THINGS I SAW THAT BROUGHT ME DOWN TO TEARS

This is a true life story that touches the heart by a friend MITCHELL EROMOSELE
"Many of us don't feel the need to get sober and emotional concerning things and events that we see everyday. But for me, I'm not immune to such feelings. 

On the 7th day in the month of March, the fiery heat of the sun was burning hard from above on the already hot heads of the many persons at the Texaco filling station. The fuel crisis in Port Harcourt had become so unbearable that week. This was why once the news went round that there was fuel at the Texaco filling station, people turned out in great numbers armed with their cars and gallons ready to finally buy some litres. Everyone just needed to badly get back to their daily businesses. Since the fuel scarcity had started, lives had been literally out of fuel.

At the station, there were groups of security men who were expected to ensure not only peace and order, but sanity. Yes, the filling station was virtually a marketplace in a crisis situation. You could not easily tell the buyer from the seller. So it was not surprising to see the security men wiping sweats off their faces as they tried to ensure everyone was 'on queue'. As more people continued to push and pull for positions, you could tell from the faces of the mobile policemen that they were not really 'on top of the situation'. Noise and rowdiness rent the air.

But suddenly, silence fell on the arena. Still, but not quiet calm. It was too sudden, sinister and strange, like the silence of the cemetery...like a ghost had just joined us. But when his boots crunched the hard ground deprived of all human feeling, we turned our already sprained necks to find him armed to his teeth. He was heavily-armed, gadgets hanging over his broad and seemingly endless camouflage chest. AK47 on his left hand, and a long wire whip with scattered edges laced with thorns like iron on his left hand, you would think he was one of the dragons in the Book of Revelations.

Before we could say Goodluck Jonathan, the little sanity that had been maintained was lost. Everywhere turned into pandemonium - women and children, men and youths all running here and there to escape the whips that were flying without any care for the civilians. Gallons flew here and there, along with footwears chasing after their owners in the crowd. The 'ghost' administered his duties with no mercy. He kept yelling: "Bloody civilian."

His mission could hardly be mistaken. It was to 'clear the area' and any 'bloody civilian' that made his mission impossible along with it. It was that moment a pregnant woman staggered around him. She begged him to spare her some fuel, but the uniformed man pushed her so hard that she fell heavily to the ground. She cried out in pains just as he yelled at her. Blood-shot eyes. Skin darker than the hope we now had in getting fuel any soon.

Just while the crowd's eyes were still on the pregnant woman, a young woman who clearly had not learnt any lesson from the scene cat-walked unto the stage. She came shaking her ass and chewing gum as if hoping to get the army man's attention:

"Oga, I wan buy fuel for my motor. My motor don break down for road". She said, just as she was ensuring her body was also speaking as she shook her curves and contours in a 'PH babe' fashion.

"So!, what do you want me to do? Should I go and carry the car on my head? answered the hefty soldier with a husk voice and a deep Ibadan accent, "C'mon get out of my sight!" he yelled. As the lady turned to leave reluctantly, the next thing that followed was the familiar and fear sound of "WAI!" - a lashing whip right on the better part of the lady's buttocks. She screamed and cried, just as she ran for her life! Perhaps, at the barracks the sound of "WAI" must be thought to be the same with the brutal acronym of War Against Indiscipline most feared during the military era.

But one surprising thing happened later on. I must have been too engrossed with chatting with my friends online on my Android, when I didn't notice that the soldier was close to me. It happened so suddenly. He knocked me down with a nudge.His hands were in the air about to whip me when I noticed that our one-man-squad soldier had broken into tears: huge balls of tears falling from his eyes.

NOW TELL ME, DOES A SOLDIER HAVE A HEART OR NOT? In as much as he appeared strong-hearted and stoned-faced, he has his own feeling buried under his khaki uniform. No one can ever know how painful the tears of a soldier are.