True Story: A Murky Coincidence!

It has been in my chest for half a decade now. It lingers on my heart freshly like a second ago experience. The harder I try to drive it out of me, the inertia becomes momentous. It was humiliating and it is time I let it out of my heart.

I felt a cold touch and woke up. I looked around and I couldn’t find any of my guys in the room. I believe they didn’t pass the night in our rented abode closer to school. I elevated my head a little and gazed at the clock. “What?”, I exclaimed. Within half a minute I prepared gari soakings with sugar. In the next lap of the minute, the gari was history. I drank the almost tasteless gari like a glutton in an eating contest.

I jammed my toiletries, clothes and whatchamacallit into Ghana-must-go bag and I was off on the street walk-running. I could hear the echoes of my footsteps as if I was trailed by a ghost. I couldn’t run because I was juggling with lot of things in my hands. The streets were silent as though the zillion noise-making insects were on strike. One could hear a pin drop.

I could see lights afar in the fashion of fireflies’ congregation. I became relieved a bit. My hopes were rising and rising until I could hear distinct voices as I approach school. “Gracious God!”, I sighed. I nearly miss the bus. Everyone was seated ready for the half-a-day journey.  I jumped on board and shoulder my way to the rearmost seat. 

There was exhilarating noise in the bus. Everyone was apparently happy to go to Cape Coast for the psychiatric affiliate programme. This programme will bring to finality the 3-year long hustle and bustle for Diploma in General Nursing.

Quite unusual of me, I was quiet. I had no reason to celebrate but one. I smiled to myself. I felt freedom in my mind through my heart. For me, we were finally free from the shackles of extortionist school authority. The authority had no speckle of shame to demand for moneybags from students in very bizarre circumstance.

The smile fades away for wrinkles. There was one thing that hovers around my mind. I settled all my bills with the school except my registration to sit for the nurses and midwives’ council licensing final examination. I was in pensive mood with lots of arithmetic criss-crossing my mind about how I was going to register myself as the deadline was a fortnight away. No slightest idea of how to get the money came to mind. My distant maternal uncle whom I depended on in pressing times was out of the country.

I had paltry money on me but I was not worried because that was day one of Ramadan. The Ramadan for me was a cedi saver. I knew I could survive with the little I had. My fasting served two purposes – supplication to God and austere management of my finances.

Midway to Cape Coast, I was afflicted with migraine headache – the pain was throbbing – I envisaged a griffin hitting my head with a mallet. The uncontrollable noise in the bus aggravated the pain. When we got to a bus stop point, I rushed down, bought frostbiting water and cold compressed my head. I felt inexplicable relieved. I grabbed two rubber-tied ice kenkey with bread and sank it into my tummy like the Hulk. Fasting broken! I could now focus on both distant and near objects clearly with maximum fineness.

At long last, we arrived when light was handing over to darkness. The ambience of Ankaful Psychiatric College was serene. We arranged for a decent cubicle for five of us. We were in Room 1 on the second floor of our affiliated hall. 

Days passed by and my mind was still troubled with my inability to register for the final examination. My moodiness and silence was atypical of the Confidences. Everyone noticed a missing sensation in a lively character in the clique.

The motivation to attend lectures was apparently missing. Each day whiles my buddies were in haste to dressed up for lectures I lay down in conscious oblivion. I shared the second top-level bed with Hudu, nicky, Abortion. I was always lying supinely to catch the attention of God. All the possible money-getting equations I worked in my head got me zilch. All the noughts-and-crosses I played never gave me tic-tac-toe.

I woke up one morning feeling excited to the amazement of my friends. “I have registered”, I disclosed to my roommates. I was part of the morning haste in preparation for lectures. My presence with the usual mannerism, Confidence fever, was now felt hugely. Noted for my gregariousness, I readily integrated with the system and was catching up with all the missed actions.

In two days’ time, I was returning from the lectures and I overheard my name in our cubicle. I paced closer to the door to eavesdrop the conversation. 
“Have you noticed that Confidence mood has changed”, asked Friend A. 
“Yes”, replied Hudu. 
“He told me he has registered now”, Friend A added. 
“When did you notice that your money was missing”, Friend B queried. 
“Just three days ago, I removed the money from my bag, counted it and kept it in the same place. I even took some money from it for the excursion trip to Kakum Park”, Hudu answered. 
“Was Confidence with us on the trip?”, Friend B asked curiously. 
“No”, Friend A replied.

The conversation went on and all accusing fingers were pointing at me. All circumstantial evidence were against me. I felt deeply hurt and perhaps remorse about the unwinding situation. I returned to the lecture hall and dozed off the pain. I woke up feeling otherworldly.

I returned to our cubicle and realised a new protocol of tighter security measures. The news of Hudu’s missing money was not news to me again. The theft was tactfully disclosed to me by one of our roommates. I received it with the greatest flippancy and snobbery.

In the few days to follow, I felt like Iran on sanctions under the United Nations. Almost everyone’s attitude changed sternly on me. I felt restrained. Close buddies who hitherto maintained strict respectable relationship with me began trampling on it. I felt like a bug in the system. I made a great deal out of rationalisation as applied in coping mechanism.

At a point, I felt obliged to bring clarity to the whole caboodle. But I knew such an attempt was tantamount to “P” trying to show it worth in “Psychology”. There was no need to make myself more vulnerable to mistreat from colleagues. The circumstance from all angles made me the prime of all suspicions – more or less a crime that was not bailable.

In the wake of all these niggling troubles, one of my roommates was rather pushing me too far. His acerbic tongue was cutting and hurting.  He was handling me like a kid until I lost my sanity to anger. We locked horns in a fierce fight. We broke everything breakable in the room – from drinking glasses to window louvres including the chair we fought over.

In the tussle of separating our intertwined arms afforded me a “free header”. As if I disowned my head, I thrust it backwards and catapulted it forward with my eyes tightly closed. It landed on my friend’s forehead with a bang that still echoes in my ears. I sensed sparkles of light diffusing haphazardly across my eyes. I imagined my brains hitting hard against the skull.  There was a splash of blood squirting noisily like an opened tap flowing under pressure. Some spectators who had rushed to watch the show down were carried away by the rippling current of blood.

I was wrestled out of the room by armoured men. I ran a quick check on myself. I was unhurt. I was surprised because that head-butt was a kamikaze. Yes, kamikaze – I know could be hurt too!

I was outside the room panting like a missed catch of the lioness. “Where is that Confidence?” a voiced asked impatiently. It was Hudu, the epicentre of the whole wahala. “You have hurt the guy. I swear, you won’t sleep in this room tonight”, he thundered angrily. I didn’t utter a word even though I looked at him as Goliath in my David’s shoes. That was anger’s deception. Hudu was not my match – he could beat me whiles squatting.

He stabbed me with the knife on my right breast. I was lying face-up. I had a giant nail in my hand and I drove it violently into his throat. I held his hand with the knife in my chest and bite it deeply into the bone. He pulled out the knife and I screamed. I woke up and realised that it was a nightmare following my ding-dong fight with one of my roommates.

I passed the night with the nextdoor cubicle. I returned to my cubicle the next day ready to kill or be killed. I stripped off all courtesies I have with everyone in the room and I was ready for the worst that could possibly happen. Obviously, I became the monster in the room. Everyone treated me as if I had a signpost on my forehead that reads “Temple Of Insanity”. The roommate I fought with had a deep laceration above the right eyebrow. I learnt it was sutured before dressing to prevent possible formation of keloid.

The status quo of my aggression remained the same the days afterwards. On a bus returning to Tamale, I had a flashback of how I got the money to pay for my registration. A week to close of registration, I was chatting with a friend Zanji Abdul-Karim Mohammed, I complained about my inability to register yet the deadline was inching closer. “Have you called Sule? Call him. I am sure he will get the money for you”, Zanji advised.

I dropped Zanji’s line and phoned my brother Sule Amadu. I requested for the money without hesitation. “Sorry”, he started, “I am very busy lately pursuing some deal but I will give the money to one of my boys to send to you tomorrow”, he added. “Tomorrow?”, I asked loudly. “Yes or is it urgent?”, he queried. “No”, I replied almost screaming like I have won a bet.

The next day before noon my brother called me and said the money was paid into my account. I rushed to town, withdrew the money and paid it into Zanji’s account. The registration in absentia was completed by Zanji for me.

That’s my story. Five years down the memory lane neither Zanji nor my brother is ever told this story of humiliation. But I feel oblige today to share the story with the world as a way of celebrating my brother’s birthday today. This story represents all that my heart ever yearns to tell him before, now and after. Bro, this is my present to you. Happy Birthday!

This year, when I had admission to into University of Ghana, Legon, he supported me to pay the fees too. It's simply clear that I can't pay him back.

Lest I forget, never judge people with circumstances they found themselves. Circumstantial evidence is not an exception to the inherent nuances of coincidence - give people the benefit of the doubt, even if you have a thousand reasons to believe and just one reason to doubt. They may be as innocent as a baby! As a matter of fact, the law believes it is better to release thousand guilty persons than to imprison one innocent person. 

PS: Experience they say is the best teacher but the fees it charges is too expensive. I will share with you how this experience helped me solved a theft case in a school I worked as a maths teacher and nurse.

Roommates: Alhassan M Awal, Abdulai Mohammed Naporo, Ali Baba Hudu, Abdul Nasir-Chelsea

This story will be expanded next year on his birthday.