JUDAS...Part 4.

I stared at the mirror. A young, black boy stared back, grinning widely. I shook my head and made for the living room, trying to force a smile. My parents had organized a thanksgiving celebration for me. There had been a thanksgiving mass earlier that day. The Isikaros happened to be a popular and influential lot. My dad, an Orthopaedic Surgeon, owned a busy hospital down the street. His younger brother was a psychiatrist practising in the United States. He flew into the country for the thanksgiving. 

I stood at the door, hesitant to turn the knob. The surge of unknown persons staring strangely at me was becoming a huge burden. Suddenly, the door opened. I smiled.

"You have gone into hiding again, abi?"

It was my mum. She held my hand and led me into the living room. I was flustered.

"Your uncle wants to see you."

We greeted some of her lawyer friends as we passed. She was a young magistrate and an amiable woman.

My uncle was sitting with my dad at the balcony. We met Tessy at the door.

"Have you seen Cynthia? She was looking for you." She gave me a wink and left quickly to resume her food-sharing duties. I smiled. Tessy was my rebellious elder sister, a 300-level Economics undergraduate at the University of Nigeria. She was writing her semester exams in school when I woke up at the hospital and she came home soon after. She regaled me with stories of her battles with my dad, starting from when she chose to do Economics instead of Medicine. My dad had been furious. First, it was me going to the seminary against his wish. Then, Tessy choosing the well-worn path of demand and supply. She showed me all the albums containing the family photographs. I only saw images of strangers.

"Jude, Jude!" My uncle was smiling, a glass of wine in his left hand.

"Good afternoon, Sir." I stared at him intently, struggling to recollect. Nothing.

"Don't try so hard," he said, motioning me to sit. My dad excused himself and went inside with my mum to meet with some guests.

"I heard you were discharged from the hospital last week."

"Yes. I will be going for a check-up tomorrow."

"Any luck remembering any of these?" He motioned around the balcony.

I shook my head.

"I heard you woke up as Judas."

I nodded. "All I remember is my past life in Judea. Up until the suicide."

His brow narrowed. "You remember the suicide?" He looked around to make sure we were out of earshots. "I was told you hanged because of a girl."

I looked away. "I don't remember any of that. I mean, Jude's suicide. I recall vividly that I betrayed my Master. I expected Him to perform a grand miraculous escape. He didn't. He ended up dead. I could not bear it. I heard voices taunting and laughing at me. I tried to hang myself, but decided against it at the last minute. Unfortunately, I slipped and hanged."

"Sounds like schizophrenia to me. Jude, you are having delusions of grandeur."

"What is schizophrenia?"

"It is a form of mental disorder. Sufferers have hallucinations and delusions. They see things not really here and hear voices not really present. Are you still hearing the voices?"

"No. I just have occasional migraines and nightmares of hell."

"Hell?" His face went pale.

I held my head in my hands. "I was there. I will rather not talk about it."

I could feel my head throbbing just at the thought. Flashes of the caudron of oil and cries of torment disturbed me.

"Jude stop!"

I opened my eyes. My uncle was sitting there, looking concerned. 

"You were shaking your head vigorously. I think yours is a severe form of Post-traumatic stress disorder. I will come with you to the hospital tomorrow."

I thanked him and went inside. I walked straight to my room. Cynthia was sitting on the bed, flipping through a magazine. She was fifteen, a bookworm and too witty for her age. She went to a day secondary school and was preparing for her SSCE. She stood up as I entered.

"Where have you been?"

I sighed. "I was with my uncle at the balcony."

"You look stressed up," she said, taking my hands.

I nodded and sat at the edge of the reading table. My room was spacious, the red curtains filtering in just the right amount of sunlight. A wooden cabinet filled with books stood beside the wardrobe. There were stacks of books on the reading table. 

"It is still very confusing, isn't it?" Her voice had a calming influence.

"Believe me, it is more than confusing. It is debilitating."

"I am the cause of all this." She looked away. There was sadness in her voice. "I was the reason you attempted to take your life."

I held her shoulders. "You know, I don't get it. I don't get it at all. What actually happened? You need to help me make sense of it all."

She looked at me, misty-eyed. "We have been friends for as long as I could remember. My mum works as a nurse in your dad's hospital. I think we must have met there as kids."

"So, we are just friends?"

She tried to supress a laugh. "Well, technically, yes."

I feigned anger. She burst out in laughter.

"You are not helping!" I said, smiling.

"Okay. You asked me out last year but I told you to face your book and your God. You were a seminarian, for Christsakes!"

I listened on, amused.

"But we became very close friends. I was coming to the house, though, whenever you were on break. I enjoyed your company. It just broke my heart that it won't last. That we could never end up together."

"Towards the end of last year, however, something went wrong. You started sending me disturbing messages of how you were always thinking of me. How I had saturated your mind, blah blah blah..."

"I said all that?" I asked, laughing.

"Don't even get me started!" she fired back. "It was obvious you were obsessed. When I told you my plans of going to study Medicine in the University, you asked me if it was a ploy to dump you."

"Really?" I asked in disbelief. "I be correct mumu o!"

"One day, you called to say you were back. That you took a sick leave and came home just to see me. You invited me to come over. I refused. You came to my house. I refused to open the door for you. Then, you sent me this epistle of a text message of how we are irrevocably and intimately linked spiritually and supernaturally, of how you are going to prove it...you spoke a lot of grammar in the text message. I was coming to your house to warn you to stay away from me, when I got another text from you with just two words: Take Care.

I hurried upstairs and met your room locked. I knocked and you did not respond. Then, I heard that blood-curdling, stiffled, choking scream. I ran back and came at the door with full force. It flew open. You were hanging, your eyes popping out, your tongue extruded. On your reading table was a knife, some rope, razor blades and containers of Valium. I grabbed the knife and cut you down and struggled to loosen the rope. Then, I called your dad."

Just then, the door opened and my dad entered.

"Jude, can I talk to you for a minute?" I excused myself from Cynthia and followed him to his room.

"I just got off the phone with your Rector, Monsignor Adibe."

My eyes lit up. I was scheduled to resume the following week.

"You have been expelled."

My heart sank.

©Kelvin Alaneme, 2015.

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