THE UNKNOWN HANDS (EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR)

STORY SERIES
...I had learnt too that I should not cheat my fellowman. Baba of blessed memory had usually hammered it on us to avoid such attitude. He had told us that those who cheat others, even though believe they are smart, usually have cause to regret later. To baba it was even better when another person cheats us since such a person would have only
invited a curse upon himself while our own conscience would be clear and he would always tell us that a clear conscience fears no accusation.

I had therefore accepted everything Gbobaro had told me until the truth revealed itself. I met the man who gave us the contract and without even asking, disclosed the amount he gave my friend. And when I tried to confirm the man’s story from Gbobaro in my usual polite manner, he simply flared up.

“What right do you have to query me on how I do my things? Is it a sin that I invited you to work with me, or what rubbish are you talking”...

I waited for him to express his mind fully before reminding him that I did more work while the contract lasted since he only worked there for two days while on the other days, he complained that he was ill. In spite of my explanation, he still told me off

“Go, do your worst” he had yelled at me.

I was angered, not because he had cheated me but because he could not admit that he was wrong. I had intended to use that episode to teach him a lesson that if a man tells a lie, he will need about ten other lies to drive home the earlier single lie he had told and he will definitely end up contradicting himself in the process thereby exposing himself as a great lie, besides two people are never deceived in a single lie told, for, if the person whom the lie is told is taken In by it, the narrator himself will certainly know by his tales as mere fabrication

It was later that I heard from some of my friends that Gbobaro was going round to paint me black, going as far as telling people that I was a ghost and fabricating various lies on things. I had never done at any time, just to convince them. Considering how the people’s attitude gradually began to change towards me, it was obvious that many of them believed what they had heard from Gbobaro. My case was helpless, for, how many people would a man accused for not cleaning up properly after a nature’s call show his anus to convince them that he did. I knew that no matter how much I tried, the people will always believe that they chose to believe. I became completely frustrated at why most human beings seemed to have lost their reasoning power. I could not understand why I was being isolated in spite of the fact that I had wronged no one, and why the people could not wait to verify the truth.

The next question that occupied my mind was whether ghost actually existed or whether stories connected with them were just as “true” as folktales. I wa quite suspicious about the way Pa Ogunjinmi had looked at me when I had met him with my probing question he too perhaps had taken me to be a ghost and had simply ignored me, asking me to wait for the future before I could seek out the mystery.

I decided to meet some other revered adult at Imore. As my luck would have it I came in contact with Pa Duyile, who gave me his fullest attention.

“Ghosts? I think their existence is real”, he had started after ordering me to sit near him on the pavement in front of his compound where I had met him.

“When I was young, my father told me that the Lantoro forest, there was a section where no man dared go”. The reason, he explained, was that no one could go there and come back alive. At first, I didn’t believe the story to be true until one powerful hunter from this village left for that forest despite numerous warnings. He never returned home since then, his wives children and all the hunters of this village tried all they could do to find him but it was all futile….”

 I was happy after listening to the old man’s story as I realized that it was very useful information.

“Papa, do you know the way to the Lantoro forest?” I asked him.

“Well, my son, I cannot say precisely. But there was a time I visited a village called Ogodo and learnt that the forest was about three days journey from there”

“And where is Ogodo?” …to be continued on Saturday.

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