My Dark School Of Thoughts

    Where am I? Where the hell am I? What is this place? How did I get here? Those were the questions that kept echoing in my head. The whole place gave out an ethereal ambiance and except for a humming and crackling sound that I couldn’t place and the consistent drop of water that was coming from somewhere I couldn’t place and which was driving me nuts the whole place was as silent as a tomb. I am so chilled to the bones, my eye’s are wide open seeing, ears hearing, nose smelling and skin feeling but my mouth couldn’t utter a word and despite no obvious sign of bondage I couldn’t move any part of my body no matter how hard I tried, its like my complete motor system had shut down.      

I am lying flat on my back, butt naked on a very cold surface, my heart in my mouth, blood coursing through my veins and rushing to my head at the speed of light because of my helplessness and terror and I wondered angrily that it would be so ironic if I who had survived two wars and a terrible auto crash that put me in a comatose state for three months was probably going to die at the hands of a psychopath.

    I tried looking around me despite my restrictions for a better understanding of where I might be but could glimpse only a little, In front of me was some sort of a hearth that was covered and emitted a glowing yellow pulsating light that was the only obvious sign of light around because the other part of the place was clouded in semi darkness and it looked like I was all alone here, oh! Am not alone, there is someone or something at my peripheral view, backing me, seemingly busy doing only God knows what and it is clad in all white, I try my best to turn my neck towards it but to no avail. Who or what is that? What is it doing here? What does it want with me? What am I doing here? And most importantly, how did I get here? I racked my brain again but this time longer and harder and after a time everything came flooding back to me in a rush and I realized I had two or probably three possibilities on where I probably would be and when the implication of my thoughts hit me, cold large droplets of sweat broke out from my whole body.   

     My last memory was of my son crying and shaking me while I was lying face down on the ground in my compound dying. These are the series of events that led to my present predicament: Every man has a hobby or weakness, mine were flowers and I have a nursery at my backyard where I groom several exotic flowers during my spare time. On this fateful day I was bent over with my young son in the nursery inspecting the flowers progress and explaining with excitement to him about the different flowers and their properties when I felt a sharp sting on my neck and instinctively hit the spot and something dropped to the ground but before I could take a closer look at what it was I was suddenly immobilized and I fell to the floor slowly losing consciousness, as I slipped into oblivion tears rolled down my eyes because the last thing I saw was my young son weeping and begging me to get up.

      I am dead! Its as simple as that. We Christians believe that when we die we either go to heaven or hell depending on how you lived your life back on earth. I definitely ain’t in ‘Hell’ because we all have an idea of how horrible the life and reception in hell would be and I definitely ain’t in ‘Heaven’ too because it would have been bright, cheerful and radiant so I am left with only one choice.

      I was born a catholic before I changed faith and Catholics believe in a place called ‘Purgatory’, a place where you go after death to pay atonement for your sins before your admittance into heaven, its like a second chance and with careful consideration and thought and even when it went against the belief of my new faith I began to relax a bit because it was the only logical explanation considering the fact that I was certain that I am dead. But even with the unknown person at the corner clad in all white, the color white which signifies purity, the heavenly color of the angels, this place still didn’t look or feel like purgatory to me but again, who really knows how it looks like anyway? With my mind made up about my whereabouts I began to reflect on my past life, my mistake’s, my dreams, aspirations and my family and I was thankful that I had at least put things in place for my them by preparing a ‘will’ about a couple of months back. I was still so lost in my thoughts when I heard a song I happened to love while I was alive, so I sang along in my mind for about three minute’s till when the song stopped then another song entered, then it hit me! What was a stereo doing here in purgatory? What was an Angel or whoever it was doing listening to not just an earthly music but an earthly secular music? Where the hell was I for God sake? Who or what was this? With all this questions arising and whirling in my head, dread and horror crept back in stronger than before because of my fear for the unknown, then the whatever or whoever it was turned as if on cue and started walking towards me and when it got close enough for me to see its face the truth came crashing down on me like a tidal wave of a tsunami. I remembered two little details I insisted on in my damn will and I started to panic because if I didn’t do something now I wasn’t just going to die for real but painfully too. He is standing beside me now, looking down at me on the slab sorrowful and teary eyed while I was looking back up at him pleading and screaming at him without voice to stop this madness, then he caresses my cheek affectionately and pushes my body towards the only source of light in the room, he opens it to reveal a fiery furnace burning in all its magnificence and glory, then he looks at me one last time oblivious to my silent protesting, pleading and screaming, then he dumps me into the beckoning and hungry fire which forever enveloped me with so much glee and urgency and as the fire hungrily burned my flesh I screamed away my body and soul in pain and suffering forever silent and never to be heard.

    With tears streaming down his eyes he suddenly looked back at the furnace because he thought he heard a scream and when he didn’t hear it again, he rolled back the gurney he used to dump the body, walks over to the stereo playing at the corner, picks it up then smashes it on the wall in pain and anger. He had decided to play his favorite songs for him as a way of saying farewell, then he cursed him for making him go through this ordeal, for who could deny a man off his last dying request? He sighs with regret and loss and wondered why he chose to do away with his remains by cremation, insisting that his body shouldn’t be desecrated by an autopsy because of his religious beliefs and his further insistence that i should perform the cremation personally.  He understood him not wanting outsiders handling his remains and all that but didn’t he realize that

it would emotionally and psychologically draining for him? Then he looks around and decides that it was the least he could do for his beloved brother because when he wanted to open this crematorium business it was him that gave him a loan for the capital, a loan that when he eventually wanted to pay back was adamantly rejected. Then he sat down brooding and wondering how a mere bee sting could be so fatal even if his brother has always been allergic to bee stings and made a mental note to seriously investigate and check out the credibility of the rumors making its round about a fire at the Phoenix bee research center and the escape of some of their bee’s about two weeks ago.