When one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smoulders, a fire will eventually break out. More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation. The enemy will recover and seek revenge. Men must either be caressed or annihilated; they will seek revenge themselves for small injuries but cannot do so for great ones; the injury therefore that we do to a man must be such that we need not fear his vengeance. Remember, time takes the venom to grow stronger. One should never ignore an enemy thinking him to be weak. He becomes dangerous in due course like a spark of fire in a haystack. They may act friendly but that’s only because you have defeated them. They have no choice but to bide their time. When pity or the hope of reconciliation makes us pull back from doing away with our enemies, we only strengthen their fear and hatred for us. Having beaten them and they are humiliated, why then should you nurture the resentful viper who would someday kill us? Forgiveness for sinners is a sin. God shows this with hell, I showed mine with vengeance.



We were determined to subdue, come what may. All we left with were sheathed weapons to maim, kill only when push came to shove. When the calls comes, who are we to disobey? Pawns to lords, lambs to slaughter, so were we. We never tired out as we did the bidding of those whose paths we wished to trod. Sometimes, what we wanted and why we did all we did were unanswerable; it was though it were out fait accompli.

That night was fateful. Indeed! It was Moses. Moses was my brother-in-arm. He was my forerunner. They called him the Vulture because he never left carcasses until they were buried. With his One eye shut, his preys remained well shot. Moses still, was my subordinate, meant to start from where I finished. That would tell you how much role I had to play before Moses could come in. I need not tell you that faces may mislead, the heart is dark – darker than the depths of horror. I was ruthless not because I was a killer but because I never cared who was killed and how. I was called Desperado. My boss made me be in charge of his boys because he admired me. In due time, I became fastened to Moses’s affections. We colluded to execute our every machinations, even the residues that were hidden within the hearts. Moses indeed, grew fond of me and always told me we were in this together. Each time we did stuff, Moses gave me credit for it even as much as I didn’t deserve it desire. Soon, I became that admirable Crichton in the midst of the other guys. This admiration indeed was a free lunch as like everything that comes free, is a hidden obligation or a debt to be paid. You may still be wondering what exactly we were up to. Well, here’s it. We all were acolytes to a Panda in the hood. We who grew together in the same suburb, respected him. Characteristically, he would profligately spend money on us; his generosity was to a fault. We Struggled to earn a living not because we were orphans but because the society chose to respect those who resisted dependence, hook or crook. The house was commodious but we enjoyed the coolth of cigarette smokes as the fire sparkled up the irresistible desire to plunder and depredate. By struggling, we gambled, we clubbed, we fought and maimed. We couldn’t really say we were slaves to our Boss. We just didn’t have a choice. You know, sometimes in life, we aren’t necessarily put in the best positions to make the best decisions; you can’t be hard on yourself. We weren’t cut out to be this ruthless. Men are wicked, the degree is only variegated. Those who allow darkness to shine through their eyes are called wicked, others who allow goodness to illuminate them are the goodhearted. I was both. I allowed the goodness of obedience to shine through me as I executed the depths of my darkness.

More updates coming

That day, as we arrived the scene, a grassland close by a pub where boys drank to dementia, I entered and met the prey. I confronted him and we rounded him up. He has been a disturbing person to our Boss, hence our predilection to torture him. He was a smaller boy than I am. Of course, we were all small boys just with different levels of cruelty. After harassing him and warning him seriously, the floor was Moses’ to finish the task and then we’d flee. Hesitant Moses spurred me to anger as I asked “Guy wassup?” He kept looking at me. All of sudden I was slurping out blood from my mouth. It was Moses. Moses hit me hard with a bottle on my head. I slumped to the floor still spewing blood from my mouth. I could barely see clearly. The begging “prey” soon became the one in whose mercy I lay. Beaten to repentance, I was preyed upon. He and his cohorts drinking close-by (another set of vagrant children just like us, thirsting to cause mayhem and regret their lives thereafter),dashed on me like heavy locomotives. I got hit on my head three times without mercy. I was cut and injured badly. Left to embattle with life and death, I remained unconscious for eons of hours. I managed to reach out to a nearby brother who knew “wassup” with me. He kept me for two days before I went back home. I was unable to eat nor explain myself to anyone as I stealthily received medications. Busy mother had complained begrudgingly, times without number but a man has got to do what a man has got to do. In the bitter process of revival, I could still remembered they kept asking “Who send you come play this guy?” but I couldn’t recall telling or not. I was sure I didn’t. The last I heard of Moses before I saw myself barfing in blood from a torn head, was “Na you be the wrong man”. To us, that meant that I was the real person to be hunted and not the supposed prey. Nobody told me the mission I went for was to step on the wrong toes, not even Moses. It was his plan to have me beaten. He betrayed me but unlike Judas, it wasn’t with a kiss and like Brutus to Caesar, he gave me the deadliest blow and then deserted me. I felt back stabbed. Of course I was.

It took me months to recover from the wound which till today, has an insignia beneath my hair to remind me of the fact that people have always admired and put me ahead of them because they had an interest they were yet to unsheathe but would eventually. I’m wary of the close one because he smells my blood they way he sees my act. When he gets bored of the smell of my blood, he will strike. Sometimes, the only friends you should keep are subdued enemies because they have more of loyalty to prove. Lesson is, despise the free lunch.. Every time I remembered the incident, I fuelled seven times like a Furnace. Sometimes I wished he had crushed me completely because I know I wouldn’t spare him. Other times, I was happified by his undoing.



I left the house 10:00pm on a Sunday, Six months later in search of Moses. I had recovered and was now in rude health. I had gathered his new whereabouts. He knew I was going to come with a heart that carried only my reprisal, a hand ready to rend and ears that were shut to supplications of absolution. He fled far from home to another settlement not afar. He holidayed for months not knowing how much I suffered.

I got to the foot of the wall of the compound and flipped over it easily. As luck would have it, Ade was about to leave the building when he found me standing at his front. He could not run, Ego wouldn’t let him apologize. In fact, it was a rule – Never run, never apologise for death is a necessary evil, which comes when it wills so. Armless, he rushed at me and I devastatingly landed a bottle on his head. I despise Coca Cola. It brings back memories, eh! I kept hitting his head on and on and on, so did I, his legs. He kept squirming and slurping out squishy fumes out of every visible orifice but for his ears and eyes. Before I left, he still plunged into the residue of his wicked heart to throw at me, some parts of the broken bottles. I was assured he wasn’t dead after all. I returned to hit him again, this time on his shoulder blades. He kept groaning loudly till his voice became faint; too faint and then swallowed into nothingness. That was the last I saw of Moses. I hear he’s no more, I hear he’s almost dead in a far away place but each time I care to listen, I hear the cockles of my inner man telling me that even Moses destroyed ALL the Egyptians in the Red Sea without Mercy.

Accept that some will always want to hurt you and destroy your emotions. Depart from them and never consider changing them. When they strike leaving you with a chance to come back, crush them totally.

https://possiblog./2016/08/29/vengeance-is-a-red-sea/

..