Fate Of All

They gathered over the twisting and jerking body and everyone was talking at the same time and no one was talking at the same time. They were worrying about saving the body that has nothing inside any more only reserves strength that is ebbing at light speed. Mrs. Eke sat where she was watching them and their commotion and confusions. Humans can be easily worked up and disturbed. Easily deceived and confused too. 

   “Was I that weak while with them?” she asked herself. At eighty-seven, that is the age she was eleven years ago when she died and she still counts that age as her age in Ghost World, that's how it's done. Humans are humans. If they possessed the ability they have in the spirit world like humans like to refer to it. They would not be worrying about that dead ignorant old woman Mrs. Okolo. If she knew how things are run here she is headed, she would not commit suicide just to punish her sons for not taking care of her as she put it. 

Well, from a human aspect, it’s obvious that the old idiot is smart beyond her age like humans also like to put it.

“How old was she five minutes ago she died?” She asked herself. She yawn from watching that live drama from human folks. She seems to have suddenly two months ago started picking interest in the affairs of man again. Since she left them eleven years ago, she had moved on like humans like to put it too. Moved on to where? Their thoughts and actions don’t impress her and there are ghost-time discoveries to be made in her new world now. She had immediately gone about learning everything that needed knowing when she landed new and from the look of things, she had acquired valuable lessons, from the mountain before her. From what she noted, having adequate knowledge of things can make someone an old member of a place, or a group courtesy of few knowledge in one's head and karma points. She had decided to give herself a break.

Without much to occupy her memories and time, she had turned to humans and their shows again, and to her assertion, she was not disappointed. They are still being humans, still ignorant of how things are done beyond their noses and to think that they never halt from poking those useless noses of theirs everywhere is amusing.

She laughed out loud when the woman she had been following for thirteen days now, reading her thoughts words and actions decided to go ahead with her plan of killing herself by camouflaging it as hit and run. Humans always run once it is in a public place they hit themselves for fear of losing their own life and car. If only they knew they were like golden fish to some other beings, they wouldn't bother plotting evil or running when it happens. Bearing such in mind after many attempts of some kind hearts that cared for her plight to prevent her from heading to lengthy term in spiritual prison where she would meet some that she knew that left her village thirty years ago. Some are still in prison curtailed from doing certain things free to free spirits in the spiritual world.

    Mrs. Okolo, her faith depends on her plans succeeding. It has only succeeded in round one which is enough to grant her benefit of doubt sentence. True to her plans, the driver of the Ford pickup truck that hit her slowed and seemed to lose her nerve and picked up speed in his escape. Had he stopped, Mrs. Okolo would have been the loser over there not as if she is playing any other being outside humans.

She had picked out their market day to die and Mrs. Eke had raised her wickedness to power ten for not only planning to disturb her sons unnecessarily but to spoil the day for the other market goers. Many, their other plans for the day depended on the money they hoped to raise from selling whatever they were hawking that day. 

   Her daughter Mrs. Ibe was finishing her morning chores in her husband's house, planning to go to the market to sell off the pears and African Star Apples he had plucked from her tree three days ago when three men from her kindred entered her compound.

 Eyeing them as they approached, she knew that something was amiss but couldn't just place her hand on what it was. She had been having that feeling since morning but refused to pause from her chores to give it a leeway to assimilate. Now, these people are here and the feelings are getting more intense and not clear. 

   “ha!, I hope that we are safe. This your visit on the market day morning is strange. What can I offer you?”

“Nothing. Worry not about that. We came as you have noticed its strangeness with strange news. Your mother was just hit by a hit-and-run driver and it’s very bad”

“Is she alive?”

“No. We have deposited her in the Morgue and came to inform you. Maybe you should contact your brothers in the city and make arrangements on what to do” 

She stared at a particular image only her saw in the sky for about two minutes before returning her attention to her visitors. 

“My Fathers, I thank you all for your help. I am grateful for everything. I will go to make the calls and let my brothers know. Thanks once again for your help”

The grapeving running round the town is that the old witch like some refer to the dead woman Mrs. Okolo is that, she was the one at fault. She did not look well before jumping onto the road. “It was as if she was trying to kill those two in that truck. I saw her standing there eyeing the truck approach” one woman quipped. 

Mrs. Eke was following all the noise in the village and laughing out loud when some hit the truth in their permutations while the majority fools override their truth with their nonsense stands. 

  “At times, they couldn’t stop surprising you with their guesses. Only that they get easily swayed from the right permutations, from their stand without much fight to hold on to their truth. Sympathy and empathy has their faults and these humans are full of them” She was smirking nonstop from all the noise going on in that village about the death of that unfortunate lady who chose the wrong drivers to actualize her plans. 

The driver of the truck had gone straight to the police station three towns away from the accident spot to report the incident. The officers had agreed to follow him back to the town to see the family after he expressed what he wanted done. “I am shaken beyond words. In my twenty years of driving, I have never killed a fowl let alone a human. I saw the old lady, I slowed and when our eyes met and locked, I assumed she saw me and heard the honking. I was surprised when I placed my foot on the throttle and she jumped onto the road. I can even swear she did that intentionally”

“ Those old ladies needs help crossing major roads and from your description, the old lady supposed to had help crossing the road but she was alone. It shouldn’t be so” the officer said.

Mrs. Eke laughed and was jolted upright as the driver reacted like the person who heard her laughter. She eyed him well, some of them posses that sagacity of being here and there at the same time. She intentionally let fly another crackle observing the driver and those with him inside the conference room in that station. But then there's no sign that they are hearing her. She gave the driver a high five for his observation and above all his intelligence in knowing to go to the officers to tell them what had happened. Only this talk alone, Mrs. Okolo has sentenced herself to fifteen years in prison. 

That evening around 5:30 pm, the dead woman’s three sons returned and were discussing how to go about the burial to save money from mortuary fees. When the officers entered their compound with two men on mufti and when they had finished introducing themselves, another set of meetings ensued. It lasted for another forty-five minutes at the end of the day, the driver through the help of the officers had what they charged them reduced to almost half. The morgue fee, the full church, and traditional burial requirements were met. They paid fifty percent and agreed to bring the remaining in two days time. Hands were shaken and officers departed. 

 Another high five from Mrs. Eke who smirked and did her calculations. Now, Mrs. Okolo added another five to fifteen which made it twenty behind bars and if the driver made true his two-day promise, it would be another ten which equals thirty in total. Had the driver run without returning, he would have been penciled fifteen in his karma. 

She smiled and turned to the sons who changed course from their cost-saving approach to all the requirements-met approach to the burial according to the culture and traditional rites. She was busy with her calculation, and after ten minutes when she raised her eyes from her jotter, the sons had about ten thousand as change. She snickered for long and shook her head and turned towards the direction Mrs. Okolo was awaiting her fate. She had hoped that her sons would spend those monies they were pinching any time she requested for money on the burial or people she had told about her conditions and treatment in the hands of her sons would go to work in the town nonsensing every move they made on the burial day.

Sitting in this room since morning she came there is getting to her already. She had not even been allowed to know how things were proceeding in her family. She sighed loudly shifting right to left from her chair and observing all passing before her.

   They even exercise here too she noted as she saw some in funny attires like the one those exercising in her village wears at times .

Mrs. Eke who was observing her shook her head in pity. If she knew that she was the loser in this game she started, and knew what awaited her, she would not be smirking on the exercise guys. She would be exercising even her eyes passed certain places for thirty years.