The Call Of Brother Daniel

The day was unusually bright and brilliant; vibrating with vigour. A happy breeze was whistling through the immense, boundless garden amidst which he was standing.

Flowers.
Flowers indescribable in beauty dotted the verdurous ankle deep green grass like exotic jewels; their glimmering petals catching the sun's rays and passing it one to the other in a flourish of colours. The air throbbed with a heavenly scent; birdsongs cut delicately through the placidness like tiny scalpels. And he felt his body, the air, the field, the entire world fusing into one solid, liquid, gaseous ecstasy.

A small white cloud came climbing over the horizon. Slowly it floated nearer. But it was not coming alone. It contrailed an approaching yellow speck in the distance. It appeared to him like some kind of animal, an angry beast mowing its way through the herbaceous carpet - its growing roar rudely ripping at the serenity, heralding terror, anger, menace.

Daniel Agye found the sun darkening as if with sadness. The air consequently grew colder, and a wave of discomfort washed over him. He was suddenly filled with fear. The menace roared nearer. His eyes caught a reflection of metal. He could not move. He did not move. He was curious of the identity of the approaching yellow monster.

The cloud thickened as it got nearer. He could smell the cloud. He could smell the smoke. He could smell the nauseous fume of combusted mixture of machine and diesel oils. Wonder of all wonders. The monster was a bus, a yellow bus - a great hulking Lagos bus. A Molue. Now what could such an evil contraption be doing here of all places, he found himself thinking. Here in Paradise.

The yellow bus tore twin brown streaks through the green field and skidded to a halt merely feet away from him. It was without a driver. Brother Daniel was flustered. The acid fumes seize hold of is lungs and filled his eyes with tears. He began to cough fitfully. The cacophonous screech and hammer of the engine conjured a demonic presence pulsing with an evil life.
'Hi, Danny boy', the bus growled malevolently in a throaty metallic voice.
But that was ridiculous, Brother Daniel was thinking. Buses don't talk. It is all in his imagination.
The bus smiled. It uttered a giggle like the rude crash of forcefully meshed gears. Its frontal grille flashes like giant chrome plated teeth.
'Hi, Danny boy', it repeated.
This is evil, Brother Daniel realised quickly. The working of the devil; and it must be vanquished before any harm resulted. It must be banished to hell.
Brother Daniel raises his hand and mustered inner strength.
'Go away; I command you in the name of Jesus', he ordered.
The confident grin of the bus darkened, tarnished. It rocked on its wheels uncertainly, angrily. Again the clashing of gears. The bus swung in a wide arc and roared away in the direction from which it had come, leaving in its wake a stomach churning cloud of smoke, and intermittent lusty backfires like the laugh of a maniac.
'I'll be back Danny boy; I'll be back!!', its massive fluted horn trumped as it thundered back towards the far away horizon.

Brother Daniel turned over in his bed, his eyes snapping open. His bed sheet was damp with sweat. His heart thumped noisily in the silence of the bedroom. He looked at the time. One - o-clock, the luminous dial of the clock said. Outside it was midnight. It was pitch dark and it was raining. He reached for his Bible, turned on the bedside lamp, and began to read. This was the fifth night of the haunting of Brother Daniel's dream.

Jesus on Okada.
There were some notions that were simply unimaginable - such as this one. Yet this was a dream which Daniel had once upon another evil night had. He had once had this dream in which he saw The Lord Jesus Christ riding by on a motorcycle taxi. He had seen The Lord himself smiling and waving at him, as the rickety contraption putted past and away.

Jesus on a motorbike.
A trick of the devil of course, he had immediately, decided. As every believer worthy of his salvation should know, when The Lord comes, he would come with great pomp and pageantry; with angels heralding his approach. And The Lord would require no vehicle, for the entire sky would be filled with this presence.

But nevertheless, Daniel reconsidered that this vision was probably an admonition that he should not join upwith the peddlers of affluence as the fruit of faith for the true believer and thus probably mislead a lot of innocent souls to perdition. After all, The Lord was more of a friend to the poor than the rich when he came down to the world in flesh.
“For it is easier for camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”
Jesus on Okada. Why not?

Religion had in fact not always been part of Brother Daniel's interests. Indeed he had once, praise Jesus, had a brief interest in petty burglary - just for the fun of it. He would want that registered as a spell of juvenile delinquency .He tried very hard everyday not to remember the night when he and his friend Alphonsus had been barely five miles away in another part of town, burgling their second home that night.
Gaining entrance into this particular house had been quite easy: a half open window; no steel bars, no dog. Easy job.
Daniel had slipped silently into the house. As was the usual arrangement, Alphonsus stayed behind outside principally to keep watch and secondly to receive the loot. A persistent roar of thunder provided the noise cover as Daniel with a flashlight scouted through the house for anything worth taking. The small portable television in a corner of the sitting room was quickly dispatched. The stereo was an ancient system - too bulky. Daniel ignored it.
It was about he time that he dispatched the television that the woman of the house had woken up. And it was lucky for Daniel that he heard, for he had just been about to open the bedroom door.
'Wake up Paul', he heard the woman say to her husband.' I think there is someone in the house'
But Paul had grunted and rolled over.
'Go back to sleep, Emily. It is only the noise of the wind', he had sleepily replied.
'At least let’s make sure. Lets take a look', Emily had suggested.
But Paul wasn't having any goddammed look. Paul needed his sleep.

Daniel had barely had time to slip behind a curtain before Emily came cautiously into the sitting room. However he had not been fast enough as not to make the presence of an intruder apparent to Emily. She saw the billowing of the curtain, and heard the soft rubbing of skin against wall.
'Who is there?', she had whispered, as though loathe to disturb the peace of the night. No answer.
She began to mutter a prayer- the whole of the twenty-third Psalm. She remained at the doorway, eyes peeled as wide as her eyelids would permit, and hands raised in supplication.
Apart from housebreaking, Daniel's other greatest gift was for practical jokes, and he could hardly believe the situation. Indeed he felt like bursting into laughter. But again he saw the opportunity for a dramatic way out - one that he couldn't resist.
'It is I', he had said in an eerie voice.
"Who?'. Emily had appeared unable to believe her luck.
'It is I', Daniel had replied a little bit louder and more eerily. He didn't look. He wasn't about to look as that would have given the game away. But if he had he would have been unable to contain his laughter, for Emily had dropped to her knees - her head was bowed in worship. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus; she was muttering.
'The son of man cometh', Daniel had growled; 'Like a thief in the night'
They were like magic words and their effect on Emily had been astounding. She broke into an ecstatic song of praise.
'Paul, come quickly; the saviour is here. The rapture. The rapture !!', she had yelled.

Paul awakened at last, unwillingly got out of bed. He clearly had an intention of putting an end to his ridiculous nonsense once and or all.
'What the hell is going on here?' he had angrily demanded.
'It's the saviour. He's here. He spoke to me. Get down on your knees and worship, Paul. The saviour is here', Emily had ecstatically gushed.
Paul grunted. It was the response of a man who believed nothing; least of all his wife's religious upheaval over the years. They had no children, even though they had been eight years married. This unfortunately had been the genesis of the whole gee-gaw. It had all started as small stuff initially - prayer meetings, hundreds of prayer requests. But two miscarriages later, Emily had gone wholly overboard. No, she hadn't been merely contented with the ritual of being born again and marking crosses in oil on practically everything in the house. Now she had begun to talk gobbledygook. Speaking in tongues she says. Shit.
Paul’s eyes lit on the empty space where the television had once sat.
'What happened to the television?', Paul had demanded in fury.
But Emily was lost in ecstasy. ‘Forget the television, Paul. The rapture. The rapture is here. The Lord Jesus is here with us'
'You mean Jesus took my television?', Paul appeared incredulous.
'Don't blaspheme Paul. The saviour is here', Emily pleaded.
Again Daniel had seen an advantage too good to miss.
'Paul, Paul , why dost thou persecute me. It is hard to prick against the kicks', he had drawled. But he also winced with regret. That hadn’t been quite well done. He had got the words mixed up, but with luck they wouldn't notice, he hoped.
'Okay', he heard Paul say. 'I'll get my gun and then we will settle this saviour nonsense immediately'

Daniel knew at this moment that the game was over. It had gone into injury time; possibly dying time. He had thus made a quick dash for the open window, dived through it and bolted away down the dark street with Alphonsus bearing the loot, close at his heels.

Those were the days of evil deeds dressed up as fun - days that he's ever ashamed to remember. But try as much as he could he couldn't get the television out of his mind. How much had they got for the damned thing? He couldn't remember, but it certainly hadn't been much - maybe enough to buy a few drinks. He also couldn't get the poor woman out of his mind: the faithful believer anticipating the coming of the Lord. Surely things were not likely to have got better between her and the husband as a result of this shameful and utterly wicked act that he had committed. However, there were some kind of restitutions you could make without much fear. You could even go to a man and apologise for adultery with his wife. He'd certainly be very angry, and in the end might even become curious to know whether she enjoyed it or not. But for this other kind of restitution you went to jail. All this thoughts though had never occurred to Daniel until he attended an open air crusade - just for the heck of it, and mainly because it was advertised as a "lovefeast". Something had touched his heart nevertheless .It was a mixture of the sweet songs, the preacher's admonitions, and the entire unearthly atmosphere. And Daniel had broken into tears, smitten by the spirit. Daniel had never touched a stolen object since then neither had he touched a drop of alcohol or even smoked a cigarette. A new man had evolved. Daniel had been born again.

Yet, if Daniel could see himself twenty years ago for what he had presently become he would have laughed. Back then, church was not the place where you went to get religious. It was where you parents took you on Sunday mornings to meet all their friends. - the decent ones that is. No one really needed to live decently though to qualify to attend church. In fact you had men who had spent Saturday night in a whorehouse and still turned up in church on Sunday morning. You had men with eyes red from little sleep or no sleep at all after a hard night on hard booze, breathing combustible fumes out of their mouth as they sang their hymns. You had women thick into adultery. But it was considered merely important to turn up in church on Sunday morning. Church was just the right thing to do.

Back then, his impression of a truly religious man had been a heavily bearded lunatic, dressed in flowing white gown and bare footed. The religious man was the nutter with a worn Bible in his armpit, a big cross in one hand and a brass bell in the other. The religious man was the lunatic who tramped about the street resolutely in the twilight of dawn, ringing his bell with a mad insistence that the kingdom of God was nigh and you’d better repent at once whatever it is you were into doing at the moment. The religious man was the lunatic who woke the entire street up - those that the earlier call of the Muslim muezzin had failed to rouse, that is. Back then when you spoke in tongues, it was proof that you were a possessed by a spirit - holy or evil – depending on where the illness came to you. Back then before the 'born again' fever came into town in a big way.

But praise God.
God does walk in a mysterious way his wonders to perform. And he takes away the heart of stone and replaces it with one of flesh filled with His spirit. He makes new creatures of the hopeless and the living dead. Praise the Lord.

II

It was this time a bright sunny day - Sunday bright. Brother Daniel found himself standing at the main road waiting. He had no idea what he was supposed to be waiting for. He had no idea why he was waiting. He was aware that no one else seemed to be in the street. No one else. That was of course odd; but somehow it worried him very little. That was the way it usually was with dreams: nothing made sense.

The air was impregnated with ennui. The air was ennui. He had no idea how long he had been waiting; nor how much longer he would need to wait. But the pervading instruction on this silent, lonely road appeared to be: wait. That is the way it usually was with dreams. Nothing made sense.

Slowly, the bright sunlight withered; turned rusted copper, slate grey and then took colour and texture of soot. Languor took hold of the entire atmosphere like the dense spores of a deadly organism. He imagined himself covered, tangled, cocooned in cobwebs. He could feel the intricate patterns of the silver gossamer threads joining him to the palpable blackness. The waiting has been so long.

Thankfully a light appeared from far away: twin lights punching their way laboriously through the thick darkness like a double barrel laser gun ; shooting away the blackness.

Relief.
He remembered that he was waiting to catch a bus: his bus. And now he could go home, or wherever he was supposed to be going.

The bus approaches with a loud triumphant blast of its horn. Its engines roared loudly. It sounded like a cascade of hard rock. Its brake caught, held and screeched the wheels to a halt.

Brother Daniel braced himself to move. He hesitated then he reconsidered with alarm. The bus had no other passengers. The bus had no driver. It was the bus.
'Hi, Danny boy', the bus laughed merrily. ' It's dream time. And it's time to boogie !'
Brother Daniel found himself overcome by a deep dread. He had been expecting this to happen he realised. Only he had hoped that it would not. His lips opened, closed and twitched like a netted fish - suffocating in fear.

Shit ! , he had cursed; but he quickly admonished himself that he wasn't supposed to say things like that anymore. He was a man of God. Well goddamnit a guy is supposed to be able to express some righteous indignation sometimes, isn't he? ; his anger had gallantly fought back .
'What in heaven's name is this?’ he finally said.
'I am your worst nightmare. A bus with an attitude', the monster snarled.
Brother Daniel was this time filled with regret. He was being haunted by his past, he realised. He was being haunted by phrases from third rate action films. This he must correct in future, he noted. Indeed he must stop watching television altogether. Devil's boxes - certain to lead one to Hell. Certain to lead one to nightmares such as this. But never mind; he had the solution. I give you power to tread over serpents. He had done it before and he would do it again.
'In Jesus' name.........', he started to say. But the bus would have none of that this time.
'Stop saying that', the bus roared angrily, its horns blaring with a deafening loudness. The exhaust backfired with loud sharp explosions, and the engine ground noisily like bits of shrapnel caught in the teeth of a monstrous mechanical clockworks.
Brother Daniel drew back in alarm, fear. He felt like running now. He felt like melting away into the hard darkness of this infernal dream. - away from the malefic grin of the monster's chromium teeth. Away from the lights transfixing him to the spot like a wild animal caught outside its elements.
'What are you?', he stammered. 'What are you?’
The bus quietened . Its engine whistled, wheezed, and ground more softly.
'Legion', it murmured.
‘What?', Brother Daniel was incredulous.
'Legion', the bus repeated. 'Because we are many'
Brother Daniel recollected himself. The battle belongs to the lord. He filled his lungs with the stale lifeless air as he raised up both hands.
'In the name of Jesus, I command you to depart', he cried at the top of his voice.
The bus recoiled. It appeared to slide a little backwards. The lights flickered, and its confident grin was replaced momentarily first by surprise and then apparently fear. The engine threatened to stall. The exhaust went into a coughing fit. But no evil spirit leapt out of the bus. No demons rushed out from inside its dark cabin to possess a herd of pigs and send them into the sea to drown. Because the black - striped yellow bus was itself evil incorporated. And its registration number was Legion.
'In Jesus' name', Brother Daniel desperately yelled once more.
The bus skidded; and did an about face as if it’s bald tires were riding an oil spill. Then in a cloud of choking bluish exhaust fumes, it thundered away into the darkness.
'I will be back Danny boy', its horns blared. 'I will be back to eat you up. You and your Jeee.......!'. And like a deadly hulking rocket it sped away towards an unknown and evil destination.
'Thank you Jesus…. Thank you Jesus…. Thank you...'
Brother Daniel was still deliriously rambling even as he woke up. His sweat soaked clothes clung to his skin. He was cold with fear and shaking with relief that it was a dream.

There was of course a meaning to the dream, he agreed to himself. It was a sign .There were a lot of lost souls wandering aimlessly about the world. Souls that could only be saved through Jesus Christ. Souls that must be claimed for Christ. It was his duty to do this. The Lord has just told him what to do. There were a lot of lost souls riding daily in the buses, and who didn't deserve to go to hell. It was his duty to save them all.

Share

Delicious Digg Facebook Google Yahoo