A Bark or a Bite
Ours is a universe harboring Millions of Barking Dogs in the form of men and women, who upon provocation decree your death and hand it over to you in the meanest words but in the end not scratch a single hair on your body: your thousands of hairs with their follicles to still read “Thousands” with not a single one of them pulled out!
“This morning, I shall you on a tree; fully waste your life”.
“You’re by a million times lousy!”
“Just wait for me there… Destroy I shall your physical body, burn your soul and your wretched corpse hand over to your parents!”
Often, the consensus about people who speak this way is that they are amiable and sometimes liable to worry themselves about how best to restore you to their bosoms, except when you have made the crazy mistake of hurting their feelings beyond pardon. Sometimes, with dry laughter or uneasy one they try to play down the enacted hollering scene and much violent physical movements, sometimes, with ordered drinks and snacks for their victims, for them paying immediately or promising to do so, soonest.
Morgan Cletus, Thirty-One, was one such Incarnated Barking Dog, who could sound a lot scary while in a fit of anger but fail at last to act in the same way. As a teacher and form master of an unruly class, it became a great disability on his part: a totally inappropriate disposition he needed to reverse. Students who were quick to observe this ludicrous trait of his as quickly found a Town Crier name tag for him while a number stuck to Alarmist…
All the same, they were at home with it. It meant that in Morgan Cletus’ hands students could constantly go unpunished for even such grievous offences as Truancy and Dishonesty that first got to his table, only suffering the temporary harassment or embarrassment his bellows, screams and yells at them could occasion.
Who in their High Flyer’s Academy, Ozora, would ever forget his unprofessional handling of a case of Gross Misbehavior in his class by some students, when no teacher was within disciplining distance?
On that day, a brilliant–mid–morning Monday there had been a dragging argument spiced with insults about what exactly had caused the defeat of their School’s Team at the quarter-finals of an on-going football competition for which the contested cup staked by a Sports Lover Millionaire and Politician was worth more than Half-a-million naira. One Benjamin Lucas, senior student, had reportedly raised the subject expressing the view that the penalty kick, which the Madonna School Team had Utilized to score the only goal of the tournament was carelessly awarded to them by their defender through his singular rough tackle of a striker, then in possession of the ball and victoriously close to their goal post. Much irked by the comment a Jeffrey Odibo classmate, who incidentally was the defender, hurled abuses at Benjamin Lucas, contending point blank that his statement was prompted by his refusal to release him his Economics Note on Economic Recession after his beggarly request for it.
It was Benjamin’s turn to go wild and he did! He and those who shared his opinion on the football matter accused Jeffrey of insensitiveness to the outrageous blunder he had committed in the last soccer elimination series. They lost no time in flinging as much abuses at him and going a step further to mimic his clumsiness at the pitch!
All hell was let loose, as both parties kept exchanging the latest obscenities, some of them much stronger than American “Fuck You!”
A ceaseless fuming at one another and jabbing of their index fingers at one another face!
“Just like that you killed our High Flyers Academy!
“No! Away blew Half-a-Million Naira almost nestling on her palms!”
“As though your Rheumatism inherited from both parents has ever helped you kick a ball”
“Indeed interesting that you’d melted The Gold of The Trophy to arrived at your half-a-million naira estimate of it!”
A female supporter of Jeffrey, exploiting the chaos told another in Benjamin’s Camp and sworn enemy that she saw her look-alike at Hotel De Americana, last week, walking hand in hand with a man old enough to be her father…
“That’s the only thing you ever saw… Bastard!”
“Idiot!”
Soon, the matter was on Morgan’s table through students disinterested in the stalemate but interested in Discipline. Quickly, Margin Cletus rose to the call, raved, squawked, his fists banging repeatedly on his table and the ceiling of his office nearly causing to cave in with his quaking voice!
It did not stop there. He called the affected students a thousand hurting names and swore before the end of the day to disfigure their backs with whiplashes.
Only, the newly admitted school child would have permitted wild jumps of its heart in triggered genuine fears of the fatal shape things would take, as Morgan Cletus of the Science Department went ahead to make good his threats.
But the old, erring students, who had long perfectly understood The Game maintained respectful sealed lips and hug their repented heads low while he continued to denounce their action and lampoon their persons without going beyond that.
Expectedly, before ‘School Over’ Morgan Cletus forgot to blister the backs of the students involved in the squabble Ironically, he had developed a thirst for cold malt and of all persons dispatched Benjamin to a nearby kiosk to buy him one.
After one week of obvious neglect of the incident, suspicion that he might never revisit it grew in the minds of the student petitioners dying to see disciplinary actions taken against the recalcitrant.
Pulling out all the stops, they went to another teacher, Mr. Chidi Dickson under their female leader Naomi Harrison. Chidi, it was who acted fast, brought a strong cowhide into the matter and made a point of blistering both the backs and legs of The Guilty students.
Perhaps, nobody at the scene would ever forget that Mr. Chidi Dickson started the exercise wordlessly and ended it the same way...
Here in Nigeria, An Embodiment of Discipline, certainly in America, A Child Molester.
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