UNBELIEVING BELIEVERS4

-Dedicated to the People of Southern  Kaduna, Nigeria.

EPISODE 4

"No, there was no curfew Kanbul!"

"Mama, I said there was, or was I dreaming?" Kanbul answered in a blip of confusion as his mother's grip on him weakened with every drop of her tears now fast falling in torrents. "I still passed across Godogodo, Kachia  with some restrain
ts earlier this morning. Yes, there was!"

With an unyielding feel of impending doom realized far down Southern Kaduna in his father, Kanbul smashed his rugged phone on the ground while his mother who was lying down had quickly pieced everything together. She wouldn't stop dialing her husband's dead number with believe that he was still alive. But the computer kept telling her all sorts but short of saying that the owner of the number was dead.


"Was it not enough to call a curfew on Christmas Eve? Was it not?" Kanbul had started lamenting tearfully to the gathering symphatizers.

"You'd think someone in power was against Christmas service. Kai!" A female symphatizer responded. "But on the other hand, you'd think they wanted to protect lives by acting ahead of time on some security informations."

"But they acted on nothing!" Kanbul vented. "The curfew was all subterfuge, and I'm going to show somebody that I'm a lawyer. If not for unemployment in this country, what would I be doing with nails and hammer?"

"You know this may be one of those ethnic clashes, maybe government was misinformed." A male symphatizer added consolably while trying to dial a number.

"Misinfo-what!" Kanbul blurted out, grossly enraged for a response he judged as unflattering. "And they kept my own father besieged for hours in the name of a curfew! Till he had no faint idea he was actually being ambushed for the slaughter?"

"Hours!" The female symphatizer exclaimed. "But how come a responsible government called for curfew and left the Christian majority to be plundered for hours by blood thirsty extremist sect on a day some government officials were supposed to be on guard?"

"Yey! Yey! Yey! The male symphatizer on the phone call a while ago cried out and fainted helplessly upon reports received that he had just lost his entire family in the same attack.


Before long the news of flames in southern kaduna has roiled  the camp and the nation. The more it confirmed their fears before Apostle Jarafi called Kanbul and confirmed Kaninkon kingdom among others is razed, that Papa Doya was burnt to bare bones as their penthouse to ashes by the time he got there.

"No! His burnt bones will live again!" Mamza had started declaring life repeatedly. First to no surprise to Kanbul. His mother had always believed in resurrection since her prayers four years back had risen up their eight hours dead dog and so confirmed by a vet doctor. But Kanbul would have none of that, he had always explained the miracle away for hypnotism despite rumors that the dog had died from lethal poisoning in their hate neighborhood.

"There's still balm in Gilead! My husband bones receive flesh and breath of life right now!" She kept on professing, beckoning her tearful Kanbul to believe for once and join her in prayers but he took her for being fresh in anger and denial. Instead, he gregariously  joined others attending to their griefs by also consoling his mother.


Up till midnight, Mazma sat outside on the sand scuffled, inconsolable and weak. It was now Christmas Day but not a silent night for her and everyone hurt deep to the marrow from the far distance communal hatch.

By dawn, it had dawned on her she had just been widowed perilously at 50. Her resilience was subsumed somewhere between grief and acceptance, all her plans to sing and preach today had been squashed.

For the wailing Kanbul, it was also a Christmas day, but the bells weren't jingling. Maybe joyous for some people but sad for many a man as he was. It appeared to him just like the very first Christmas ever; some hailing the new born King, some wailing on the sword of King Herod for their slaughtered sons. He peeked outside through a hole marked in his mother's patched shack and took a morning look at the big decorated Christmas tree. The fluttering red ribbons lapped over the green decors looked all like freshly splashed blood on some peaceful green grasses. He gazed up the sky and wished the white snow of Christmas would hail and wash them away but the raging gust of dust of harmattan failed to convince him beyond the cold freezing his heart.

A few moment ago, Mother had surprisingly given him a reason to thank God: how only God had narrowly made him escape death by the whiskers. How that she would have been otherwise left alive alone for dead and her whole generation would have been wiped out like the male symphatizer!

And for once, he indeed realized how he would have been easily overpowered in the penthouse with anger being all the weapons he had to fight with. Sure, he would give the thanks, but not in a hurry. He has scores to settle with God but would start with the government on earth first.

"So, yesterday was the last time I would see Doya Penthouse!" A million thoughts flipped his mind. Then the thought of Ewaloju, his new girlfriend. Her surprise Christmas gifts and his belongings are all burnt. Though he had been doing all he could to get in touch with her; explain to her why their first date won't hold as planned but she hadn't pick up his calls, not replying his messages but he was certain she must be in the know of the attack. She was all new in his life, he knew no one else with her that he could call. Then, fear suddenly gripped him, "Could Ewaloju too have been hurt, or even-"

Just then, his heart almost stopped that for once he could hear the Christmas service already started in the camp. At least he was sure no one would dare ever tempt him to go over to church, not even a Christmas angel. Then he heard footfalls of someone approaching. In order to avoid hitting someone in the face, he decided to take a walk. After all, he was fast getting tired of being consoled.

Alone with his torments of thoughts, at the foot of a molehill where no one would sight him, a phone call finally found him. Presuming it was from Ewaloju, he picked up before the first ring only for the caller to turn out to be his father's drinking partner in the neighborhood, Ashenzi. He'd called to register his condolence. Kanbul was shocked how an unrepentant drunkard like him - who advised his father to sell their highly priced dog for two bottles of beer - was spared and not his newly converted father.

"Why Lord?" He yelled to the sky after the call. "I knew it. It's been long coming, I knew the evil days weren't all gone! All I have feared has happened, what next? What! Bring it on!" He screamed in a burst and then went sober moments after. "But this one in particular is my fault, Pa'a Doya, he wanted to follow me here but I insisted, in my stubbornness  that he stayed back! And see now! What kind of a person am I Lord!" He lamented vehemently, switched off his phone and dissolved into a flood of tears.

By noon, he was fagged out and dozing, he had fallen side way with his peeping head now seeing the camp from afar. Incredibly, missionaries have brought solace to the troubled camp. There were Christmas gifts, cooked food and foodstuffs but he could tell there was something much more than he brought yesterday. It endeared him how some of the visitors appeared they would be staying back with them for a while as new tents were being raised. "So, this is what Mother does to the broken-hearted in and out of Christmases!"

As he decided to duck back, he noticed someone had sighted him from afar but didn't look like a soldier or camp guard. Then he jumped to his feet, decided to go back but would snub whoever this was. Not again would he be goaded by anyone saying it wasn't a religious attack. As he approached the blurred hijab diminutive figure, it cleared out to be Yersinar. His first camp friend met yesterday. She was holding two sealed packs of big chicken thighs and breasts.

"Been looking for you. See Chickens! I collected for me and you too but, I just couldn't eat"

"Why?" He bluffed but the little girl could read the feign in his voice. "You told me it's been almost a year you last ate chicken, so why haven't you ?"

"Because I heard about what happened to you. Sorry Mr Kanbul! Sorry."

That would be the first condolence shot that would warm his cold heart. And it was from an unbeliever.

"Yersinar, you wouldn't know how it feels!"

"I know exactly how it feels, I have lost my father too in one of the terrorist attack in Chibok."

"What? You! Thought you told me you lost your mother?"

"I have lost both"

                         ***

To be continued next week Friday 5pm.

This is a work of fiction, all Characters, names and incidences similar to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
All correspondence to: graphitorialccfmckeffi@yahoo.com
Follow us every Friday 5pm and share at will, without alterations.
All rights reserved.