JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES...

          Just like in the movies ,there is always the good man and the bad man and the much anticipated final moment where the good man ,after a roller-coaster of pain and anguish gets his sweet revenge against the bad man. Here is where you and I smile, jump on top of the sofa, chant and punch the air with so much vigor and inspiration. Here is where the movie is full of inspirational music, signature phrases and obviously, the fall of the bad man. The feeling is always great convincing everyone that despite how rugged, rough or holly the road is, it still has a destination.



But this moment felt like nothing in the movies. It was different because I was not watching the movie: I was the actor. Contrary to the inspirational music, the plangent sound of the harpsichord started up in my mind as a pang of deja vu rippled through me. It was the very sound my mama played the day she passed away. I was in my room while she played it in the sitting room. You could discern the bitterness in the slow yet loud rhythmical sound of the harpsichord. The plangent sound halted …then unexpectedly, a boom of a gun reverberated the house. Petrified, I stormed out of the room and found her lying on the floor. Her right hand fingers clumped around the gun and blood oozed from the bullet hole on her forehead. I sank weakly on my knees and wept bitterly on her side. Now, as the same as the same sound continued in my mind, I was in a dimly lit room, on my knees, hands pinioned on my back and a man zeroing a gun nozzle on my forehead.



The truth is I don’t know if I am the good man or the bad man. Just like life, the movie is too complicated and real. No visual effects, no camera tricks…just…life. The feeling too is different, the feeling one feels knowing that he is living in the twilight of his life. The painful, heart thudding, gut wrenching, blood cuddling fear. This is how the complicated movie begins.



It is your first day on job of a multi-million clothes and design company and when you get the first call, the last thing you know is that answering it is one of the biggest mistakes. “Christian …” was the first thing I heard immediately I picked the receiver. The caller knew my name and his voice were marked with vengeance. I asked him who he was and how he knew I was to pick his call and he told me that he was a former employee in the company and that he sat in the very office that I sat. “I had worked, submissively for almost a decade before I got fired.” He continued, “The reason for my being fired is not important right now, the important thing is that I have planted a bomb under your desk.”



The words hit me like a bombshell and I jumped out of my swivel chair. I couldn’t believe my ears. “W… w…wh…what?” my voice quivered at the end of the line.

“You have three minutes to leave the building, tell no one or I’ll kill you.” CLICK! The phone went dead. Now here is where you become the most confused being on earth. I paced about the office thinking, and I decided to to look under

the desk. I dropped my left knee and stooped low… he was right. The LED red light blinked infrequently. Why did he plant the bomb in my office? How? What did I do to him? So many questions swarm around my mind. I had to leave.  I cannot die; it is my first day on job, all these problems, damn am so confused. I picked up my bag, threw in my stuff and walked out of the room. My fate was inevitable.



The elevator bell dinged open exposing the building’s foundation. It was filled with workers deeply engrossed in their work, rushing up and about and shouting. I paced out of the elevator, my gaze fixed to the ground; I never wanted to meet anyone’s eyes.  As I sped across, a hand grabbed my shoulder and I snapped. “Hey hey newbie,” it was Tom the person who directed me to my office, “where you heading to? Are you lost?” he asked

“Am …uh...eh… heading to out for lunch.” I said without a second thought. “It’s not yet lunch.” Damn! He had got me. I chewed my lower lip and glanced at my watch. A hot itchy sweat slid down my cheek and I scratched it off. “Something wrong? “he could discern the nervous look  on my face. My heart pounded so hard that I could feel it next to my ears.



I swiveled my head around and decided to say it. “Y…yes.” Tom leaned closer. “There is a bomb under my desk. “ Everything halted. It was like every human life paused. Silence prevailed as everyone looked at me dazedly. I felt like a stature-famous stature, maybe of Adolf Hitler- in a museum. In the moment of frenzy, there was a loud explosion and the building shook. Bodies, desks, computers, papers scattered to the floor. White puffs of dust fringed out of the cracks on the ceiling. Hesitantly, I made for the door, jumped the stairs holding the rails and started running across the road. A car pulled in front of me. The windows slid down revealing a gun nozzle aimed at me. “Get in.” A familiar authoritative voice ordered.



I am now about to die. I still don’t know if I am the good man or the bad man. The press has it that I planted the bomb and escaped with an accomplice who picked me outside the building. The explosion made the building collapse; over five hundred employees were buried alive. Only two, by hair’s breadth, survived and that I am still at large armed and dangerous. If my kidnapper sets me free, I will face execution by hanging, for murder of over five hundred people, a massacre. My kidnapper might as well shoot me in the head, just like in the movies.

THE END

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