For I dare say, that when he saw her in my arms, he must have died a thousand deaths – the blow I struck merely put him out of his misery. In my innocence, I had been beguiled. I never knew she was married. She never told me. All I ever had were good intentions. But I have heard it said by a friend (I can’t remember who now) that the road to Hell is usually paved by good intentions. Foul fiend of a woman who had ended my life though it was just beginning. Beautiful devil that beguiled me to clutch at the fruit though a serpent laid within to sting. Those cocks are crowing again – this time more insistently. It must be near dawn now. Can The Fates not find it in them to spare me? Cleo, would you not weave at the loom afresh? Lachesis, would you not tip the balance in my favour? Atropos, must my silver cord feel the keenness of your shears? Must I make this final journey, Fate sisters, being so innocently deceived? Time passes. Now I can see the first pale pricklings of the herald of dawn. The eastern sky has a thin ream of light at its horizon – the sun god himself has come to bid me farewell. My heart stampedes at the anticipation – its aches and how I wish that the ache would kill me to spare me the gruesome torture of the hang man’s rope. Time passes. Twilight has descended. The shadow of the night recedes farther away from the birth of day. I could hear the sound of some activity coming from the far part of the prison yard. Then I heard it! Your unmistakable sound of walking feet down the passage way to my cell. The footsteps came down the walk unhesitantly towards my cell door – then stopped just in front of it. I muttered a prayer to God for mercy. The click of metal against metal reached my ears as he turned the key in the lock and door swung open. They had come for me.
Copyright © 2003 Eyitemi Egwuenu |