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A Christian Neck and Muslim Knives

It was a group of twelve with a turban-wearing seven-footer Commander. Form the rest Turbaned stood out, his impressive height ensuring this and in some sense, his off-and-on display of his rust-eaten but blood-freezing dagger. When he began a reminding announcement of what he strictly wanted from his eleven the severe frown on his face had not left it. He, Commander Hamza Ismail, would rejoice over thrusts from their daggers and knives that spilled much blood upon impact. Importantly, no member of their “Catch them and Kill Them” need be doubly sure that an approaching figure is a Christian, if his instinct proclaimed him so. Members’ next mandatory action must be a speedy thrust of his purposing dagger at any of the important organs in his chest but preferably at his neck. A collectively bawled out “Transmitted Sir!” by The Eleven looking in and out like predators that would kill what they had just caught.

But Commander Hamza Ismail, in his opinion, had not quite the silence he had desired from The Eleven while he was addressing them. For his stern order that the owner of the injudicious noises he had picked during his speech identify himself, three pairs of eyes promptly fell on fair-skinned Waheed while at them he looked back innocently. For all he knew and could defend with success he had not made any true noise; only time and again, lightly tapped his right foot on bare floor and slightly shuffled his left against it.

“And also, Waheed, from emergency gently cleared your throat against a felt dryness,” croaked slow-to-forgive Commander Hamza. Impatiently, Hamza said to sound the point that the making of muffled sounds and half noises has never been a helpful listening technique for any audience anywhere in the world.

“Nor, for that matter shall we ever find a cause to add to our combat skills against the infidels light tapping of our right feet on bare floor slight shuffling of the left against it; like Waheed was just trying to show off to us! “

From twenty-six-year-old Waheed Shuaibu Commander Hamza got a from-the-bottom-of-heart apology. This, though, did not stop Hamza from urging Waheed, to soonest take it up as a challenge beating all Graveyards far and near in the game of silence during speeches by his Commander.

A lone “Well transmitted, Sir!” by Waheed, his voice powerfully letting out their Official Loyalists’ Answer. And it was this powerful voice that first got true forgiveness from Commander Hamza before he did. All over again, Commander Hamza made The Eleven keep in mind that their planned strikes could not be successful with Mummy’s Favorites, let alone persons in whose mouths Butter easily melted.

“So, if there’s such a fellow in our midst, for crying out loud, own up the fact right here and now,” warned Commander Hamza but after some five seconds with a sympathizing smile “…for understandable speedy dismissal from our Catch Them and Kill Them.”

A provoking return of three pairs of eyes to Shuaibu Waheed! A six quite sure that Waheed lacked what it takes to make it on the list of their “Catch them and kill them.”

“I believe you can tell me what your problems are” Waheed generalized for the owners of the worrying eyes.

“Yes, my own problem is that you seem to me more a lover than a militant,” braved Yusuf Bello who also voiced his surprise that Waheed had this time forgotten to bring along with him Romance Novel to their parade ground for casual glances at its contents.

A well-conceived attack it was on Waheed’s fitness for a mission that had been programmed to commerce with bloodshed and end with hasty burial of finished victims in shallow graves or abandonment of their corpses. A hurt Waheed could only draw attention in a piteous voice to Yusuf Bello’s shameless admission to being sometimes a gossipy watcher of the next man expressing normal interest in a literary work. But to Commander Hamza, Waheed’s chosen response to the matter was a lousy one and while interposing himself between the two adversaries made a point of correcting him. He knows and Waheed does that readers of love fiction usually have problems lifting a dagger against a proven enemy; that at best they escape being Invalids at the battlefield but never make it as “Valiants.”

Somehow, Waheed’s outward calm did not leave him, as he listened to his candid, Commander, ever unbiased, but he was everything other than the honestly convinced. His reply to Hamza was first a delivered gratitude for his inclusion in The Mission, and next his understanding of their anxiety for the success of planned strikes at the infidels. Not as a challenge to their opinion, he would want to find out more about the weakening effects of a reading interest in creative writing and at the other extreme had just foreseen their Commander Hamza galloping towards him before darkness for a congratulatory squeeze of his murderous hands soon to be stained with more blood that shall be found on the rest’s!

Quite the kind of forecast, the ears of Commander Hamza often wished to hear in connection with a riot, whose targets are Christian Infidels. Suppressing a smile, Hamza told Waheed that he would yet retain his doubts about his finally leaving up to expectation but would not fail to decorate him and do even more upon his return with those said bloodstained hands or bloodstained dagger!

Meanwhile, they shall all fall out for a two-hour break ahead of pouncing on their killing job. Reflections stretched too long could end in deflections, hateful prattles and more hateful rattles. And Allah knows that he Hamza, wants their Butchers’ Assignment not to miss the bite of Othman Dan fodio’s Jihad with or without his initial distribution of empowering flags of The Faithful.

“Yes, my Holy Fighters… Enough of your Good English for now,” said Commander Hamza and he fully meant it…” Or else we’d be endangering this mission and it shan’t anymore be The Roughest and Fiercest in Three Centuries!”

An instant show of the will to comply with the order by The Eleven, not forgetting their “Well Transmitted Sir!” it caused radiance to settle on the face of Commander Hamza. He, too, felt good to go, bidding his Eleven now out of sight an unheard appreciative good bye…

Shuaibu Waheed had not minded while leaving the venue accepting the company of his erstwhile attacker, Yusuf.

“No need now for unimportant revenge,” he muttered to himself, as Yusuf Bello placed a comrade’s hand on his reachable left shoulder. Strangely, as the two men paced on towards Zaria’s Nerve Center, they began to lose by bits their enthusiasm about The Mission. Perhaps, as realistic men, they had begun to bother about what The Long Arm of The Law does to men, whose sharp or blunt daggers have slit another’s jugular vein!

Then, a dramatic tightened grip of Waheed’s shoulder by Yusuf Bello, as the dull sick sky of 3:00pm, speedily darkened a day not quite spent to make it seem as sick.

Shuaibu Waheed thought he now knew why Yusuf Bello had suddenly seized his left shoulder and stifled ripest laughter.

“Braggart Yusuf! All too soon made a woman by a paling weather… And only a half hour ago, he was sure that my reading of romances would unfailingly fail my dagger trying to finish off a Christian infidel.”

For him, without fail, the opportunity shall come to find out the sharpness of his own rust-free dagger.

“Insh Allah!

And then when it has come - The Opportunity - Spectators’ Eyes will never be spared wonders. Sure, at a glance, he can pick out a Christian, even one in a deceiving Muslim caftan. He would not bother to ask him from a distance to hasten towards his stand or consider himself dead. No-No-No! A not – complete fool would speedily guess that he had simply strayed into the domain of An Anxious-to-Kill and next negotiate The Fastest U-Turn! But then, should he, Waheed, start grinning ludicrously upon sighting a Christian advancing towards his stand, to not give away his evil intent. Whaeed, who had no immediate answer to this, wished he did.

Another ten-minute walk by him and Yusuf and they were at the very point they would separate and should for having two far-flung shelters.

“So, see you in another one hour, Reconciled Enemy” Waheed shot at Yusuf utterly pleased with the remark for being a perfect one. Responding with a parting handshake, Bello still shook a head of fresh confirmation that readers of romances are liable to betray this in as simple a business as just to say “Goodbye Yusuf.”

Two hours later Eight out of The Eleven men had yet to repair to their base. Shuaibu Waheed had badly wanted to be the first to report to the venue and it turned out to be so; one might say the handiwork of some Demons of Violence that would only be too glad to hurry Murderer’s Feet to his Killing Site. As for Yusuf Bello, he could not quite make it as The Second Resurfacing Member of The Squad at their venue. He had appeared together with Idris Mukhtar and strictly speaking, was The Second of The Two to step on their acquired Religious Riot Take-Off Perimeter. There was no change of the obvious in the appearance of the three men: same caftans of the same fabric and sameness of Islamic Tailoring. It was a bit funny Commander Hamza’s glowing high rating of a Killer Squad, whose singular plan and strategy was to simply stand and wait for whoever looked like a foreigner, beginning with his attire, to stab to death.

In about thirty minutes, a thirty-year-old Southern Christian, Audrey Owo was in the theatre, flesh and blood, but with a mind to cross it towards where he might obtain roadside medical treatment for a badly sprained ankle. It was quite intriguing how Waheed Bello and Mukhtar had collectively channeled their attention to Advancing Audrey. The Three dead sure that Audrey merely had on his accursed Christian body their Muslim caftan. Time for Idris Mukhtar to harden his murderer’s face and the oval thing with a Semite’s nose, his parted lips hurling at Audrey a feet-hurrying command to make it to where they stood in less than three seconds. But it was in three-seconds-multiplied-by-three that Audrey Owo could complete the race upon which his life depended. Sensibly, on reaching Idris Mukhatar he apologized three times for the poor finishing betwixt genuine howls from the fresh pains which the brief but inconveniencing race had just summoned in his burning ankle. Waheed Shuaibu could swear that Audrey’s bad ankle Audrey got from a hasty flight that was meant to save his Stupid Christian life immediately after sighting some Armed Muslims.

For this reason, he started mentally hurrying a decision to dispatch Audrey with a clean thrust of his still clean dagger at his dirty liver. Alert Audrey shall forever remember his quick backward movement away from death, when Shuaibu began to inch closer to him with the intent let loose in his eyes! Neither would Audrey forget his as quick expressed shock at being taken for A Christian by a fellow Muslim Hausa, the deceiving claim voicing in his Cleanest Hausa from twenty-five interactive years with owner speakers…

“Oh common, you’d better you helped yourself to another piece of apple,” Waheed’s voice ended up striking Audrey, Waheed promptly turning to look at Idris and Yusuf for a support of his sure opinion that Audrey was faking whom he could never be until Allah’s Day of judgment. In lieu of his hoped support, much to Waheed’s surprise, Bello Yusuf placed a calming hand on his anxious dagger.

A “Wha-aat!” by Waheed greatly surprised at Yusuf’s halting of his fresh attempt at a dispatching below for the bloody infidel with a bad ankle. He was not by a little sure that Audrey was not one of them for all his deceiving Hausa Danshiki with as deceiving Fluent Hausa!

“Then, indeed, wonders will never cease!” thought Waheed, as he particularly wished their Commander Hamza were around to confirm the dramatic shift of the combat spirit-snatching effect of reading romances from avid lovers of the hobby to its bitter critics… it was only likely that Waheed’s ears, while thoughts of impressing seven footer Hamza stormed his mind, could not pick the far-off call for their Muslims’ evening prayer by her Muezzin. With the less Yusuf Bello had his mind crowded, it just mischievously occurred to him that whoever is a true Muslim and goes ahead to clad himself like an adherent should be able to neatly recite Prophet Muhammad’s Stated Prayer Verses for Allah’s Worship.

It was this, absolutely, that made him wedge himself between would-be-killer and the-about-to-be-killed.

“Man, I’m already quietly laughing at your wretched claim of being a Hausa and a Muslim.”

Yusuf Bello’s murderous-looking eyes supplied the rest of the information which Audrey needed concerning what would unfailingly unfold, if he failed the test they had packaged for his proof of his Hausa Ethnicity. Audrey, before now with a gently throbbing heart, endured a sudden jump of body temperature while the new sound notes from his heart had the acoustic quality of the keyboard for Modern Jazz. Under the circumstance, it was best to keep wearing a confident smile, if a winsome one would not be possible, as well as keep repeating his sincerity on the subject of his roots. Such should keep suppressing his building unease and keep filling in the mute moments of a waiting to be released by captors. It was very important that he stalled a couple of seconds waiting in odd silence so as not to heighten their stubborn suspicion of his being with Jesus and not with Muhammad!

For four straight minutes or five, Audrey was Just Confident Moving Lips richly assuring three pairs of ears that their owner is also their kinsman.

“Alright… Alright, kinsman, we’ve heard you,” Yusuf assured Audrey “…And trust me, we don’t think that you’re faking any rubbish,” he added companionably, his teeth gleaming, as he flashed Audrey a friendly! It seemed he had just stumbled upon a faultless next move and screening test for Audrey which he should only be too glad to unveil the next minute before the others. The unfortunate fact is that he, Yusuf Mukhtar and Waheed would not say how long Audrey had lived in his Hausa fatherland. However, ten straight years of active interaction with Hausas refusing to converse in English should be able to make a sojourner interested in the language as fluent as one’s host.

“Then, still, you don’t want to accept that I’m your brother and might laugh if I said Zubairu Hassan from Kaduna’s Barnawa!

“Oh! Really?” Waheed himself took over from Yusuf, a bit robbed of his earlier eagerness to quickly end Audrey’s life. He, too, had grabbed what Yusuf had up his sleeves for Audrey and he would want take the satisfying first chance of firing Audrey The First Salvo!

All too soon, Waheed was ready for a controlled conversation with the lucky-for-now fake Muslim…

“Let me say, Hassan Zubairu, that the three men you see now all happened to have sadly forgotten The Opening Prayer Verse which Holy Prophet Muhammad had handed down to all Muslims for their five-times Daily Salat…”

You should know what I mean and now want from you!”

A pretence of hurt feelings. An Audrey Owo bites his lower lips for being further distrusted.

“Painfully, my Muslim brothers are still waiting for me to show that I could reproduce prayer verses upon which my spiritual life depends for meaning. True meaning… Of course, you know it is “There is no God worthy of Worship except Alllah and Muhammad is his Messenger.”

“In Arabic if you won’t mind…” Waheed and Yusuf said almost at the same time, on their faces for Audrey’s care a growing hostility that could be at last insupportable…

Still, more risked shows by Audrey of real felt pains from a disappointment in two kinsmen on a matter of trust in a fellow brother. But, in secret, he was choking with a great excitement over his having, as a child, bothered to neatly memorize many of the Quran Verses of the Muslim primary school he had attended. Now one of them is to be faultlessly verbalized by him and this would mean absolute restoration of a slipping chance to breathe the air of the next five minutes and guaranteed continuation of an unfinished walk to a drug store for an ankle in need of drugs and medicaments; hopefully, after a couple of sincere or insincere words of apology from The Bastards.

“But Christ! What if I had despised knowledge of the verses opting for plugged ears of disinterest?”

Audrey reckoned that it could be an on-the-spot bitter death with all the full chances that he would be profusely bleeding from his Christian neck as his pardon-deaf captors, who know where the jugular vein is in the neck keep rupturing the vessel…

A “Look, we’re waiting for you, Hassan!” form Waheed easily brought Audrey back to the physical reality of his situation as a respondent to a fate-deterring single question and no more safe goofing time left, he puckered up his lips for the cleanest supply in his own Arabic of “Allah hu Akbar, Allah hu Akbar, Ashad Anlaa ilahailla Allah, Wa Anna Muhammad Abduhu Warosulah…”

“And please-Brothers…” Audrey found the stunning courage to chip in “don’t again fail these great witnessing links by our Holy Prophet Muhammad - May peace be unto him - in your Fajr, Zuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha Prayers…” Choosing to lose a polite seven seconds, Audrey Owo turned to leave the scene and also drop behind three Muslims with lost looks plus lost courage to do anything to his Christian neck!

It had been a busy Hausa street just cleared of people by a religious riot. For twelve hours the holy thing had raged, twelve Southern Christian bodies lying at some careless corners of the street. The unholy still blood-soaked bodies, a routed chapel and a flattened mosque with its own shocked corpse at another corner of the street were part of the arresting sights after the tragic clashes between the Christians and the Muslims it quartered… Now, a dozen Hausa Muslims clad in fitting caftans with summarizing fez could be seen as one united body, the air about them ever militant, their soldierly linear formation that of the combat-ready.
It was a group of twelve with a turban-wearing seven-footer Commander. Form the rest Turbaned stood out, his impressive height ensuring this and in some sense, his off-and-on display of his rust-eaten but blood-freezing dagger. When he began a reminding announcement of what he strictly wanted from his eleven the severe frown on his face had not left it. He, Commander Hamza Ismail, would rejoice over thrusts from their daggers and knives that spilled much blood upon impact. Importantly, no member of their “Catch them and Kill Them” need be doubly sure that an approaching figure is a Christian, if his instinct proclaimed him so. Members’ next mandatory action must be a speedy thrust of his purposing dagger at any of the important organs in his chest but preferably at his neck. A collectively bawled out “Transmitted Sir!” by The Eleven looking in and out like predators that would kill what they had just caught.
But Commander Hamza Ismail, in his opinion, had not quite the silence he had desired from The Eleven while he was addressing them. For his stern order that the owner of the injudicious noises he had picked during his speech identify himself, three pairs of eyes promptly fell on fair-skinned Waheed while at them he looked back innocently. For all he knew and could defend with success he had not made any true noise; only time and again, lightly tapped his right foot on bare floor and slightly shuffled his left against it.
“And also, Waheed, from emergency gently cleared your throat against a felt dryness,” croaked slow-to-forgive Commander Hamza. Impatiently, Hamza said to sound the point that the making of muffled sounds and half noises has never been a helpful listening technique for any audience anywhere in the world.
“Nor, for that matter shall we ever find a cause to add to our combat skills against the infidels light tapping of our right feet on bare floor slight shuffling of the left against it; like Waheed was just trying to show off to us! “
From twenty-six-year-old Waheed Shuaibu Commander Hamza got a from-the-bottom-of-heart apology. This, though, did not stop Hamza from urging Waheed, to soonest take it up as a challenge beating all Graveyards far and near in the game of silence during speeches by his Commander.
A lone “Well transmitted, Sir!” by Waheed, his voice powerfully letting out their Official Loyalists’ Answer. And it was this powerful voice that first got true forgiveness from Commander Hamza before he did. All over again, Commander Hamza made The Eleven keep in mind that their planned strikes could not be successful with Mummy’s Favorites, let alone persons in whose mouths Butter easily melted.
“So, if there’s such a fellow in our midst, for crying out loud, own up the fact right here and now,” warned Commander Hamza but after some five seconds with a sympathizing smile “…for understandable speedy dismissal from our Catch Them and Kill Them.”
A provoking return of three pairs of eyes to Shuaibu Waheed! A six quite sure that Waheed lacked what it takes to make it on the list of their “Catch them and kill them.”
“I believe you can tell me what your problems are” Waheed generalized for the owners of the worrying eyes.
“Yes, my own problem is that you seem to me more a lover than a militant,” braved Yusuf Bello who also voiced his surprise that Waheed had this time forgotten to bring along with him Romance Novel to their parade ground for casual glances at its contents.
A well-conceived attack it was on Waheed’s fitness for a mission that had been programmed to commerce with bloodshed and end with hasty burial of finished victims in shallow graves or abandonment of their corpses. A hurt Waheed could only draw attention in a piteous voice to Yusuf Bello’s shameless admission to being sometimes a gossipy watcher of the next man expressing normal interest in a literary work. But to Commander Hamza, Waheed’s chosen response to the matter was a lousy one and while interposing himself between the two adversaries made a point of correcting him. He knows and Waheed does that readers of love fiction usually have problems lifting a dagger against a proven enemy; that at best they escape being Invalids at the battlefield but never make it as “Valiants.”
Somehow, Waheed’s outward calm did not leave him, as he listened to his candid, Commander, ever unbiased, but he was everything other than the honestly convinced. His reply to Hamza was first a delivered gratitude for his inclusion in The Mission, and next his understanding of their anxiety for the success of planned strikes at the infidels. Not as a challenge to their opinion, he would want to find out more about the weakening effects of a reading interest in creative writing and at the other extreme had just foreseen their Commander Hamza galloping towards him before darkness for a congratulatory squeeze of his murderous hands soon to be stained with more blood that shall be found on the rest’s!
Quite the kind of forecast, the ears of Commander Hamza often wished to hear in connection with a riot, whose targets are Christian Infidels. Suppressing a smile, Hamza told Waheed that he would yet retain his doubts about his finally leaving up to expectation but would not fail to decorate him and do even more upon his return with those said bloodstained hands or bloodstained dagger!
Meanwhile, they shall all fall out for a two-hour break ahead of pouncing on their killing job. Reflections stretched too long could end in deflections, hateful prattles and more hateful rattles. And Allah knows that he Hamza, wants their Butchers’ Assignment not to miss the bite of Othman Dan fodio’s Jihad with or without his initial distribution of empowering flags of The Faithful.
“Yes, my Holy Fighters… Enough of your Good English for now,” said Commander Hamza and he fully meant it…” Or else we’d be endangering this mission and it shan’t anymore be The Roughest and Fiercest in Three Centuries!”
An instant show of the will to comply with the order by The Eleven, not forgetting their “Well Transmitted Sir!” it caused radiance to settle on the face of Commander Hamza. He, too, felt good to go, bidding his Eleven now out of sight an unheard appreciative good bye…
Shuaibu Waheed had not minded while leaving the venue accepting the company of his erstwhile attacker, Yusuf.
“No need now for unimportant revenge,” he muttered to himself, as Yusuf Bello placed a comrade’s hand on his reachable left shoulder. Strangely, as the two men paced on towards Zaria’s Nerve Center, they began to lose by bits their enthusiasm about The Mission. Perhaps, as realistic men, they had begun to bother about what The Long Arm of The Law does to men, whose sharp or blunt daggers have slit another’s jugular vein!
Then, a dramatic tightened grip of Waheed’s shoulder by Yusuf Bello, as the dull sick sky of 3:00pm, speedily darkened a day not quite spent to make it seem as sick.
Shuaibu Waheed thought he now knew why Yusuf Bello had suddenly seized his left shoulder and stifled ripest laughter.
“Braggart Yusuf! All too soon made a woman by a paling weather… And only a half hour ago, he was sure that my reading of romances would unfailingly fail my dagger trying to finish off a Christian infidel.”
For him, without fail, the opportunity shall come to find out the sharpness of his own rust-free dagger.
“Insh Allah!
And then when it has come - The Opportunity - Spectators’ Eyes will never be spared wonders. Sure, at a glance, he can pick out a Christian, even one in a deceiving Muslim caftan. He would not bother to ask him from a distance to hasten towards his stand or consider himself dead. No-No-No! A not – complete fool would speedily guess that he had simply strayed into the domain of An Anxious-to-Kill and next negotiate The Fastest U-Turn! But then, should he, Waheed, start grinning ludicrously upon sighting a Christian advancing towards his stand, to not give away his evil intent. Whaeed, who had no immediate answer to this, wished he did.
Another ten-minute walk by him and Yusuf and they were at the very point they would separate and should for having two far-flung shelters.
“So, see you in another one hour, Reconciled Enemy” Waheed shot at Yusuf utterly pleased with the remark for being a perfect one. Responding with a parting handshake, Bello still shook a head of fresh confirmation that readers of romances are liable to betray this in as simple a business as just to say “Goodbye Yusuf.”
Two hours later Eight out of The Eleven men had yet to repair to their base. Shuaibu Waheed had badly wanted to be the first to report to the venue and it turned out to be so; one might say the handiwork of some Demons of Violence that would only be too glad to hurry Murderer’s Feet to his Killing Site. As for Yusuf Bello, he could not quite make it as The Second Resurfacing Member of The Squad at their venue. He had appeared together with Idris Mukhtar and strictly speaking, was The Second of The Two to step on their acquired Religious Riot Take-Off Perimeter. There was no change of the obvious in the appearance of the three men: same caftans of the same fabric and sameness of Islamic Tailoring. It was a bit funny Commander Hamza’s glowing high rating of a Killer Squad, whose singular plan and strategy was to simply stand and wait for whoever looked like a foreigner, beginning with his attire, to stab to death.
In about thirty minutes, a thirty-year-old Southern Christian, Audrey Owo was in the theatre, flesh and blood, but with a mind to cross it towards where he might obtain roadside medical treatment for a badly sprained ankle. It was quite intriguing how Waheed Bello and Mukhtar had collectively channeled their attention to Advancing Audrey. The Three dead sure that Audrey merely had on his accursed Christian body their Muslim caftan. Time for Idris Mukhtar to harden his murderer’s face and the oval thing with a Semite’s nose, his parted lips hurling at Audrey a feet-hurrying command to make it to where they stood in less than three seconds. But it was in three-seconds-multiplied-by-three that Audrey Owo could complete the race upon which his life depended. Sensibly, on reaching Idris Mukhatar he apologized three times for the poor finishing betwixt genuine howls from the fresh pains which the brief but inconveniencing race had just summoned in his burning ankle. Waheed Shuaibu could swear that Audrey’s bad ankle Audrey got from a hasty flight that was meant to save his Stupid Christian life immediately after sighting some Armed Muslims.
For this reason, he started mentally hurrying a decision to dispatch Audrey with a clean thrust of his still clean dagger at his dirty liver. Alert Audrey shall forever remember his quick backward movement away from death, when Shuaibu began to inch closer to him with the intent let loose in his eyes! Neither would Audrey forget his as quick expressed shock at being taken for A Christian by a fellow Muslim Hausa, the deceiving claim voicing in his Cleanest Hausa from twenty-five interactive years with owner speakers…
“Oh common, you’d better you helped yourself to another piece of apple,” Waheed’s voice ended up striking Audrey, Waheed promptly turning to look at Idris and Yusuf for a support of his sure opinion that Audrey was faking whom he could never be until Allah’s Day of judgment. In lieu of his hoped support, much to Waheed’s surprise, Bello Yusuf placed a calming hand on his anxious dagger.
A “Wha-aat!” by Waheed greatly surprised at Yusuf’s halting of his fresh attempt at a dispatching below for the bloody infidel with a bad ankle. He was not by a little sure that Audrey was not one of them for all his deceiving Hausa Danshiki with as deceiving Fluent Hausa!
“Then, indeed, wonders will never cease!” thought Waheed, as he particularly wished their Commander Hamza were around to confirm the dramatic shift of the combat spirit-snatching effect of reading romances from avid lovers of the hobby to its bitter critics… it was only likely that Waheed’s ears, while thoughts of impressing seven footer Hamza stormed his mind, could not pick the far-off call for their Muslims’ evening prayer by her Muezzin. With the less Yusuf Bello had his mind crowded, it just mischievously occurred to him that whoever is a true Muslim and goes ahead to clad himself like an adherent should be able to neatly recite Prophet Muhammad’s Stated Prayer Verses for Allah’s Worship.
It was this, absolutely, that made him wedge himself between would-be-killer and the-about-to-be-killed.
“Man, I’m already quietly laughing at your wretched claim of being a Hausa and a Muslim.”
Yusuf Bello’s murderous-looking eyes supplied the rest of the information which Audrey needed concerning what would unfailingly unfold, if he failed the test they had packaged for his proof of his Hausa Ethnicity. Audrey, before now with a gently throbbing heart, endured a sudden jump of body temperature while the new sound notes from his heart had the acoustic quality of the keyboard for Modern Jazz. Under the circumstance, it was best to keep wearing a confident smile, if a winsome one would not be possible, as well as keep repeating his sincerity on the subject of his roots. Such should keep suppressing his building unease and keep filling in the mute moments of a waiting to be released by captors. It was very important that he stalled a couple of seconds waiting in odd silence so as not to heighten their stubborn suspicion of his being with Jesus and not with Muhammad!
For four straight minutes or five, Audrey was Just Confident Moving Lips richly assuring three pairs of ears that their owner is also their kinsman.
“Alright… Alright, kinsman, we’ve heard you,” Yusuf assured Audrey “…And trust me, we don’t think that you’re faking any rubbish,” he added companionably, his teeth gleaming, as he flashed Audrey a friendly! It seemed he had just stumbled upon a faultless next move and screening test for Audrey which he should only be too glad to unveil the next minute before the others. The unfortunate fact is that he, Yusuf Mukhtar and Waheed would not say how long Audrey had lived in his Hausa fatherland. However, ten straight years of active interaction with Hausas refusing to converse in English should be able to make a sojourner interested in the language as fluent as one’s host.
“Then, still, you don’t want to accept that I’m your brother and might laugh if I said Zubairu Hassan from Kaduna’s Barnawa!
“Oh! Really?” Waheed himself took over from Yusuf, a bit robbed of his earlier eagerness to quickly end Audrey’s life. He, too, had grabbed what Yusuf had up his sleeves for Audrey and he would want take the satisfying first chance of firing Audrey The First Salvo!
All too soon, Waheed was ready for a controlled conversation with the lucky-for-now fake Muslim…
“Let me say, Hassan Zubairu, that the three men you see now all happened to have sadly forgotten The Opening Prayer Verse which Holy Prophet Muhammad had handed down to all Muslims for their five-times Daily Salat…”
You should know what I mean and now want from you!”
A pretence of hurt feelings. An Audrey Owo bites his lower lips for being further distrusted.
“Painfully, my Muslim brothers are still waiting for me to show that I could reproduce prayer verses upon which my spiritual life depends for meaning. True meaning… Of course, you know it is “There is no God worthy of Worship except Alllah and Muhammad is his Messenger.”
“In Arabic if you won’t mind…” Waheed and Yusuf said almost at the same time, on their faces for Audrey’s care a growing hostility that could be at last insupportable…
Still, more risked shows by Audrey of real felt pains from a disappointment in two kinsmen on a matter of trust in a fellow brother. But, in secret, he was choking with a great excitement over his having, as a child, bothered to neatly memorize many of the Quran Verses of the Muslim primary school he had attended. Now one of them is to be faultlessly verbalized by him and this would mean absolute restoration of a slipping chance to breathe the air of the next five minutes and guaranteed continuation of an unfinished walk to a drug store for an ankle in need of drugs and medicaments; hopefully, after a couple of sincere or insincere words of apology from The Bastards.
“But Christ! What if I had despised knowledge of the verses opting for plugged ears of disinterest?”
Audrey reckoned that it could be an on-the-spot bitter death with all the full chances that he would be profusely bleeding from his Christian neck as his pardon-deaf captors, who know where the jugular vein is in the neck keep rupturing the vessel…
A “Look, we’re waiting for you, Hassan!” form Waheed easily brought Audrey back to the physical reality of his situation as a respondent to a fate-deterring single question and no more safe goofing time left, he puckered up his lips for the cleanest supply in his own Arabic of “Allah hu Akbar, Allah hu Akbar, Ashad Anlaa ilahailla Allah, Wa Anna Muhammad Abduhu Warosulah…”
“And please-Brothers…” Audrey found the stunning courage to chip in “don’t again fail these great witnessing links by our Holy Prophet Muhammad - May peace be unto him - in your Fajr, Zuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha Prayers…” Choosing to lose a polite seven seconds, Audrey Owo turned to leave the scene and also drop behind three Muslims with lost looks plus lost courage to do anything to his Christian neck!

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