Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: White (10/29/09)
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TITLE: THE CLOUD | Previous Challenge Entry
By ISAAC LIKUJI
11/03/09 -
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We were told to wait at the checkpoint. We wearisomely managed to overcome the weight of our fallen hopes. I could see all my brethren weeping inside. Their faces, as well as mine, seemed to carry the whole mass of the person. For most of us, it was the first experience; I understood later that among the group were those who were going through that torturous moment maybe a second or third time. Then I could not imagine myself walking through those two gates ever again. The time we waited was not long enough to know what the general atmosphere was around that place. But it was long enough, too long enough to wish to leave the place as soon as possible. The case at hand was regrettably light, but we were there, at the police headquarters, by-passing all regional offices, for a reason only the state could explain better.
First it was the treatment. The drive from our region to the police den was hectic. We barely survived a terrible accident, the vehicle was old and the driver was drank. Accompanying us was a very unruly young officer. His duty partly spelled our frustration, or seriously, our misery. With shackles around your life, even a dog can spit at you. This man, without taking a moment of concern, acted beyond his profession and made our initial perspective of the charge slapped on us very inaccurate. We were almost a dozen of us, the same offence – inciting rebellion against the state.
We were running a campaign program at that time. The New Government Recommendations on religious and social practices were being put to the first test. It was an idea of a failed system, the former. When the new took the toll, they concluded the best way to fight the persistent failure was to change people’s beliefs and religious and social commitments. This, they hoped, would make the citizens incapable of demanding so much on the elect, those in government. It started as a little flame, in one place, one city. The next moment it was like a weed that had multiplied over a century. We called for an emergency assembly. As the chair of the forum, I made for the first target a quick response to the tyranny by urging every member of the Christian faith to brace themselves for the last wave of bloody persecutions. Only, the encouragement was meant for the whole though actually heard by very few. Before the team could resolve and launch out the nationwide crusade, the other crusade was already by the doors, knocking.
With no time to negotiate, I was slapped in the face; thank GOD I have always been a physically strong man. The knock gave me some few seconds of dizziness, while I held my ground. Soon as I regained my concentration I met the new reality: all the men and women with me on the leaders table were in tears, and physical anguish. Heavy chains were being locked into our wrists and ankles; the new government program was being enforced. I heard a few whispered prayers. They meant a lot to me. I had not been wasting my time all those years after all. These people here would have laid their tools on my feet and gone for the movement, the oppression. But in one SPIRIT, I heard one after the other say a prayer. Some interceded for their families, their little babies who were soon to be chewed by a beast-man, in their absence.
When the Officer-In-Charge walked in, behind him an old friend of mine, now in the government revolution, I took a deep breath – I always did in emotional times – and put my hand to my mouth to yawn. It was not just yawning, but also to block the punch that flew from the shoulder of the OIC. It was one of those times when you would not know where people got their evil from, apart from hell. I saw in my former friend a devil older than satan. Though he knew my name, he opted to address me as ‘you’.
So as we waited in that half hell of a place, we were not anticipating favours of any kind. All we had left was to pray for the weak; to ask the LORD to uphold the courage and strength of the righteous, the children of grace. And certainly, the white cloud of GOD’s victory still hovered over our hearts.
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