HELL BOUND

Something woke me up. What it was, I don't know. The ambiance in the room had an eerie feeling, the world just felt empty. I took a leap, an advance towards the window and I peeked through it. At 10.15am, night
still seemed to romance the day.  Adebisi walked to and fro the yard swinging her backside seductively to the wind's rhythm. ‘Foolish woman’, i spat. All she ever does is make men lust after her. Damned daughter of Eve. An arrogant, lazy and nagging thing I married. What
ever drew me to her in the first place? Childless bastard.

I walked back to the bed, picked up my phone and rang mother, ‘how could she have forgotten a day like this?’ We would forfeit the day's appointment if we kept the doctor waiting. What's more, only she knows the place.
Four rings, no answers. It was unlike her. Just then, thunder rumbled from a distance.
 I walked out of the house, into the street. The sky was wine colored.
The clouds had been arranged. They formed stairways, one which end I could not see. Almost in sync with the thunder clash, I heard loud wails. ‘Who died?’ multiple death? Screeching sounds came to life.

I could hear automobile crashing from a distance. A building was on fire.
The street came to life, unknown faces filled with terror. I walked back in, switching the television on. A news station was reporting a case. Multiple human disappearance happening all over the globe. My breath
came in forced beats now. I was choking. 'Tell me it hasn’t happened', I muttered. Tell me this is all a dream. Tears found their ways down my eyeballs, ‘I have missed it! I am a dead meat!’ Last Sunday’s pulpit
message rang in my head. The preachers' words, the gospel tracts some of which I had helped distributed. ‘Tell me the rapture of saints has not occurred?’ Please wake me from this terrible dream. Now I thought
of hell. A place of eternal damnation. Damnation without relief.

I thought of the countless warnings, the radio programs, the television broadcasts, the tracts, pulpit messages, personal dreams, one on one messages. I have been careless. It has cost me eternal prize. 
Hope is lost. I am doomed. 

A call from sister Funmi jeered me out of my reverie. She was the assistant choir mistress and a secret lover of mines. 'Have you heard?’ she said, a voice of pain mixed with confusion. I paused, trying to catch my senses.
‘The parish pastor and his pregnant wife died along Sorin bus stop last night.  A highway hit and run event, and they couldn’t make it to the hospital on time'. And then the network betrayed a woeful conversation.

Gradually, the events of the previous night began to unfold before me; I was speeding high along the express. Some minutes before office close up, I had been handed a sack letter. The company had decided to maximize profits by downsizing the workforce.

About half a dozen of us had to be sacked unjustly. Madly speeding in my rickety Benz, I had lost reason. A few electric poles away, a man and his
pregnant wife waved me down. 

Many thoughts raced through my mind. Armed robbers or highway snatchers, I thought. The country holds a lot of fear this day, and waiting to help on the highway would not be a good idea. The crime rate of late had taken a rather high toll. I speed past without a second thought. A dozen bottles of beer had killed my senses. I had indirectly committed   murder. And now I will have to bear the everlasting consequences.

He fell down and began to wail. His gorgeously looking wife elegantly worked in, finding him crying on the floor just worked passed him as if nothing has happened in her world.

                     Talesmen ( David Ajibola)