THIS MAN

It was one of those grey evenings I was lying on my back on the hospital bed shifting my gaze strenuously from one florescent bulb to the other, apparently not believing that I was soon going to close my eyelids never to open them again.

The thought of death itself was just us unbearable as my sick body. I imagined how it would be like to die& whether the dead would welcome me just as much as we usher the newborns with gifts and songs. Then I remembered a conversation I over heard between two old men in our neighborhood as they talked about the living dead who tormented a young man back in their village and as my thoughts soared I wondered whether I’d also be back to torment, but whom will I torment or who will be willing to be tormented, I wondered; then without warning I found myself thinking of those who were mean to me and how I was going to torment them when I had someone call me from a distance.

I lazily turned my head to my right almost unconsciously my mind still in deep thoughts and right beside my bed was my childhood friend Gitau, now a successful pastor. Immediately my thoughts ran back to our childhood days and I remembered how Gitau always seemed to invite more problems than any of us. I particularly remembered one day when we had a clearly spelt out plan of how we were going to warp up everything at Maweu’s garage until Gitau showed up with this ‘stupid’ idea that almost blew our cover and the best he could do to save the situation was to laugh his head out.

We were quite naughty. Now the same old friend who always wore a smile stood a few inches wrapped in silence, probably trying to compose his spiritual speech. I never paid much attention to him; especially after ‘he got cheated into joining the freaks’ yeah! That’s what we called those saved; but that day I yearned to hear from him. Whether it was the last words of a neglected old friend that I wanted to hear or this thing called spirituality am not sure, but that was the beginning of the end.

I listened keenly as Gitau explained to me the life and death of this Man Jesus. Every thing seemed to be still except for His deep voice that cut through the air and the shuffling of his hands through the Bible pages as he looked for a reference to back up his teaching. I wondered whether I was really enjoying this ‘freaky’ stuff or it’s my friend’s presence I was enjoying.

Soon he was done and he asked that we pray and I agreed more of a favor to him; I mean you don’t want to make enemies on your death bed do you? Or so I thought, but the prayers were so fervent at some point I opened my eyes to watch the person we robbed people with praying with so much passion. Then came the part for Amen and I pretended to be opening my eyes.
“I pray that God visit you this day.” He said then handed me his Bible then left...TO BE CONTINUED...
© 2008