The Unfairness of Death

He said to me, didn’t you hear what he said? He said my life is ruined. I thought inside, Baba, what else do you need your life for?

Where I stay, with my brother here in Osogbo, was very quiet this morning. People were walking with their bags on their backs, some with theirs on their heads, and some walking hands free, except, like me, those scrolling through their phones with one of their free hands.

The news was: the son of the king of the community was killed. So they banned the entrance of Korope busses for as long as they wished. An indefinite curfew was announced. Anyone seen walking on the street might be shot, dead. I might have been shot dead.

Barrister Adnan, my brother, had left home earlier because he was travelling to our home town for an engagement. When he got to the main street, he called to tell me, do not go out anywhere today o. The area is not looking good. They are burning tires. His wife, who is into anything catering and baking, and was out for a business, also got the news and phoned me not to step out. I will step out. I must step out. Things you do for what you love, like putting your soul and body into a ‘curfewed’ street just because you want to have a good time with someone.

To some, it is such an unfair game, that after struggling to build a world for themselves here, they have to leave.

As I was walking and scrolling through my phone, I was dropping messages on WhatsApp for people to know where my body might be in case it got shot. There were tree-blockades on the street. There were some men leaning on the walls with cutlasses in their hands. Shops were locked. Motorcycles did not answer when hailed. A man with a cutlass was walking towards me. I put down my phone. He slid by me and walked off. He did not “yab” me with his cutlass.

I was walking out of the silent street now. They were burning tires o. And they were jingling bells. Ọmọ. I jumped on a bus to Aregbe.

*

I have been thinking about what death means to us all. There used to be a time when death was the only reasonable thing to me. I could have … you know, but the thought of my mother swung me. I realized that death means dissimilar things to us all. To some, it is an escape from life. Those people, if they happen to find anyone who tried to stop them from dying, that person would be their enemy. To some, it is such an unfair game, that after struggling to build a world for themselves here, they have to leave. Death does not make sense to make them. And to some, death is just an inevitable process of life, like happiness and sadness, something that must happen and you have to go through it.

I am flung into two categories. I am a believer, a Muslim, and my religion instructs me to accept death as a will of God, which I accept with no doubts. But it still doesn’t make sense to me. Some of us have lived through struggles of life that it is unfair that everything we fought for would just end someday. And by “some of us”, I don’t include myself because the kind of shege life yanks at me is so so minute to what some people deal with. (I pray that everyone going through difficulties gets though them).

If my soul had faded into the riot happening in the street as I walked into it that morning, I will be very disappointed because my stepping out had a purpose. I didn’t polish my slides to walk my body to its death. It won’t make sense. But at the same I would have no choice but to accept it as God’s willing. Even if I don’t want to accept, my body would unarguably concur as they prepare my Janazah.

*

In the evening, as I was returning from the hangout, the bus that brought me home was owned by a very old man. He looked 79-ish. Bald head. Pushed-in eyes. Wrinkled face. Brown teeth. Voice fading. I asked him before entering, has the riot ended? He said, they can’t stop us in the evening, don’t they want us to eat?

As we made the left turn into Ofatedo, where I stay, he almost hit a bike man and immediately as expected, he started saying sorry. But the bike man couldn’t hear and his anger made him throw words at the old man. One of the words, aye yin maa bajeni, your life is ruined, got into the old man’s head and sparked a touch. Koni daa fun iwo naa, it shall not be better for you too, the old man returned. I waved at the bike man, pleading, and he left. I blamed the old man because he was at fault.

He said to me, didn’t you hear what he said? He said my life is ruined. I thought inside, Baba, what else do you need your life for?

If an old man could still find something precious about life, death does not make any sense. Which is why I would like to know, what do you think of death? Please drop your response as a comment.

I will be 20-something this month and I better not die now, lol. What I fear more actually is what would be said about me, behind me. Say a prayer ni 18th.