Lost But Satisfied - Episode 13

 

Jerry couldn’t fathom why Pastor Matthew had initially kept this place but it was useful at that time. Two months ago, he had saved the Pastor from being sent to an asylum for the second time and today Pastor Matthew was the one saving him. Pastor Matthew, a 5.3 feet tall man, who also had a very big bald that made the little hair on his head look like an island. People had advised him to let the hair go, but he was adamant . He told people he was a Nazarene and the hair of a Nazarene mustn't be touched with a blade.

 Four weeks ago, about the same time, Jerry began to have problems from left and right, Pastor Matthew was almost sent to an asylum. All preparation had been made, but Jerry saved him by helping him escape the church members that tied him down after Pastor Matthew gave him assurance that he was actually sane.

 The church, at that time, after many deliverance sections, had agreed that the best option was to take the pastor to an asylum, where he would have little or no contact with anybody, whosoever. How would God tell a Pastor to go to the wild and gather wild animals for a coming doom? Either the Pastor wasn't hearing well from God or the Pastor was misinterpreting God.

The more he fought the urge to think about the events, the more the events came to him vividly. Jerry smirked and gently hit his head on the wall repeatedly

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. He shouldn't have allowed his emotion to overrule his logic. If he had followed one of the women, he would have information about himself. He hissed and turned to face the pastor, who was busy drawing something.

 Pastor Matthew, who was constructing something in a big drawing book, turned to Jerry. The small table held a lamp, a Mathematical set, gum, compass, protractor.

‘Bro. Jeremiah, you do not understand what you have done by coming here? How the lord plans to use you to wrought great wonders and great preparation. Eyes have not seen. Ears have not heard. Neither has it come to the hearts of men what God plans for you. However how long the moon disappears, someday it must shine again’.

Jerry nodded. He didn’t understand what Pastor Matthew was talking about, but he had to respect him, no matter what others might think of him.

‘I have plotted the ship. According to what the lord is telling me, it would be bigger than Noah’s ark. All I need now is to start work on it’, Pastor Matthew said, rubbing his hands happily.

Pastor Matthew stood hurriedly and opened his bible. He bent over it, drew the orange lamp towards himself, and began to rapidly write out figures into a small notepad. This behaviour was disturbing to Jerry.

The house was cosy. It was plastered inside out, there were two arm-chair in the mini-sitting room. In addition, there were two other bedrooms. When Jerry entered one of the rooms to drop his bag, a bed had been placed there for him.

 Jerry sat there like one of those University students, who were bent on graduating, but have no real plan for their life. Right now, Jerry believed, anything goes.

‘Bro. Jerry…’ Pastor Matthew said as he sat on the chair opposite Jerry.

‘Why are you worried as if there is no solution? God is always around to solve whatever problem you might have. More so, all things work together for the good of those that love God and you love God. Don’t you believe in God again? Be like cricket. It’s never blinded by sands of its burrowing’.

 Jerry couldn’t utter a word. If Pastor Matthew was a child, Jerry would have slapped him for telling him to trust in God at that time. So, he nodded.

‘So, what’s your plan? Plans are the foundation of our tomorrow. God has been teaching plans for days now. You needed to see the underground road, he made me build these past days’.

‘Plans? Pastor Matt, I have no plan whatsoever. All I wish was for is the cold hand of death to grab my hardened souls and return it to God’.

‘Well, you are still here’.

‘I know. I know and that’s disturbing. I want to die…’

‘Hmm... Bro. Jerry. Have you forgotten that lines are falling for us in pleasant places? The lines we are talking about here are sometimes the problem. What did the Lord say about the lady of the night?’

‘I didn’t hear anything from God as regarding her, maybe because I was so much engrossed in appreciating her beauty and personality that I was so deaf to God concerning her’.

‘Hmmm… Would God have wanted you to follow her’?

 Jerry waited and stared at Pastor Matthew for sometimes.

‘No…’ He said affirmatively.

 ‘What of that woman that called herself your wife?’

‘Nah. God wouldn’t have wanted me to follow her. She is too possessive’.

‘Do you have anything in mind that you wish to do?’ Pastor Matthew asked as he shifted forward as if he expected something and had been praying Jerry would say what he wanted.

Jerry’s eyes flew to the time on the wall that kept ticking and striking chords in his brain. The time was fifteen minutes after midnight.

‘I’ll like to leave Green City’.

 Pastor Matthew flew up and screamed,'Yes!’

 He jabbed the air excitedly and began to pace the room, his hand behind his back like someone who had gotten an idea but still feared the consequences.

‘I think the Lord had impressed it on my heart to leave Greencity for my house in….’

 The door burst open and five men rushed into the room. They ran to Pastor Matthew, held him tight, and began to tie him with a very long rope.

‘What’s this? ‘Jerry shouted, standing and trying to pull the men off Pastor Matthew, ‘Bro. Seye, what is the meaning of this?’

‘Bro. Jerry. We must carry Pastor to Yaba, Lagos. He needs it. Don’t you know how many people died from the animals he took the other time? And now, he is hiding here. We don’t know what he would be doing next. Moreover, whatever he might be planning, God knows, would be detrimental to humans' health. See, Police had been looking all over the place for him’.

Bro. Seye was a fat man. His belly protruded under the t-shirt he wore and he was panting heavily.

‘Honor me. I’m your pastor. Carry me well’ Pastor Matthew shouted as he wriggled in the hand of the men tying him, ‘No…I’m alright. I’m not mad. I’m perfectly alright’.

Jerry ran from one man to the other and tried to pull their grips off the pastor, but the men were adamant and were soon carrying Pastor Matthew away as if he was a robot that needed repair.

The men kept carrying him away, not minding his noise, not minding the way Jerry pulled their hands off him. They carried him on, out of the garden, through the bush, and headed straight for a car that was waiting for them.

‘Good’, a throaty voice called from afar, ‘I knew we would find you’.

 Jerry stopped trying to save Pastor Matthew and stopped as he saw the owner of the voice coming out of the darkness into the light emanating from the headlight of a van. The owner of the voice was a plump policeman, whose belly didn’t allow him to close the button of his shirt well.

‘Do you think you can keep on hiding from us?’ The policeman said.

‘I was not hiding’, Pastor Matthew cried in pain, ‘it was an instruction from the lord’.

At that time, Jerry felt like slapping the pastor to tell him to shut up. He felt like crushing these church members, who thought they were helping the pastor, for ruining his plan. He had hoped that he would enjoy his stay with the pastor but these loyalists have disrupted every plan he had.

  ‘The Lord told us too to carry you. Take him into the van’, the police officer shouted. Some of the policemen ran to carry Pastor Matthew, loosened him and used the rope to tie only his hands.

‘What do we do with the remaining people?’ One of the policemen shouted above the noise of a car hurrying towards their direction.

‘Leave them, we have gotten the person we need’.

 Jerry shifted back in frustration. He decided to keep on staying in Pastor’s hut and turned towards it the same time a shot rang from afar. Jerry turned hurriedly to see where the gunshot was from. Suddenly the shots became more than one. The sounds of the gunshots were different- some sounded like Dane guns, some other pistol, and sophisticated guns and another set sounded like the old type of modern guns.

Jerry crouched as stray bullets hit one of the policemen and one of Pastor Matthew’s church members. Noises erupted from everyone as they tried to hide their heads. Even light from lamps suddenly went off in some houses. The siren of a police car blared and disturbed the choky night.

‘Thief!’ People shouted as a car zoomed past Jerry and others in the night. The police officer that was supposed to catch Pastor Matthew joined in the shooting. His gun hit the tyre of the car and the car swerved and later stopped. The policemen ran towards the car.

Jerry, seeing this opportunity, not knowing the reason he was doing that, ran to the Pastor and opened the door. Luckily for him, the rope used to tie the pastor wasn't tied well. He untied it and pulled Pastor Matthew out of the van. They ran back towards the hut- Jerry at the front, not minding if Pastor was running fast. All he wanted was to get out of the danger zone and to help Pastor Matthew escape these people.

‘Come here’, Pastor Matthew shouted, when Jerry rushed towards the house.

Jerry stopped and followed him. Pastor Matthew had better have a good plan or else he would tie him down himself.

‘Where are we going?’ Jerry asked amidst his pant and desire to escape.

'The underground', Pastor Matthew ran to the back of the house, screeching to a halt in front of a big blue plastic drum, which was locked, and stood there.

‘What now?’ Jerry asked as he stopped behind the pastor.

‘Pastor’ someone was calling from afar

‘We have to leave here fast before they catch you’, Jerry said. He didn’t know what he should believe. Should he agree with the pastor that doom of water was coming fast and that they needed to prepare like the days of Noah? On the other hand, should he agree with the members of Pastor’s church, who believed Pastor was mad and needed immediate remanding?

Pastor Matthew pushed the drum. Bennett smirked and nodded in agreement to what everyone believed, that the Pastor was mad and that he needed to tie him, but there was no time to tie Pastor down. He had to bring Pastor’s back to the situation at hand.

‘Pastor Matthew, what are you doing?’ He shouted as the person calling Pastor Matthew got nearer.

‘Come.

Read " The Thorny Path to Europe " by the same author ( Akíntayo Akinjide )

. Help me remove this drum of sand. Two hands better one.’

 Jerry joined him in pushing the drum away. The drum rolled away in the dark, clanging on the floor as it kept on running into stones, but the drum didn’t stop until it got to a fence. Pastor Matthew bent and opened a trapdoor. If not that he saw the head of the trapdoor, he would have ever believed it was there.

‘Follow me’, Pastor Matthew said as he jumped into the hole. Jerry hesitated and he scanned the hole and then decided to enter the hole seeing he had no better option.

 Pastor Matthew locked the trapdoor from within. The whole place was so dark to the chagrin of Jerry, who held his breathe and refused to talk as Pastor Mathew held his hand firmly. He nodded even though Pastor Matthew wouldn’t see him. The men looking for Pastor Matthew were already outside the hole and were calling his name.

‘You have to hold my cloth. We will be walking through this place in the dark till I am sure we can put on the light’.

 Jerry knew he was done for. But no matter what, he was totally free from everyone that wanted him at all cost.