The Son became His Father - What he needs you to

✯What He Needs You To✯

"PHILEMON!! WE ARE NOT OF THIS WORLD
DO THE GREAT THINGS GOD NEEDS YOU TO!!"

My father's words would instantly ring out at the slightest attempt of anyone being blasphemous.

The People before me; A Muslim brother and two female Christians, were speaking against what I have been taught my whole life. Against what I could definitely pinpoint as written in the Bible. I don't understand why these people dared disturb my evening.

"Wallahi Tallahi! The greatest law and order in the Quran is Love" Aliyu insisted, the ladies nodded in agreement
"Even in the Bible too" Charis, the pretty, fair and chubby lady added
"NO!!" I roared in disagreement "What are you all saying???!!
The Greatest Law and Commandment is doing God's will. I don't blame you tho..." I faced Aliyu " Your religion feeds your animalistic kind of specie lies" I tightly said and instead, the ladies chortled and Aliyu light-heartedly hooted. Obviously, they cared less.

I was angry. Like hot and enraged kind of anger. WHY WERE THEY LAUGHING???
My Father had given me in-depth and detailed teachings of everything concerning the Bible. Direct teachings, until I was Eight before he finally decided to send me off to a Seminary School. I never passed through normal school process..I never did those classes y'all call Kindergarten, Play group or Primary.
I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE BIBLE THAN THIS LOTS!!! I screamed in my thoughts.

"PHILEMON!!! WE ARE NOT OF THIS WORLD.
DO THE GREAT THINGS GOD NEEDS YOU TO!!!" His loud and heavy baritone echoed again in my head.

"Oga Filemonu, me I din know where you use to collect all this jati jati from o. Mi o mo SE" Labake interrupted giggling, her thick Yoruba accent clashing with her speech
With clenched fist and composed demeanor, I left for my room.
Fellowship time, I'd be out.

The memories of my Father sitting on our old wooden stool while I kneel by his feet with fifteen heavy textbooks on my head and the Bible in palms..forcing and stressing out my eyes and brain to read aloud words in minimized font and of English complexities, replayed.

For every book that fell off my head, I reread from the top. The great pains caused from the heavy weights of big books stressing my fragile and young neck would generate into my spinal vertebrae and I dared not wring or stretch my bac. Else, the thick horsewhip in his hands would lace my bare back.

I was only five, then.

The neighbours had no say or the confidence to confront my mean--Oh, he once said he wasn't.

At Six, I was already reciting the pages off the Bible without aid in church. He would dress me in multiple bogus wears to disguise how bony and skeletal I was, compelling me to smile brightly at anyone who stared.
"A BRIGHT SMILE, NOT A FRIENDLY ONE!!" He'd command before we leave.

He was a dutiful Sunday School teacher, "married to the word and not the world", he'd remind the congregation and they would laugh and cheer on.
The HOLIEST man in the community, always the first to be out whenever donations for church projects were needed. As early as 4am, he opened the church.
Washes and dusts away until the altar was glossy, the Choir stand and equipments were in shape and order and the chairs were sparkling white.

Once we were home, he would pull me over with his fingers tightened on my left ear (they were as hard and rough as a jagged mountain). By this display, I'd know what he wanted, 'The summary of Sunday's topic'.
A time I failed to say because I was literally dying of a serious sickness coupled with ulcer and insatiable hunger..he never understood or cared, he almost--no. Not almost, he flung me off our Three story apartment from the top floor!
Lucky me, one of our neighbours had reflexively caught me while he was almost moving to his car. He footed the bills and my feeding until I was discharged.
How I screamed to be left alone! How i so wished to be gone and my Father slapped hard..
Every ward in that hall echoed its sound and every Medical and health worker standing by were taken aback.

✯✯

'6.30pm' the alarm clock beeped.
I put on my leather jacket and boots, slipped something into my jacket's behind pocket then sauntered out.

I could hear the echoing voices of different students walking by the lonely path leading out to the fellowship's centre, I ducked behind a short thick branch of grasses and waited. It didn't take long before Charis' beautiful voice rang out in the misty night air, she was a Chorister, she walked side by side with Labake while she rehearsed the line of an already rehearsed song she kept missing.
I patiently waited until they finally came in sight. Within a second, I sprang over them, pushed them hard to the ground with my weight, Labake split her head against a huge rock. I slid out the object I had in my jacket to their wrist. Charis' violently wriggled behind me as soon as she felt the sharp pains generated from the dagger's blade against her delicate flesh, she tried screaming and I clamped her mouth shut, whispering in her ears about knowing peace forever without being blasphemous throughout her lifetime if she embraced It.
Slowly, the convulsions seized, her body was finally limp and empty of life, I excitedly concluded gazing at the  starry nightsky.

"ATTA BOY!! YOU FINALLY DID WHAT HE WANTS YOU TO" I suddenly hear and see my Father rubbing my head as a 14year old kid, congratulating me on my first work 'Stabbing a boy like me repeatedly because he addressed God in The Wrong Way'.
He called God 'the yoke/bond destroyer', God was of peace!!! I had screamed rushing at him with the broken glass I had picked from outside.

Smiling to myself, I quietly resolved with finality, 'I did Good'.
I comfortably jog out from the scene, hands in my pockets.

Friday would be Aliyu's.

           Anichebe◉‿◉Precious