I NEED A LIFE BEFORE DEATH

I am not an atheist, I just think that logically as it is in the English alphabet, there should be an ‘’A’’ before a ‘’B’’. if that sequence is generally accepted, I therefore refuse to be continually harangued by the talk of life after death.

Logically. There could only be a life after death when there when there a life at the present. Does it make sense to worry when it is still dawn today? If you ask me, we have proceeded just too fast for our senses. Far away from reality. Guess it’s time we did a little reverse and began to ponder a little more about life before death. I can almost hear you asking ‘’What is the guy talking about’’. I am speaking on behalf of the little boy on rags who approaches your car window in the traffic, with a dirty old rubber bowl in hand.

You see him approach, and quickly wind up your window, your face either bearing pity or disgust. I am speaking on behalf the six years old girl hawking pure water under the scorching sun at an hour children her age should be in school. She has not even slippers under her feet. Her hair is dirty and unkempt and strings of catarrh hang down her nose. Her eye pleads with you as she announces the price of her wares. Does she remind you of your daughter of the age?

I am speaking on behalf of the prepubescent girl who is married off to a man three times her age by parents who need the money to keep themselves. You read such things in the paper and it
Sounds so distant. No, you really do not read it; you simply flip past it to more interesting stories about celebrities and beauty pageants. I write on behalf of many children who are destined to live but a few days on earth because of the accident of their birth. Children that suckle hungrily at dry flabby breasts. Children that are at the mercy of the elements both hot and cold. Children who cannot access common chloroquin to fight malaria. Children who were better off not born

I speak for the farmer who has watched his produce dwindle every passing year. He doesn’t read in the papers of his local government chairman’s boasts of spending millions on fertilizer every year. I speak for the Cocoa farmer who has lost his sons and helpers to the city. I speak for the palm oil farmer who is losing his trees and house to erosion. I speak for those women who will die and are dying for trying to bring forth others to this life. Those who have never heard of ante-natal care, those who must continue to satisfy their husband’s craving for more children. Those women who are raped and are too scared to say they were. Those who sign up for shipment to Italy not because they find it pleasurable.

I speak for that child who is condemned by HIV. And the mother who bore him or her. And father who has lost his job because his bosses heard he is positive. I speak for those who queue for days to get a dose of the antiretroviral. Those people who we establish NGO’s for. NGO’s that make us rich . NGO’s we administer from the comfort of our air-conditioned four –wheel drives. NGO’s that don’t exist.

I am shouting aloud for that graduate who has lost faith in himself and his country. The one whose shoes tell a million tales. Tales that make the wonderful degree certificate he carries about in that worn out brown envelope seem like a huge joke. I am weeping along with that man who just lost job. The man who has layoff his workers because the books are not balancing anymore. The barber who can’t work because his tiny generator has broken down. The okada rider who can’t buy the spare part to fix his bike. That man pastor who has been paying his tithe and waiting for a miracle. A miracle that only his pastor experiences. The pastor who keeps talking about a life after death.

I really would like to know life now not after. So stop threatening me about what will happen after I die which is likely to be very soon given my current state. Stop asking me to wait. I am tired of your deception and postponing my joy. Give me something to hold unto today. Tomorrow will worry about itself. I need a life before death.