Within the Walls of Hell (16 page)

William
: That was not true. Is it because they came out chanting songs and some smiled with you that you felt they loved you? They were being forced to do so. In the localities where your visit was announced, principals of schools were forced to suspend lessons so that the learners would come out to sing praise songs which you loved so much. Business men were forced to close down their businesses until you came and left. Some people were forced out of their homes to come and listen to you. Your special guards were the ones going around and forcing people. Your visits helped in starving some people because their businesses were disrupted. If everybody was free to choose whether to come and see you or not, you would have known that the people no longer wanted you. They had nothing to benefit from your visits. The people never loved you. That is the fact. They were being forced to come and you can't tell me that you didn't know that the people were being forced. You wanted the international community to give you some credibility.

Carlos
: I disagree with you.

William
: Whether you agree or not is no longer important. You are already condemned. You know that down there, we always said that politics is a dirty game. I think it is true in all the facets of the term. It is really dirty and this is where the dirtiness has landed us. Down there we saw it really as a game and permitted all rules so long as one used them to achieve his or her goals. We can fidget and get away with any atrocities in our course to attain power down there but once we cross that bar which separates this world from that one, we would be held accountable. No lawyers are needed here. I didn't need to say anything in your defense. They know everything from before you think of an idea to when you execute it. They know things even before they happen. If that messenger asked you any question, it is not that he didn't know the answer. He just wanted you to point out your wrong doing yourself. If you refused to speak, he would have told you what you did. Those our rules trampled on those of our Creator. We were supposed to understand that our creator shall always be the ultimate destination for Everyman. We therefore had to use His rules to shape those that we put in place to govern ourselves. That was where we failed and are now paying the price. I supported you in that game and went around telling people that everything in the country was well. I did not care about the plight of the poor who were in their millions. I saw things only from my perspective. Since I was fine, I went around generalizing that the whole country was fine. I knew the reality on the ground but supported what was wrong and professed lies. That was one of the points in my case file. I served myself and saw that life down there too beautiful than the one I would have had in that golden city (
pointing
) over there. Things have turned out this way to teach us that you can get into the House of Representatives through the back door or use money to buy your way into any high office but you cannot buy your way into that golden city. Nevertheless, I would like to end with a story which was told by a preacher when my friend Augustus died and was taken to a house of prayer for the last requiem.

Sandi
: (
Interrupts
) Was it a true story or a made up one?

William
: Whether it was a true story or not is not very important. What matters is the lesson we can learn from it. As I was saying, after the first and second readings, the gospel came next. The preacher began his homily with the story which I want to tell you now. “There was a king who had four wives,” he began. “He did not marry all of them at the same time. He married his first wife when he was still very young and the second, when he was older and the third, when he was much older and the fourth, when he was old. There came a time when he was about to die and decided to go round to ask all his wives if they would accompany him on the journey beyond. He began with his fourth wife. “I have loved you with all my heart and given everything you could possible dream or imagine for the short time you have been with me. I now feel that my days down here are numbered and I was wondering if you would like to accompany me on my journey to the world beyond,” he said. The fourth wife in response said that there was no way she would accompany him because she was still very young and beautiful and still had enough time to pick up another man and continue with her life. Her answer to him was a vehement ‘No”. The king was very disappointed and went to his third wife with the same request in the hope that he would get some consolation. He was mistaken as his third wife told him that she was young and belonged to someone else. That answer from his third wife chattered his heart into pieces and frustration enveloped him. He went to his second wife hoping to have an answer that could take away the pain caused by his fourth and third wives. He presented his request and the third wife accepted to follow him but her acceptance had some conditions attached. She accepted to follow him only for a short distance. It was a little consoling but not enough. He went to his first wife and presented his request. “I have been the one who has loved you truly through these years. I have loved you in the good and the bad times. Yet I was the one who suffered years of your neglect in the cold and your abandonment. I have always loved you and you know that. I will go with you anywhere you want me to go,” she said. With those words, the king fell down at the feet of his first wife and begged for forgiveness amidst tears streaming down his face. Now, all of us are like that king who was married to four wives. Our fourth wife is our body. We do everything possible to keep it young and beautiful using all sorts of cosmetics. But that body does not belong to us. It belongs to the earth. It will abandon us when we are in desperate need. Yet, it is the one we struggle to please most. We steal, rob, extort, dupe and do anything for money to use in pleasing our fourth wives. We join sects and offer human sacrifices for the sake of our first wives. We cling to power because of the advantages that go with it. Such advantages only go to satisfy the body which does not belong to us. Our thirds wives are our wealth and all the material things we spend our lives amassing. When we die, we do not take any along. When we die, our wealth belongs to other people and that is why our third wives cannot come with us. Our second wives are our family, friends and relatives. They are the ones who would accept to accompany us for a short distance. The grave side is where they would end. Our first wife is our soul and it is the one we always neglect. It is with us from the moment we are conceived and is with us even beyond the grave. We are all here because we neglected our first wives right to the last hour and minute. Instead we spent our lives amassing wealth and money to please our second, third and fourth wives who would abandon us at the end. I'm sure that you must be convinced beyond every reasonable doubt that you are where you chose to be.

 

Messenger and Common man enter the room he is to occupy for the time being.

 

 

Messenger
: This is the room you would be occupying for a short while.

Common Man
: This place is very hot. Down there where I'm coming from, only some people called Arabs lived in such hot places. I always wondered how they coped in such places. Maybe they were made with special brushes.

Messenger:
Indeed, they were not the only ones made with special brushes. Everyman was made with a special brush because my master made everybody with love.

Common Man
: (
Observes the environment around and finds only dryness every where. Thinks for a while and then jumps as if suddenly awoken from slumber by a strange noise. Looks very worried
.) What is this place? Let it not be that place that the preachers warned us about. Please just tell me that it is not.

Messenger:
I wish I could tell you it is not. Let's first of all examine the kind of life you led down there before concluding. That is the best way to proceed.

Common Man
: (
Calms down a little
.) I think you are right.

Messenger
: Ok. You went to the house of prayer a lot and you talked of a place the preachers warned you about. Did the preachers tell you what you had to do to avoid that place?

Common Man
: Yes.

Messenger
: Did you follow their prescriptions?

Common Man
: I did my utmost best.

Messenger:
Let's see what your utmost best was. You went to the house of prayer and was told that you were not supposed to have any master other than the one talked about in that House of prayer. Did you obey that?

Common Man
: (
Remains silent
)

Messenger
: You went to a soothsayer and collected some things which you believed protected you. You carried such things under your garments and went to the house of prayer to listen to the prescriptions of the preachers. Do you think my master's power was not powerful enough to protect you?

Common Man
: It is not that I had doubts but there were a lot of good people I knew that suffered terrible fates. There was Thomas who could not even hurt an ant. Someone killed a person and came and hid the murder weapon behind the house of Thomas. He was arrested, tried and sentenced to death. Where was the Almighty the preachers talked about? There was also Jessica. She was fondly called the mother of children because of the special care and love she gave to children especially orphans. She died in a fatal car accident. Where was the Almighty when the only hope for those parentless children was taken away by death? In addition, Pamela had a misunderstanding with a neighbor over a piece of land. Her neighbor warned her not to ever set foot on the said land. The neighbor went to a soothsayer and got some charms which he brought back and buried in the land in question. Pamela believed only in the sky and met her doom the day she stepped in that contested piece of land. Where was the Almighty she believed in? Why had He to allow such terrible things to happen to such good people? More over, I had enemies who were trying to harm me using charms gotten from soothsayers. I had to use the weapons they employed to fight back. Those are some of the things that pushed me to seek an option B protection.

Messenger
: When calamity strikes in any society or community, both the good and the bad people suffer. When rain comes, it falls on the roofs of the good and the bad. The same thing happens with sunshine. There are no fates reserved only for the good or only for the bad. You were told that my master is the only giver and taker of life. Letting the good people go through terrible fates as you call it, is the path chosen by my master for them to use in coming back home and you are not supposed to question His ways. You cannot serve two masters at a time. You had to either serve the soothsayer or my master. That aside, do you remember Achilles Wolf?

Common Man
: Yes I do. He was a very good man and it is terrible what happened to him.

Messenger
: What happened to him?

Common Man
: He was arrested, tried and sentenced to death for committing high treason. He was accused of being a spy working for an enemy state. The truth was that he was too vocal and condemned the government for its bad governance, poor human right records, chronic corruption, rampant embezzlement and huge unemployment rate. The government became too uncomfortable with his criticisms which he did even on foreign media. He had to put aside at all cost.

Messenger
: Haven't you left out some important details?

Common Man:
That was what happened to Achilles.

Messenger
: You are right when you say that the government wanted him eliminated. The government bought some witnesses to come and testify against Achilles and you were one of them. You testified that you saw him conversing and giving out vital information to some foreigners. You helped in sending him to the grave. In the house of prayer, you were warned against bearing false witness. It was punishable by the law of the state and by divine law preached in the houses of prayer. When you were giving false testimony, what were you thinking?

Common Man
: It was the government that asked me to say what I said. They offered me money which I knew I would never have had in my whole lifetime. It would have been insane to be in serious financial problems and then turn down such an offer.

Messenger
: So, because of money, you sold a human being like yourself. What happened to the love for others preached in the house of prayer you attended?

Common Man
: I was just trying to survive. It was not my intention to contribute in the shedding of the blood of that man.

Messenger
: But you did. Tell me something; what happened on Feb 8
th
?

Common Man
: Violence broke out following the proclamation of election results. There were some people who were not happy with the results proclaimed.

Messenger
: Did the results reflect the will of the people?

Common Man
: The results were free, fair and very transparent. Those who started the violence were just bad losers. They were doing it in bad fate, all in the intention to discredit the candidate who was declared as winner.