Published by Charles Langat at Smashwords
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author
Chapter 1
Fred looked around the empty office. It was about 2.30 in the afternoon. The heat outside was horrendous and he was glad for the fan which produced a cool breeze directly at him. The volunteer centre did not have air conditioning and he had to make do with the wall fan which he had ensured was not swaying to and fro but was fixed and directed at his desk.
“Why don’t you work under water? His friend and co-volunteer Godfrey had jokingly asked him many times before. Fred would respond by smiling without saying a word. The people born around here never seem to notice the heat. The lake side town was an oven but a good number of the locals were dressed in suits, some in three piece suits were even basking in the hot sun!
Fred was born in the Highlands and was comfortable in cool temperatures. He loved rainy afternoons as long as the rain came when he was indoors.
Anyway, today Godfrey was not in, neither were the three others who were also volunteers at the choose life centre, an n.g.o. set up to assist provide counselling to would be suicide victims with the aim of preventing them from ending their lives. The four had gone to a neighbouring Town to make presentations at a schools function.
Most of the volunteers had attempted suicide themselves but were fortunate to come out alive. Godfrey was the only one who had not attempted and he volunteered having been affected when his own daughter took her own life.
Godfrey had blamed himself for Celine’s death. She was in third year in high school when she became pregnant. Godfrey was mad. He had to be restrained from harming the girl by her grandmother, his own mother, who luckily happened to be in town. Godfrey’s mother took her to her house to allow Godfrey to ‘cool off’. Sadly, the girl never recovered from the rejection by her father and the father of the child who also disowned her. She never woke up on the third morning at her grandmother’s house having swallowed her grandmother heart pills during the night.
As a result, Godfrey devoted most of his time, when not counselling on phone, making presentations in schools and church events within the county. Today though, he’d gone to the neighbouring county having been invited by the education officers in the area.
Fred knew how it felt to lose a child although he did not lose his through suicide; it was their loss that almost ended his life. He remembered it like it was yesterday and his face darkened as he recalled the event.
It was nearly Christmas and the festive mood was in the air. The shop owners in the city had attempted to outdo each other in decorating their windows as they had always done every year. The office had also been decorated and the entrance had a big Christmas tree with the usual decorations
Fred was going to spend Christmas for the first time in the city. He used to tell his friends that he had a house in the city but his home was upcountry, 300 kilometres away. He worked for a multinational management consultancy and accounting firm. The firm employed over 50 professionals who had expertise is several disciplines from banking, accountancy, project management, receivership among others. Fred was an experienced project manager who would be assigned to manage clients’ projects and was called upon to manage changes in organizations.
Despite the fact that he was well paid and could sustain his family in the city, he did not bring them to live with him, partly because his wife, sally, was employed in his home town and she enjoyed her job. Secondly, he loved his home and the fact that his family stayed there gave him the opportunity to visit his home town every weekend and although he missed going home some working weekends, he never missed going home on Easter and Christmas.
This Christmas was going to be different though because his family was coming to spend the season with him in the city. Allan, his first born had completed his high school entrance exams and Fred knew he’d pass very well and might even be in the papers when the results are announced after Christmas. He had literally topped his class student since class three and was way ahead of his peers in intelligence. His two younger brothers Andrew and Alvin, though not as outstanding in school as Allan, were both amongst the best ten in their respective classes. Their last born sister was set to join class one the following year.
Sally was to bring them in their family car and though the 300 kilometre drive would be tiring, she was an experienced driver and had turned down Fred’s to come home so that he can drive them himself. ‘I can manage, just wait for us. I will start out early,’ she promised. And she did, as Fred confirmed later.
Unfortunately about half way to the city, a tire bust caused her vehicle to sway dangerously and she hit an on-coming petrol tanker. The tanker exploded on impact setting both vehicles on fire and since it had about 16,000 litres of petrol, the fire it caused was too big to allow anyone to rescue occupants of either vehicle.
Fred learnt of the accident about an hour later from a friend who recognized the number plates of the smashed up car. He was devastated and felt shock, numbness and utter disbelief. The previous day he had a wife and four children but had become single and childless without warning. He endured the funeral process although there wasn’t much to bury because their bodies had been severely burnt. He quit his job and even decided not to go back to the city and went to the lakeside town where there was little chance of meeting people who knew him and could remind him of his former life of happiness.
He turned to drinking full time and as time went on, Fred grew worse and worse. Initially he had rented a one bed roomed house with the money he had but after a while and since he did not have a source of income he could not afford the rent and was thrown out to the streets. He was living off food discarded from a five star supermarket’s dustbin and slept next to it.
Fred’s biggest problem though was the fact that he could not get over the loss of his family and even the dehumanizing lifestyle that he choose did not reduce the hurt one bit even two years on. Things got worse that he finally decided to he had to reunite with his family. He had concluded that the world had no use of him and that the feeling was mutual.
He decided to end his life by jumping in front of the train as it made its way towards the neighbouring country. He reckoned that the death would be swift and final. The position he chose to end his life was near the beach and had a bit of shrub which would allow him to hide from any passerby who might guess his intentions. The train usually left the station at six in the morning and Fred knew it would take about five minutes to reach the spot.
Fred thought he was alone but unknown to him, an elderly fisherman was nearby. The fisherman had gone to the bush with the intention of relieving himself after the long night in the middle of the lake. Entered the bushes and suddenly stopped after seeing a man crouched under a shrub. James, the fisherman decided to retreat thinking the man also wanted to relieve himself but he suddenly realized the man was standing looking towards an oncoming train. Much to James’ surprise the man began to run forward and laid his body across the rail tracks and he realized he was observing a man trying to commit suicide.
James made a split second decision to intervene and avert a gruesome memory of seeing a man being run over by a train. He lunged forward, grabbed the man’s legs, pulled him back with all his strength and got him out of the way just in time. In fact the man’s hand was hit mid air by the train but fortunately, that was the only contact made between the man and the train. The train rumbled on without stopping and James suspected the driver might not have noticed the commotion on the rail tracks.
Fred had leaped at the tracks as the train neared and had not seen James and as he landed on the tracks he closed eyes and waited to be crushed. When found his body flying through the air he thought he’d been hit and was surprised that he felt not pain since he had expected the train to split his body into three; one on either side of the track and the reminder in the middle of the tracks. As he landed, he saw the man who saved his life. The man held on to him as until it was out of side.
Fred was hysterical, he then tried to jump in the nearby lake but the old man was surprisingly strong. He finally gave up. The man motioned him to follow him and Fred, still dazed obeyed and followed him to the man’s home where he lived alone in a nearby slum. The man set aside his fish haul and proceeded to prepare breakfast of strong tea and gave it to Fred and took some himself.
They had breakfast in silence and when it was over, the man looked at Fred and suddenly chuckled
‘You’re lucky I wasn’t the railways police, you’d have been locked up and would have been in real trouble’ he said. He then became more serious and asked ‘what is it?’ he continued when Fred did not reply ‘Do you have it?’ when Fred looked at him quizzically he added ‘Do you have HIV?’
Fred looked down and did not respond. ‘So does a third of this town and they are not killing themselves about it’ he was now getting annoyed ‘didn’t you get counselling before you were tested?’ ‘HIV is no longer a death sentence, with right medication you can grow to be as old as my father’ he smiled showing his teeth which were missing about three on the lower section.
‘I don’t have HIV.’ Fred finally spoke up.
‘So why were you trying to stop the train using your body?’ The old man smiled again
Fred was silent for a long time but finally told the story of his life and what had happened to his family. He started weeping and the old man let him weep.
Before James could respond there was a knock at the door. The fish were doing their rounds collecting fish from the fishermen and James left briefly to deal with them and returned.
He sat down facing Fred, looked down and looked up again and said in a sad tone ‘I also lost my entire family. Like yours they were burnt to death but I wasn’t in an accident but it happened during inter-tribal clashes which engulfed our town. You must have heard about it,’ he added.
Fred had heard about the clashes. It had been covered by local and international press and had resulted in over a thousand deaths. The dispute had been over some dispute poll results and the losers felt the winners had fraudulently altered the results thereby stealing victory from their champion. This resulted in the tribal groupings led by the two leading presidential contenders in direct conflict which let to full blooded war.
‘I had gone fishing and people can at night and set my house on fire burning my wife and my eight children’ he lamented sadly. ‘I was devastated just as you were with your loss but I never thought of ending my life. ‘
‘How did you get over the tragedy?’ Fred found himself asking
‘My aging father gave me a pep talk’ said James. ‘The old man was advanced in aged but had plenty of wisdom.’ ‘He asked me if I was aware that all my family members had dreams and aspirations when I replied to the affirmative he asked who I think would ensure that those dreams were fulfilled now that they were gone.’