Deaths in the Water

I'm staring at Chai's mother now, and I can see how deep her pain is. Nobody saw it coming. Chai was a strong dude. He has always been since we were in school.

Don't get me wrong. It happens to the strong and weak but...aren't there some persons you just know it won't happen to? Well, for me Chai was one of them.

We agreed we won't be staying long because we all had work to do. I had suggested a different place but nobody listened. My opinions were seen as childish. Before anger flared up, some people apologized and just pleaded with me to agree.

Who was I in the midst of ten people to be contradictory? I kept mute and we went along. Now looking at Chai's mother, his siblings and even his father who is trying to look calm about his grief, I feel so angry I didn't insist even amid ten people. 

What the hell. They were my age mates, but I was just a chicken. I have always been a chicken.

When Henry constantly bullied his junior Sam, I turned my face as a chicken would and allowed it to continue. Not until the school authority handled it, did he get his freedom.

You may be wondering what made me think I could handle it. Well, one, Sam was my kid brother, and two, they were both three levels below me. Henry was just a huge kid and it's shameful to say that it was his size that scared me. 

Talk about the life of a chicken.

I look now and see the ceremony going on and I can't bring myself to accept what has happened to Chai. We were friends even if not close. The ten of us were classmates from FaithHill Secondary School. We did our best to have each others' backs. That's why this is even more painful. 

Everybody wanted to have fun, so we threw caution to the wind.

This is what I mean...

******

The episodes began after two years of my set's graduation. We were having a short break in the Uni, so I was at home.

Some set of people from my alma mater went to visit some remote place to spend the weekend. 

Here's the report we got. Mustaphah our best swimmer those days, while we were still in secondary school, drowned. It was heartbreaking. He had just gotten a foreign scholarship to study Architecture, but his life was cut short.

Nobody thought twice about it. The story was that he was a little tipsy and so he couldn't find balance in the water. Very tragic. 

We heard, we mourned and then, we moved on.

About a year later. This time around, I was in my third year in Uni, looking forward to my industrial attachment at my dad's firm, when I saw on Facebook that my senior by one year, Femi Akunde, had suffered a serious head injury from diving wrongly. I hoped as I read the story that I'll be told he was in the hospital getting treatment. 

That was not the case. The impact to the head was too severe that before he was rushed to the hospital, he died. 

"No!!!!"

That was all that just kept coming from my lips that day, after reading the story. My roommate had to hold me to make me stop. She didn't know how to comfort me. I missed classes for one full week because I couldn't wrap my brain around it.

"Was it the first time he was diving?"

"Why did they choose that place?"

" Why wasn't he careful?"

The questions were there in the comment section, but there was never any answer.

This made me wonder then...

Was there something wrong with FaithHill's students and water? Why does it happen only to graduates? Why was it just the boys turned men that were taken?

You may say my thinking went too far. That it's just a mere coincidence. That people die every day. And that for Mustaphah and Femi it just happened to be water. 

You may also say that there's nothing to it, even when both incidents happened when FaithHill's students gathered together to have a nice time.

Before Chai's incident, I would have agreed to your conclusions, not now when Chai is dead.

I disagreed with the location only because it had a waterfall. When I got the hangout invite from Kate, the first thing that came to mind was a premonition of someone drowning or just dying. I couldn't shake off the feeling. 

So, when we were certain that we will only be ten out of thirty coming for the reunion/hangout after ten years of graduation, I arranged a meeting before that day.

We had it through Zoom though, but it didn't achieve anything. Some laughed, some cursed, while some were kind enough to plead that I let the past stay in the past. 

I ended up tagging along, not to be seen as childish. I drank a little and was on the watch.

Sadly, my watch didn't save Chai. 

We saw him dancing in the water one minute, the next he was nowhere to be found.

Earlier in the day just as we arrived at the spot, and we were setting up, Kate had explained to me that the water was shallow and that I shouldn't be afraid of anybody drowning. But this is what she doesn't understand. Something is going on with FaithHill's graduates and water. I can't place my fingers on it yet, but I know I will. 

Three deaths are enough for me to come to that conclusion.

The victims have all been males. Why?

When the report said Chai had missed a step and drowned, I almost broke my Television in anger.

I guess now my former classmates, especially the ten who attended would see what I see. Chai's death was no coincidence.

We watched them place his coffin in the ground. We watched the sand thrown back, but I heard his mother's piercing cries. She couldn't be consoled.

 Chai had been her only son of four kids. He was the eldest, and he had been helping his parents train his younger ones.

Chai is no more and I can't stop blaming myself for his untimely death.