THE UNKNOWN HANDS (EPISODE TWO)

STORY SERIES

…The man adjusted himself on the arm-chair where he was sitting, looked straight into my eyes with a fresh attention as someone who had just remembered something, sat back again in a more relaxed form and was soon asleep. I wasn’t surprised a bit. There had been a serious rumor making waves about me and he must

have got wind of it too, considering the way he had looked at me before dozing off. Apart from that, he had showed signs of acute tiredness when I had met him, having just returned from his farm. Besides, everyone knew him to take his nap anywhere he was, perhaps as a result of his old age.

While I was still wondering what to do, his eyes came alive again.

“Son, are you till there?”

I nodded.

“Allow the issue to rest for now. Perhaps as you grow up you will be able to find an answer to it”

I rose up from his presence and thanked him. I knew I was not going to wait any further to satisfy my curiosity. I planned to go to the Lantoro forest thinking it would be very easy getting there and without even bother to tell anyone, when I later headed there, for, events had made me lose interest in everybody around me.

There was really nobody to tell. Both of my parents were dead and I had been left alone in a world where everyone was to himself, where no one cared for another. The farm I was supposed to inherit from my father had been taken over by someone he had called his friend while he was alive. My tragedy was double as in the case of an untutored hunter of squirrel who in trying to hunt game ended losing both his cutlass and the animal. The cripple says that the cause of his load that bends to one side should be traced to legs. My problem emanated from my root. I had been rejected by my own family who instead of assisting me to recover what rightly belonged to me from the devilish traitor, had actually encouraged the man to hold on to it, and to even kill me should the need arise.

I earlier had no option than to accept their verdict that I should stay on that farm and contribute anything I could to its growth in my own little way and not minding that I had to work under a new treacherous master. Considering my age and the situation of things, I knew there was nowhere to go at that point in time, with no money and no one to turn to for help. I started putting in the best I could each day under very harsh conditions in spite of this, within just a few weeks of our stay together, Baba Lapite had inflicted severe injuries all over my body and I tried my best just to endure everything. The tailless cow has no option than to hope on divine assistance in checking the menace of files. The reasons for my maltreatment were not in explicable. The man had accused me of being too curious about things around me, that I was always wishing to find out the truth about everything, especially things that looked strange to me. The first time, I had found something that resembled a shell, but quite different in shape from the shell I knew, I had taken it to him for explanation.

He had simply flung the thing away and slapped me as I never envisaged. It was after that “gift” that he advised me not to be too nosy, that it was not everything a child sees that he should probe. Perhaps he was right, for, after that episode, I learnt to ignore many things because for all oppression, there is a lesson.

The other times, having inspected the portion where I had worked, he had declared that I had done no work and had beaten me severely. He could have been making a point at that. I had actually done very little compared to his own on those occasions. But the only area he could be said to be wrong was that the little I had usually done was my best and there was no way I could have exceeded that. Though my age could not be ascertained, I was still very young, barely entering the puberty years.

Indeed, but for my father’s death, I would just have been initiated into the Oroke Cult at such age. ...To be continued on Tuesday..

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