Hidden Fate

SEREKUNDA MARKET (CHAPTER 2)

It was another day for the busy market. Serekunda Market has always been growing. More and more people from the length and breadth of the country come here to make a living. Its accumulating big size has made it possible to accommodate all types of commodities. As it is growing in size, it is not only attracting vendors but also attracting notorious thieves.

A crowd of angry people had flocked around on the highway making the traffic jammed. I was impatient in my car fuming with stress and anxiety. “How long will I stay in my car? Today, I am going to be late yet again.”I thought to myself but I knew that it was meaningless whether I got late or not because I am the boss of my business. Certainly, no one was going to say that – ‘Yusuf come! I am going to punish you for being late today or have my salary deducted as a result. Maybe it was just an instinct I got used to so many years ago. Mr. Ceesay, my grade four class teacher, was another type of hell for late comers. I think, he was design to beat and discipline students, especially those who habitually come late to school. Nothing made me so scared, as a child, than seeing a cane lift up against me and it became even worse when it was in the hand of Mr. Ceesay. He only beat me once for coming late to school but that was a nightmare.

“Class, today we have a surprise. A best student of mine who is polite, outstanding and regular in school is late. So I am going to set an example on him, so that, those that are fund of coming late to school, it will be an awful lesson to them.” After saying this, he went out of the classroom for a while and came back with a heavy branch which he had cut from a neem tree. He stood at a corner of the classroom just by the door and I stood before the class in an empty space around the blackboard. He was cutting some little branches and leaves from the branch. I stood there in mental terror watching him. The class was completely silent. Everybody was quiet and staring at me and Mr. Ceesay. My hands, my legs and literally every part of my body were shaking. I began to sweat all over my body at once. My mouth suddenly got soured like I had just eaten some lemons. The punishment had already begun before the actual one. That moment became the longest moment of my life. The seconds had turn into minutes, minutes into hours and hours into days. At that moment, being scared was scarier than the stick itself. Mentally, I was suffocating. I didn’t know what to think of or what to say. Deep in my heart, a language was speaking with poor eloquence, ‘plead with him so that he may pardon you’ but I couldn’t say a word. Out of my frustrations, in my imagination, I imagined that he must be smiling gladly, a smile that a hungry lion does upon seeing its prey. I could imagine his white big teeth shinning out of his dark meaty lips. He is a tall man which qualifies him to possess one of the longest arms in the world. When you look at him, his pointy long nose is the first visible part of his face. It silently says ‘Hi’ to you. His eyes are red like somebody who has lived in smoke for ages. He has small pointy moustache which he loves to roll into little dreads at the ends all the time. He has an afro hair-style like he had travelled through time from eighties. He always tucks in his shirt and even if he falls from a peak of a mountain, his shirt would not be removed from the pants.

“Modou – Lamin! Come out and place my desk in the middle of the class. This is going to be a lesson for all of you. Yusuf come, come here! Lie down on the desk. Modou hold his hands and Lamin hold his legs! No matter what, don’t let him go or else you will find yourselves lying on this desk instead of him.” My punishment has gotten into its climax. I reluctantly lay down on the desk and Modou and Lamin together grabbed me by my hands and legs. I was firmly held by them until my waist could hardly wriggle. He put his fingers between my buttocks, holding and squeezing one of my buttocks facing him. He asked the class to count as he was beating me on the squeezed buttock. The class counted each time he beat me with the stick. The pain migrated from the beaten buttock to the unbeaten buttock and to all parts of my body. The pain was so unbearable, I screamed and screamed but it was too intense than my whole mind could actually comprehend. At that moment, I didn’t want anything in this world except the pain to shoo out. The beating stopped at ten and he asked Modou and Lamin to release me. I rolled on the desk restlessly, screamed, massaged my whole body and perambulated in accordance to the pain. “This is just an example. I have just given ten struck to Yusuf but for habitual late comers, if you come late again, you will have twenty struck. Do you understand class?” everybody shouted yes. It took me three days before I could sit on my beaten buttock again. I would lean on the other side, on the unbeaten buttock. Ever since, out of fright and dreadful experience, getting late becomes my mental torment. I never want to get late for anything in my life, ever again.

The traffic was blocked completely. I came out of my car and walked through the crowd. There was an awkward man in the midst of the crowd. He looked like somebody who is well known for being notorious. His face had a lot of scars. His body too had some markings of blade cuttings and beatings. The blood was oozing out from his mouth and nose. There was no shirt on him. His skeleton could be seen without using x-ray machine. Long semi-circular rods of his rib bones stood out under his dark unclean skin. His trousers were half way torn apart. He was held by two strong men in the crowd. Some angry people would come around from every corner to beat him. Others who were law abiding citizens were trying to stop them. Women were shouting – “Don’t kill him. Take him to the police station.” The angry people warned women to stop saying this, if not, they would give them some beatings too. In a flash, a young man came out from nowhere, slapped him and pulled an earring from his left ear. This must be painful I thought to myself. Women shouted again – “Please stop this, he had enough.” The crowd seemed to ignore them this time. After beating him mercilessly, later on, came chaos in the crowd, against and for the motion – “Don’t beat him! We may kill him. We shouldn’t take the law in our own hands. Stop this madness! Let’s take him to the police station. – Let’s beat him mercilessly! He deserved every beating. Thieves are very common these days and they don’t feel merciful towards us when stealing our properties. Some even attack us in the process. Ninety-nine days for the thief and one day for the owner, today is our day. Beat him mercilessly!” Everyone was shouting, saying their own opinions and hardly listen to each other. An old man came, pleading to angry people to stop beating him. He pleaded relentlessly until there was a silence in the crowd. But to our surprise, when he got close enough to the thief, he slapped him hard on the face and said to him this is for my stolen beans. Everybody laughed uncontrollably seeing an old man demonstrating his anger in an unusual manner. I struggled my way through the crowd as if I was a mouse in a maze, turning and maneuvering all the way around and through until I finally arrived at my store.

In a state of confusion, I could barely recognize the electronic bill-board of my store. I was not certain if it was actually my store but my instinct showed me it was and it had really saved my day. Imagine that, I would be roaming around cluelessly looking for my store just like a mad man who had lost his way. The light was blinking on the bill-board and I thanked God, the electricity had not gone again. “Today is going to be a blessed day perhaps.” I thought to myself. The electricity had been going on and off like traffic lights for the past couple of weeks. The company responsible for the electricity, let me not mention the name, kept bombarding us with endless assurance that the electricity was going to be stable because they did a major maintenance nevertheless it got worse every passing day. I wondered if they had even made more damages to the machines, rather than repair them.

*Author's note: (Look out for Chapter 3)