The Days When I Was With You

Chapter Two

“Hey...” a voice called to me as dad and I were walking to the park, the voice was female and very sweet to my ears, I turned around and saw a chubby girl putting on the same uniform as me.

“Are you heading to GLH3?” She asked.

I was confused at first, what in the heck was GLH3? She saw the confusion in my eyes and pointed to my uniform.

“Oh you mean this?” I asked realizing her my outdatedness, GLH3 was the acronym for my school.

“Yeah are you new also?” She asked.

“Sure, I just got in, pops and I are heading there right now” My dad was silent all through letting us have our fun, I saw the look in his eyes, very not comfortable...

The girl introduced herself to my dad and apologized for not doing so earlier, my dad didn’t take it to heart, she probably forgot, he said.

We all walked together to the park and she told me her name was Julia, we boarded the same bus and got ready to leave. But before departing, dad had some reserved parting words for me.

“I’m really proud of you son. Don’t fail your old man. I want you to come back here and play chess with me again as I smile at your results, I want you to be the best of yourself, don’t compete, explore and lead, you’re a leader, a born one. Pay attention to these words because I might not be able to say them again.” When he said this, he frowned, not just any type of frown, that frowned showed uncertainty. I didn’t understand what caused it until later.

“Goodbye my son. And may the good Lord be with you all the way.” He hugged me, I was so emotional but I wouldn’t cry, at least not in public.

“Nawa o, I wish my husband be like this with my pikin o...” one of the women in the bus said.

I felt proud.

The driver started the engine and we started the journey, it was going to be 4 hours on the road, yes it was that far. Julia was sitting right next to me. She was not bad and I liked her company, she reminded me of Steph, maybe it’s because I was older but we were now a little familiar with each other

“Samson...” she called my name

“Yeah, what’s up?” I asked, coming back to reality

“You’re looking at me weird, are you alright?” She asked jokingly, I had no idea I was staring at her. I felt shy.

“Oh I’m sorry, I had no idea”

She scoffed “You’re weird”

“I take that as a compliment “ I joked

She laughed “Of course it is”

“Then we’re both crazy”

Then we burst into laughter

“Heys heys, make una no dey disturb me for here o, una no see say my pikin dey sleep?” One of the female passengers cautioned

“Oh, sorry ma“ we apologized and giggled at the same time.

The journey was kind of fun with Julia around, we talked and laughed and played for over two hours but you know how traffic is, the amount of time we were supposed ever to our destination was estimated to be four but I doubted we would even make it by noon. The road was congested with dirty looking danfos and their angry drivers, always hurling curses at each other for no reason, our driver was no exception, he almost started a fight with one of them if we and some other passenger hadn’t intervened.

We got to a spot...

***

Everything stopped for a split second, cars and buses came to a halt, the other line was moving well with cars going in the opposite direction, our bus was quiet, too quiet. I was even surprised at my own silence, I guess it was just instinct.

Like magic, all the cars behind us started reversing, I looked back and saw drivers struggling to get back from the place, with the ones in front trying to do the same, our driver was sweating as he laid curses on the “slow” drivers behind him, the passengers in the bus were all terrified, the baby had even woken up and was crying. Her cry was soft and sweet, unlike other children, this baby’s cry was nice to the ears but that wasn’t what the mother would say though.

Julia looked at me with confused eyes and I looked back, we both had no idea what was going. My mind was trying to comprehend what was happening until a loud bang cleared my doubts. ARMED ROBBERS!

My heart was racing, cars were crashing, glasses were shattering, all in the effort to try to get away from the men of the underworld. From the sound of the gunshot, they were pretty close and our driver wasn’t ready to be robbed. He rammed into different cars in order to escape them in the process damaging his vehicle but he would care less, if he could make this journey, then he’d have enough money to repair it other than losing his sweat to a bunch of lowlifes handling a gun.

Julia held on to me, I saw the fear in her eyes, she was absolutely terrified. I was scared too but I didn’t know how to express my own emotions. I was confused, was I supposed to be scared or not? What would happen? I’ve never been robbed before, what would happen to me? Was this the end? Would I die here? On a road to a place I’ve never been? People who owned cars ran away on foot after realizing that escaping with wheels wasn’t gonna work, men and women scurried like ants in search of food, but in their case, in search of shelter.

Julia was still holding on to me when the woman with the baby opened the door of the bus and ran out. Even in the face of danger I managed to chuckle, she was too agile for a woman with a child on her, I’m not sure I could match her speed if we ever met in the Olympics, lol.

The rest didn’t waste time including our driver, everybody fled.

I was supposed to be in that bus but I didn’t know the time I held Julia’s hand and started running too. But she was slowing me down. Remember she’s a chubby girl, couldn’t move her feet too well even if she wanted to. I felt pity for her. And there was no way I would recommend carrying her on my back like I saw in the movies, I should be the one carried.

Even through all the confusion and pandemonium, there was one thing that kept me going; Hope. I had the feeling that today wasn’t the day, no not today. Nothing was gonna happen to me or Julia, we were both going to be fine, we were both going to make it to school and we were both going to make our parents happy, although how we would make it to school now I didn’t know but God would see us through, I prayed.

We ran for what I felt was like a thousand miles, with other people though, and surprisingly I was still holding Julia, and she managed to keep up though she would stop for a minute or two to catch her breath. I felt really bad for her but this was for our own survival. We had no idea where we were heading to but we had to go away from the danger we knew.

We reached a place and there was a lot of people gathered there in groups, looked like other passengers who had fled the scene too but now felt they were far enough to be safe, we stopped too. I didn’t want to, but for Julia’s sake we had to. She sat on the ground and I just stood there trying to process the surroundings. Like magic, I caught site of our driver and I told Julia to manage with me so we could be close to him in case if we decided to go back to our bus

“You wanna go back there?” She asked “Hell no, I’m not going with you, if you want to go then go, but don’t count me in”

I heard it in her voice, she was still scared.

I walked over to hear the conversation...

To be continued...