So I had my body hang on the
frame-like seat. The driver was more of a mechanic than a driver; half man,
half grease. His carcass kept dragging itself upward to see pot-holes along the
road-like mass that lay ahead of US. As the scrap picked up speed, I could
barely hear myself. It was a case of ferrum fracat contra fero; iron rubbing
against iron.
Suddenly, the door against which
my body leaned flung itself open. My almost-closing eyes flew into rage and the
next gallop had me clinging to the door for a piece of life. Sweat
disconfigured my idea of a cold evening, as my bulgy eyes stared at the fleeing
ground just beneath my right foot. To my shock, the driver simply screamed,
“close am now”, and kept the scrap at a steadily fast pace. I could barely talk
but I know my heart flipped through the Bible towards Psalm 80 verse 3.
As I dragged myself back inside
the racing scrap, the passenger beside me simply adjusted her stool to
accommodate mine, then, she looked away. My intention was to demand to be
dropped. The GPS on my I-pad simply smiled back at me in an
“are-you-kidding-me” manner. Then, I understood that this area had no place on
a map of the earth.
The time clocked 8pm and my
heart skipped about 12 beats when I realised that the driver was fumbling for a
torch light! He finally found one, flashed it with his left hand, hung it out
and that, my brothers and sisters, served as the only available headlamp for
his 4-wheel drive. Then I knew that I was in love with God, as I began praying
in my heart: there was no time for friendly and romantic tongues.
But, all that seemed to me like
a fluke! At the next gallop, the driver lost grip of his “headlamp”, and I
screamed alone in the darkness. The other passengers calmly conversed in a
dialect that sounded like drumbeats. Then my eyes caught a faint glimpse of
leaves. My ears had been sealed by the permanent love-making sound of pieces of
iron. Then I discovered that the cobbler that fastened this piece of metal
together had used the brake pads to fix shoe soles for a hurrying bridesmaid.
The tree ahead refused to move even as the driver motioned on it to. Oh, it
finally did move: the scrap ran into it and silence covered the earth around. I
smelt blood, hoping it wasn’t mine…
No comments:
Post a Comment