Lesson 2 Assignment Part 1

The Freytag Model

'Pawns in a Twisted Game'

EXPOSITION
         Alli! I got big news!
Femi (Fe me) or F.M (as I preferred to call him and will through the length of this story) was my bossom friend and the catalyst of my present position.
He was a man driven solely by one fierce obssession:
         A desire for quick wealth.
Today he was dressed in his customary agbada (a traditional Yoruba attire) and... blinging from all angles.
          'My main maga! Kilonshele!' (My dearest friend. What's up!)
          'Business!'
Whenever F.M mention of that word dough stacks of it was about to flow.
          'Yan me!' (Spit it out)
I pictured this encounter as another opportunity to paint the town red. I just never had any idea how literal my imagination would become.
I've read it somewhere before that 'Death and danger do not have to come with trappings'. However, some wiser guy had rightly said, 'Don't believe everything you read'. Needless to say the latter cliché stuck like glue.

RISING ACTION
          'In a few weeks Nigeria decides!'
The gubernatorial election was just around the corner but how on earth was F.M involved? He wasn't 'running' was he?
          'Maga don pay!'
I struggled to demystify his slang and decided he must be referring to the political drama that was now a trademark of the Nigerian elections. Politicians paying the youth (labeled political thug) to activate mayhem during the electoral exercise.
How many young dreams perished on that fateful day? Lanre, James, Yellow, Rebecca the Tomman, what else could we call her? She would not permit anyone call her 'boy' or 'girl' after she hit puberty.
We were all from the same villa (neighborhood), had attended college together and had arbitrarily dropped out, each on personal terms. The point? Who wanted educational qualification or decent employment anyway only to be made slave of corrupt godfathers?
          'Kasala don bust! Baba don arrange something for boys', (The political fathers dished out loads of cash) F.M appealed. 'You in or out?'
Of course I was in.

CLIMAX
Here we are on the D-Day (the day of the gubernatorial elections). The hope of a youg nation, seeds of the future.
You know they say, 'Everybody got to have a dream'. But what do you do when all you have is a dream deferred?
We manned one of the polling centers. Our group had split up and set camp at various polling stations across the state.
Our mission: If the opposition gets the higher vote count snatch the ballot boxes and never let them get to the Electoral Commission office. Piece of cake han?
If fate was a script writer or a movie director he would have been above all, a master of suspense.
There was electricity in the air as the voters proceeded toward the box like hell's own option.
Apparently, we were not the only local observers who had plans. Cos suddenly, a man, a thing, something grabbed one of the ballot boxes (which was made of glass) and slammed it against the ground...
          Pandemonium!
Hell would have freezed up in fear of the little thug war detonated by that single act.
My team moved swiftly into action. Our weapon, broken bottles, 'Captain-Caveman'-sized clubs and every other thing that could inflict bodily injury.
          Everybody else was the enemy.
If society saw a criminal in me then it was high time I display the art of a criminal mind.
          There was blood!
An endangered specie caught up in the struggle for survival now consumed with hate for society and all it stood for.
At the height of the saga I felt something like a metallic tablet pierce the skin of my back...
          A bullet?
Did some psycho bring a gun to this local fight?
The tablet channeled its way through my flesh, tissue, to the bone and through the marrow to finally lodge in my heart.

FALLING ACTION
My breath choked me. The world suddenly became the vortex of a hurricane.
My entire life flashed before me, flickering like pictures from a projector on a mental wall.
Against my will, my eyelids began closing. All my life I had lived by the power of my will but now my body would not obey its commands.

RESOLUTION
Just as quickly as it had begun, the madness was compensated by...
         ...DEAFENING SILENCE...
Now here I stand at the beginning of time. As judge and jury of a wasted youth; a victim; a pawn in a twisted game.