Final Climb Heaven cannot call from hell. So it’s really amazing when people rush to hell to get heaven. As varied as this people are, are their excuses. Some get in and they get a somewhat caress from a somewhat air-conditioner. A chilly feeling. A smile waves across their faces. They forget that cold does grow icy. And ice bites, freezes, kills. Some in attempt to go in get alarmed. A wind of hot air washes through their body like a rain of air from a furnace even while they’re at the gates. They withdraw like the antennae of a snail that’s confronted by obstruction. These don’t quit get in. they miss hell by heaven’s hand I must believe. And there are those who enter and immediately, they writhe and shrink in death like a strand of hair that attempts a play with fire. Peter missed hell. Though to him, it was heaven he missed. Peter goes after the supposed heaven that the hell of Examination Special Centres offers. I won’t say he gets consumed by the hell rather I’d say…Well, let’s see. Peter is not a dullard. If he is, all would have been at least dragged to a manageable understanding. He is not. He does not confront his books with trembling hands. And he does not leave with so much of staggering legs. In fact, he never encountered any balk while making the climb from kindergarten to secondary school final. His movement through the rungs was just the type no parents would welcome with a frown. No one could call him a dunce. No one. Mathematics does. Mathematics gives him the stamp when his Senior School Certificate Exams’ result comes out, in which he gets all but Mathematics. His University Entrance result, which comes good, becomes useless for he needs Mathematics to further…. He needs a “Credit” and not a “Pass” in Mathematics. He repeats the exam but this time, his results are withheld among others’. That makes barren still, what he scores in the university entrance exam. He takes another of the two exams, and gets what he got in his first attempt: Mathematics again refuses to let go of him. His University Matriculation Examination loses weight as time adds in weight. Peter tries the two again and misses as before. Tries again. Misses. And Peter peters out like sizzles of water drops in hot oil, day after day. “But I must go to the University and I will not just go for any certificate. Failures cannot stand in my way. No! They stand in the ways of people and force down their throats over doses of valium. They sleep and forget to wake up. They sleep with moths open as if imploring for something from the air. I can’t fall for that: “Sleep the sleep they give; ‘Failures’ choke dreams’ fires Stoutness saves stout souls.” He pumps and counsels himself. One day, Peter purposes to visit with a friend. Walking past a street, lost in thoughts. A call of his name calls him to normalcy. It is actually the person he was to visit with: His friend who was doing his Youth Service. He did not know he was passing his target house. “Peter! Peter! Ha, nnaaa oke adighi agba oso ehihie na nkiti o. Whatever chases a rat out of his hole in the day must be greatly greater,” the friend says. “M-e-e-en, your citation is in strong sync with my case,” Peter returns. “And”, he continues, “the rat will continue to wander until he secures another home. But wait o, are you saying that my visit is unusual?” “No, no, no” his friend pleads, dragging the word ‘now’ like one yawning, “ How can I say that? It’s just that the way you were walking across like a shadow really threw me off”, his friend tries to explain as they walk to the pavement of the building that houses his friend and both sits. His friend excuses himself to go get something for him to drink but as he makes to get up, Petr pulls him down slowly. Patting him on the back he says, shaking his head slowly, “Onye ulo ya na agba oku anaghi ebido ichughari oke. Really, my house is ablaze and I must tell you, it burns me so much so that I no longer find my tongue dancing at the sight and cuddling of such things”. “Why? You don’t have to encourage the fire by burning yourself too.” His friend hints. “Yes, but Okey…” Peter hesitates, shakes his head, sighs heavily, and continues “Okey, sweet in my mouth now remind my tongue of bitterness. The bitterness of my heart. If you have ever taken something sweet after taking aku-ilu, then you can see more my state. Sweet makes bitterness more bitter. It makes it more pronounced. Okey, you will not believe that I’m still to enter the University after all these years. See you now, a graduate: my mate in secondary school. Okey…” “Peter, to me-eh, let me just tell you. To me, oge agala mgbe ana ekwu na mmadu anaghi ano na mmiri ncha aba ya anya. That statement was not well informed. These days, as has been, one can be even in an ocean and still, soap leather will trick its way into one’s eyes not eye-o. But now, what I think should be said is that mmadu adighi mma ino na mmiri ncha akpo ya anya. Yes! One should not be in water and allow and allow soap whatever to blind one’s eyes. Peter, ncha abala gi ime anya. The soap has entered deep into your eye. ‘Your eyes’, he whispers the emphasis. There’s water all over, around, roundabout you. Wash it off Peter before your light, your eyes leave you in your morning. Braille will not fit you easily. There’s water roundabout you.” “Water?” Peter questions after some thought. After some silence. “Yes! Please try one of the “Special Centres” in town. His friend consoles. “Final Climb”, he prescribes. Peter, after many thoughts, and counter thoughts, registers with “Final Climb”. He registers with an amount almost ten times higher than what is used normally. He registers with the money the mother gave him for something else. This is to be his sixth attempt at JAMB (UME). Now he would make nothing short of a 270 score. And which University; which Course would turn that down? How unfortunate, he couldn’t bear the weight of registering for O-level with them as well. How certain of the results that would have made him this time. Well he’ll still special-centre that in due time. No matter the cost. On the day before the exam day, Peter and his crew are parked like bricks in a compound. A house. They were earlier instructed to find their ways to the place in a far away State from Imo. The place wears a look of a forsaken brothel. Tissues, used tissues stained with what only the users can say and not assume, festered the rooms. It must be time that gave the stains the dirty dark red colour. Also, the media proclaimed though false protector from STDs, ahaa, that one harasses the rooms and environ as fished out papers of votes of people of lesser powerful Parties does the hideaways of our Electoral offices. There they do vigil till dawn for mosquitoes that keep entertainment like flies at the butchers’ tables leave no room for their eyes to sleep. Morning comes upon them by sudden. Their coordinator who had his night in an air conditioned motel drives in an air of unequalled confidence. He opens his car door, steps out, strides on spring to a spot. And summons. With claps. “Stay here and don’t move until I say so,” he uses this peroration to end his speech. And they stay. They stay, and stay, and stay. Waiting. For success that will make ears smile to fly down. They see those who went for the exams on their own – through non-Special Centres. They inquire, and are told the exam, long, had halted like an army to the command of ‘Halt!’ from their commander. They stay still, for they are under the spell of “Stay…” they stay, stay, stay, until the sun’s eye starts a slow but steady closing like that of a fatigued labourer who’s seated under the tree in the farm. Waiting. A Mercedes Benz V-boot much later, flies into the compound. It is their coordinator’s. He succeeds in buying his freedom from the Policemen when they catch him in the pool of malpractice. They had caught him photocopying papers that had in abundance, answers to the questions of the day's University Matriculation Examination. They had caught him in the act while Exam was on. He buys his freedom. So he comes for his flock. He comes out of his car, bangs the car door, did some irregular movement, then stands, claps his hands. Peter and others gather. And he unwraps his misfortune. “Go now to your centre. I am coming to settle all. Onwe ihe meganu. Nothing dey happen”. He trumpets after all. And like swarm of bees they buzz off. Their buzzing so set stirring, the roads that a pick-up van with, “Anti-crime patrol” inscription at the doors interferes. But their speed and buzz is so much like – or rather is more forceful than – the bees’. The tear-gas catches but less than a handful. The air directed rattles from barrels fails equally to stop the candidates. They hurtle to the Centre –the Special Centre. The trained patrol van U-turns with its catches, to the Station, leaving the many rest to their whatever purpose. After all, is a bird in hand no more of worth than the innumerable in the air? They leave. So the special candidates, the bees all converge at the honeycomb. There was no honey. There is in the crowd, people who have sat for the exam for more than four times. There is Peter. Possibly too, there are other Peters: People taking the exam for the sixth time, or even more. Brave more. There is no honey at the comb. The Examiners had left. And they had left with the honeycomb that is the question and answer sheets. Even the Attendance sheet that did mark the special candidates absent was gone. The day too begins going. Night begins to come. Coming like thick dark dews from heaven. Blinding the earth the way the gone papers and examiners begins to blind the hearts of the special candidates. Blinding the heart of Peter. Blinding. Blinding. And no trail gossips of their movement. So even if the honey comes, even if the solved questions come, it’s late already. What befalls the voice that made them stay? Their lucid coordinator should not go free. Should he die? Even if he dies, the next rung now presented by the would-have-been final climb won’t die alongside. They’re certainly going to stay the next one year at home. The hot UME candidates couldn’t find their buttocks to sit with. They stand. Red. Hurt. Hot. Tears chose their routes down the feminine cheeks. BP chose upper and upper rungs in the masculine hearts. They wait. Peter becomes like a fowl whose chick gets arrested by a hawk. He cannot fly the fight. And the coordinator cannot make of them another Virgin Mary. They just would need the exam for the result.
Copyright © 2005 Constant Ngozi |