OF ANGELS, THEIR HUMAN FORMS AND BEING ONE

Writing today was supposed to be in a totally different direction, but here we are, taking another route. Today was a day that started very well and went ‘very well’. You know one of those days when it just looks as if you have been chosen to enjoy the day’s stress.

I would normally have finished today’s post before this time but the day used me big time. I’d reported at the mechanic early in the morning to sort out a challenge that refused to go away for almost a week. The sound was abnormal and was hiding. Eventually, Sir K (one of my two trusted mechanics) found the terrible sound and we overcame.

Happy that I had won, even if I was angry I had to part with some precious naira, I started for the children’s school so we could beat the wicked traffic snarl that is associated with closing hours. Anyone living in Ibadan knows what the traffic situation is around Oluyole, Akala Express and environs these days. Leave Olodo people out of this, they are in a separate world. Well, going on the school runs was the beginning of the day’s travails because as I was about to park, it looked as if my eyes were working from an alternate universe. The temperature gauge had shot up and the vehicle was overheating.

With the little experience I have garnered over the years, I attended to the issue and thought it had been settled only for us to leave and the challenge reared its ugly head at Challenge. That was where I knew it was going to be a long evening. I did a quick calculation and went to stop where I thought I could get help. That was the point at which I needed an angel!

The person who was called to attend to me was dismissive, and I know it was because of the Ramadan fast that had sapped him of energy. A decision had to be made, do I find a safe place to park and find my way home with the family? Do I try and see if any of my homebound routes will be good enough for an overheating vehicle at a time when most artisans who could attend to it were running back home to break their fast? Do I just leave the car in a safe place? I was conflicted but with Bukky’s input, we decided to risk it and find places to stop for the engine to cool down.

We had hardly reached halfway when one of the hoses burst! Angry, confused, pissed and irritated, but those feelings were not the solution to the challenge that started at Challenge. Those resident in Ibadan will understand the latter portion of the previous sentence. I still needed an angel and I approached an elderly man who was at the makeshift car lot right where it happened. He gave all the needed support by rallying someone who could get the problem fixed to at least get us home. Without that initial support, getting home would have been a problem.

Now, Bukky needed to deliver something to a customer. This would have been done very easily if the day had not taken a funny turn. However, the way our evening had gone meant I would help deliver the stuff while she made dinner. I was very tired but I just had the urge to do the needful. Funny thing was that the profit on the goods sold was not worth me taking a keke, as we call tricycle in these parts, to go and deliver them but I was just constrained in my spirit that I needed to satisfy the customer.

I joined a tricycle that approached my junction and there was only one other passenger who I greeted respectfully and proceeded to respond to messages that were waiting. As we moved a bit forward, the woman spoke, and I looked at her, urging her to repeat what she said.

That was when she told me the horror story of how she went to meet someone who owed her so she could use the money to fix dinner for her family only for the person to disappoint. She said it smiling and all. Now, I would normally respond based on my state of mind at the time which was anything but good. However, I managed a smile and reached for my wallet to give her ‘something’. As I passed her the money, the inner man spoke and asked me if that would be enough to feed myself and my children.

“Ahn ahn! Which level now? Me wey don spend plenty money plus stress on top the vehicle ish? No o, I no dey drop shishi again.”

Inner man was laughing at me but he nudged me to double what I gave, choosing that time to blackmail me emotionally by reminding me of a day I forgot my wallet at home about ten years ago. Now, that day was a Sunday and I had just returned from the night shift. As was customary for me then, I would nap before joining the service in Church. I woke up a bit late and started rushing. In the process, I left home not knowing I was without my wallet and had set myself up for embarrassment.

When it was time to pay, as I was approaching my bus stop, reality dawned and I did not realize I had spoken out – “I’m in real deep shit!”. The guy beside me looked and asked what the problem was which I told him without hesitation. He came through, covered the cab cost and crossed to the other side. He possibly saw that I was rooted to the spot where we both alighted from the cab. Coming back to me, he asked what the way forward was and I told him he had solved only half of my problem as I was now stranded and there was no way I could move without having to beg.

He gave me a 200 naira note and was about to leave but I held him back and asked for his phone number so I could express appreciation. The guy wrote the number and left. Much later in the day, I was going to call him only to discover that the number he gave was incomplete. I tried to no avail. Then I realized he was an angel, the one I needed at that point.

With this memory, I opened my wallet and doubled what I gave the woman. I later came to understand that I insisted on going to deliver that stuff because I was the angel the person needed then. No matter how much I wanted not to go, the fact that I was to be the vehicle for an answered prayer would make me push to go at that time.

We have all met angels at different times, we have been made angels for fellow humans. The prayer as we end day 26 is that may we receive the help and intervention of angels; may we also be angels that will be who and what other people need.

“WHERE’S MY WALLET?”

A few days ago, I sat in the ‘comfort’ of the cab on my way to the night shift which has so much become regular of recent. As the cab man was screaming his destination on top of his voice, I decided to busy myself in the e-version of Francine Rivers’ An Echo in the Wind. Time, always not my friend these days, was running out fast. I needed to catch the staff bus, failing which I would have to ‘hail’ a bike in a not so favourable time of the day. Little by little, the vehicle got its full passenger load, and even added the extra one man in front, that has come to stay in my city of residence.

I managed to murmur a reply when each of the co-passengers came in as I was engrossed totally in the book I was reading. I even ignored all sorts of messages that came in on the phone, preferring instead to continue my reading.

Time to move, I looked up for no particular reason and then went back to my reading.

The journey started smoothly and there was this elation in me that the angels have actually answered my prayers and we would get to my destination even before the calculated time. While the journey continued in its smoothness, I was enjoying the breeze that was washing over my face that warm evening, as well as the minimal level of traffic flow that allowed easy and quick movement for me.

As we approached the final stop, I wanted to flip my wallet which I always held in my hands. That was when it dawned on me that in my rushing and hurrying, I had left my wallet on my bed post at home as someone moved me for free from home to the bus stop while I was hurrying. In my distraught state, I actually started ransacking my bag maybe to see if angel Gabriel had placed it in there. My palms became sweaty, my mind in turmoil. “What would I tell this cab man for God’s sake?” I was half laughing at myself for the embarrassing scene I would witness when I alight at the last stop. I tried to place a call to my friend who lives a bit close to where I was going to stop to go wait for me and avail me of the amount I needed to pay. Thank God for MTN and Globacom, my misery was compounded as the call did not just connect on either of the networks.

I sank well into the car seat, ready to receive the highest level of dressing down I have ever received. I sighed repeatedly, brought out my handkerchief to mop invisible sweat. Simply put, I was restless. The young lady beside me whose greeting I answered in a murmur noticed that I was not composed and I was lucky she asked “is everything okay?”

I smiled, and told her I was in real deep trouble.

Explaining my plight to her, she told me to calm down. That was when I started feeling the coolness of the breeze on my face again. She paid the driver with a crispy one thousand naira note and just chuckled, more like holding a laugh.

Wetin consign me? Part one of the ish don settle. She just turned to me and said “I’ve been down that road before”.

Reaching the final stop, I thanked her and was about making my way to my friend’s when she called me back. She asked where I was heading and how I’d make my way there. All semblance of ‘forming’ disappeared straight. I reeled out my movement and lucky me, we were headed in the same direction. She offered to pay to my next stop and we started a semi-gist. That was when she narrated her own experience. Time seemed to move too fast and we got to destination, that was when I remembered the staff bus I was so in haste to catch, which by then was even gone.

As I made to go after saying thanks, she just pulled me back and dropped five hundred naira in my hands to “find your way back home tomorrow and be more careful next time”. I smiled and said thanks to appreciate the gesture.

Now you wanna know what happened next?

I took her digits and promised to call to appreciate her. Someway, somehow, there was a mix up and the number I took from her exceeded the normal eleven digits which a mobile number should be.

My ass was saved, I got a raise, but the chance to appreciate the lady I met in the dark was lost.

Maybe she was sent by angel Gabriel. Just maybe…

I am @0scarpoems