ScHERlet Red

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Shadows of the Past

The sky was slightly overcast as he stared ahead through the windscreen of his car. The island before him –his destination, was without doubt the major commercial hub of the city with skyscrapers juxtaposed strikingly with brief sturdy structures. The buildings against the backdrop of sky and water made a picturesque skyline, an elaborate bar chart of some sort.
Alex noticed he had relapsed into a contemplative disposition. And it wasn’t even 7am yet! He still had a long day at work. Who got into such a mood so early in the day!

A significant number of the city’s inhabitants were asleep, but the bees were up and about, definitely. The island beyond was bathed in light, tiny and discrete bits like excited fireflies. “A land of fairies” Alex muttered wistfully. It would cost an arm to own even the littlest morsel of property there, but, by the heavens, he would!

Monday mornings were usually like Monday mornings. Quotidian in every sense; monotonous piles of work lined up and the “yes sir” one paid to bosses as dues. Not for Alex. Of course he yessir-ed his way through such days, but they weren’t boring. Not necessarily because he loved his job, but he consciously formed a habit of setting out of his home high-spirited, ready to tackle and surmount hurdles as they appear.
It was one of those days.

As one of the thousands who lived on the mainland of the metropolitan area but worked on the island of the mega city of Lagos, before the sun thought of yawning awake, Alex was off his bed, got done with his morning ceremonies, and made sure 6:30am met him well on his way to work. With him, it was never the popular dreadful-Monday-morning out of the house approach. It had to be the I’ve-got-my-sling-shotout of the house approach. After all, he never was one to back down from his goliaths.

Hardly had he spent a quarter-hour on the road that the jarring incidence occurred. One that made him realize some things are filed under life’s miscellaneous; they aren’t prepared for or planned. They just happen.
As he decelerated and joined the cars stopped by the red traffic light far ahead, he noticed a woman on the sidewalk across, two lanes away. The lanes were busy with hurtling cars. She looked slightly unkempt.

It all played out in his mind now, slowly.
Her bloodshot eyes looked straight ahead, not left or right, before she strutted almost zombie-like across the road. The traffic light turned green then and cars on his lane began edging forward slowly, affording him ample time to take in gory details he wished he had missed. It all happened in very few seconds.He must have blinked,because the next thing he knew, the woman was airborne, flung by a speeding car. She hit the pavement with a dull thud, nearly inaudible, as cars screeched and honked past. Blood spurted from a gash on her head as she lay sprawled in an impossible position on the ground. Her dirty multi-patterned wrapper had come loose, revealing a black undergarment.
Alex snatched his face away. His lane was now free, the vehicle before him was long gone and the cars behind were honking angrily already. He stepped down on the accelerator and sped away, trying hard to clear his mind. The image of the lifeless woman against the roadside disturbed him. He had seen more gruesome accidents, but there was a specific quality to this one. It reminded him of things he thought or hoped he had forgotten –memories buried deep within his psyche.

As he drove slowly on the lengthy band of linking platform between the mainland and the island, and finally came to a brief stop, meeting his second gridlock of the morning. He stared out at the water body and for a brief moment his eyes traced the connecting line of the cloudy sky and murky waters. It somehow reminded him of his life. He remembered that as a child, he’d wonder why the waters in the movies always had a deliciously blue or green tinge, while the one here was brownish, dirty, and unpleasant to look at, littered with dirty boats and ugly waterweeds.

Just like his childhood.
He smiled ruefully.
He usually wasn’t a brooding soul. Well, he hadn’t been for some years now. But his day just got messed up by that lone isolated incidence. Memories he had tried hard to bury surfaced, voices he’d grown deaf to screamed loudly. His resolve to overcome any challenge the day posed was threatened.
He remembered his childhood.
His father was a very strict man, one who staunchly believed in severe punishments for any wrong done by his children. It was justice. He saw the proverbial rod of correction as a machine –it made work easier and faster.

But that wasn’t the problem.
Although his father’s strictness bordered on cruelty, it might have just been bearable if he didn’t beat his wife almost as much as he beat his kids. It was something Alex never understood.
There was this day he returned from an errand and was welcomed by the loud angry voices of his parents, arguing as usual. The row progressed into their regular marital fisticuffs which entailed his father doing the heavy weight punching and his mom screaming in pain. He heard a dull thud and the caterwauling stopped abruptly. The ensuing silence was disturbing. He was scared. He wanted to tell his mom he couldn’t get the desired item from the store so he peeped into his parents’ room.

Then he saw her.
He saw his mom slumped on the floor. Her bloodshot eyes stared at him blankly, unseeing, blood gushing out of the side of her head, her multi-patterned pleated skirt riding high on her thigh revealing a black undergarment.

Alex clenched his jaw, gritting his teeth and looked ahead. The road would soon be clear. He sidled up to the car in front and made a deliberate effort to recall items of his to-do list for the day. He didn’t need such memories. He had decided long ago not to dwell on them. They were long gone, forgotten, shadows of a distant past–that had no business staining the horizon beyond with their black squelchy tentacles.

So he took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and glanced at his wristwatch. It was a gift from a dear friend for his birthday some days back. He decided that he wasn’t going to allow stupid emotions becloud his good nature, or affect his reason. He needed every bit of his wit about him if he was to make a successful presentation at the office. As he reached the end of the bridge, he employed a ritual he learnt in recent years –one that worked wonders; he muttered as he drove, speaking to his day, telling it to be good and fruitful. He thought of his most recent conquest –his promotion at his workplace, which came with the car. He smiled and almost whooped. The presentation was going to be great!
He glanced furtively at the vehicle at his right; just to be sure no one was looking at him. He chortled. It would be nothing unusual to be thought mad –the city itself was a mad place.

By David Okolie [D.Wordheart]

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