Bury Me There or Face War!
Madam Irene, not quite sixty six, was frightfully sick! She had been lying down for an impossible sleep. Later, she sat up with an undisguised exertion one got from hurrying one’s step up a steep slope. Madam Irene needed to speak with her three sons and a daughter and the last, a male, had occupied a cushioned chair some two meters away from her moderate bed of Good Cedar.
“Now five minutes I said I must bare my mind to the four of you” Madam Irene tried in a voice she had not the strength to make a growl!
“I can see the other three don’t quite see the need for this meeting,” she added, once more losing the precious strength that went with every uttered syllable by The Heavily Asthmatic.
Then, like in a drama, the other three, all clad in western attire, just turned up in her Bedroom with a forgivable simultaneity. They were, though, an Unsmiling Three for having heard upon their entry, fresh violent coughs by Mother Irene, with his nurse son, Victor, as the most worried. Sick Mother Irene, who could still make out A Troubled Face and The Masquerade-Like assured Victor, then wearing one that she had bravely begun to take less and less notice of her torments.
“And your drugs, Mama?” asked the-still-unsettled male nurse… ‘‘I hope you haven’t been taking less notice of them”.
Madam Irene’s response to this was a dismissing hand gesture. She had a more pressing business to thrash out with her four children seated and attentive. Ogar, her eldest son, Deborah, her only daughter, Victor and Emmnauel, her last child, had to fall the more to The Silence of a Solemn Family Meeting.
To The Four Madam Irene proclaimed her not-to-be-trifled-with wish that she be buried in The Second of The Three Underground Rooms of their new Massive Building.
“Jeez!” dropped the lips of Ogar, her eldest son.
“Yes, The Room Underground,” repeated the Near-Septuagenarian.
To Deborah their mother’s just disclosed last wish was the oddest thing she had ever heard.
“And now it’s a directive… Even, more than so “Irene hammered on.
“Plus Mama’s last wish!” Deborah forced in at last and, for her effort, got from Madam Irene an unfriendly stare: a real eyeful that could have meant in words “Heh Daughter! You watch your quick tongue and tag along with your Days-Counting Mama.”
It was Emmanuel, Irene’s last child, who sought to know from her why she should desire to have her remains interred in one of the rooms underneath their house. In her reply, Madam Irene dusted up bitter enemies of hers, who had believed that her regular salary as a nurse and her Husband’s as a Civil Servant could not have ideally financed their present Edifice of a Building!
And – See – Magically, they just did!”
And so…?” Ogar pressed blandly.
“Well, Son, my sense of true fulfillment is all over me,” Madam Irene merely pointed out no strength to scream it. “And it has been strongly urging me to ensure that my bones be deposited underneath the building - My House!”
A general pause by Madam Irene’s audience dared to linger. It was Deborah who seemed to have been inspired by some unstoppable force to sum up for the rest what they had just heard.
“An Odd Speech, Odd Wish… Enemies: Unhappy Ones! And a directive we all must comply with.
With a helpless look Deborah sounded the point that the remains of The Dead rightly end up in cemeteries proper or in acquired family tombs… not in Underground Spaces of Buildings meant for The Still Living!
Her quarrelling strength gone, Irene could only briefly wear a mischievous smile and on Ogar, her first son, fasten her eyes.
“I tell you, My Spirit shall be paying you friendly visits, as you’re taking your night baths or are wide awake!”
“A pity for Your Ghost then” Ogar said from between clenched teeth, adding “That is, if you really know me!”
“How? I don’t understand, son” begged Irene.
“Trust me, Mother, I’m physically and mentally ready to fight any ghost, who dares to surface in my bathroom with my soap dish, towel, bucket and water… And you yourself know that I bath with unusually hot water!” Ogar’s face at the time he was speaking was electrically charged and Madam Irene saw it.
Alas! A Wounded Pride! Still she flashed Ogar a smile, a bit of a false one though. Then, solemnly, she asked him to strictly stick to her wished burial in The Room Underground…
“Second one by the right,” mocked Ogar.
“Yes…And you had better do, Ogar,” muttered the now-exasperated instructoress. “For it is a Bury Me There or Face War.
As though Deborah had sensed some lurking danger in their mother’s eyes, she tried quizzing her on it. For her pains, she got a “Sorry. You’re all dismissed now” from Irene, who herself rose and with an obvious strain strode towards their roomy parlor’s exit door.
Not quite two weeks after, Madam Irene was gone with her Sixty-Five-Year-Old Husband and Youngest Child, Emmanuel as witnesses of her very last moments…
Would Emmanuel ever forget his mother’s stubborn choice of a kneeling prayerful posture while receiving treatment for Status Asthmaticus. Later, his Father Widower left for the kind of seclusion required of him for condolence visits. Actively, Ogar and the rest began to notify a good many of the people, who would certainly feel bad if they had not of Madam Irene’s demise and they eventually picked The Bombshell from secondary sources.
It turned out a Division of Labour by The Four for the arrangements that should ensure a successful funeral and interment of their Deceased Mother. Deborah shall have to immediately meet with a mortician on behalf of their Late Mother’s remains. This she did. At first, she and The Mortician had disagreed and near-quarreled over Price for his services. Not long a deal was brokered between them and Deborah expressed her earnest wish that he do something about the look of Helpless Anguish on the face of their mother. The mortician’s reply was A Don’t-Bother Double Assurance that his tools and intelligence would plaster a look of eternal bliss on Late Irene’s face further puckering up her lips with an arch smile.
“In all cases, My Sister, our client’s money gives birth to our wonderful services and enduring patronage.’’
Then, a Smiling Deborah remembered her mother’s Burial Site Last Wish and said to moot it to The Mortician for a reason she had already judged weighty.
‘‘So,’’ asked The Mortician, a bit at a loss as to what he should say or do next.
“Er-r… Don’t you imagine that your promised look of Eternal Bliss and smile on our Mama’s Face would quickly vanish the instant any discussion to bury her elsewhere is started and completed. Finally, making you A Liar?’’
An easily now grabbed message by The Mortician and he nearly burst into laughter. In the end, he was all entreaty that Deborah and her brothers bury the remains of their Mama where she had wanted it to be.
‘‘No Compromises.’’
“Why, if I may ask?” Deborah heard herself posing The Question Taboo. From the mortician he got the reply that he would not want her mother’s Vexed Spirit to mar his job and inexorably make him A Liar.
Ogar, Victor and Emmanuel did not record as much success at their Walker Ministry International. Although, The Ministry’s Canon had reacted to the news of Irene’s Death from Status Asthmaticus with the thrown-up hands of a knocked-out boxer, further mournfully recalling her zeal for Evangelism and voluntary involvement in the Children’s Choir Group as a Lead Chorister, he was irked by his callers’ contrasting apathy to their ministerial activities. Correctly guessing that their purpose of visit to his parsonage was for fixing an acceptable-to-their-ministry burial date and activities, he flung at them, tight-lipped, The Conditions for participation by The Walker Ministry International in such programmes. No Deceased Member of the Walker Ministry may be left in the Cooler beyond two weeks for Burial Arrangements as the same will not smell The Ministry’s Representation on the day of interment, fully cleared or not!
Lord of Mercy!
Victor finally told the canon that he had not expected him to deliver the situation in so strict a manner.
“Well, I’ve done it, Young Man” retorted Canon Cain, from head to toe wearing an air of innocence. From sheer conviction that he could still break the wall of formality which Canon Cain was trying to retain between them on the subject, Victor implored the priest to kindly stretch the Walker Ministry’s burial arrangement deadline by forty-eight-hours. The result was his hideous attack with barraging words by The Canon, now barking like a dog, soon snarling like a hyena! The pitiable drama was too hard to bear. To Ogar he was completely sure that no bereaved person derives the faintest pleasure from delayed collection of their deceased member from the fridge, as all its fresh days in it have to be paid for. Neatly, he could picture the uncomfortable challenges awaiting them in regard to their Late Mother’s Walker-Fixed Funeral Date. As they were heading for home , he started a Mobile Meeting in which Emmanuel, The Youngest, proved must articulate, soldering together a good many loose ends in the matter. In the face of hostility they shall stick to a policy of the closest co-operation with The Walker Ministry International on their Mama’s Funeral Challenges.
“Do you know why” asked he and almost as soon began to provide the answer to the question which had not seemed rhetorical. “I still remember Mama’s kneeling posture in the hospital, even as she was being priced by Death… Breathless but endlessly beseeching God to receive her soul!”
Ogar, could just begin an assemblage of a quick, clear picture of a Ghostly Irene, beyond words enraged after her bereaved kids’ careless exclusion from her funeral of A Ministry which she had served devotedly. If Emmanuel had bothered to enlarge on what he had said earlier, it would have been needless. Ogar himself had with a jerk recalled Late Irene’s anchoring of her hopes of a befitting burial on their ministry’s assured involvement in it and use of it as a spur for defiant challenges to her village kins-women, whose meetings she was not attending for being resident in the city to shun her funeral and still watch out for a crowd The Size of a Political Rally at it.
“Oh my God,” exclaimed Deborah to whom it was then crystal clear how their Late Irene, while alive, had amassed her enemies.
This notwithstanding, the Embattled Four found a common voice for their next line of action. They would ensure that their mummy is interred in the Room Underground with the involvement of the Walkers Ministry International on the 3rd December 1997 that should round off the two weeks’ time limit for The Ministry’s involvement in her funeral.
As early as 8:00am of the 2nd December 1997, three hired bare-bodied men, shovels in their hands, had began to chop off a portion of the soil in The Underground’s Second Room marked out as the Late Irene Enechi’s Grave. At one point, the three stopped digging, as though by tacit-agreement and then all of a sudden, resumed.
“Stop! Stop!”
It was the tallest of the three diggers. He had just misapplied his tool and scraped a part of his ankle.
“Shit! How did you get into the mess?” his stout co-digger quizzed When he saw the squirting blood from the spot. Another figure at the site, all these while a watcher of the excavation, made the story worse for the already grieving man.
“The more angering part of the whole business…” he coldly fired “is that the woman owner of the pit had been forecasting a teeming crowd funeral in her honour with or without villagers’ involvement in it.”
“Oh my God! “simultaneously exclaimed the three diggers, all of them completely robbed of the will to strike any fresh blow at the soil of the dug grave.
Just then, Busied Emmanuel strode into the scene, met the suspended work and the smoldering hearts and discerned what the problem was. A solemn promise was made by him to get back to the Four Protesters in a jiffy. Not quite fifteen minutes, he was back with two flattering bottles of Good Whisky, a tin of snuff, an elegant-to-behold giant traditional kola-nut and some money hopefully for the treatment of their injured member. Later, Emmanuel doubly assured The Four that there shall be a forum for formal apology by The Bereaved for the Late Irene’s ill-advised statement challenges to her kinfolks ahead of her death about her sure-to-be-grand funeral. Almost as soon, Emmanuel got across to the others on what had transpired and the blood of all of them froze without exception!
A quite unsettling message! They could read its legible letters staring back at them, their mother’s funeral now twenty-four-hours away might be hitting the rocks through either the high-handedness of The Walker Ministry International, the vengefulness of their kinfolks or even their own silliness! The Four had to reach the strangest of decision: to simultaneously keep their fingers crossed and not crossed.
Then came 3rd December and the Late Irene Enechi, now lying in state in their compound, seemed visibly ready to lower itself in The Room Underground.
Really, she was some kind of seer. The Late Irene! The expanse in her compound throbbed with villagers in hundreds: mourners, sympathizers, friends, neighbors, the deceased’s colleague’s nurses’ casual acquaintances, The Adventurer by Disposition and The Attuned to Festive Programmes. Grandly, the event’s MC found occasion to draw attention to the dizzying number of people at her funeral by clasping hands of comic astonishment and claiming to have seen well over a Thousand Beautiful People. He did not omit after his introduction by another to start a modest profiling of the life lived by the Late Irene as a Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Aunt, Careerist, Nurse and Child of God. But scarcely had he done a five- minute job of this, when a hulking figure of a man well above Six Feet walked up to him to tap his right shoulder and whisper something in his left ear. The man’s countenance changed for the worse, clearly from the outlandishness of what he had heard, his own voiced half-nervous reply enforcing it.
MC was simply sorry that he could not bring himself to brick such an item of news to the gathering before him.
“But the canon had assured me that you’d do it” maintained The Six-Feet-Six Man.
“Once again, I’m sorry that I can’t,” MC pleaded.
Soon, MC was asking for the whereabouts of The Canon promising to quickly release his micro-phone to him, if he should wish to use it.
Scarcely had he said so when another emissary of Canon Cain stormed the center stage and had MC’s microphone nestling on his palm. With a hastily delivered “All protocol observed,” he pointed out The Walker Ministry’s timely discovery of a pagan attempt to bury the remains of the Late Irene Enechi Achala underneath their building: that The Ministry would want hurried steps to be taken for a new dug grave site for the Late Woman well outside the said building.
“And if we don’t?” half-thundered Emmanuel, then barely three meters away from the speaker.”
“Very simple. There won’t be any requiem for the repose of her Departed Soul by our Visiting Canon and Clerics.
An intervening silence replaced by a hundred conversations. A hubbub had been stirred among the man’s listeners and muffled chats between close sitters. However, into Emmanuel a new temperament was creeping. A mixture of frustration and hunger for a fight. His immediate elder brother, Victor, he readily sold the idea but from him got restraining caution.
“We haven’t at all run out of the responsible words we can use to still get round things!”
Then boldly, Victor approached Canon Cain snugly seated in a selected chair over the subject.
“You know I’m not a Half-Ordained Canon of The Walker Ministry,” he flung at Victor, willing to end any hope by him of snatching even a half conversation with him in respect of the subject. In this he was hugely successful, as it produced a Downcast Victor, who stood by him for lingered seconds, as though anticipating his change of mind only to later withdraw. Perhaps, Deborah was the Canon’s Worst Victim on the palaver. The Thirty-Four-Year-Old Mother of Two had after Victor’s futile dialogue with the canon attempted to soften Canon up on the same subject. For her effort she got a long physical survey from The Canon, before he finally told her that their bereaved family had only ten wretched minutes to seek out their dropped shovels and spades for their Late Irene’s New Grave.
“Oh really?” a deeply hurt Deborah could only mutter, before she sailed away. With the new twist of events, Victor turned in the direction of MC. Approaching him, he thanked him for his effort so far, collected the microphone from him and cleared his throat for an address of the gathering. His speech was an initial Good-Will Message to the throng that dovetailed to the preparedness of their Achala family to stick their burial blue print of their Late Matriarch Irene Enechi Achala. Stated Victor without ceremony, Man’s unpleasant battles is the one against Spirits and Ghosts… Angered ones! They would stand unpleasant chances of having unpleasant numbers of them upon disobedience of the stern last wishes of their Late Mother while all of them were at their respective homes either enjoying some sumptuous meal or a hearty conversation.
A bright-burring flare of listeners’ approbation from nearly all corners of the large assembly. One of the condolence visitors was heard describing Victor as an unusually steadfast young man in the Achala Family and another forseeing A Very Rough Afternoon for the Walker Ministry International. Meanwhile, the two spokes-persons of The Canon were burning inwardly, unable to stomach Victor’s Word Missiles. To Victor vows to find out his University of Graduation for his shameless beliefs in the haunting of The Living by the Not Buried According to Their Wishes. In his counter response, Victor released what lacked both teeth and claws, contented that he had at least moved his lips at a time he desired it. At that moment no more obvious in his reflexes was the steadfastness just ascribed to him by a condolence visitor; in lieu of it a now-patterned-soon-less-patterned body twists and turns. It seemed even, that his inner iron will would soon snapping and its final disappearance coincide with the end, of The Canon’s Deadline for the relocation of their mother’s grave to an open site. That The Iron Will did not give out at last was no factor of Miracle or The Less Rated Magic. No, rather, it was a corollary of an unannounced emergence in the scene of a four-man party comprised of the three grave diggers and their watcher friend. Braving an entry into the centre-stage, they jointly announced that they would to specification speedily provide another grave for the Late Irene Achala outside the bereaved family’s building but this would be conditional upon Canon providing another corpse or carcass for Propitiatory Burial.
Jesus Christ of All Kingdoms!
Victor could only believe his ears by half. Easefully, his mind wandered back to Emmanuel’s thoughtful offer to The Four Men of Good Whisky to make up for their Late Mother’s indiscreet remarks at their expense. Sensibly, Emmanuel had gone ahead to release some money for the treatment of their injured member in a close-by drugstore. So, they have all too soon begun to wonderfully reap the fruits of their demonstrated large heart. For long seconds Canon Cain, who had heard his name mentioned as well as grabbed the message tried to maintain philosophical calmness, his face, expressionless. But the stout grave digger and head of the party would not let him be.
“You heard me, Canon,” he launched out afresh while fully in front of him. “Heard what, Digger? “enquired the Canon, easily breaking his earlier plans to maintain sealed lips. The Stout Grave Digger pointed to the yawning pit in The Second Right Room Underground.
“You see, Canon, with that thing, we’ve just dug, Mother Earth has already been signaled that she’ll be swallowing a body… A corpse.”
“Who actually are you addressing?” Canon fumed.
“Logically, The Signaled Mother Earth should receive such a parcel or its look alike,” The Stout Grave Digger continued almost implying that he was correctly answering Canon Cain’s last question. The result was an explosion by a cleric already foaming in the mouth from rabid anger, sure that he had been dealing with Heathens. But his as-much-upset partner would not stop, for the Canon painting a grisly picture of the awful plagues that would be hitting both the bereaved family of the Late Irene Achala and the volunteering diggers of her grave at the pleasure of Mother Earth.
The Canon, then sneering, listened on and when the man momentarily shut his lips, voiced his own frank opinion that the eventual interment of the same corpse in a different site of Uniform Earth should appease such Goddess with links to it.
“I’m sorry, Canon,” replied his stout co-conversationalist. “The Earth Goddess reasons like A Deity, not like us.”
“What do I care?” fired the Canon.” God knows that the only threat the Achala family is going to face under the circumstance is that of a health hazard from the stench that should be wafting from the Late Irene’s corpse in a matter of days after her interment in The Room Underground.”
“A point of connection,” said the Watcher Friend of The Grave Diggers and what he had in mind was their description as ‘Heathens’.
“But that’s what the four of you are for making me the ritual offer of burying another corpse or carcass in a rightly rejected grave.”
At first, a burning look by the Watcher Friend of The Grave Diggers. Then, came his voice, a piteous one.
“Canon, I knew you wouldn’t understand… As no minster nor Evangelist in his Sometimes-Suffocating Holiness ever does.”
Not a cough response from the Canon, and the watcher friend went ahead to convey the point - A mysterious truth. Opening any part of the Earth in order to lodge a body in it and later failing to do so is a great let-down on the Earth Goddess.
“Wonderful,” cried The Canon like the just enlightened on a point worth treasuring like precious stones. Nothing else was in the mind of the third digger but confronting the Canon over his claim that the Late Irene’s corpse would be unfailingly oozing stench from its six-feet-deep enclosed bedding.
“But You Grave providers know that you rarely strike down to Six Feet in you Jobs…” The Canon flung at him.
This is unacceptable. Angering… A quiver of flesh-piercing arrows in the deceiving form of cautionary words had been shot at The Four-Man Reconciliation Team by The Peace-Resenting Canon. Quickly, The Third Digger drew the others aside for a snappy meeting. By mutual consent, they accepted to notify Ogar of The Canon displeasing claims that normal breathing would cease to be a possibility for the Achala family living with a the decomposing remains of the Late Irene underneath their building.
“Oh! Thanks for letting me know, “Ogar said in the voice of a successful borrower.
But it was no time at all to hurl abuses at The Canon for his uncharitable remarks. More sensibly, a time to have him disgracefully contradicted by people, whom it is their profession to safeguard Public Health. Incidentally the said people were physically present at the funeral for their last homage to their Late Colleague and Retired Matron, Mrs. Irene Achala. Quick like lightning, Ogar and the rest produced themselves at the section of the expanse in front of their house with a canopy for the state’s duly qualified and registered nurses, who had worked with his Late Mother. To Ogar it was ironic that a male was heading their Trust Union for being largely feminine in composition and perception. Handing the man a requested sheet of paper for an intended formal letter to their State’s Public Sanitation Agency, Ogar thanked him in advance for the pains he was about to take.
“My pleasure, Dear…” twittered the feline-voiced fifty-nine-year-old Director of Nurses. He would not want Ogar to give the least of thoughts to the pains. With a sheet of paper and slanted head, he was ready to contemplate the commencement of a Letter of Certification of the Sanitary Safety of an Interment of the Late Irene’s remains in the one of the underground Rooms of their residential building. Twice he muttered “How do I begin? Glancing skywards and releasing a couple of “Erm.” But soon the mist and haze were gone and he began, through the written medium, to dispel fears of the Late Irene’s Burial in the Said Room culminating in the outbreak of an epidemic within the neighborhood or posing an immediate health risk to The Bereaved Family. In this regard, The Letter reassured whomever it might concern that their Nurse’s Trust had collectively visited the dug grave and ascertained its having reached the Six-Feet-Deep Specification for all graves. In another part of the letter, the same Nurses of Trust would count it a favour, if a speedy approval of the laying to rest of the remains of the Late Irene Achala be granted by her offices.
Just then, a jet stream of shouts was heard and not long another, both The First and The Second ringing in their ears as Sounds of sweet excitement.
An exchange of surprised glances by The Standing Ogar and The Seated Director of Nurses, neither of the two yet able to make out what had triggered them.
“Aren’t the shouts something to go close to?” Ogar put blandly.
“I’d wanted to ask that you do so, immediately,” said The Director wearing the fitting look of a boss. Ogar obeyed a directional movement towards the supposed source of the heard uproar. On seeing a sprinting breathless woman, rapidly closing the gap between them, he stopped. In fact, the woman had been purposing to meet his person. Incidentally, it was his sister Deborah.
“Deborah!” he exclaimed but in a voice whisper-low. “Any serious thing the matter?”
“No, Good News now the matter!” Deborah chirped excitedly. She disclosed that the Arch-Deacon of their Walker Ministry International had himself finally permitted their mum’s burial in her chosen grave site.
“You don’t say so! blurted Ogar wide-eyed
“Yes! The Arch-Deacon, alright,” returned Deborah. However, from Ogar Deborah did not withhold their Arch-Deacon’s strict warning against the making of a similar request in the future by The Dying or The Ageing Number of The Walker Ministry International.
“Dreaming of still savoring in death A Proud Roof,” Ogar finished off for her, smiling their Late Mother’s Lucky Ingratiation.
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