https://penastory.com/2016/10/10/spiritually-or-manually-inflicted-part-2-da-jandy/

Excerpt from part 1:

As we drove home, neither of us uttered a word concerning what transpired the previous day until we got to our street and then in his usual manner, Damian told me not to mention a word of what had happened should our parents inquire of his activities. As always I kept my mouth shut.

When we got home, mum sighting my luggage inquired about the reason why I returned so soon. The quickest reply that hovered around my mind was, “Mum, I missed you so I decided to come back home”.

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Daddy asked Damian about school and Damian replied that school was fine. Dad also inquired whether the car had also reduced stress for Damian (in my corner where I was staring at the both of them, I thought, of course it has reduced the stress of taking a cab to go clubbing at least now he can drive down to the club at any time with his squad). Damian accented to that fact. Satisfied, Dad went inside to relax and the rest of the household went about their normal activities with everyone going to sleep inside to sleep at about 10pm.

The following day, our ritual (morning devotion) was done and everyone went their separate ways. Damian returned to school that day and throughout that week I reminisced about the drunken state incident. In my mind, I said a prayer to God to protect and guide my elder brother not to encounter danger in his escapades. Like the saying goes “he whom an elder loves, he chastise”. Fast forward to about two years later, Damian was a final year student and I had almost rounded off my secondary schooling. The little sister was also coming along just fine. It was second semester for Damian and of course the last semester of his five year acquisition of knowledge journey. Mum and Dad had called him specifically at the beginning of the session to admonish him on how to continually “be the good boy that he has always been”. He thanked them with promises of his good conduct and went off to school with the knowledge that it was his last lap and he needed to be subtle on his unproductive movements and rather give all his energy to his academics so as to graduate with a very high grade. It worked out well for him because he distanced himself from his friends.

On the day of his last exam, having just concluded his last paper and being in a state of jubilation, his friends came and suggested that they all go out to make merry. They were all ecstatic at having successfully completed their final exams. Damian thought about the call he received from Mum and Dad that morning intimating him about a dream which mum had. She had dreamt about an accident but he was quick to allay her fears promising her to drive carefully. As his friends urged for a round of jubilation, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind, he wasn’t going to drink too much and besides, it was the last day of chilling with his guys. Evening came and Damian in company of his friends drove to Club Iyalobo which was situated at a distance away from the campus. As expected, it was a fun galore for them as usual. At first, Damian was conscious about his alcohol intake knowing fully well that he would be driving them back to school later on and also the dream about the accident kept pushing its way back to his consciousness. He however threw caution to the winds when his friends began to tease him about his lackluster attitude and he began to gulp as much alcohol as them. Despite not being too high, his spirit felt disturbed as they drove back to school. The last he remembered was the loud music blaring from the car stereo when he woke up in the hospital. He and his friends survived but the car was a write off. Mum and Dad were mad at him but at the same time grateful to God that it was not a fatal accident. Dad wondered what people would have said if he as a devout Anglican had lost his senior son in a motor accident just when he had completed his final papers while Mum blamed the accident on the work of evil doers.

Damian recovered fully and began to live a normal life and even secured a job with a company but he never forgot that incident, the only thing that kept and still flickers in his mind is whether the accident was perpetrated by evil ones or whether it was self-destruct. Till this very moment, he is still in a dilemma as to what to believe on whether the accident was spiritually or manually inflicted.

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