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Wonders Of Hell!! by adedolapo189(m): 4:09pm On Aug 24, 2015 |
#copied#
The first time you heard about hell was when you
were seven. Then, you were a naive, slender-
looking boy – faultless. The Sunday school teacher,
a heavy-bearded man in his early forties, painted
hell as a very horrible place. He grimly told you that
hell was a huge, blazing and unquenchable wild fire
where sinners would everlastingly roast like cashew
nuts when they died. He told you that hell was very
hot and stark dark – darker than the back of your
mother’s pot. There will be gnashing of teeth and
regrets, tortuous soldier ants and worms
everywhere, your Sunday school teacher taught.
Your Sunday school teacher’s teachings threatened
the tots in the class on that memorable morning. Of
course, it threatened you too. You didn’t want to go
to hell. You didn’t want to roast like cashew nuts.
You didn’t want to live in stark darkness, like a bat,
in afterlife. You hated hell and pledged to be good,
to be kind to your fellow man. You wanted to make
heaven, where you would wear white robes, walk
on the streets of gold, play with lions, eat fresh
fruits and fishes, and sing psalms to the Almighty
forever and ever.
Seventy years ago, these were your wishes as a lad.
But you died at seventy-seven, yesterday, and this is
your first night in hell – the place that made you
have sleepless night when you were seven. Still
having a staunch belief about heaven, you struggled
to be good in your youth. But you veered off in
adulthood when the vicissitudes of life stormily
confronted you. You compromised – compromise
is the greatest weapon in politics, a game you
mastered when you were yet alive and kicking.
The things that landed you in hell are many, very
many. The newspapers and history books have
them. You killed the innocent. You sent letter
bombs to your political opponents. You embezzled
monies that were budgeted for ‘light’, leaving your
people in stark darkness. You rigged elections. You
granted state pardon to criminals. You didn’t pay
salaries on time, leaving workers and their children
to starve. You sent soldiers to battlefield with sticks
and sentenced to death the ones who dared to
protest. You falsified facts. Above all, you made too
many promises that you didn’t fulfil when you held
public offices. Although you romanced clerics, they
couldn’t help you bribe your way into heaven.
On your first night in hell, you were impressed,
very impressed because you discovered that hell
was not exactly how your Sunday school teacher
had painted it. You found out that hell, although a
relatively unpleasant place, was not a burning fire,
was not dark. There was, as a matter of fact, ‘light’
in hell. You saw unblinking, bright bulbs in the
cramped room you were alloted. The room, painted
red, had the breadth of a coffin and the length of a
tunnel. The room looked strange but the bulbs
consoled you. You loved it. You brought out the free
phone you were given at the embassy of hell,
plugged it to a squarish switch at a corner of your
new room, thinking the light may go off any
moment soon – the way it used to be in your
country.
You found a little bed in the extreme of the weird
room, on which you collapsed, and slept off. Your
sleep was long and sound. There was no single
mosquito bite – no mosquitoes in hell too?
In the morning, when you woke up, you found out
that there was still ‘light’ in your little room. You
also noticed that some demons had dropped a cup
of milk and some loaves of bread on the small
wooden table near your bed. You, very hungry,
grabbed the loaves and gulped down the milk, free
milk. Afterward, you stood up and stretched, ready
to have your bath.
You undressed yourself and walked down to a door
at the end of your room. There, you found a small,
luxurious bathroom. You opened the shower; it
vomitted water and you soaped yourself. You
noticed, for the first time, that there was plenty
water in hell. You felt relieved. You remembered
the biblical parable of Lazarus and the rich man
and wondered the part of hell the story took place.
Perhaps the story was a myth, you thought.
You returned to your room and found your phone
beeping. You picked it up and found a new text
message. You opened it. It ran:
“Hello Chief Toga, welcome to hell. Hell is real. We
believe you had a sound sleep. We’ve put
everything in place to make you comfortable. Call
666 if you have any complain, but NEVER leave this
room UNTIL you are told to do so. Best regards.”
Toga, you jumped, excited, screaming as you read
the text message. It lifted your soul. You have never
imagined a hell where there was no torture, no
worms, no fury fire. You have never imagined a hell
where there was love, free milk, free food, free
water, free phones and free ‘light.’ This hell was
different, very different from the hell you made out
of your country.
While you were still lost in the euphoria of the
incredible hell you have found yourself, your phone
rang, you picked and the voice sounded strangely
familiar. It was the voice of your great
grandmother. She died over a hundred years ago.
She was a witch doctor.
“Hello, Toga, my great grandson. I heard you came
in last night. Welcome to hell.”
“Thank you,” you answered, unsure of who the
caller was.
“Who’s this please? I don’t think I know you.”
There was silence, a still silence that was
punctuated by deep howls. You thought the caller
was a wolf.
“It’s me. Mamee, your great grandmother.
Welcome to hell. I heard you came in last night.”
“Ah, Mamee, are you in hell too? You were
surprised.
“Of course, where else do you expect me to be?
There is ‘light’ in hell; at least it has not been
interrupted in the past three hundred years. There
was no ‘light’ in Nigeria when I died. Do you have
constant ‘light’ now?”
“We don’t.”
“What about constant water?”
“We don’t.”
“Free and fair elections?”
“We don’t.”
“Good roads?”
“We don’t”
“Security?”
“We don’t.”
“Does every citizen get a free milk every morning?”
“No ma’am.”
“Unbelievable.”
“These are some of the reasons I was condemned
to hell.”
“I don’t understand. Did you squander the budget
for these things?”
“Yes, mamee.”
“You’re a disgrace to the Kofata family. People like
you do not deserve to be in hell. You deserve to be
in a worse place.”
You were stunned. “And where should that be?”
“Nigeria, of course. I’m dialing 666 already.” |
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