ON MONDAY OF LAST WEEK

On Monday of last week, I visited a friend at Ikeja. Ikeja well known for it’s bustling and hustling; you wouldn’t be wrong to say that Ikeja is the spirit of Lasgidi! It is still a contending thing to say for some Lekki champ! I stood at the balcony taking in and out everything my eyes could see. Two brothers had walked passed earlier carrying luggage on their wheelbarrow - a job I learnt was saving lives in Lagos. Soon, there was clatter, the next there was a shout and now there was a loud cry; a fellow standing, squatting, rising and falling all at a watch; screaming words only his emotions understood - his wheelbarrow was not a thing to remember but his lifeless brother is a story to be told and retold to the gathering crowd.

This is not to point out the shame of a failed State - although it is a thing. This is to describe our frailty and fragility as a human, how weak we are in the face of death and grief. It goes out so swiftly out of the mouth of one who had not yet had a first hand dealing with grief, who had not yet touch griefs bare core to say "it is going to be fine", "find comfort in your memories" Of course they mean well, but inside of those memories is the pain. Inside of those memories is the bleak and pale permanence of death! And it is the permanence of death that makes it irreparable. On Monday of last week, before the ambulance came and carried him away.