Lost But Satisfied - Episode 7

 

'I'm still alive', Jerry kept repeating as he glanced over his shoulders for the umpteenth time that day, scanning the environment for any sign of anyone following him as he returned home from church. But all he could see was the old haggard woman crunched at a corner of the street. It was two days to Christmas and many days from the day he escaped; yet, the fear of the event still held him bound.

Thunder rumbled in distance. Despite being the 8th week after his near-death experience, he couldn't shake off the fear that something big was coming for him . And he relayed these fears to Pastor Matthew, who kept supporting him morally.

 'This sweet strawberry', he muttered as he inhaled mixed fragrance of harmattan and the air freshener in his room, which Rita had placed there two days ago when she came to visit him.

He and Rita had become an item and her dressing style was going through its pruning sessions. Just when he thought he was hidden in the safety of his room, someone knocked the door, jolting Jerry out of his thought about the horrible harmattan. Jerry opened his mouth, held his breathe, and closed it again. The knock came again.

 Jerry quickly scanned the room and allowed his eyes to ransack it as he sought for a good, strong, long, harmful object. He rushed to the stick he had started keeping in his room since his encounter with his dead assailant.

 ‘Yes?’ He said with a voice that would have made any chicken-hearted fellow cow away from his door.

‘Good afternoon’, a cool throaty reply came from outside the room, as if the owner was used to such threat.

 Jerry looked through a hole to be prepared for any eventualities

All episodes of this story can be found here >> https://www.ebonystory.com/story/lost-but-satisfied

. The face was unfavorably unfamiliar and that gave him a better reason to tighten his grip on the stick. His breathe steadied to prevent him from overacting as he poised himself for retaliation in case there was a need for it.

 Jerry opened the door and quickly surveyed the man before him. The man was short, fair, and slim, and had shrewd eyes. His nose pointed forward as if it could even smell the thought of men’s heart.

 He looked up and smiled warily, giving Jerry an opportunity to calculate where he would hit the man if he tried anything foolish, or if he made any unwanted move.

‘Yes?’ Jerry said, scowling at the man, squinting his face as the cold white breeze of harmattan rushed to his eyes and nose.

‘Good afternoon sir…’, the policeman said and stared at him, opened his mouth, and changed what he wanted to say, swallowed hard, squinted his eyes, widened his long nose, cocked his head to a side as if he was searching for something from Jerry’s eyes. Then, he straightened when he seemed not to find what he was looking for in Jerry, ’we saw this phone on a dead man and would like to …’

‘Who are you? Who is the ‘we’ ‘, Jerry cut-in, and his beat increasing as he prepared himself for anything. Can it be that his life was more complicated than he thought? Should he worry about his past? He opened his mouth halfway in expectation of a bad news.

‘Oh! I’m sorry’, the short man said as he brought out a neat ID card out of his front pocket and pointed it at Jerry, who drew nearer to be sure he was seeing right,’ I’m Inspector Yemi…’

‘Good…’ He said as he gently released the stick he was holding on the wall, making sure that it didn’t fall so that the policeman wouldn’t think otherwise. Then, it occurred to him that the police would be investigating the death of his assailant.

‘As I was saying the other time, we saw this phone on a dead man, and we were surprised to see your picture in it’.

‘My picture?’ Jerry said as he edged forward to see the picture, which the policeman pointed at him. It was the picture of the cloth he was putting on the day of the death of his assailant. The picture was taken when Jerry was coming out of the room. He had to ward off this police. He quickly changed his look of fear to a quizzical look.

‘That’s me of course’, he proclaimed.

‘We know… Have you ever seen this man?’ The police said, raising his own phone to show Jerry the picture of the dead man.

When Jerry saw the picture of the dead man, he almost shouted that that was the man, who wanted to kill him some days before, whom death saved Jerry from.

‘No. I’ve never seen him…But what was he doing with my picture? That was me last month, on my way to meet one of the teachers of the school I work in’.

‘Does this teacher live around here? Can I talk to her?’

‘Yes… Yes…’ Jerry said, happy to have an alibi who would readily, happily and surely vindicate him, making sure that she didn’t say anything that would spoil what he said before, ‘excuse me, let me get my phone’.

 Jerry rushed to the room to pick his phone and called Rita in the presence of the police, and she came to testify that she saw him, even when the police asked her if she could remember the time he got to her, she told him he got to her around 5.00pm, which would have been true because the picture was taken 4.51pm of that same day.

 When the police left, Jerry smiled with relief and longed to hug Rita, to kiss her for saving him, but he restrained himself with the hope he would get his opportunity soon. He turned to face her, only to see her eyes running on him intently. Her expression poised.

 ‘Where were you from 4:51- 5:50?’

 Unluckily for him, Rita was a time-freak, who believed humans couldn't tie the day down with a rope. She kept track of every of her movement, and kept track time of all the things she did. Therefore, when she said it’s 5.50pm, it was truly 5.50pm.

               ***

 Officer Yemi was surprised at what he saw. He still couldn’t believe his eyes. The young man he saw was Bidemi Bennett Adeoti and he was supposed to know him. In fact, he knew him very well. Their path had crossed many times especially on the occasion of people's death. And unfortunately this time, on the occasion of another person’s death.

Though he knew that Bidemi wasn't a member of any bad group or cult because he had followed him when they were in the University, Yemi did know that evil occurrences lurked around Bidemi, and that people liked to pass blame on Bidemi, making the world believe he did what he didn’t do.

Yemi knew and have heard enough about Bidemi to know that ladies talked about him when he was in the University as if he was their god. Their eyes sparkled whenever they saw him.

Read " Don't! Look Closer " by the same author ( Akíntayo Akinjide )

. They giggled behind him, always avoiding his eyes whenever he mistakenly felt their eyes on himself. They scribbled his name whenever they were daydreaming. All of these to Yemi’s chagrin because all his life he had wanted such attention but had gotten them from only his wife, a very beautiful lady, Rose, whose only problem was jealousy.

Bidemi acted as if he didn’t know him; in fact, as if their path had never crossed. Maybe he was indeed a look-alike. Whatever the case was, Yemi needed to find out from someone, who would know every bit of information about Bidemi. The strong feeling in his guts was never wrong. Not for once.

                           ***

 Once had expected Jasper back for days now. Even though he knew Jasper was always rude to him and disliked some of his actions, he saw Jasper as his protégé and valued him like a little brother. He hadn’t seen him for some days, which was unlike Jasper, who liked being around, letting everyone know he was around, hale, hearty, and ready for any job.

Once called his phone number, it wasn't ringing- switched off, which wasn't a good sign. Once rolled the stick of sweet in his mouth and knew what must be done. He needed to find Jasper immediately.