Randi,Laroba and Nfor(4):Armageddon is upon Gora.....

Today Laroba reflects on the story Jabi,the 80 Year old sage.Randi and Nfor are out playing football.

An uneasy calm hung over Gora like an ominous cloud,heavy with anguish and loss-everyone prayed for a rain bow.Gora had been a tranquil community that gave and supported life for eons-Gora was a mother,she gave life;was a common dictum amongst it's inhabitants.It was their pride.But now things had taken a turn for the worse very rapidly,occasioned by events in neighboring villages.

Jabi was now 80,his sunken eyes had seen the beauty;they'd seen the beast-in man.His brain that stored the images that his now Rheumy eyes had fed it its entire life was still keen;sometimes he wished he would develop selective amnesia,he wished he could forget the gory images of the civil war that still haunted him to this day and remember the lessons it taught him,but his brain kept these very fresh-it was his blessing and his curse.He'd lived in Gora for over 60 years now,which Unlike other villages, was a beacon of hope ,an embodiment of the true spirit of community even among individuals from diverse ethnic and religious background-in Gora,they were humans first before anything or anyone else.Gora mocked the wanton depravity that humans elsewhere were capable of.This gave him hope,hope in the much that can be achieved if society developes the deliberate,collective resolve to spread the message of love,peace,forgiveness and oneness.Gora was a Nirvana,The creator's proof to doubting mortals of the existence of paradise.

It was 7:00 pm, the sun lay tucked away In its bed behind the curtains of the night sky above Gora.It an was immaculate sight to behold but Jabi was restless, a solitary cold sweat ran from his forehead right down his massive belly as it moved up and down with each laboured breath he took,burying itself in his navel-This was not a good sign,that he coudn't help but feel that way,made it worse.He was troubled by what he'd overheard a group of youths discussing that evening as he took his routine stroll,he couldn't remember the details of their conversation but he was sure it had been about a growing rift and distrust amongst the indigenes of Gora,events in neighboring villages had spilled over into Gora splitting them along ethno-religious lines,this seemed to have been going on for sometime now because from what he could make of it,people that once stood as a unit now stood on different sides of a line that had been drawn between them,by who?they never seemed to care,now they were only waiting for the minutest provocation to swing into action.He was terrified to his aged marrow.They had never tasted from the bitter cup of loss,destitution and utter destruction that war brought, war tore suckling babies from their mothers' bosoms.what could be more savage ? He thought to himself.They seemed determined to write on their generation's canvas with the blood of their brothers,sisters, mothers ,fathers and children.He had only a few years left to breathe,he was more worried for them than for himself,violence it seemed had gone 'glocal',for it was only a matter of time until a child lay in a pool of its own blood in Gora's village square.What a shame,a big shame.

He was not going to let this madness come to fruition,he had to move swifly to call for a stakeholders meeting,the youth held him in high esteem and would listen to his voice of reason, yes, even if this would be the last thing he would do,he was willing to do it,it was a battle for the very soul of Gora and he was going to stop at nothing until he had educated fellow Gorans.He had prepared his speech and rehearsed it over and over in his head ready for the stakeholders' meeting the next morning when like a thief,sleep crawled up his gray beard and closed his tired eyes as if to say' well done old man you have worked hard enough already' he snored away as if in agreement into the now tense night air over Gora.

Boom boom boom,tatatataaaaa and loud screams of women and children startled Ema to his wobbly feet barely seeing anything in his immediate surroundings, a shadowy figure clutching what seemed like a bag lay in the distance,he couldn't make out what it was amidst the ensuing pandemonium, a burning hut in the distance casting its flamy light on the shadowy figure,he made out the figure to be that of a lifeless pregnant woman clutching her two year old little girl.His feet were wobbly,everything happened so fast sparing him no time to process everything .He couldn't run even when he tried to,'This is it',he heard voice in his head say.They got to his hut and his screams became more and more distant as the flames drowned his wisdom ladened voice.,Evil had brought death upon Jabi and many more like him-all good and Innocent people going about their pedestrian lives.Armageddon was upon Gora...

By Randolph Samba

A medical Doctor, Blogger(9jawow.com.ng ),writer, entrepreneur and motivator.....