35 YEARS LATER.
Weary and scary, he soared through the mountains, under a cave of wonders, he swung his stick of light like a burning fire from a dragon. His footsteps, slow but steady grasped the texture of the rocky ground. On the walls of the cave illuminated his shadow; a naked plumpy man with bushy bears. His stomach, through the shadow was a barrier to the visibility of his dick, but his buttocks was as flat as a hammered metal. He slowed down when he arrived to his destination. He saw nothing but other light on sticks hanging around like a sanctuary. The sound of his breath became a thing of hearing in the cave. Before he could say anything, a female voice said, "Grief is the price we pay for love."
Well comported, the man bowed his head at the hearing of the voice. "Love is an illusion!" he replied boldly with his face up. "Love is confusion, love is deception, love is delusional, love is fantasy, hallucination and weakness! Love is an easy way to die unhappy death, yet without knowing your killer. I'm no man of love. I rather die by the sword of my enemies than my love ones."
Silence creeped in after his voice echoed down the hallow cave. He believed she knew what he came for, so he exercised more patience to hear from her. Just as he anticipated, the voice said again, "What you seek is beyond the gods and law of nature."
"What I seek is the secret of death."
"We will all, someday, experience death, and become obsolete as a dead leaf falling from a tree, crushed by passers-by to ashes underlying the earth"
"I refuse to be obsolete, to fall like a dead leaf and most of all to be crushed by passers-by. I do not want to die even by the sword of my enemies."
"You're no god. You must die as a human. Death is inevitable, it is natural to die as to be born. How people die remains in the memory of those who live on" the voice faded away and light went off. Footsteps from afar startled the old man. He was persistent, he really wanted to know how to survive death, at least from humans. Luckily, he found the greatest secret in history; the secret of death!!
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The weariness of the night had gone, 5:00a.m, early morning, Evan, a young man, opened the door of his house sluggishly, closed it then sat behind it with hands on his head like one whose mouth cannot tell the heavy content of his head. He was poor with a pregnant wife. He's dark in complexion and left his beards unkept. Just as he contemplated, a bulb shone light all over the room at the sound of a switch. He looked up to see his wife coming.
"Evan, are you okay?" Alice, the young wife, pulled him up regardless the heavy pregnancy. She was lovely, beautiful and her voice can calm a disturbing ocean. She sat the husband down on a coach then stared into his eyes. "What troubles you, my heartbeat? I thought you'd be sleeping over at your boss'" she asked.
Evan stood up, he reached the nearest refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of water. Alice watched and heard the water rushed down his gullet like a flood through a gully erosion. She could do nothing but wonder what happened to her husband, a common driver.
"Alice..." Evan called out beside the refrigerator while the wife adjusted from her seat. Their eyes fixed at each other, increasing a disturbing curiosity. "I'm sorry for what I'm about say." he continued, taking a few steps away from the refrigerator. "I never worked last night. My boss told me he would drive himself. Secretly, I followed him..."
"Followed him to where?" Alice interrupted obnoxiously.
"I have been obsessed with him, to study his life and know how he made such an investment." he swallowed hard. He could see disappointment on the wife's face after letting silence trail. Anyways, he continued. "I followed him to a cave at a mountain.."
Hearing that, Alice stood up slowly, glaring at her husband.
"Babe, listen" Evan continued. "I was thinking he was there because of his wealth, but surprisingly he was there because he wanted to know the secret of death."
"Evan, what do you want to get yourself into!? All these big men are evil!" Alice lamented.
"Not this one, Babe. Teacher Murphy is well known."
"I don't understand. You just witnessed it."
"No, he didn't go there to make more money neither did he get his money diabolically through that way." He turned his back on his wife. "How can secret of death be what it is? It doesn't sound right." He turned back to the wife. "I was on a mission to find out the secret of wealth but I got the secret of death."
"You sound crazy to me. I don't want to hear it." the wife hissed then left.
Day had broken, Evan, from a dream perceived the lovely aroma of his wife's fried plantain. He groaned half asleep, stretched his hands in accordance with the direction of his morning erection. He jumped out from the bed to the bathroom. Before he could finish dressing up, Alice had served the breakfast on a stool beside their bed in a one bedroom apartment. He smiled at the look of it.
"I never noticed we had ripped plantain." He sat down to devour the food while the wife sat beside him.
"Kate, my friend, brought them last night." Alice replied. "That reminds me, her child left this when they came." she stood up to a drawer where she brought out a hard paper carved in the shape of a hand with four fingers.
Evan stopped eating when he saw it. "You mean the boy carved this? What is it?" he asked as he collected the paper from her.
"You know the boy is deaf and dumb." Alice sat down again. "Kate had tried to ask him where he saw such a thing but no reply. She said he cherishes it that's why you must return it to them on your way to your boss' house. I mean on your way to work." she placed her head on the husband's shoulder. Already, Evan had resumed eating silently. The same thing run through their minds at the same time. As a man, he observed it.
"Babe, you don't need to worry" he broke the silence, standing on his feet to knott his belt.
The wife looked up at him. "Promise me you won't spy on your boss or anyone again. Your duty is to drive him not to spy on him. You'll make your own money through your way not his own way." She stood up to him. "I don't want anything to happen to you."
Evan smiled attractively at her with palms on her two chin. "Nothing will happen to me. Not now that I know the secret of death." he said.
"I still do not want to know. Death has no secret. It's natural to die as an organism."
"Oh, you want to convinced me scientifically because you studied science, right?" They chuckled and kissed.
"We love you." Alice said rubbing her big stomach.
"I love you both too, especially the baby" he replied from the door.
"What?!" Alice shrieked with a trace of smile on her face. "Go away! You love your child more than your wife." She could hear her husband's laughter from outside after saying that. She practically sat down on the edge of the bed grinning seriously.
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The tip of his pen wiggled on a large book, his writings sluggishly occupied several lines of the book like a footprint of a snail on a sandy soil. One of his feet tapped cleverly on the floor as though, the source of inspiration was hoozing from there through the foot to his brain where it was courteously scrutinized before going out through the pen as a by-product. He was a huge man in his early fifties with grey bears and baldhead. His wealth and networth was globally known, hence he was named 'the Don'.
A breaking news blasted out from his television, dwindling the translocation of the inspiration thereby slowing down the movement of the pen which eventually left the texture of the book like a lip leaving another after an interrupted romantic kiss. He neither looked at the television nor the book on the table before him but his ears became the most active part of his body.
"... again, the three children of teacher Murphy have earlier been reportedly engaged in a physical combart over the possession of their father's wealth. They've threatened to kill one another. Leonard, the youngest of them has just been rushed to the hospital...." the news kept broadcasting.
Teacher Murphy placed the pen at the last dot of his last sentence to continue but his wife's voice interrupted him.
"My lord," she called from a bed behind the old man, yet he neither looked at her nor the book rather fixed his eyes on the wall of the master's bedroom. "How long, my lord, will you allow this hatred among your sons to continue? Why can't you put them in charge of many of your companies? Do you want them to die by killing one another?" she had said.
"To die is to live. To live is to die." Murphy replied her. His voice was as deep as the hole of a whore.
"I don't understand you, my lord"
Murphy totally stood up from the chair where gravity exacted his wait on. Even the chair, regardless its insensitivity to life felt a relief of his weight. He turned to his wife saying, "The bible says when you die, you'll live never to die again, yet nobody wants to die to live again?"
"Are you suggesting that your sons should kill....?"
"Adopted sons" he interrupted her.
The statement reminded Mrs. Vivian of her barriness. She swallowed hard painfully, allowing the silence to speak for her. Murphy isn't foolish, if he could understand the language of death, of course he understood the language of the quietness that surrounded the room. Just before he said anything, a knock came from the door. It cracked opened immediately.
"Teacher, the doctor is here." Kalu, an everage man and his P.A reported without stepping inside the room then left immediately. Like a king, Murphy passed his wife, stood at the door with his hand on the knob. Already, tears had filled the woman's eyes. He breaks the silence saying, "After your death you will be what you were before your birth, so I'm not obsess to have a child who is literally not in existence anywhere to me now. So why do you bother yourself?"
There was no reply except a broken cry of the poor, helpless woman who had waited for God to show her mercy. She heard the door closed which increased her tears.
Murphy's mansion was large and beautified. It has a private medical room where he laid on a bed as the doctor runs his blood pressure. Kalu stood at the door, watching too. He was known to be wise also but hilariously. Quietly, the doctor ran all the test he needed then cleared his throat and began to write on a book. Murphy sat up, hence making the rusty sound of the bed the only wave in the room.
"How's it doctor?" he asked him.
The doctor adjusted his eyeglasses then looked at Kalu. Murphy understood that they needed some privacy. Therefore he said, "Please, leave us, Kalu"
The man cleared his throat. "Teacher, is not wise to leave a patient and a doctor all alone." he replied.
Murphy and the doctor stared at him intensively. The stare was like a warning with a burning fire that drained his salivary gland. So he swallowed hard. "Sorry, teacher, I mean a male doctor and a female patient. I just realized." he clutched the doorknob.
"Kalu, set a meeting with my sons and families. I don't care if anyone is in the hospital at the verge of death. I want to see all of them in the next one hour. Call my lawyer too." Murphy instructed then turned to the doctor after the P.A left. "How many months do I have?" he asked quietly.
"Three weeks, teacher. The cancer is spreading faster." The doctor replied.
"So I have three weeks to die"
The doctor didn't reply rather kept writing on the book. Murphy stood up, faced the wall thoughtfully. He could hear the vigorous movement of the doctor's pen on the paper. "What causes death, doctor?" he asked without looking back at him.
The movement of the pen stopped, the doctor looked up. "The cause of death varies but it's one thing everybody must face."
"I don't want to be killed by anybody or anything like the cancer. I just want to lie on my bed when death comes then I'll look straight into its eyes and say, 'fuck you!'"
The doctor smiled. "Have you told anyone?"
"No, it must remain our secret just like the secret of death." he began to walk out, living the doctor confused.
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One hour later, the three adopted sons of teacher Murphy assembled in the living room with their families. The wife and Kalu were also present waiting for the teacher to come down. At the main time, only their eyes were the mode of communication. Suddenly, the lion himself began to climb down a staircase. He was ascending the stairs like a hero, wearing a caftan with hands behind him. At the sight of him alone, his might would cripple every morale you have and also have your heart pounding like a morter of a grandmother. That was the state everybody in the living room found themselves except the wife.
Murphy's feet silently echoed through the staircase until he stopped at the finishing line. Everybody stood up without knowing it. His might, what the Igbos call 'EBUBE' lifted their butts from their seats but had some of their legs quivering while standing. The teacher looked from the eldest son, David and his wife and two children to the second son, Richard, his wife and a child. Then lastly to Leonard and his pregnant wife. He cleared his throat and began. "Why do you, my sons want to kill one another to take charge of my wealth? You want to kill when you don't know what you want to kill for and what it is to die. How foolish are you! Since you all want the same thing, I stand before God and man to declare this without remorse; if any of you should be able to kill me, that person will be the next don. Your brother isn't the target anymore, I am the target now. You have your lifetime to bring up a strategy to kill me, if you succeed, you become the next don and take charge of all i posses. My lawyer will make sure of that"
"What?!" The wife exclaimed. "My Lord.."
"I have spoken!" he interrupted her.
"Father," David spoke up. "We know we were adopted. "But we can't agree on this. We won't kill you!"
"But you all want to kill one another. If you don't kill me in any way possible, you will have nothing, all of you!" he pointed at them all then proceeded towards the staircase. "Kalu, tell Evan to prepare the car, I'm leaving now." he instructed while the wife ran after him...