Whom did I visit ?

After seeing the Shanquella Robinson’s story I thought widely about certain things. The video was stomach-turning and sickening . Many things about women have turned the internet upside down this ending week. It’s that art of Ronaldo and Messi by Louis Vuitton that has neutralized twitter. So I say unto you, to be on the safe side you all should remember to treat with utmost seriousness the advice to set apart 23hours of your day to fear women, and the other 1 hour to fear them more!

So this morning having woken up earlier than it’s normal for Sunday, I decided to continue with my routine of fearing women. In my quest to find a piece to read, I found other couple of reasons to fear women!

There is this story by Lance Stevenson, he wrote it a couple of years after it happened. He got an invitation to attend his cousin’s dinner party. They had never met before and only talked over the phone once in a while. He was even surprised that his family invited him for dinner out of the blank space. The invitation had an odd address that the GPS was unfamiliar with. Nonetheless, he used a map and pinned the location.

He drove for some hours miles away and was only wondering how far away he was getting from the familiar society. The place was so uncivilized with no proper network connectivity, deserted and sparsely occupied. Thickets after thickets and a handful of forests. Inwardly he was like ‘where the actual f*ck am I going?’ the drive was beautiful though, so he kept enjoying the cosmos.

He pulled over at an old gas station where he refilled the tank and asked for drinking water to fill his bottle. He was served by an old man with thick white beards probably in his 70s. He was quite talkative but he liked him anyway, he was not as baa..ad. He told him that his car should be in a good condition considering the place he explained he was visiting.  He checked the tire pressure and drove off as the old man disappeared in his side mirror. 

Finally he found a familiar address and was somehow convinced that was it. It was a lonely place even so. No sign of life apart from the trees. No chicken nor a dog in the compound. No children playing in the backyard. The ground was covered in dry leaves that no one bothered to rake. The tree branches were hanging low - like the owner of the home was a crippled old man living with a teen grandchild.

As he got into the final drive way his aunt and uncle popped up. They were excited to see him, his aunt hugged him while his uncle shook his hands firmly. As they walked into the house he asked where his cousin was and his aunt answered immediately ‘he went to run some errands and should be back shortly’

They spent a whole couple of hours talking about his mother and his family. His aunt made some delicious meal that he took just a couple of minutes to devour. Ever heard of pot roast…? After dinner they played a forever lasting game of uno. Quite fun and outright competitive.  

After the long game of uno it was almost getting dark and his cousin had not yet come back. He had to leave anyway, given how far and dreadful the place was. His GPS was vain so he asked them the most efficient way to get to the highway. They gave him that mystified look like they had agreed that he would be sleeping over. He told her aunt that he had to go because he couldn’t miss job another day. They persuaded him that going back would only mean him getting lost, which was not safe.

He told them that he’s the last person they should worry about because he is an adroit skipper. He told them he could find his way out of the amazon forest effortlessly. They persistently persuaded him to stay, at least his cousin was minutes away from arriving. He was getting irritated, he had to go. He couldn’t imagine spending the night in that jungle of a place, having ugly thoughts at night. The thought of him waking up at dawn like he was chased away to make it to work on time was the ugliest. They still insisted that he has to stay looking goaded.

There was only one option left... to stay the night, not to look bad or disrespectful as they would term it. At least to save himself from the ‘we warned you’ moment when he’ll be lying helplessly on the hospital bed with only one leg and a missing left ear. After slight silence he gave in and said, ‘okay, I’ll stay the night but I will have to leave extremely early tomorrow.’

They both appeared oddly elated because he was staying the night. His aunt told him not to worry because he wouldn’t be bored any more as his cousin had called to say he would be home in 10 minutes.  As they went to prepare his room, Lance ran out and got into the car, pulled out quickly to the driveway. He didn’t switch on the headlights until he was a safe distance out of the home. He had it rough finding his way out of that hell of a place.  He got home an hour later than he expected, almost half past 11pm. He didn’t want to bother anyone so he parked the car outside the gate.  He stepped out and sighed in relief. The car’s bumper was badly scratched and his car doctor would definitely have a huge kill the next day.

He climbed the fence and landing on the ground the kitchen lights were on. Getting in, his mother was seated on the kitchen table holding his phone and looking gravely disturbed. 

‘Where have you been?’ she asked

‘I was at Aunt Debra’s, you were aware of this mum’ he answered calmly

‘Then why did she call saying you never arrived?’ she continued.

He lost strength, he felt the earth disappear under his feet. He didn’t know how to answer that. Things were suddenly blur. He told his mom to allow him sleep so they would talk the next day. He laid on bed and the whole night he was asking himself ‘whom did I visit?’ Lance is yet to find an answer to this question.