Introduction:
A Hard Fall From Grace– A young boy found himself in the mix of life’s inconsistencies till he met his schoolmate-Bobo, his light at the end of the tunnel, and the joy of his story.
Chapter 1: The Twitter Text
I was seated on the porch of my house, working on my next blog post, when I heard my phone chime. It was a message on Twitter. The chimes became repetitive when I decided to ignore the first one. The person had gotten my attention. Immediately after I opened the message, I was taken by surprise. I didn’t know who had texted me. His account was very silent, with no posts and no followers. This account followed no one either. I read his messages to confirm my suspicions of a scam, but my hunch was wrong. It was just a regular guy (who was actually not regular) who wanted to tell his story while remaining anonymous. “I hope you don’t sleep on this story, Nana Asempa. It will serve as an inspiration to many,” he said.
Be intrigued as you hope for light at the end of the tunnel.
Chapter 2: Binding Agreement
“Back in junior high school, I thought all hope was lost because I had lost my father at a very young age, and my mother couldn’t recover from the loss of her husband. Nana, I was already in a surviving home, but obviously, there was a lot of love between my mother and my father. Before my father died, I was all about getting home from school to help my mother at her small store while my father worked on getting contracts so we could have a bowl of rice to eat. Despite my father’s unwealthy status, he had a lot of love to give, and it encouraged me. However, it didn’t encourage me enough to want to learn and make good grades. It just encouraged me to be with my family and hustle with them so we could get something to eat. As you can possibly tell, it was just the three of us, and we were managing. However, something changed my thinking, and soon, all I could think of was making money till money bowed at my feet.”
“What happened?” I replied to his text, but he didn’t respond.
He sent me a digital contact that stated that I keep his identity anonymous to my readers. I thought that wasn’t going to be a hard decision until I saw the signature at the bottom of the contract. His fame could blow up my traffic. But I felt it wasn’t the main objective of my blog anyway. I just hoped the story was going to change lives. I signed the digital contract after I was well-educated on all prerequisites. Then he called me.
Chapter 3: Money was Everything
“Nana, good day. I’m glad you could keep my identity between us.”
“It’s definitely an honour, sir.”
“Back to business. On the morning of Thursday, 25th July, 2010, before going to school, I had a bitter taste in my mouth, and I could feel myself choking from it, but I ignored it.
However, when I got back from school that evening, I wished I had not left. I was welcomed by a silent but chaotic scene. The door was wide open, and my parents were nowhere to be found. I asked my neighbour, and she told me the news I had never thought I would ever hear—my father had been rushed to the hospital.
In that instant, I wouldn’t be shocked if people mistook me for Usain Bolt. I was carried by the wind as I stopped tears from coming down my cheeks. While running, I didn’t even consider stopping to catch my breath, as though my father’s staying alive depended on it. When I got to the hospital, I barged into the waiting room as little as I was and shouted, “Daddy! Daddy! Where is my father?” I wailed.
Then, I saw my mother sitting in the waiting room with a sheet in her hand. She stared at the sheet in dismay. It was as though every word or letter she read determined how loud her cry got. People in the waiting room were staring at her, but she was in her own world of gloom. Immediately after I took the sheet from her hands, I realised what was behind her tears. The sheet had big digits I only came across when solving mathematical problems in school—it was my father’s medical bill.
My parents had me thinking money wasn’t enough when there was enough love, but staring at the sheet, all I could think of was how money determined my father’s life. They were wrong. At that moment in the waiting room, money was everything.”
Chapter 4: A Change in Mindset
“I joined her in tears for a while, and then I got angry. Whatever the situation, we had to get the money for the bill, or else my father would die. I went to the nurse at the reception and asked her how much we needed to pay as a down payment. She told me my father was in critical condition; hence, more than 50% of the payment was ideal. She said one thing that shook me as a little boy: “He is not in good condition at all. Remember, the blood of your father is not on our hands. We just need the money to do our job.” I got angrier and asked to see my father, and the nurse took me to see him.
We weren’t even in the harmattan season, yet his skin was so pale and white. There was no life in his body, and the machines that were connected to his lungs scared me. I knelt down by his bed and wept. “Why didn’t you tell me money was truly everything?” I cried, but he didn’t respond. He couldn’t even open his eyes. My father was actually dying, and money determined whether he would finally die or not.
We couldn’t come up with the minimum amount for the bill, which was 50%. Relatives turned a blind eye to their dying brother and cousin. My parents often walked in the company of poor people like them, so their friends couldn’t contribute much. The hospital kept calling. They said if we didn’t have the money yet, we had to come for him because they needed the bed to serve others who could pay bills.” He took a pause, and his voice quivered. “Take a look at all of this, Nana Asempa.” He said and I sighed.
“All of this was because of money. I hadn’t valued money much because my parents loved themselves and were content. However, my father died because of inadequate money– poverty, and an impoverished mentality of contentment. I lost it. Now, I was determined to take school seriously. Because I thought a good education might possibly get me good money. I had no idea that it was just a fluke.”
Chapter 5: Destiny’s Mockery
“I went on to do well in school. However, my mother was barely surviving. She had lost the one that kept her going, and she was empty. So I was struggling during my last year in school. My school was government-owned, so there wasn’t a problem with fees and other payments. Eventually, I completed the most terrible and terrifying year of my life and then wrote my Basic Education Certificate Examination and made it through with flying colours.
Soon, I had to make it through senior high school on government’s scholarship. It was an endless game of survival for me. Through all of this, I wasn’t praying or hoping for anything from God. I thought it was normal. Besides, that was how my life had been—an up-and-down roller coaster. So I just did normal moral living. I gave because it pays to be kind, despite the Bible’s blessings associated with giving. I barely gave out with the mindset of receiving.
One day, during prep, a boy walked into my classroom, pleading for a sachet of milk. He stood in front of the class, screaming and begging, but no one seemed to care. A sachet of milk was the only thing I had as a provision at the time.
A funny coincidence is that he had gari, sugar, and groundnuts, and I had nothing except that sachet of milk, which I had even borrowed from someone in class. I was hoping to gather some Milo powder or even gari to give myself a treat, but I didn’t get it. However, this was someone who had it all but needed the only thing I had—a sachet of milk. No one seemed to mind him, so I pulled it out of my pocket, and immediately he kneeled down with gratitude. “God bless you,” he said, and I rolled my eyes and gave the response, “Sure, bro.”
This was my ticket to greatness, but I never had an idea.”
Chapter 6: Money-Making Machine
“A week after that gesture, I noticed a classmate of mine who seemed to have it all. He was a new boy who was transferred in the middle of the semester. His name was Dende. He never ate from the dining hall but tipped teachers to buy him food from restaurants nearby. I approached him and told him I wanted to work for his father or even wash his clothes, iron them, and fetch his water for bathing, so that he could tip me too, but he laughed.
One night, at a very odd hour, the new boy tiptoed into my dorm and woke me up. I thought he had taken my request seriously, and I was going to get something to keep my stomach filled for the next week, but we met up with two other boys and made our way to an enclosed area behind the classrooms, in the middle of a bush. The place was full of trees, red and black bands, and a flaming fire. It was scary until I saw a very thick, tall boy spread money on the ground. Then, my eyes widened.
The tall boy introduced himself as Razak. He wasn’t a student, but the son of one of the school staff. He commanded authority, like he was the leader of the group. He asked me and the two other boys to sacrifice the thing we most treasured there, and then, aside from our lives, put it in the flaming fire that had already been set up. I had in my pocket my father’s chain, which I had taken off his neck before he died, so I put that in the fire. The two boys had nothing, so he slit their right wrist with a knife and allowed blood to ooze out into the fire. We were all given new identities at the meeting grounds. We were a total of ten young boys.
A week after I joined the group, an unexpected thing happened. The Head of Academics was found dead in his room under inexplicable circumstances. That night, at our meeting, Razak handed us huge sums of money, and that was all the meeting was about—sharing money. He didn’t say much when he brought the money, except the words, “The grandmaster has found us worthy and rewarded us with this huge sum of money.” We didn’t know the grandmaster, but so far as we had seen money, we could only hail him.
Before we could say ‘jack’, another death was recorded. A student was reported slaughtered and left in the bathroom, and coincidentally again, that night, Razak placed three big bags filled with money and asked us to cheer and rejoice unto the grandmaster as we surrounded the bags of money. He didn’t have to say it twice—our throats were literally out of our mouths. We danced and rejoiced. In a few weeks after joining this gang, I had restocked my trunk, sent some money to my mother to stock her shop, and even tipped off some of my colleagues for doing my assignments for me. My mother was, however, unappreciative of my caring gesture. She told me I should have gotten this money when her husband was lying helplessly on the hospital bed. I cared less. I was making the thing that could have saved my father’s life by being at meetings in the company of young boys… But not for long.”
Chapter 7: War
“It was getting more suspicious than coincidental when Razak walked into the meeting with sums of money after the death of a student or staff member had been announced. The school had recorded over ten deaths in the last two months, and it was getting appalling and scary as people died in awful ways.
One evening, a group of church leaders were praying in one of the classrooms while we were having one of our meetings. When we were about to end the meeting, the leader fell down and started having something like a seizure, and we all got scared like a group of girls that had seen a rat; we screamed, but Dende was normal. He told us to relax. Suddenly, the leader regained consciousness and apologised for the scare, but he was angry. “Because of the noise those pests are making,” he said, referring to the church leaders, “the grandmaster has requested a befitting sacrifice to appease his anger.” We all agreed that we must present the life of a young virgin girl.
Unfortunately for us, the only lady in the school was the new teacher trainee, and unknown to us, she was untouchable. One of the boys knew the food she normally bought, so we tipped off a teacher to get us that meal, drugged the meal, and delivered it through a student, but she didn’t eat it. When this failed, Razak dealt with things by himself. He put on perfume and intentionally bumped into her off the school grounds while she was boarding a vehicle home. The scent of the perfume drugged her, and she got unconscious. We managed to carry her from Razak’s car to our meeting grounds, so we could cut her up and offer her womb to the grandmaster, but our agenda was fruitless. Her skin wouldn’t cut, and blood wouldn’t come out of her body. We carried her into one of the classrooms when our plans failed. Razak promised that she wouldn’t remember anything when Dende raised concerns about her snitching.
On the other hand, the grandmaster was getting very angry. We offered him two students in place of the virgin girl, but he was furious rather than content. Hence, we couldn’t appease him because he didn’t like the two young boys we had offered him. While we looked for a fruitful atonement, the school church leaders were collaborating with the school authorities to have a spirit-filled crusade, and the grandmaster had failed to rescue us. That was our end.
It was a Friday night, and after the entire school populace had deprived themselves of food, they gathered at the assembly hall and engaged in heavenly worship and heated prayers. The school chaplain took the microphone and raised a song, and Dende was first to react. He screamed helplessly, and the grandmaster started manifesting through him. The prayer warriors prayed harder. Dende started confessing, and immediately he mentioned my name. Everyone around me distanced themselves in shock. The prayer warriors on school grounds took down whatever power we were operating with, and then the school authorities found all ten boys and expelled us.
When I got home, my mother got a heart attack from the news and died. Her shop was barely surviving. All the money the grandmaster gave us turned into chicken feathers after the spiritual war.
I had lost everything—the education that might get me rich and the occult group that made me rich—so I started working as a carrier. I went to the marketplace and begged people to let me help them carry their heavy luggage so that I could get something to eat. When I got money from my hustle, I passed by a group of handicapped people, gave them what I could, and then got food for myself. I passed by a church service when I could.
Chapter 8: Tunnel Light
“Four years into doing this hand-to-mouth business, I was visited by divine help one hot afternoon. I was looking for anyone who needed anything to be carried, and so I walked all the way to the streets. A black range rover veered off the road towards me and honked at me. I couldn’t remember the face, though it was familiar. He asked me if I knew him, and I shook my head. He asked me to get into the car because the sun was extremely hot. I didn’t budge, but I accepted his invitation immediately.
He told me he was Bobo, a colleague from my senior high school, and asked me what I was doing here. I told him my story, and he told me he heard all about it while abroad, since he had completed school by then and was in the States.
He told me he needed an office assistant and would appreciate it if I stepped in. He offered to take up my tuition for a remedial examination and also take me through university if I promised to live up to who he knew me to be and not who selfishness turned me into.
I couldn’t thank him enough. I literally attempted to step out and lie on the floor in gratitude, but he stopped me. I asked him how I could repay him. “It has been paid for by a sachet of milk.” Bobo said with a smile, and I got confused.
He then introduced himself as the gentleman who barged into my classroom in senior high school in search of milk. He said he looked all over for me after that incident to give me some things, but he couldn’t find me.”
“Sorry to interrupt you, sir.” I said
“Yes, Nana Asempa.”
“My readers might think this milk gesture is a bit absurd. Why was Bobo so grateful for this gesture?” My voice trembled even as I confidently queried the notable exemplar.
“Despite Bobo’s wealthy lineage, Bobo’s father’s assets and bank accounts were frozen due to the crimes of money laundering and financial fraud. His father was standing trial for these accusations, which caused most of his friends to desert him. Unfortunately for him, he missed dining that day and was getting very hungry. He needed a ‘complete meal’. He even told me how he went to the pantry for the sugar and gari and found an old, tied-up groundnut in his bag, which was flat. Maybe someday, Bobo will tell you his story.” I wanted to pry further for Bobo’s story, but it was not my mentor’s to tell. “I am sure your readers will appreciate this tiny detail.” He added.
“They will.”
“I should be ending my story of ‘from grass to grace’ soon.” He went back to his story after my interruption. “After Bobo told me how grateful he had been for the kind gesture, I cried. I shed tears in his car because the graceful turnaround was not far from me, but I was blinded by greed and a get-rich-quick syndrome. He then invited me to stay in his house until I got a place of my own.
Working with Johnson and Associates with Bobo Johnson was the first step on the ladder to greatness. Since then, I have appreciated love, contentment, and giving. As you can see, I don’t joke with these things during my tenure in office.
I’d like you to encourage your readers, Nana. Despite the ill casualties of life, there is hope—there is light at the end of the tunnel.” My revered celebrity ended his story, and I couldn’t help but admire him more.