How I became a demon: A true life story.

For boys like me, who are offspring of a broken home, joy is an impossible tense. The last time I saw my mother was thirteen years ago, in a pool of blood when she had an accident that claimed her legs. Father said it was her punishment for bewitching his younger wife from giving birth, even though she would later have three children. Polygamy is a mess, maybe that was why the Christian god despises it. In my family, everybody is a stranger, and the dawn is a means of escaping from the reality of living in hell. I seek solace in the wee hours of the night, as that is the only time I can un-bottle my pain and make my emotions flow, for fear of being called a weakling.

When I was much younger, prior to her accident, mother was an isolated room where father dumped refuse of hate. I’ve seen him whipped mama’s back with his long koboko while she scream and yell in pain, I’ve seen him drill bumps on her face with his fist. I don’t know how their love turned sour, or perhaps, theirs was lust and not love. My father is a butcher, many times, I’ve seen him butchered mom’s feelings with wistful words.

After mom’s accident, I had to leave hell- home in search of paradise. It was never a home in the first place. I ran into the street, and it welcomed me in open arms. My first night on the street, I learnt how to smoke. The only way to ease my pain is to wrap my fears into rolls of marijuana, smoke them, and watch the flames ascend to the sky like a ram offered in prayer. I was told, that the only way to have zero worries is to find satisfaction in the content of gin bottles, and drink away my sorrows. There was so much joy and peace on the street than I ever found in the place called home.

To survive on the street, you have to be stone- hearted. Those whose hearts are soft as silk have their life hanging on their sleeves. On the street, respect is not reciprocal. You earn it, but not without bloodshed. I remember how I almost got killed on the night when some guys planned a coup. To survive, you have to learn the art of pocket -picking, that is the only way to guarantee the next meal without much stress. All this, I learnt within a short period of time. Human wants are insatiable, this have made me killed a lot of innocent souls, some physically, others emotionally, just to have their valuables. The first time I murdered a lady, I couldn’t sleep. Her spirit haunted me all through the night. My friends mocked me, saying I am no man. To them, the only way to get over it is to kill the second and third as soon as possible. Influential men hired us as assassins, our jobs were perfect and untraceable. I was happy, but deep down, my heart was burning, of rage, hatred and revenge. I decided to pay him back in his own coin, the man who made me into a demon.

I went back to the place which once housed my naked body. Alas! I saw him outside, lying beneath the surface of the earth. They said he committed suicide, after his younger wife and her children abandoned him. There is a way karma deal with people, and he was not left out. Right there in my father’s compound, still mourning the death of the man who caused me so much suffering, armed men came in to apprehend him. I was the primary suspect of a murder case. I was tried and arraigned before the court of law, and was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment. I saw my aged mother on a wheelchair, with tears rolling down her cheeks. She cried, I cried, but tears cannot turn back the hands of time. I’ve no regrets, I’m the cause of my own misfortune. But sometimes, parental background have a way of defining an individual. Maybe if my parents never divorced, maybe if my father showed me love, maybe if home was actually not a synonym for hell, maybe if there was unity in diversity, just maybe I would be spending the rest of my life putting on a lab coat as a medical doctor and not behind bars.

From Opera News