Where Heaven Lift People From

 He couldn’t pinpoint when the turning point happened in his life, how could he? it had been about eight years and never gradual since that incident that took him inside the state detention center and made that center the turning center of his life.

He had been what some refer to here as Journey Johnny Worker. Phrase attached to those people that sleep and wake up, eat and left the house for work that has no particular base or form. Everything goes kind of people with everything goes kind of skill needed for all manner of works people look down on. Talking of any craft work, they know 65.5 percent and all comes from years of observation and experience accumulated from following those in the know for almost nonexistent pay. But knowledge always pays dividends as usual later Just like well that never runs out of water.

The pickup bus stopped and journey men rushed from all direction towards it but the man at the passenger seat has his ways of doing things. “How can we help you sir?” was blaring like radio it’s volume knobs has problems and needed little touching. 

 “ Clear from my sight, I have customers” the crowd reluctantly give way and the man scammed the whole arena where journey workers sits waiting for any thing to fall. He pointed at six people not among the rushers and Emma and five others was among those pointed.

 “ You said you had all the required tools?”

“Sure it is here” one among them answered for all. “It remained to do the estimate”

“ hoop in then I don’t have all day”

On getting to the building plumbing work is required, they sighted about fifteen people circled there talking at the same time. On getting down to know what is the cause of the crowd, they saw a man laying on the pool of his  

Blood. “What happened?” the man on the passenger side Emma later learned is the caretaker of the two storey building they were to plumb asked. Almost all started explaining at the same time and then another brand of commotion started from their behind.

On that particular Wednesday morning, Emma and others later learnt at the station what exactly happened to the dead man. He was working as a cement mixer in the same building Emma and others were to plumb. The lady that sell food there were at times not paid for days by the workers claiming that their boss is yet to pay them. “ You will get your money by Friday” was the familiar line the woman was tired of hearing. That morning, the cement mixer had eaten as usual and rendered his familiar line of Friday but the woman had other ideas, “ how do you think we buy the food stuffs, do you think the sellers supply us to pay on Friday?- please, I need my money now” the mixer had thought she was joking until she grabbed his shirt and insisted on being paid. After hot words were exchanged, the lady left and returned with three touts entered the mixer without asking questions. Clubs and jack knife after three minutes, the mixer was left on his pool of blood. The woman and the touts were nowhere to be found. 

The officers sneaked in and started picking the crowd out from the behind and they found themselves in the station from there to detention house around 12midnight. 

After showering and uniform given to each, they divided them into two sets each and moved them to rooms and it was almost 1am in the morning when he and one man entered into C-01 room. When that thick gate was rattled and the noise that followed its opening, Emma knew that regaining freedom needs special approach. About eighteen people were all laying on a thin mattress that serve as their beds. 

 none seems to be surprised when they entered there. One raised his head from the tiny foam that serve as his bed and said in a mocking voice “ Welcome to Buckingham” and went back to sleep almost immediately.

Emma found himself in a detention house without anyone knowing where he is. Acts you see with kidnappers were what officers subjected them to. They were kidnapped in real sense of it only because it is a legal kind of ransom that was asked subtly without contacting any family member.

 Months later Emma could not pinpoint exactly where and when something shifted in his psych. Was it during his morning prayer sessions or at the sound of that thick gate that opened not less than ten times throughout his nine-month stay in there? That change must have been a tsunami-like one for it leapfrogged over others in his life on the queue to take the first position. 

  “Your name is Emma, and you Anthony, right?” that was from the room leader a man of about sixty his voice sounds as if all hope had drained from it. They both nodded their head in reply. After the ritual of familiarizing themselves with the old members, he gave them a duty to be done each morning and evening and read the dos and don’t of the room and daily duties.

    From ten they observe semi-light out by switching off the TV and one big light from the room that looked to Emma as if it's ceiling or what looked like it was two stories away from where they were. Whoever came out with that design thought well and had the interest of radicals in mind. No escape no matter how strong you might be. Samson with all his strength can not in the name of Jehovah pull any pillar down in that center. They were all in the class of their own. So high and so solid.

The regulation was that one person must be awake doing night duty as they call it there while others are asleep, you are to walk up and down observing others sleep while CCTV observes both of you. Emma had deduced well and knew that the only way to freedom there was through prayers or he will end up in prison for the death of a man he has never seen before let alone touch in his life. He tackled the situation like a wounded lion. During his night duty, he never wastes time monitoring people that have no intention or heart of committing suicide. He uses it to pray and never stopped until he is through and it always take the better of three to four hours to tell God everything.

 It became part of him that he realizes one morning into his third month that he somehow knew when the prosecutors will come for him and got ready before his name was called. He seems to have suddenly developed an anchor to guide his decisions making and methods of arriving at correct answers in all areas if his life within three months only. 

When he got the day right on two occasions, his fellow inmates and room leaders started seeing him as something else. Pagans, Christians, and those in between came to view him as possessing special powers that needed consulting for personal important issues. Like Joseph in the Bible, some Christians likened him to while to pagans, he needed to tell them when where he acquired that ability.

    Everything has requirements, meet them and you suddenly have requirements too.

 “I will pay anything for such powers one said to him one day while smirking”

“why haven’t you paid with your time since six months you had been here?”

“ Time?- is that all?- Do you think I can't keep awake murmuring to myself like you do each morning if that is all it takes? Ha! Just tell me what to say or invoke to make things happen, then observe me in action”

“ What to say is all written in that holy book there and your others in your headaches. What do you think I say each morning since you observe me as you claimed”

“write all down for me or point them out in the book and I will wash my hands before touching the holy book. God for sure will recognize that gesture before hearing me murmuring”

“ Sure. Pointing it out won't be a headache even if it’s, I will still open that door for you. You are far from reality”  

Fear that gripped him on day one has been replaced by optimism he knew not where it came from or when.

He just knew that he was sent in there to imbue him with knowledge and strength he never knew existed in him since he came to this planet.  

Then one day, during his prayer sessions, he was alerted as usual about the coming of the prosecutors and he got ready waiting for them but, they never showed up. He never lost faith in his prayers and sightings. Whether the officers observing from CCTV were playing games by telling his visitors to go home and come next week or he saw fake or saw two weeks ahead, he never put it to thought.

   On the ninth month, he was called into the office of their room officer and told that he was heading home. He had prepared for another query after seeing the same signs. “God is great” was what dropped out of his mouth.

No goodbye to the many friends he has accumulated in there, no goodbye to the presence of God he believed with all honesty that resides in that room. He even felt some kind of sadness for leaving.

   The six plumbers arrested with him were already waiting when he rejoined them in the outer office where they were signing release forms. The way they were eyeing him made him wonder. “What the problem was, do you serve this detention sentence with us or were you assigned to the kitchen?”

“ Ah!, let us give thanks and praises to the supreme God who made us see each other again. Some are years in there before we came and still yet to see any light at the end of the tunnel that doesn’t exist in their hope. I am free, and so are you all”

They were still eyeing him and all the changes both in speech, demeanor and weight that is too pronounced to miss. He saw changes in them too.

  “Worrying never solved anything. Put your trust in God and he never disappoints. He has broken all the bondages in our lives both physical and spiritual. Just wait and see them all manifest in our lives from today”

  None replied Amen to that prayer.

They were all eyeing him, wondering if there is a pastoral school in some wings of the detention house he was in.