Resurgence

23. Penance

“There are no heroes…in life. The monsters win.” – George R. R. Martin.

•••

“Idiot, look where you dey go.”

A grey haired man, flanked by a mat of shoes roared at him in caution to keep him far away from his goods. He didn’t blame the man, he didn’t blame everyone else that had walked past him on the pavement either—for scrunching up their nose at him, and stuffing the opening of their nostrils with a piece of their garment. He hadn’t bathed well and thoroughly in a year since he had been locked up in prison, and the stench of his body was one he wished he could escape also. So he couldn’t blame anyone really.

He felt rotten both within and without. His once well primed face, had now been overcome with a severe case of acne and skin bumps. His rich velvet hair had transformed into a wilderness of black forage with strong, uneven lumps of hair that protruded all over his head. His nose that had been once crooked in an immaculate, masculine appealing way was now disfigured, as a result of collisions it had suffered with fists and walls. He was nothing like the man he was a year ago.

He had been released from the detention facility about an hour ago, and no one had turned up to receive him. He didn’t know why he had hoped for someone to show up—but his green self wanted to hold on to the thought that no one had completely forgotten him. He had received news in the prison about some minutes ago that his mom had slumped to her death, after she slipped in the bathroom and the back of her head crashed into the floor – opening a ghastly, irreparable wound that took her life. He wasn’t even given the luxury to mourn her for a moment, before the police men had thrown him out of the compound.

No one cared about him.

His sentence in prison wasn’t supposed to have lasted for so long, but ever since Tiolu gave up the ghost in the hospital and stopped fighting—it sent Dayo into a rage and made him insist that he remain locked up. To be honest, he thought the young powerful author would keep on pulling strings to ensure that he never saw through the high fences of prison anymore, but the news of his release had come in suddenly and the series of action preceding his release had kicked into motion straight away. He didn’t exactly know if he was happy to be free from his captivity, but one thing he knew for sure – was that he hadn’t seen the worst yet. It was bidding its time, waiting for the ideal moment to strike.

The array of newspapers and bulletins, arranged on the bare ground on a cotton mat for purchasing purposes drew his attention once again. It was a busy day, with road life at its highest activity yet for some reason the noise reaching him on the pavement was suppressed, and tuned—probably because of the wrath his ears had incurred as well. They weren’t functioning properly anymore. His eyes remained fixated on the newspapers, but he didn’t dare move closer, yet he suffered another reprimanding from the ware owner but the headlines in big, bold watermark were visible from his distance and it read.

Dayo Tijani moves on with romantic life, and proposes to long term girlfriend by name – Lani Olaere.

His heart beat ceased.

Underneath it, in a slightly smaller print – the headline continued.

After a couple of months after his fiancée gave up the ghost in the hospital after suffering life threatening injuries in a building that was supposed to be their home, but as a result of the carelessness of the architect – raged to the ground with fire, the young author has finally decided to move on with his life and was spotted proposing to a certain Lani Olaere at an amusement park this Friday. People weren’t able to get close enough to know their exact expressions, but one thing was for sure—they both seemed happy and madly in love with each other…