AFTERMATH

By Okunola Peace.

I woke to a harsh sky and the memories of the other day brought tears unbidden to my face. I have been hiding from the members of the Anti-Christ for two years now. It has not been easy, the hiding, foraging and running from the nemesis that will soon catch up to me, every day and night. I hardly get any time to rest, I am too paranoid by the slightest sound.

I remembered my life before and the tears came unbidden, falling in torrent. I was warned repeatedly in church that Christ is coming soon, but I turned a blind eye to the world of saintly men and women and now I can see those things I was warned against and the truth that I dishonored with my daily life. Now, looking back, I realize it would have done me more good than harm if I have left all and followed him.

The Rapture day is still something I see clearly, it happened three years ago and I can clearly visualize it like the miracle that changed my life and made me a Christian:

“I was seated in a private park with a beautiful lady, the sky was bright and the air that caressed my face was cool and pleasant, she was dark in complexion, a skin-color that gave glory to the beauty of African women, she was beautiful and the silky-blue gown she wore was tight and brought out the shape of her feminine curves. And sincerely, I was distracted by the sheer closeness of her body to mine and did my best to hide my arousal. We were in Sun town beach in port-harcourt because of the privacy and mildness of the area.”

 I was a Christian brother, a worker in the church, but I refused to desert from my worldly habits.

“We met in a club on a starry night, I was on my way to the bar to get a bottle of beer and order for some varieties of tasty meat, when I bump into her. She was holding a cup of red wine and the wine spilled on both of our clothes. I was distracted by her beauty and she was distracted by my handsomeness, I guess she was a player, I couldn’t really say, because the incident that will be sang years later happened during our private drama.

We both went into the restroom to clean up our clothes and at least look comfortable to the world, but we somehow seems to find ourselves in a closet, making out before the door was shut. We were kissing each other, my hand started caressing her shapely thigh as she moaned and drew my head closer……”

”We were kissing, testing the waters when we heard a commotion on the other side of the beach, the noise was so loud that our lovemaking momentarily stopped.

There was an unspoken agreement between us and we started packing our things to check what is going on or make a run for our dear lives. We left, somehow feeling flavorless after an uncompleted bonding.

We got out to see people running around, some openly crying and I thought that someone has died, due to the regular misunderstanding that happens when someone gets drunk or makes an advance on another guy’s girlfriend in an open place like the beach, but that was not the case, I was surprised to see everybody watching the news that was being displayed on the Television that sat on the shelf behind the bar front.

I read the headlines and I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. There were reports of people disappearing at every locations that one could think of. I heard a woman shouting that her ‘little baby is gone’, a man also said his ‘wife is missing’….

I don’t remember how I got home, but I knew I left the club in a daze, entered my car and drove home.”

I came back to myself, when I heard a slight disruption in the forest where I found myself. It seems I was not the only one in the forest, maybe my nemesis has finally caught up with me.

I was already tired, I have not had a good meal in months, the world now works with the currency of demonic marks, the law of trading your money for goods with the aid of demonic marks has been legalized, but has not fully taken hold in some deepest region of the world, but I know in my heart that it is like an untamed wind that will blow and reached the deepest crevices.

I was on my way to a sanctuary, a black site of a sort, that its existence is only known to a few of believers who were not raptured with the Lord. I hope the information I got four months ago from an old friend was true and not a tale expertly crafted by my adversaries to lure us out of hiding.

I have been on this trail of sanctuary for months, sniffing around, trying to get my bearing in a maze of trees, figs and numerous branches. I have had to become something that I detest before, I now brush my teeth using supple branches that I have broken from a tree. I find it humorous that I still maintain some form of decency in this terrible world that I have failed to rid myself of.

I still look up and pray to God, though I am not sure he still hears my silent pleas.

I finish brushing my teeth and I packed my sleeping bag and started on my purposeful journey that I hope leads me to salvation. The air was cool, the weather was balmy and I hope it brings me relieve from all the mistakes I have made in this world that laughs at my situation, mockingly dancing on his unseen dais.

The trees sway to my unsteady gait and I laughed despite myself. It seems even nature herself is mocking me and my decisions in life. I wish I could go back and change my ways, but the blade has already done its cruel work and time cannot be reversed, so I would just have to live with my mistakes and errors and pray that the sun makes me its center of brilliance in the unseen and unknown future.

I was still brooding when I heard the sound of human voices, it seems I am close to another civilization. I again wonder why we human have a drastic and uncontrollable birth rate that the whole vast world has to be walked upon by mortal beings.

I crept as silently as possible, my once muscular frame is now a husk of its formal beauty, so there is little force my frail body has on the ground. I have become a ghost in the night who avoids the presence and scrutiny of the men and women that remains on the earth. I am now a cloud of smoke that drift to where the wind bides it.

I walked onto the streets, shuffling like an injured cat that has been mauled over by car. I look like an unkempt beggar, weeks of beards cover my face and obscures my once handsome face. The stench that oozes from my clothes will keep the keen eyes from looking too closely. It is disgusting, but I love it like that. It is the best disguise I know of that will allow me to move freely unchallenged in this community until the newly inducted security force decided to take me in and decide if I am truly insane.

On the eve of rapture, a lot happened. A lot of unnatural events that some minds failed to comprehend and this led to madness in a lot of people. The government is still trying to balance the new system and set order for the mad people that seems to clog every dark quarters of every state and nation. He remembered stabbing a man in the chest, the man just looked at him and laughed. Yea! He just laughed as if there is no blade sticking out of his chest.

None of us believed it will ever happened, we thought it was a fairytale crafted to keep the believers in check. We always ponder that if Jesus has not returned in two thousand years, what is the assurance that he will ever show his face again? The world of technology has changed the perspective of mankind, the beauty of someone walking on water has become obsolete, the awe of someone healing the sick with just a touch has dull with the zillions of miracle working pastors who dice out truth like they can read the world from the back of their palms, of whom you can hardly tell the genuine ones from the cunning ones.

None believed the day will ever come when you will look to your left or right and find the person you are talking to disappear into thin air, and that what is left of the person is nothing but the garment the person was wearing a while ago.

Rapture led to mourning and gnashing of teeth for wayward believers, but to some, it led to good business, as the world turned into the jungle where the Might rule the Weak. The first week after rapture was a disaster that words cannot truly describe. The normal system of the world fell apart, the citizens of every country on earth did not know what to believe, for the media themselves were confused, turning to the spiritual leaders left on earth to proffer an answer and probably come up with a perfect solution. I laugh! A wish that is yet to come to pass.

Nobody knows till this the present day what happened that led to the failure of the power grids of major countries across the whole wide world on the eve of rapture.

I came back to the present and started walking, passing the several huts clustered together and the families that goes about their various activities, I shuffled this way and that way, imitating the stance and behavior of a mad man until I have passed the souls that walk by the street, riding bicycles, fetching water, carrying firewood’s, farmers with their buckets of fruits and sacks filled dead bush meats and young men bearing kegs of water on their heads, and not wanting to draw attention to myself at this glaring hour of the day.

I want to beat himself up for the mistakes I have made in the past but I was still sensible enough to know it will yield nothing, so I will make good use of my skills, for only my sharp mind and superior acumen will help me on this path that I tread. Who knows what awaits me in this place that has become a hiding place for the believers that were not raptured? A tale meant to ginger the soul of men who wants no part in the new world and the norms that comes with it. Civilization that looms like a crumbling shadow, ready to swallow humanity slow.

I continued to walk until I became part of the shadow that formed the attire of the night. Who knows? Maybe I will find hope in this world of chaos, where Satan has wholly shaped in his terrifying image. 

                                                                        The End.