Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

“What a life, dear Lord!” Joel whispered in a voice shaded in misery and hopelessness. He sat momentarily in the silence of his one-room-apartment, his huge head, swelling with thoughts, rested in sculptural fashion upon his left fist.

Joel was a man with a steady voice, busy hands and legs and with wisdom to match but poverty clung to him like a leech. In the pursuit of happiness and to provide his wife a comfortable life he had done all manner of jobs but all his efforts had amounted to nothing. There was always something to drain him of every penny he earns and immediately he earns them, too.

Joel had a millionaire brother, his only brother, who was the Chief Medical Director of one of the best state specialist hospital in the country. It was for his brother that he could not go to school because he had to till the soil with his late parents to see him through school and when it was his time to help out, he turned away from everybody.

One Sunday evening in August, while the monotonous splash and patter of rain played a discordant tune on the roof of his room, relaxing his mind and nerves at the same time, his wife went to have her bath in the public bathroom. While she was splashing and scrubbing her body with her sponge, she felt something strange underneath her left breast. She quickly finished her bath and ran to him, shattering his temporary peace of mind. She directed his hand to the area of her breast where she felt the strangeness and he felt it too. It was like a stone and even though he was not in the position to say what it was he somehow knew that all was not well.

After a clinical examination of her breast at Savannah hospital the next day, the doctor confirmed that the little stone in her breast was called lump and it was not just an ordinary lump but a signpost of breast cancer.

She needed money for urgent medical attention before the cancer gets out of control but where is the money going to come from.

That evening, Joel visited his brother and apprised him of the condition of his wife but the latter refused to help him. He had heard stories of how his brother donated millions to churches and for charity and how he doled out cash to beggars like a Prince from Addis Ababa but why he didn’t want to help him even in his period of dire need confused and as a matter of  fact, slashed him like a razor to the heart. He quickly went down on his knees to ask for forgiveness in case he had inadvertently offended him but after laughing him to scorn, his brother asked him to stop asking for forgiveness when he had not done anything wrong.

“Then help me nah!”He almost screamed, but he was only talking to deaf ears.

Weeks after, the cancerous lump began to increase in mass. He cried silently all night watching his wife sleep. His wife was dying and the fact that he could not help her made him sick, too.

Out of desperation, Joel joined a 6-man robbery gang and on the first night of his operation the worst happened.

They stopped a Toyota Fortuner and when they forced the driver out on gun point, Joel stood face-to-face with his brother. Shock and dismay had him rooted to the ground. His brother also went taut with surprise. He never, in his wildest imagination, thought that his brother would go that far. He couldn’t believe his eyes. But Joel was a man who was desperate and needed to save his dearest friend and companion- his wife.

While his heart was thumping like a rabbit that has escaped a hunter’s dog, Joel pressed his palm into his eyes and rubbed- a sign that he is in between the devil and the deep blue sea.

He pointed his pistol at his brother’s left eye and held his breath.

If you were Joel, would you pull the trigger? I really would love to hear from you.

P.S- Happy new month to you all. i wish you a successful finish to the rest of the year.

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO YOU, TIBS. I WISH YOU MORE GLORIOUS YEARS.

photo credit:blog.kabinata