
It was a hard day at work. His head ached badly from the constant vibration of the engine close-by, and the noise it brought with it. Mr. Chidi, was tired. Mentally. Emotionally. And, most of all, physically. But he just had to keep on.
He was a slim man with a thick mustache, and only seldom smiled. For this industry, he had worked double shifts, on end, for years, manning machines.
Though being a father sometimes brought to him joy, a sense of pride and fulfillment, it also came with its horrors. When fulfillment years ago his wife died, leaving him with two daughters he felt his wall crumble. Like small sand houses along the beach squshed by playing children’s feet.
Ijeoma had died from cancer. At parenting, she had been better than him, always knowing what to do, and when to do it.
Raising two teenage girls alone was difficult for Chidi. Thoughts about marrying a new wife, who would assist with raising them, often assailed his mind. But he just wouldn’t bring himself to do it. Something about marrying a new wife felt wrong. What will people say? His wife’s family. Her elder brother, a lanky man with bulging eyes, who often stopped by to ask for money. What will he say?
Once, Chidi had caught him playing with Chika, his second daughter, in a way that seemed inappropriate. The thirteen-year-old girl was sitting on her uncle’s legs when her dad walked in. Chidi saw the man flinch behind Chika but pretended not to. He had been touching her breasts! Groping her thighs!
On his way home from work today, Chidi stopped by a local Suya spot. To buy snacks for his girls. Two big babies who made him proud. How they had grown. Stella, the older one now taller than him, and quite smarter than she once was.
Barely 18 years old, the girl was done with her secondary school and had qualified for the national chess competition coming in a month.
Chika, her sister was blessed with a beautiful voice. A song from her could cure his severe headaches. She was the lead singer at the teenage choir band at church. Their mother would be proud of them.
The lockdown had affected everything. Mental healths. Cost of living. Everything. Robberies had become quite rampant. Looting too. One could be walking down a street, only to have his baggage snatched and made away with. People, it seemed, were doing everything just to survive.
Two tablets of Panadol after his meal, after he watched his girls eat ravenously of the roasted flesh wrapped in newspaper which he threw to them the minute he stepped in through the door, the father went to bed.
Midnight.
Three loud thuds at the door. He jerked awake. He had slept atop the sofa within the palour, in this his two-bedroom flat. Who would be knocking by this time? Another loud thump, and following after this one the sound of crashing. As if the wooden front door was just thrown down. It was.
Two huge men came surging in. One was carrying a machete, and the other a local gun.
“Comot all the money for this place before we waste you. Bastard!” they barked in unison.
Chidi knelt and held his hand in the air. His mind ran to his daughters. They were in their room. Probably asleep. Or perhaps peering through the a gap in the closed door, shuddering in fear.
“Oga, no money, I swear. Nothing. Please carry whatever you want!”
“Bastard” one of the thieves shouted as he struck his head with the bottom of his gun. “You say you no get anything. But you hide your daughters. Shey you think we no know? Those fine girls wey get bress like water melon?”.
Chidi’s heart skipped beats.
The robber with the short gun set aim for Chidi’s head whilst the other one darted around the house, in search for the girls. He was soon out of their room, following behind the girls. The trophy.
Chidi’s children were still dressed in their night wears. Both were crying. Reminded him of the night that their mother died. That night, he was just as helpless at helping his family as he was right now.
A kick dropped Stella to her knees. The robber with a gun began to unbuckle his belt. It would be a rape. And Chidi will watch. Or would he? Definitely not. He’d rather die.
As soon as the robber’s trouser dropped to the ground, Chidi lunged forward in an offensive attack. He was soon on the ground, the robber underneath him.
A machete sank into his back. The other robber had attacked. Pain spasmed within him, warm blood sheating his back. But he wouldn’t let go. Not until the gun was in his hand. Until he seized it.
Chidi clambered to his feet, a gun in his hand.
‘I will shoot.’ He said, pointing it to the robber with the machete, — upon seeing Chidi seize the gun, he had backpedaled two steps — and then at the one lying on the floor, trying to get up.
The man on the floor jerked forward. Chidi pulled the trigger. A bullet caught the him He fell back. Chidi’s children screamed as the other with the machete lunged for their father.
The machete caught him again. Now at his left clavicle. But before falling, Chidi managed to pull the trigger once more.
Mr Chidi died that night, along with the thieves.