DAY OF SEPARATION

The saying goes that people should not be judged by their past mistakes. In my own case, the reverse is true. I had my chances, I blew them up. I blamed myself for the pains I was feeling. If only I was able to make the right choices, I wouldn't have gotten to the point I found myself.

Perhaps I was too quick to trust the wrong people, to think I could be with them. First Pahpa, then Freda.

She sent me out of her house, said she didn't want to see me until she wanted to. I heard Pahpa was arrested by the police called upon him by Freda. Everyone I ever loved gone, loneliness became my companion.

Since the incident, I stayed in my house, locked myself in my room. I would step out only to get something to eat.

I waited for a whole week before I decided to actually unlock myself. Isolating myself from the neighborhood, had it own dark side. I got completely broke, no gigs, no money. I got tired of hiding from Freda, Pahpa and worst of all myself.

On the seventh day since Freda, I threw away self pity, cleaned myself up, I adorned myself in a t-shirt and jeans outfit, I stepped out on the street, no time to waste no more. I walked around throwing greetings to the people in the neighborhood, feeling myself. The fresh air I missed for only a week felt so refreshing.

I decided to visit the computer sales shop that Pahpa and I first met. I needed to get some information about the latest gadgets in the market and perhaps if I could get a gig.

When the sales man saw me, he smiled a bit, welcomed me with a handshake and ushered me a place to sit.

"It been a while Sol."

"Yea Man, how are you doing?"

"Everything good." He answered. His face suddenly became serious. He sat down facing me and sighed.

"I heard Pahpa got arrested."

I sighed, "Yea so I heard too."

"I also heard he is back." He spoke in a low tone.

My heart sunk, I felt my head began to bang. "Back? Are you joking?"

"Do I look like I am joking?"

"Who bailed him out." I became more curios and afraid at the same time.

 The computer sales man sighed, he constricted his eyes, looking ever more serious, he cleared his throat and began: "I still remember the day the two of you met right here in my shop. Like it was just yesterday. From then hence forth the entire neighborhood echoed with your brotherhood. You loved each other as brothers. Whatever happened between you two I have no idea. All I know is that one of you suddenly seeks to destroy the other. Well, I have no more to say, I only need you to listen carefully. Run Sol, leave this neighborhood, you are no longer safe here. Pahpa is looking for you and its not for a good reason."

The sales man words hit me harder than ever. Without wasting a second, I thanked him and ran out of the computer sales shop.

While on the way to my house, I could only murmur a prayer in my heart. I prayed that heavens protects me, not Freda's 'heaven' but the real heaven. The sky, if there was any gods in it. I prayed that my ancestors should come for my aid.

I could only wonder what would be of me should Pahpa gets me. I felt like my feet were failing me, like they were not running fast enough. I had to charter a motorbike to take me home.

When I finally reached home, my eyes almost popped out of their sockets at what I beheld waiting for me. Pahpa sat at my door step rather comfortably, except, he wasn't alone. Five of his boys surrounded him like he was their king. They stood awaiting his commands.

When he saw me, he laughed out loud in a sinister manner. He clapped his hands and gestured me to stop.

"Don't even think of running away Sol."

"I wasn't going to run away Pahpa." I had to lie to hide my fear.

"Good then… Lets not waste any time here. You and I will go for a joy ride."

He then pointed at a car parked in the compound. "Get into that car Sol, and please do not try to resist."

I quietly did as he wanted. I got into the car, they all did too. It was a spacial bus, it could contain all seven of us, Pahpa handled the wheel himself.

He stopped after driving for what seem like an hour. Everyone got out of the car including me. He ordered his boys to force me down on my knees a few steps away from him. He had his back against the car, looking directly at me he said: "Sol my brother, I am sad that it had to be this way. You and I shouldn't have ended badly, we were a great duo, a great team."

"You don't have to do this Pahpa." I interrupted.

My interruption obviously vexed him. He frowned his face, walked up to me and gave me the dirtiest slaps I ever had in my life. Bang! Bang!

"Do not ever interrupt me again." He shouted.

I felt so much pain but couldn't even cry. I had to accept whatever was happening to me. To some extend, I blamed myself for everything.

"I-I am sorry Pahpa. Forgive me for whatever happened between us. We had a good life together man, money should have never come between us."

"Money?" he turned to look at his boys in a mocking manner. "Money you said. Nah… You betrayed me twice because of a woman Sol. Twice you had your chance to fix things but you blew it all up."

I pleaded fervently with Pahpa, but to deaf ears. He hated me more than he ever liked me. He made up his mind and nothing could change it.

"Give me another chance and I won't disappoint you again."

"I thought you were the one with the big brains Sol. I thought you and I could run this whole town . I thought we could be the kings. Then I remembered, two kings can never rule a kingdom. That is why one of us has to go."

"Oh so-so this is what all these is all about?" I felt disgusted and disappointed at him.

He smirked: "It doesn't matter what this is all about. I tell you what, I am going to let you go. Leave this neighborhood, this town and never come back. Then Freda would be mine and I will do whatever I want with her. How about that?" He gave out a sinister smile.

"Hmm, I was thinking you are a tough guy, now I know that all this is about a woman. Well, I tell what too, Freda would only kill you. She is not who you think she is. Stay away from her and be safe."

He frowned his face and shouted: "Enough!"

I bowed my head, enduring the pains of all the happenings. If I had my way I would have turned the hands of time. But alas, there was nothing I could do. Useless humans, I wished we were created with super powers to do unthinkable things, I could have saved myself from a brother turned villain.

Pahpa walked up to me, he came closer to my ears and whispered: "Run as fast as you can, because I am going to run you over with my car."

My heart sunk again. I felt a chilling fear running up from the bottom of my spine to my head. Pahpa was going to gamble with my life.

"You are not going to do this to me man."

"Oh watch me do it." He whispered again.

"We were once like brothers." I reminded him.

"That is why I am giving you a chance Sol. Take it or leave it."

It was at that point that I realized that Pahpa could not be redeemed and that my life could have come to it end. I rose up and fired off. I ran with all of my strength, with all I had. My life depended on that. If I could autrun the car then perhaps he would spare me.

I was alone, with no one to help me against a mafia lord who had guns and machetes wielded by brain death boys, who would die for him. What could I have done, Where could I have run to? I did my best to save myself but to no success.

All I heard was the sound of a raging car coming closer behind me. Before I could think of anything at all, Bang! That was the sound of the collision between my body and the car. I felt every fibre of body and bones broken into uselessness. It happened so fast that even my brain could not process the process of the did.

I only saw myself laying on the ground motionless. Blood came out from all of my orifices. I was literally swimming in my own blood. I was not death but I wasn't alive either, for a man knocked off by a raging car driven by a heartless angry beast of a man, being alive at that moment was even a great luck.

Pahpa dropped off the slighy damanged car, with an evil smile on his face, he walked up to me. He held me by my right hand which was also already broken but only held by my flesh. He dragged me into a power transformer mini house that powers the entire community with electrical power.

After dropping me there, he shielded his hands with rubber hand-gloves, picked up pliers, peeled one of the thickest cables in that transformer. He laughed out loud and shouted into my ears. "Look Brother, this is where it all ends."

After saying that, he drew the naked cable close to me, he forced my mouth open and plugged the cable inside. My brain shut down immediately. Every other thing that happened to my body, I had no idea. The pain was too much for me to handle. Being a man who hailed from a peaceful background, I didn't have the heart to really face Pahpa. I couldn't fight to save myself.

Before my parent died, they taught me something. They said that no matter what evil one does to me, I should know that one day one time, it will all come back to them.

I gave up my ghost before I could experience a gruesome death. It was not only the did that killed me, it was the evil that someone I called brother shown me. All because of what? Power, money and woman? How ridiculous. I blamed myself for everything, I knew I messed up but what I couldn't understand was how Pahpa shifted from being a normal human to a dreaded beast inside.

**

In my ghost form, I stayed calm. "Now I remember everything." I thought. It turned out those bystanders gave a wrong account to the police, because I remembered the real account. Perhaps Pahpa warned them not to tell the truth of what they witnessed but couldn't do anything to stop it.

Everyone watched me murdered gruesomely. They stood right there without interfering. They all

feared him.

Pahpa thought that once he gets rid of me, that it would be the end of me. But what he and his boys and all that godforsaken neighborhood didn't know was that, my death gave birth to a new me. My end became my beginning. That even though I got separated from my physical body and left with no body, I was never gone and now a ghost who could remember his murderers and the entire events that led to a hell of a death.

My heart got heavy with deep thoughts of everything that happened. At that moment I began to contemplate revenge. The thoughts of revenge probably opened a portal it shouldn't, because at that moment, I felt something opening beneath my feet. My eyes widened in fear, I felt myself falling off.

"What the hell?"