LIVING DOORS

Chapter One

The hands that both inspected the slit, carefully tended to it as if that would make its two ends stick together, although it was only to see the extent of the damage made. Just a few brisk leaps would get one to the door from where the net hung, and if it wasn't their first time in such a predicament, hopefully their heels won't hurt that much. But even then, that would be of little concern, compared to what happened to those knees, - how they dropped to the floor and made a dense sound that differed starkly from the one made by the heels early on. The way this sound echoed and disappeared so fast from the room made it easy to judge which was more painful. Gradually the slit ripped open the more. Both elbows pressed down hard on the portion of the net which was tucked in-between the bedpost and the mattress. And the little part left not tucked in, was occasionally shushed by the whiffs of air that made its way into the room, and it would jump up to tickle him above his knees where he had slightly injured. His fingers clasped very tightly together, and he gripped very hard each time the air blew in order not to ruin the prayer before it actually was supposed to end.

'Amen -' he let out shrilly, hurrying to give way for the sensation felt from the tickling, moaning, when his injured knee hurt again as he scurried off from prayer to the door.

The only words he could hear while in pain were, 'Be quickened!', and these words repeated themselves.

 And soon, he found himself speaking to his knee, the same words, 'be quickened knee, be quickened!’ Then quickly he reached and grabbed what he had returned from the door to collect and headed back.

His bravery amazed him, as he limped back. He found it quite impressive that he could no longer be stopped by the pain from moving. What perhaps was more amazing to him was how the expression, which he had picked up from the Bible fellowship class that he regularly attended, suddenly found way through his voice. And not all, but also the amusement with which it brought by the memory of Nicole.

Nicole was a sister from the Bible fellowship class who always beat everyone to opening to scriptures.

On the day of the incident, that brought back the memory, Nicole interrupts the Bible study class teacher even before he could finish calling out the verse to be read, and then quickly read it out.

What amazed everyone was not how embarrassing it seemed for Nicole to interrupt the teacher, but rather how she got to know that the teacher had planned to read verse eleven of Romans chapter eight.

Well Levi and his fellowship classmates, and the teacher, man of very gentle manners who rarely smiled, simply got engrossed in Nicole's reading, showing no hint at all of any mishap.

This could be why the expression, 'be quickened' had so well stuck with Levi. And as he spoke it out, the incident revisited him and he could no longer help it but be slightly amused, also by the puzzling looks on the faces that were there. This brought by smiles and helped him get through the pain and by the time he had taken the last step to the door he was not limping anymore from hurting his knee.

~

The shield that covered the surface of the screen jumped off after its protective outline that had earlier  escaped and knocked itself against the inner part of the glove compartment. But for the rubber band that held the battery in place, it would just go off and no calls would come in again. If it vibrated a few more times again, the entire encasement would totally be dishelmed leaving the engine with no house. The last vibration tooted quite hard yet not hard enough to draw any unwarranted attention to the seemingly deserted vehicle. Of course it was no surprise that what sounded like a bumble bee trapped inside some kind of cage could get any passerby's attention at all. In an age where animal sounds competed for people's ringtones, a bee needed to sting harder in order to beat ringtones of a cat or a dog being tortured.

The good thing about a ringtone that cannot be easily heard is that the device stays safe from potential thieves even when the owner is not available to pick up calls. That is what has kept any hands off the unoccupied vehicle. This certainly was not the case with respect to Awudu the notorious scrap dealer whom legend has it in the small community of scrap dealers where he stayed, that he could smell mobile phones distances away from wherever they were being kept or hidden on their hosts, and needn't even hear them at all. Many who have had their phones pick-pocketed by the notorious scrap dealer always ended up in the dilemma of wondering if they had either misplaced it, or had altogether forgotten to carry them along when they were leaving home. But it was not until Awudu's victims were jolted out of their daydream of feigned forgetfulness, upon the unmistaken mental recall of every step of their morning’s preparation to leave home, which they were somehow forced to recall, that they begun to realize that the magic act that had just occurred was the performance of a pick-pocket. It was at a very busy newsstand in the metropolis where commuters often paused to glance at the front pages that people normally fell prey to these swift acts. Awudu usually went by the front of the newsstand with his scrap on a cart. Oftentimes when he wheeled past, it was the men dressed in fine suits carrying microphones that he took particular notice of. He had no idea who they were or what they did or why they were on the front pages. It was the sheer look of how fresh and clean they looked that attracted him to take a look. His admiration for these men grew and he hoped one day to scrub up like them and forgo his four-wheel cart for a four-wheel drive. However the day he drew nearer to catch a glimpse, he was completely sidetracked by a very different and an indeed strange phenomenon. He found himself amidst what could be likened to a volcanic eruption of complaints about everything that could go wrong in a country, and although that scarcely moved him, something else got his attention; An orchestra of mobile-phone ringtones that went off just about every few seconds. This instantly captivated Awudu and jammed to it. When he got tired of hearing them, they began to disappear.

~

The hour hand had knocked off a good portion of the time he had left. The deodorant spray let off with a gush, but not until he felt no sensation in his armpit did he realize that it was all wasting into the air. His eyes transfixed to the clock, it was almost impossible to turn away, but his right foot won't find the sock, and the thought that he would have to take his eyes off the clock even for a brief moment disgusted him. He did it however, but his entire body came tumbling to the floor of the room, flinging the comb tucked under his other armpit like a rocket into the ceiling. He however sprung back to his feet immediately and finished dressing up.

One by one he tossed things into his men’s purse very hurriedly. Id Cards, Cheque books, his ATM cards et cetera.

~

'You cannot change yesterday - '. The sudden sound of these words from an in-coming call made his heart take a big leap. And it continued to ring 'But you can do something today that can change tomorrow - '. He felt a little at ease knowing now that it was his ringtone, and even contemplated just allowing it to play on.  Whenever he was uninterested in answering a call, he would just let the phone keep on ringing, playing again and again his favorite preacher’s message that he had used for a ringtone. Sometimes he found himself doing that also in public places. Considering the number of insane people flourishing and spreading unchecked in a city so busy where he lived, it was deemed quite bold to indulge in such an act in public. Just to have an idea of the magnitude of the looming insanity, a beggar who was once given alms rebuked the person for not producing the exact amount that he begged for. And if you gave nothing at all to a beggar, then they could even physically attack you. Therefore you can imagine, even if beggars behaved this way, then very little is left to be said of the mentally ill.

One fateful moment while at the bus stop, a phone rung, and as the lyrics of a song in the genre of rock blurted out the words, 'I walk with Angels', an almost naked madman suddenly appeared waving a big stick frantically before the company of commuters gathered under the bus stop shed asking, 'Where are they? Idiots! Where are those Angels?'

There was sudden pandemonium and everyone at the bus stop was thrown in various random directions, disappearing in a second including Levi.

Later on while catching his breath, having reached far enough not imminent of any danger from the madman, Levi stopped and engaged in pleasantries with another young man with whom he had seemingly fled the same direction, and who he recognized instantly.

'You must be the guy with the Angels ringtone!' Levi said.

'Yes' he answered, and Levi could not help but burst out laughing again.

 'Isn’t it amazing?' remarked the stranger.

‘Tell me brother.'

'Imagine a city full of sane people and only a madman could see that I walked with angels.'

They both laughed out loud.

Chapter Two

The brand of skin lotion she used made her darkened knuckles form stripes with the other part of her skin that had a lighter complexion. She took a good look at herself in the mirror. She liked what she saw. A quick smile followed. Her fat fingers patted the pony and then she dropped the comb on the platter before the mirror to hurry off. Just then a thought hit her and she returned to pick it up again. She would need it for the surprise she had planned for her colleagues at work this morning.

'FREEZE EVERYONE!' with the comb to Becky's head, Kate yelled out in a deep voice, mimicking that of a male so well. She had Becky pressed between her left arm and her bosom. 'Would you die now and chill later, or chill now and die later Becky?' She spoke so fast in one breath, with the accent of an American police officer as though reading out a Miranda rule, that her words were almost unintelligible. Everyone in the room freaked out so much by Kate's sudden appearance that they were themselves puzzled by what supernatural jet engine had shot them in such speed to exit the door during the rush. Because of this, it took time for some of them to realize what had actually gone wrong with the shoes on their left foot or the other.

'Kate!!!' one of them yelled, 'what was all that about?!'

They realized it was a hoax by now. But Kate was in stitches at this point as they headed back inside and those without their shoes groped around to look for them.

'Kate! You've got some explaining to do' Becky said, catching her breath as she spoke, 'what was all that about?’

Becky had managed to set herself free when Kate put the comb to her head, and made away for her dear life in case it was a real gun. She was rather active for the sheer size of her breasts.

'Answer my question first Becky', Kate replied still laughing, ' and then I'll tell you what that was all about.’

Kate's question sounded like one of those ones that normally provoked a debate amongst the teachers and Lara set it off pretty well by responding, 'Die now, no way!'

'Die now, and chill when I'm a skeleton in my coffin?' she added.

Uproar filled the room, and it seemed to be in favour of Lara.

'Well, if you are dry bones inside a coffin doesn't mean you are dead' Becky put it to Lara, and her remark was also followed by another mighty roar.

Now it was clear that the two proponents of the debate had been found, and Kate who started the whole thing was obviously not one of them. Her current position was next to Lara, funning her with a handkerchief, urging her on.

'Who says that when someone takes you to the grave it means they have killed you' Becky continued, while Lara frantically searched for her next words. 'I am not afraid of the one who can take my body to the grave!’ concluded Becky.

'Yeah but when Kate put a comb to your head you fled didn't you?' reacted Lara.

'Well of course I had to run for my life but it didn't mean that I was afraid'

‘So why did you run if you were not afraid?'

‘I had to, because I have a human side of me. But that's not all that I'm made of. I would be more afraid if a gun was held to my spirit.'

~

He heard someone shout, 'Pear! Pear!! Pear!!! '

When he turned to look they were pens.

He laughed quickly, like gas would escape from a fizzy drink when you shook it before it was opened. Yet for the health of his own conscience, he advised himself against making a mockery of other people's misfortunes and quickly looked away. 

But looking away did not take it out of sight, so he had to put an effort into stopping himself from wanting to laugh again.

Just then something got his attention on the radio.

He turned up the volume a little bit to listen.

'The way these guys say Dr. Dre sounds like Wagadree, - the word for, ‘Swindler’ in the local language' he thought to himself.

The discussion that went on among the Hip-Hop radio show host and his panelists about the latest headphones in town amused him. He briefly sampled a bit of their show and moved on to tune in to the channel of his choice. He was in the course of that when he suddenly chanced on a fine riff from a synthesizer waxing in a song whose genre he wasn't quite sure of. It had only been left with a measure of it when he got there, and soon after that followed the chorus with the words 'Dance your body music...’

He instantly recognized who the band was.

'Please!' he yelled, and muttered to himself, 'don’t make us sad, stop playing K'si on the radio', and then quickly turned the dial.

K'si's story was a classic example of what Levi called, 'Rags to Riches to Rags'. K'si went from being the ninth best keyboardist in the whole wide world at the age of sixteen, and one of the richest teenagers of his time, to being found dead in a church toilet in his forties with what was not even the equivalence of a nickel inside the pocket of his trousers. K'si's story drove many to tears, including Levi, and he often wondered how many talented people would end up like K'si if the culture still did not place emphases on establishing a good spiritual foundation among talented young people. It amazed him also that the farthest a gift like K'si could go was to be the best session musician in London where he was flown to reside after being discovered and taken from a village in his home country.

‘Well this is history’ he thought as he pondered. Presently the country has more famous musicians especially in contemporary genres such as Hip-Hop, where a citizen of the land holds the title as the fastest rapper. Levi had listened to the rapper in question a few times, who came across as very impressive the very first time he heard him, yet a couple more times afterwards, Levi wondered if the issue of a weak foundation in music was well understood and addressed by the nation.

In his opinion, while it was no doubt that the said rapper was gifted with flow, his content did not tie together that greatly as a written body of work. It was often hard to know what the song was talking about exactly irrespective of the title, because he would randomly jump from one subject to another even in the same line, and what should be a well crafted body of writing often came across as a pack of punch-lines. Those few more times after the first that Levi heard him, he thought that the said rapper had not displayed much dexterity and dynamism in his content and often sounded corny - which in his opinion could have been due to the fact that the rapper’s collection of punch lines in that song were perhaps all corky ones.

‘But that would be judging by Western standards’ Levi guessed, ‘because from an African context he could be justified’ he thought.

'Here we do the rap of punch lines and the poetry of punch-depths' he found himself whispering.

Because in African proverbs, which is a major cultural reference for African poetry and rap of today, one sort of borrows from a subject or an object to talk about or address another object or subject - not necessarily in direct reference, but as a way of communicating his thoughts and feelings by what is already known as the chief form of expression for that feeling or thought he or she has acquired about the subject or object through experience and through observation.

Nonetheless, Levi felt strongly that it was still not okay that this was not taught in schools or upheld as a social standard for a foundation to give artists the right footing in music. In the humble opinion of Levi, if the said rapper and his contemporaries were aware of this phenomenon about African proverbs, they would be able to improve their art form and achieve more than being just glorified session musicians. Yet how could they achieve more if they didn’t know what has been achieved? That leads also to another whole new topic of documentation and archiving in this society.

Just before those thoughts could end, it dawned on Levi suddenly that he must reach for his horns, and quickly, he abandoned the dial knob on his radio and gave the middle of his steering a hefty thump.

It blurred so loud that even behind the rolled-up glasses of his car, he could hear insults from pedestrians and hawkers who were being annoyed by it.

~

The sound in the background that they had ignored earlier could now no longer go unnoticed because it was becoming a little bit more unbearable for comfort.

Just before the petit hand that disturbed the peace could land on the goat skin again, his scalp was overtaken by a hard knock; it was as though the little man was aiming for a four-four rhythm and then after counting three on the drum the fourth landed on his own head from Kate’s knuckles. After receiving the knock, all the other kids broke out laughing and pulled jests at Briany’s funny face from opposite the skin drums where they all sat on a mat impatiently waiting for the drum instructor to arrive.

Towering above the five year old, Kate was ready and about to top him up with another knock to his head for straying, whilst his little colleagues could not help but just giggle on. 

‘Have I not warned you time and again not to tamper with the drums until the instructor came’ asked Kate in a fashion that didn’t require an answer from little one.

Little Briany stood erect with one hand over his head, robbing the spot where he had been hit while he gazed at Kate who happened to be his favorite teacher. The look on his face was one of surprise that his favorite teacher had not even spared him when he misbehaved.  Kate walked Briany away from the drums to join his little colleagues on the mat. He feigned a little whine as if in pain, hoping that his favorite teacher would appease him with a promise of sweets like she often did. Kate glanced at her watch and it was almost thirty minutes past the time scheduled for the drumming session. She walked back inside to find out from her colleagues in case they had any idea what had kept the drum instructor so late.

Chapter Three

Aworo turned the key in the ignition but the car refused to start. He did it again, and again - but it would sound almost as if it was about to start, and then it won’t.

'It's your fuel injection'

Aworo's eyes stared blankly into the air from where his head poked out of the partially opened front door of his car.

'Bro, it’s your fuel injection I said!' his helper made himself clear the second time, stretching his head from behind the lifted bonnet just in case Aworo hadn't heard him much clearer the first time.

The response from Aworo was yet not forthcoming. It seemed his mind was running too far ahead, busy searching for the next course of action hence his absent-mindedness.

For the amount of turmoil going on in his head, one little blob of sweat travelling down his face was all there was to show.

A large hand towel quickly emanates from out of his pocket and licks away the strand of sweat just in time at the tip of his nose before it drained down.

The expression on his face was one of a puzzle.  

As it turned out he only discovered that his engine was smoking when he had just randomly pulled up the car by the side of the road so he could ran to a nearby thicket to ease himself of his frequent bowels.

It was when he had finished and hurried back to get into his car that he saw the bonnet full of smoke and hissing. By this time quite a number of people had gathered around Aworo’s car, obviously wanting to help yet at the same time trying not to trespass a private property. Aworo quickly reached to its aid upon arrival as it was a case of over-heating. While he attended to it, someone came by who had gone to draw water on a cart and approached him to be of assistance and drew out a gallon of water for him to empty into the carburetor to cool down the engine before asking Aworo to go back into the car and start it.

Awudu the scrap collector was very experienced in his job. He also collected vehicle spare parts that he sometimes sold to wayside mechanics some of whom would not pay him on time and so he would frequent their shops and wait for so long to collect his money. While waiting he would observe their craft and learn a few things and the cumulative result of the many things he had learnt from observing mechanics is what gave him the impetus to point to Aworo that his car refuses to start due to a poor fuel injection. Before going to draw the barrels of water on his cart for one of his customers, a Waakye seller, who gave business to Awudu in order for him to survive while he waited to be paid by mechanics, he had just visited the newsstand and made a fortune off of pick-pocketing mobile phones. Aworo’s dishelmed phone inside his glove compartment had buzzed again while he and Awudu attended to the car, after sometime with Awudu it now came to his attention that he should give a call to the client who has asked to be picked up. When Aworo got to his mobile phone he saw thirty missed calls and immediately called back.

~

Kate came back out with a few of her colleagues including Lara, and Becky who had won the debate.

Briany and his little friends looked so disappointed that it was almost fifteen minutes to the close of the drumming session and the instructor had not showed up.

Kate and her colleagues had come to ask the kids to abandon the lessons but they seemed touched by the looks on the faces of those kids.

‘Hello...!’ Kate yelled.

‘Hi..!’ The kids responded.

‘Hello..!’ She yelled again.  

Chapter Four

Levi had almost hit someone with his car and attracted a lot of insults. Yet the insults did not bother him as much as his recognition of the one he had nearly knocked down.

‘I know this guy’ he whispered to himself.

Where he almost hit the guy was at a major traffic light and if he made a right turn into the crossroad and drove for about fifteen more minutes, he would be in his neighborhood.

'Life is indeed seasonal, and in stages' Levi thought, 'imagine if you're crossing the road during a rush hour, mangled with all sorts, who knows you are a doctor or a musician, except those who often keep an eye on you - even then they believe you are something that you may not be'

Levi had once been told by someone in the neighborhood the story about this guy that he almost hit, that he was so rich he would buy any latest car that the president got and use it to collect rubbish. However the state that he was when Levi had almost hit him down was definitely worse than the last time he set eyes on him.

All these memories of the last time he drove his car trickled in because the taxi driver he made an appointment with had still not showed up after God knows how long and had not even called.

He tossed the last item into his bag, and then the phone rang.

Between contemplating whether to let the ringtone keep on playing the comforting words of wisdom from his favourite preacher, it dawned on him how so late he had been and quickly he answered the call.

‘Yes Aworo, where are you now I am so late are you here to pick me up?’

Looking at how far he was from Levi, where the car had broken down, Aworo found it hard to answer after feeling the anguish in Levi’s voice and remained silent on the other side of the phone.

‘Hello...Hello...! Are you there Aworo?’ Levi raged on.

That instant, in the four walls of his room, desperation gripped Levi, as if he had been caught inside a giant trap; as he gazed blankly in the air, with his eyes transfixed, his imagination began to travel far beyond the walls. And then suddenly he noticed something very strange that was happening; as he peered more into the daylight the room begun to transform; the daylight suddenly shined its brightest so that it was even blinding to the eye, and everything in the room was now drowned in glow. A giant door suddenly appeared and a strong wind blew it open. Like a hand shuffling through the pages of a book the strong wind opened door-after-door-after-door - different shapes, sizes and kinds of doors, until it stopped at one – a huge gate. Levi trembled greatly, and shivered till his bones could be literally heard chattering. He tried looking away when the whole thing begun, but a mighty crackling voice admonished, 'LOOKING AWAY DOES NOT TAKE IT OUT OF SIGHT!' And he found himself not at all being able to turn away. This same voice is what he now hears beckoning him to, 'STEP IN! STEP IN LEVI!' the mighty voice crackled on, 'YOUR FERVENT DESIRE HAS BEEN GRANTED’.

~

He recognized Jeff Q’s collection of photos that formed a little collage on one of the square designs of the gate. They were photos of him twenty years ago when he lived in London, ‘38 Queens Gate’ as he normally emphatically puts it, oftentimes half drunk while he shared the story of his past with the entire world at the school gate - to strangers and passersby who were completely unconcerned and who often found the wan gate keeper too annoying. Levi found him quite amusing however and rather learnt a lot from listening to his lengthy monologues. Levi’s left hand was now over one of the square designs to feel it properly. He even smelt it to be sure, and rubbed the back of his palm against it to feel it on his flesh. Yet not until he heard the sound of the voices of children from behind the gate did he begin to grasp what had just happened to him.

Chapter Five

The squeaking tires of Awudu's four wheel cart travelled far ahead of him and announced his arrival. From the distance where he had gotten, he noticed something that made him drop the steering to his cart immediately and rushed towards where his eyes were transfixed.

'Since when did these miscreants come close to exchanging pleasantries with Fateema?' He thought to himself as he trod on.

Awudu’s work attire hardly gave him off to be skinny. People said the way he walked was a result of malnutrition that he, his mother and sister suffered at the hands of their ruthlessly selfish father. The legend has it that there was hardly water enough in the house to drink except bottled mineral water acquired by the father which the children and their mother could not touch. The part of Mr. Gariba’s family story that enthused many was when Awudu his son came home one day and found a box of corn flakes and a tin of milk hidden beneath the bedpost in the single room in which they all slept and also lived. ‘At last’, Awudu thought, ‘I am going to taste the food that I’ve always dreamed of’.

The next morning came by and the day ended. The corn flakes had still not been prepared. It was after midnight that the tired Mr Gariba returned home, while his wife and children were fast asleep, and quietly he emptied the content of the box and a tin of milk into a large sized plastic bowl, and poured a bottle of mineral water over it and then began to mercilessly devour. The clever little Awudu had his eyes shut all this while pretending to be asleep. But he was watching. He rolled back and forth on his straw mat pretending to be having a bad dream, and each time he heard the sound of his father chewing. He ended up spilling the content in the bowl before his father and made a mess of the whole floor. That midnight Mr Gariba beat the craftiness out of little Awudu, who wake up an entire neighborhood with the loudness of his crying. He was four then and that was the last time they ever set eyes on their father.

Awudu's mother's Koko breakfast stand was one of the most patronized in the area, and his younger sister Fateema tended to it often so their ageing mother could get some rest from waking up at twilight every morning to do the cooking. That was not the only business she had done to make ends meet since her husband absconded years ago. When she and Mr Gariba freshly met and were living together, before their two kids were born, Madam Faati was the kind of woman who would look people up and down in a conversation instead of looking in their faces. Her counterpart would keep on talking for well over a minute before it came to their realization that Madam Faati had only been staring down at their shoes. She had the reputation of being an unruly and quarrelsome market woman who made a mess everywhere. The gentlemen who passed by her side of the market did not take too kindly to her because she disliked their shoes. The people in their neighborhood believed that she was also in the habit of chastising her husband by withholding his dinner.

It was a perfect idea for Awudu that Fateema would tend to the Koko business while he went out to find some money so their mother could rest. The only part he disliked was that his adolescent and rather naïve sister attracted too many young males, some of whom would only buy just one calabash full of Koko and sit through it the entire day, only to get to hang around Fateema. The only time they left was when Awudu returned from his cart pushing business, and they all fled when they heard the squeaking sound of his cart wheels venturing in.

Awudu approached very fast but he noticed as he approached that for the first time ever, Fateema’s companions had not fled like they normally did as they caught a hint of his squeaky tires long ago, although on their faces they looked a little bit nervous. Awudu intensified his pace, ‘today I will finally get to give them some dirty blows’ he thought as he approached them, only to arrive to discover, to his amazement that the young lads were not departing because they were in the middle of sharing the gospel with a group of preachers who had found them idling at the Koko stand and decided to share the gospel with them.

'Hello...' the preachers in unison beckoned to Awudu, greeting him as soon as his harsh breathing caught their attention upon his arrival.  The young men that were seated with the preachers also greeted Awudu.

'That is my brother Awudu' Fateema said, ‘he is just coming from drawing water for one of his clients who is a Waakye seller’

The rather nervous Awudu was scrambling for the words just to say, ‘Hello’, seeing as now his mission has been prematurely aborted.

'Hello Awudu you have come right on time' one of the preachers said smiling, 'we were almost wrapping up when you came'

'Please join us for the closing prayer' the preachers asked.

Awudu who had still not said a word or even said hello back, spotted a very inconvenient look on his face. He quietly took a seat as requested by preachers and waited for the closing prayer.

~

 ‘Hi...! Ms Lara’ the kids responded shouting, and then Lara began to address them.

‘First of all,’ she said, ‘I am very sorry that your drum instructor Mr. Levi - ’

And then before she could finish her words, a voice from behind her interrupted with a very exciting and resounding, ‘Hello!’

‘Hello Mr. Levi!!!’ the little kids roared and thronged to him to welcome their drum instructor.