The day he died was like any other day. He woke up at 6:10 a.m., after several snoozes on his two mobile phones. The first alarm had gone off at 5:10 a.m., but he was too weak-willed to rouse himself from sleep. He was surprised by how drastically he had changed.
The man, some eight years earlier, had been a completely different person. He used to teach at six different regular and remedial high schools simultaneously, a man whose working hours never seemed to end. His days were a blur, and the only thing that mattered was the constant push to keep going. This man was a bit strange but not odd. He would go to bed at 3:30 a.m. and still manage to make it to work by 7:30 a.m. on his motorcycle. The man could work from morning until 8:00 p.m. without any food or nourishment. He was a committed caffeine addict, one who would drink a cup of the dose without milk or bread before his bath and thereafter, he was good to go for the whole day. He would only pause work to top up the water level in his system. He thought he was a happy man. Was he?
At his age, the man had no wife, no car, no house, no plot of land, no savings, and no investments. His bank account was drained daily by a stockpile of debt. Yet, he wore the appearance of a happy man. When he snapped out of his reverie, he made his way to the kitchen to warm up some soup while heating water for his bath. As he noticed that their prepaid electricity meter had switched off automatically, he said nothing. He knew what that meant. The only concern on his mind was that he hadn’t ironed his shirt yet. And what about the email he was about to send on his desktop computer?
Presently, he went to the drawer, pulled it open, and fondled the gun he had recently acquired. In a robotic gesture, he cocked it and pressed it to his head as he walked to the bathroom, still holding the gun in place. He had always fantasized about killing himself in a bathroom, thinking it was somehow romantic. He wondered where that sinister notion had come from. After all, no one in his family had ever committed suicide, at least not in living memory. When he was about to pull the trigger, the aroma of his simmering soup reminded him that it was time to turn off the burners on his stove.
The workday continued normally. He sat at his desk, alone in his office for hours. He avoided the free lunch provided by his employer for reasons he never shared with anyone except the old lady. The desire to leave lingered, though he couldn’t explain why. The urge to die was stronger that day than it had ever been before, but he braced himself against the thought of ending it all on his employer’s property.
He thought about the impact his death would have on his students: those 20 Level 400 students whose long essays he was supervising especially. But they mocked him, not for the content of his lectures but for that personal aspect of his life, that thorn in his flesh tithed his income through medical bills. Then, his mind turned to the reactions of those who seemed to care about him. First, there was the woman he was supposed to marry in a few weeks. She deserved it: a gullible, gluttonous girl who was always laughing loudly. He didn’t pity her. Then there was his only child with the fetish priestess. They would miss him, but only because of his money. The priestess was the main reason he was poor; she was a woman who drove him to his wits’ end and pressured him to borrow and keep borrowing. When she had made him addicted to borrowing, she now coerced him into borrowing from her with interest. Was he aware? His mother, siblings… Well, insurance benefits should take care of them. They were all part of his woes.
Though it was a Tuesday, he was surprised by the peace of mind his students gave him that day. They didn’t come for one-on-one consultations, as they usually did. He was relieved. Their presence might have changed his mind. The man was determined to end his life that day, so he pulled out a piece of paper and began drafting a suicide note. But in the middle of writing, he paused. He had to protect his integrity, even in death. He realized he was revealing too much about himself.
Just then, the first text message tone beeped on his phone. His salary account had been debited with the regular monthly amounts, long before his monthly salary was paid. Another message followed almost immediately from a challatant loan. It came in quicker succession, as though both institutions were competing for something. He didn’t understand the latter at all. When he contracted the loan years ago, it was to pay his own school fees. The company, the most regrettable financial institution he had met, had refused an upfront cash payment just days after he had contracted the loan.
Then another message arrived, this time on WhatsApp. It was from his ex-girlfriend, asking if he missed her for a quickie. She sent a photo of their most recent nudity and foolishness. What did she want now? Not a comeback, he thought. She just wanted to disengage from these self-serving matters. She knew he could now afford a suite in a hotel for them to fool around. Where had she been eight years ago when he was poor? Why had he fallen into her trap last Christmas?
The man took the suicide note and tore it into shreds. Just then, memories rushed back of how he had counseled others against suicide. He was seized by a sudden spasm of anxiety prompting him to increase the intensity on his office air conditioning. The temperature had read 20 degrees Celsius, but he now brought it down to 16.
He put his head on the table, trying to doze off. His next engagement was two hours away, a lecture to the Level 300 students, those who mocked him the most. He slept briefly, making up for the chronic loss of sleep he suffered lately. He was jolted to reality by the email alert tone on his laptop. He checked it and was surprised at what he saw. He had won a cash prize of 33,000 pounds from a writing competition he had entered earlier. He never knew he could win such an award. He was just trying his luck, and there it was- the top prize. There was no need to commit suicide yet.
He didn’t take the time to read through the rest of the prize list. For sure, he remembered a week’s stay at Buckingham Palace among others. He had hit the jackpot! He was now sure he could pay the bride price without borrowing, and settle his mother, who had pawned an heirloom to see him through high school. What about his cousin, who had sold his car to pay his university fees? Then, he could do this, buy that, and all that…
It was time to leave for the lecture. He carried his external hard drive: the only thing he needed, set forth. He began to plan how he was going to… and got lost in his thoughts. He was supposed to travel with his spouse and, at most, two children to the UK for the grand ceremony. No spouse, no passport- the latter could be fixed in a week, though. The university should be proud of him.
He decided to keep the great news to himself, at least for the next two days, but this was only temporary. It remained a secret until a friend from the UK and another one in his neighborhood sent him links to pages announcing his prize. This was moments after he had read all about it. He was surprised at how the organization had secured his favorite photo from social media.
He got to the car park, making his way to the taxi rank when it happened. A 17-year-old first-year university student, experimenting with his father’s unlicensed KIA Rio and a manual gearbox, couldn’t manage the clutch pedal. In the process, he lost control, and with an accidental swish, he ran the man over. Dead on the spot.
