THE VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCE

Some days are born great, while some days are monstrous. If I can think of anything or days worst ever in my life, some days in March, 2019, serve the worst.

Three hefty men on gray suit approached me as I came out of my house that morning, around 10 a.m. and surrounded me. Twisted my hand vigorously at my back, and clicked in a handcuff on my hands.

“Young man, you know what you did and how it happened.You have every right to remain silent for anything you say, will be used against you in the court of law. Now move it…”

My heart gave a slight kick on my ribs. I had no idea of what I did and nobody was in the house to ask these men of the offense I committed. My lips were heavy to utter any word. The only thing I could remember vividly was the chain of events during and after I was operated upon on Tuesday, March 13, 2019.In St. Steven hospital, by 5p.m.

On that day, I was given a Consent form to fill. A form that suggests in clear terms, that if on the course of the operation, anything happens that nobody will answer for it. In full grip of the pen, my heart throbbed and my fingers quivered as I filled and signed the form.

Few minutes later, two male nurses came in with a clinical thermometer and a green gown. After checking my temperature, one of them extended the green gown to me. I reeled of my cloth and changed to the gown that smelled of Paracetamol. Thereafter, I was matched to the theater which was about five yards walk from the ward I was. In full company of my brother Chinemerem who continued his sermon never to be afraid of anything that he too was operated upon before and nothing happened. Chineche, the eldest son and father were operated upon on the same hernia and nothing happened.

Immediately after working on the old man they operated upon, I was ushered into the theater. My brother slapped his hands on my shoulder and left to the Waiting Room. I matched into the theater, the smell of drugs greeted my nose. It was doctor Chima who was on houseman ship, a male and female nurse that ushered me into the theater bed. All in their green scrub.I was stripped naked, and shaved completely by the male nurse in the clear light of the room as I laid and sprawled out in the bed. Then Chima moved out to call the specialist doctor that everything was set.

“Gentlemen, we have less than twenty five minutes to be done with this,” he said, in a professional voice. He injected a Local Anesthesia in my groins and asked me how I feel at the spot as he pinched my body with the operating scissors at two different places.

“I feel pains one side and feel less pains on the other side,” I mumbled.

“Relax, it will be OK,” he said. They used a green curtain to separate my view and he immediately made an incision in my groins.

Suddenly, the light and the air condition caressing my body, suddenly flipped off. The whole place was thick dark. A little warmer.

“Oh… my God, they have taken the light yet again. Call the man in charge of the big generator to put it on. The doctor demanded, in a shrill voice. I could hear foot falls everywhere as they tried to put on the generator. At about fifteen minutes later, they finally put it on.

.

“Get me Polyester Mesh, nurse Nnena.” Dr. Ratzinger said after another fifteen minutes on the operation.

“Is not here sir, I thought I kept all of them here, she said as she rummaged on the box. I could hear the chiming of the bottled drugs on the box.”

“You thought, did I hear you say you though. I told you to get everything ready. You want me to commit murder Nnena?” He screamed. Chima had already sprang out to get it. Some minutes later he ran back to the theater.

 I could hear Ratzinger demonstrating to Chima on how he was not cutting and stitching things well. On what he would do to assuage bleeding. It was a serious lecture and the pains was graver. Then, Chima was finally done with the operation with the help of Ratzinger, the specialist.

I was laid on the wheelchair and was wheeled back to my ward. Two days later, I had to leave the hospital and travel back to my house in Nsukka, because the more you stay the more the bills spiked up. My elder brother, Chinemerem, had to go back to the clinic he was working a day after the operation. It was an emergency call.

It was a new park. And the buses, moderately new and white in color with stripes of thick dark color paint at the center. I examined the inside and lodged my bag at the front seat that supposed to carry two passengers and the driver. Apart from the old and dark woman at the rear seat, eating groundnut and flinging its pods through the window, nobody else was in the car.

I moved straight up to the counter to secure a ticket. Two young girls were seating behind the counter. One fair, and the other dark. The dark one was active in issuing the ticket and stashing the money in a box sitting next to her. An averagely tall and oversized ladywith two mischievous marks on his jaws. And her unsettled eyes that suggests she was troublesome.

“Excuse me young lady, I want a ticket. I am traveling to Nsukka.”

“Nsukka is nine hundred naira.” Her voice was sweet and calm. I gave her a thousand naira note. She deflected from collecting it and demanded that I rather give her a thousand and hundred naira so she could give me two hundred naira note as my balance. Then, I added a hundred naira note and collected my balance and my ticket. It was around 3p.m.

I moved back at my seat and sat for a while. Few customers were beginning to cluster, and a guy who was to seat beside me, approached me and I directed him to collect his ticket. When he came back, I told him to watch over my seat as I moved out to buy credit card. I carried my bag with me and moved up to the counter.

“Could you please lend me your charger so that I could charge my phone a little?” I demanded. My phone was red and one percent and I needed to make calls when I bought credit card to inform my mother that I was coming back.

“Sorry we don’t lend people charger here,” The dark lady replied. She was afraid I might travel with the charger without returning it after using it, like many people do these days, some don’t even have the time to beg, and they simply burgle it along with phone. I could read her thought from the mocking grin she fired to her neighbor.

“But if I buy a charger from the nearby shop, will you allow me to plug it at the park seat out?”

“Yes you can,” she replied.

I moved out, bought the charger and a credit card. I plugged the phone in one of the sockets there. While I manned the phone I could not stop thinking of the old woman who came to our house before I was operated upon. She was crying and throwing herself on the mud. She lost her phone in the chapel when she went to pray to her God. As she went out to ease herself, lo and behold, the phone vanished. She could not stop lamenting, she could not believe it. Even in the house of God?

As the phone was charging, I rummaged through my pocket and it was just a thousand naira that I had with me. Then I remembered that I was yet to write my name on the Manifest and people are beginning to fill the bus. It was remaining five passengers. The Manifest require; your destination, your number, your name, name of next of kin and the number of the next of kin. And I filled it.

I moved into the car, brought out the credit card to load, it refused. I tried it again and again it refused. But constantly saying the card has been used before. Then I searched for my tickets in my pockets because soon, the driver will be demanding for it. But the ticket was nowhere to be found.

“Please did you see my tickets here?” I asked the young man sitting behind me. He smiled and laughed wildly to me with her beaming eyes.

“I didn’t see anything,” he retorted.

“Please did you see my ticket here?” I asked the young man sitting next to me.

“No.”

“I can’t find my ticket o…,” I said to the two ladies in the counter.

“Look for it very well, you will still find it. Otherwise you will purchase another one,” this they said jokingly.

“No way. I wouldn’t do such. You know me and you know I was the second person that boarded this bus. When I came here, I gave you one thousand naira note and you requested I should rather give you one thousand, hundred naira so that you could balance me two hundred naira, which I did.”

“Yes…, we know all that, but you still have to secure another ticket. Or you can as well continue to search, you might find it,” she said sneering at me.

Like drama, I went back to the young man sitting next to me and explained my encounter with the two ladies and he agreed with them.

“You should find a way of getting the ticket for that is the only evidence to show that you truly boarded this bus,” he said calmly. The yellow looking young man at my back shifted from grinning to a vicious stare. I moved speedily to the shop where I bought the credit card, flipping my eyes everywhere on the ground that was littered with used nylons and pieces of papers and shredded old cloths. People were buzzing around and chattering and moving to their destinations. Cars and Lorries were speeding along the major roads with their blaring constant honing and puffing of gasses.

“Hello ma, I am searching for my ticket. I don’t know if you saw it anywhere around. And the one thousand naira credit card you gave me has been used.”

“Sorry my son…, I didn’t see any ticket here. Besides, it is just a little piece of paper that can’t be found unless by miracle, considering the pieces of papers littered everywhere here. As for the card I gave you, it has not been used by anybody, just make sure that someone else wasn’t watching you when you were loading the card. He or she may have crammed it and loaded it before you. Sorry my son, let me attend to my customers.”

I nodded accent to what she said and moved back to the park. I searched every place again, including places I had sat before going to my original seat at the front.

This was happening on March 15 at about 5 p.m. and it was remaining three person for the bus to get filled.I went back to the two ladies to inform them that I couldn’t find it.

“Go and sit down young man. Whether you find it or not, we know you, and we know you were the second person to be given ticket. When the driver demand for it, just tell him that we are aware,” The dark girl responded in a soft voice.

As I was matching down to enter my seat, I stumbled upon a small crumpled piece of paper along with other crumpled pieces of papers on the ground. But this one appeared to be new and looked like the ticket I was searching for. I unfolded it, glanced through it and saw No 2, and 15. I rejoiced with every conviction that it was the ticket I was looking for, having seen No 2 and I was precisely the second person that secured ticket. I had already turned to inform the ladies on the counter that I had found the ticket when the guy that was supposed to seat next to me told me that there was no need since they had given me assurance that with or without the ticket I will still travel with them. Then I yielded to his opinion, came back and sat on my seat.

Few minutes later, the bus was filled and ready to move. But one man was stuck outside howling and lamenting that he had no seat to sit and had equally paid for the ticket and written his name in the manifest. Then, both the driver and the two ladies came out and called everyone out from the bus. They began calling names from the manifest to fish out who didn’t have a ticket but sitting in the bus. Everyone came out with their tickets up in the air. The two girls picked interest in me yet again.

“Young man, by the way, where is the ticket you were rejoicing you found?” The dark girl demanded, revealing her yellow teeth.

I extended the creased small piece of paper to her. She put her glasses on, raised the small piece of paper in the air, very close to her eyes and examined it properly.

“But this is a ticket of 15 February, last month. It has been used. How do you explain this? She cried out. Her eyes peering through the smudged glasses.

She immediately ordered the man to enter the bus together with other passengers. When they moved inside the bus, I moved towards the counter to meet with them

“I saw 15th, and also the number 2, indicating that I was the second person on the ticket you gave me today. Besides, I didn’t take much time to check the month that was inscribed on it. Moreover, you were the person that told me to enter the bus, with or without the ticket. How come?” I asked, my heart beating so fast.

“How come what? Mr. Man look, go and find another bus somewhere or purchase another new ticket and wait for the next bus.”

The people in the bus were roiling in anger and muttering some words. I heard one of them saying, “This is how people steal people’s ticket!”

“Mr. Man, go and board another bus. You didn’t pay for your ticket and you want to travel? You want to steal another person’s seating position. Don’t let me call you a thief,” The dark girl snapped.

I left the park, crossed the main road and boarded another bus. The bus was painted red that was gradually peeling off. And was filled with old women, smelling of dried crayfish and stock fish. On the top of the bus were bunches of plantains and two spare tires.

Having traveled about twenty miles, my phone began to ring loudly, intruding on my flaring thoughts on what had transpired at the park.

“Thief…, thief…, where are you now? God will punish you. Bring back my…,” the voice echoed through the phone before my phone tripped off. It was a woman. Finally, I reached Nsukka at 7.30 p.m.

“A number called me severally today, that my brother, Nnachetam, stole her phone and laptop,” my eldest brother inquired.

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Chineche,” I replied and went straight to my bed to sleep. It was a hell of bumpy ride.

Five days later, after removing the bandage, that morning, the three hefty men, tugged me into a black Toyota Hillux written; Anti Robbery Squad.

“You stole an Apple phone and laptop from one Miss Ezeme’s bag, true or false? The detective asked, his eyes beaming with rage.

“I didn’t steal anybody’s phone or laptop. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“OK, firstly, you tried to use the ticket that has been used. Secondly, you weren’t found in that bus you wrote your name initially. And when you boarded another bus, you were called to return the phone you stole and you switched your phone off. How can you explain this things? Talk to me before I squeeze your manhood out,” he shouted, slamming his fists on the table.

“I didn’t steal anybody’s phone or laptop. Please hear me out,” I cried with balls of tears flooding my eyes.

They pushed me into the cell. The cell smelled of urine and dirt. Cobwebs recklessly hanging at the corners. No light either. I laid on bare floor. And mosquitoes feasted on my tender flesh.

In the morning, my mother came to the station, and I was brought out of the cell to meet with her.

“Nnachetam, my son, they said you stole someone’s phone and laptop. Did you?” She inquired, with clogs of tears streaming down her cheeks. As I was trying to explain that I was not in the car the incident happened, a young lady, ran into the station panting and shouting.

“Please sir, please officer. The man who stole my phone and laptop has been caught, he was caught while trying to steal an old woman’s purse who sells palm oil in Ogene Market. He was dragged to his house. And other things he stole from people were found. This young man is innocent.”

My mum looked at me and I looked at the detective who pushed me into the cell and the detective glared on the complainant. My mother grabbed my right hand and we ambled out of the station.