VOICES (Dele Was A Sweet Little Boy But When He Began To Hear Voices In His Head, Everything Changed... (A Short Story By Samod Biobaku)

Advisory Content:

This poem contains very strong language

VOICES

Dele was very arrogant

And he knew it

He also knew that a whole lot of people did not like him

And that an overwhelming percentage of them were envious of him

He was neither a millionaire

Nor was he a prince

But he knew without any doubt that he was very good at what he did

He was a barely 30 years old

But he was incredibly good at his job

He was fast, efficient, very hardworking and always put in extra hours at his job

Most times, Dele preferred to work at night

Not that he was a vampire or a prostitute

But he enjoyed working at night

One of the things Dele loved most about his job was its flexibility

It gave him an opportunity to express himself a lot without having to work for anyone

Yes! He was his own boss and had always known he would be

Back in school

Dele had always known what he was going to become

While a lot of his peers would blab about their aspirations

“I want to be a lawyer

I want to be an engineer

I want to be an on-air personality

I was to be a super model

I want to be a pilot…”

Dele would rather just keep his dreams to himself

He preferred it that way

It was not that Dele did not like any of these things

But he did not share the enthusiasm of his peers for talking about their aspirations

It was not his style

Moreover, he did not believe he was cut out for such things

There was only one thing he enjoyed doing and he was good at it

It came to him when he was about 6 or 7 years old

It was like a voice in his head

And whenever he heard this voice, he always knew it was time to work

It all began with sweets

His mum would always give him one every morning to take to school

And then one day

Just after his mum gave him his sweet and stepped into her room to get his school bag

Dele heard the voice in his head

The voice sounded alluring and loving

Speaking to him as if it had a very human presence, it said:

"Hello Master Dele!

You don't have to respond

Just pay attention and listen to me

I know you much better than you know yourself

And I have something to tell you

Has it ever crossed your mind that having more than one sweet wouldn’t be a bad idea?"

Suddenly

Another voice – different

Very different from the voice he had been listening to-told him something to the contrary

The second voice reminded him that it was bad to take things without asking

“All you have to do is ask mum for one more,” said the second voice

Dele was shocked when he heard the first voice again

This time, it sounded angry

“Shut the fuck up

What are you talking about?

Why should you ask for something as small as a sweet when you can just take it?

There’s plenty of it

After all, it’s not as if you’re taking the entire pack

It’s just one

Just take it!”

Dele was very young and he heard the second voice again:

“No! Dele remember what mummy always said about this

It is wrong to take things that do not belong to you

You’re a child of God

And children of God do not take things that belong to others

Please don’t do this

Once you start, you won’t stop

It will change you…”

Without any warning

The first voice came back

This time

It sounded threatening and Dele felt beads of sweat break on his forehead

“Look here Dele!

If you don’t do this, I’m not going to tell you about other great things you can do

Haven’t you noticed that every time you eat your sweet, you always wish you had more?

I’m giving you a chance to get all you need

It’s just there – waiting for you to take it

Don’t listen to that gutless idiot that keeps blabbing about being good and all that

It’s boring”

Dele kept hearing these conflicting voices

The first would sound threatening and then soothing, sweet and charming

The second kept reminding him about being good and honest

He had to choose

And he could feel that his choice would have a note of permanence

Dele knew that his mum was not a wicked woman and that she was always kind to him

So, he decided to ask her for the sweet

Just as he was on the verge of stepping into mum’s room

He saw the pack of sweets sitting on the shelf

And then he remembered what his mum had once said about sweets

“Too much sweets will give you tooth decay Dele

So, you’re going to get one a day and nothing more”

“I told you said the first voice

She’s not going to give you”

Rather than step into mum’s room

Dele made a right turn towards the shelf where the pack of sweets was

He knew that mum would step out of her room at any moment

He knew he had to be fast

And indeed he was

He swiftly put a stool beneath the shelf

He climbed it in a flash

And in the twinkle of an eye

He had the pack in his hand

He took one sweet

Put the pack back on the shelf

And jumped down from the stool with stealth that amazed him

As he walked back to the sitting room

His mum came out from the room and handed him his bag

As Dele looked up at her

And stretched out his hands to collect his bag

He knew he had made a mistake

As he collected the bag, the sweet fell out of his hand and hit the floor

He was however stunned when his mum helped him pick it up and said:

“Don’t lose your sweet Dele

Keep it properly

Do you want another one,” she asked

Dele felt ashamed

He should have just asked her for it after all

But then he recalled how he had felt while he was taking the sweet

It felt exhilarating and fascinating

The thrill of climbing that stool and taking the sweet had been priceless

The adrenaline that had rushed through him

The risk of being caught

All these feelings came to him at once

And he replied:

“No mum. I’m alright”

Dele was not surprised when he heard the second voice again:

“I told you Dele. If only you had asked…”

The second voice was suddenly drowned by the first:

“Will you just shut the fuck up?

Cease sermonizing and let the little boy enjoy himself

Let him have some fun you boring ass idiot”

That was many years ago

And that was how it had begun

Dele was now an adult

He was no longer the little boy that he was back then

And he had stopped hearing the second voice

It had never come to him again

With a few exceptions

He had only heard whispers of the second voice in two places

In the Mosque whenever he followed his dad to pray

And in the church whenever he had to go to church with mum

In those places, the second voice always sounded like a whisper coming to him

And Dele had always endured it

He noticed that the voice always went away once he stepped out of those places

 Dele was now 27 years old

And a lot had changed

So much had changed

He no longer took sweets and candies

But he remembered how things had began to change after the sweet incident

The first voice had become an unseen companion

Always guiding him

Always telling him what to do

Constantly by his side

He owed the voice a lot of things

For instance, the voice had spurred him into exercising on a daily basis

Now, Dele possessed the body a lot of men only dream about

Girls, ladies and women often stared at him

And Dele knew it was not just his handsome face they were glaring at

He had lost count of the number of times pretty girls had walked up to him

To say things like:

“Hi, I love your physique

Hi, which gym do you work out at?

Hello, I like your shape

Hi, my name is Shade – Do you play football?”

The lines always varied but they were all in awe of what he had done with his physique

The voice had also encouraged him to improve his agility

The same voice had guided him into taking up boxing classes

The voice also taught him how to become faster

He remembered how the voice had stayed with him since that first time

From sweets

Dele had advanced

He began taking other things

Money from mum’s purse

And much more at school

He would take things from his classmates’ bags and lockers

The items he took were as numerous as the grains of sand on a beach 

 After secondary school

He had gained admission into the higher institution to study Business Administration

Even when in school

Dele knew for a fact that he was never going to write an application letter

He was more than certain that he would never work for anyone

Rather, he knew he would eventually set up his own business

And that he would need the knowledge to run it

So he studied hard

And he never stopped taking things

The strangest thing was that

He was never caught

He was incredibly good at it

It was like a gift

But Dele often wondered if it was a gift from God

Or from the angel that was cast out of Heaven

However

Besides studying, Dele also kept the voice alive

It was an integral part of him now

It fed him like a battery powered device connected to a power source

In the last two years

Dele had been able to save up an amazing amount of money

Since he graduated, he had never written a single letter of application

Yet he worked very hard

Despite his preference for working at night

He often worked during the day as well

He couldn’t explain why he suddenly began thinking about his girlfriend

But he just found himself doing so

Her name was Zaynab

And she was amazingly gorgeous

She often looked as if she just stepped out of a magazine

Her skin was spotless

Her eyes – a sparkling mirror of her beauty and radiance

She was gentle and soft spoken

Dele genuinely loved her

But there was something that he did not like about her

She often sounded like the second voice that he had assumed had been banished

The fact that she was usually around him had become both a blessing and a curse

He loved her for so many different reasons

But did not like what she reminded him about – the second voice

She was always urging him to turn a new leaf

Even when she did not fully comprehend what Dele did for a living

And Dele was tired of hearing her say that

Perhaps, he should break up with her

At that precise moment

She knocked on the door

And Dele could tell from her knock that she was the one at the door

When Dele got up, unlocked the door

And opened it to let her in

She stepped in and hugged him

As she did so, Dele could feel her soft breasts press against his chest

He perceived the whiff of her perfume and inhaled deeply

He hugged her back and kissed her tenderly on the lips

And then on the forehead

It was quite early and Dele wondered what had brought her so early

After she settled down

She placed the fruits she had brought for him on the table

And settled into his arms on the couch

“Dele Dear, I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here this early

Well, I had a very bad dream

The dream started out well and we were happy

And then there was a girl in a black skirt suit

I’ve never seen her before

I told you to leave her alone but then I began to hear this voice

The voice ordered you to go to her and then everywhere began to get hot

And then there was blood

Oh! Dele, there was a lot of blood

The blood was on both you and the girl and then you were screaming

And then…”

When Zaynab began to cry

Dele hugged her and said:

“I’m sorry baby. It was just a bad dream – Stop crying

I’ll be fine, okay?”

Zaynab looked at him and said:

“Please be careful baby

I usually don’t have dreams like this one

But I’m just scared

Promise me you’ll be careful”

“I will,” Dele said to her

She spent some more time and after Dele saw her off and returned home

He thought about Zaynab and her dream

He had always been careful

And would perhaps try to be a bit more careful

But first, he had to concentrate on the day’s job

He had less than an hour to get ready to work today

For this particular job

Dele had been on surveillance for over two weeks

He had been very patient with this one

Mainly because he knew it was a big one

He was fed up of going after small fries that fetched him peanuts

In fact, it was beginning to infuriate him

Dele knew he was working too hard and earning too little

And this thought always made him smash his fist into the wall

It now dawned on him that in the last 6 months

The most he had gotten from any single job had been N200, 000

Yet they involved high risks and life-threatening manouvers

He even noticed an emerging trend

He had begun taking out his frustration on clients

It had started when he broke an old man's arm after colleting N70, 000 from him

Then five months ago, he had killed the couple that didn’t have more than N40, 000

Next was the rich man who had claimed he didn't have more than N60, 000

Dele had left him with only six fingers

After chopping off four with a blunt knife

The worst happened barely a week ago

Dele had not planned to harm the man and his pregnant wife

But after the husband said all he had was N100, 000

Dele recalled that he had seen two Range Rover Sport automobiles in the man's garage

This drove Dele into so much rage

He had punched the woman so hard

She fell to the ground face up

Spurred by the voice in his head

He had driven his foot right into the pregnant woman's protruding belly

He could not tell whether she died or not

But he was certain that he felt his foot tear up things inside the woman

As for her husband

Dele had beaten him until

The man lost an eye and eventually went into a coma

"What is happening to me?" He asked aloud

"I was not raised to be like this

Have I gone mad?"

Strangely

He did not have an answer to these questions

Perhaps

It was time to turn a new leaf

Once more

He recalled Zaynab's words to him just a few minutes ago

Deep within his heart

Dele felt the need to summon that second voice

And embrace it

He knew the first voice would bark at him for daring to do that

But he knew that at some point, he would have to take a firm stand

However

For now, there was only one thing that consumed his thoughts much more

The job that he had to embark on right away

Dele had patiently stalked this particular client for weeks

And he knew that the time had come to swing into action

He knew that she always left her place of work at 11am

And she always went to the same place

The bank

She always went in empty handed

And always came out with a fat polythene bag

From Dele’s experience

He could tell that that bag always contained nothing less than N1 million

He knew that the money would most likely be more than that

But he knew that there was no way it would be less than a million Naira

And this was the very reason he had considered this particular job a priority

Dele knew that there no room for mistakes

He had never made a mistake before

And he was not ready to make one with a job that would permanently change his fortune

Whenever the girl came out of the bank

She would stop a commercial motorcycle

And return to the office with the fat polythene bag

Her office was less than a 5-minute ride away from the bank

And he was more than certain that he could pull off this job

Dele knew that he was going to need a little bit of assistance with this job

He was used to working alone and always preferred the solo run

He had already briefed the guy he would be working with on his expected role

Dele looked at his wrist watch and it was 9am

He put on a blue jean pant and a cream-coloured T-shirt

He also put on his sneakers and one of his dark shades

When he was done dressing up

He looked into the mirror

And was satisfied with what he saw

What happened next took Dele by surprise

He heard a voice

He did not miss the texture of the voice

It was the second voice

“Dele, we are not soothsayers

We are not permitted to show you what happens in the future

I know what you are planning to do Dele

And I’m going to beg you to forget about the job

I have always been with you since you were born

You cannot see me but I know everything about you

I know that over the years, you have become extremely good at your job

But Dele, you must remember that you are a mortal being

Dele, you must not take on this job…”

Just as the voice was about to say something else

Dele could feel the first voice

The fury of its arrival left Dele breathless

It was in a blind rage

And then it arrived

“May the keepers of the gates of Hell burn you to death you Bastard

How dare you sneak up on Dele in my absence?

Did you think I would not hear your distracting charade?

The boy has a job to do you son of a whore

Can’t you see the importance of this job?

The young man has earned this big break

And no one is going to take it away from him

Not even you

It is senseless for you to try to prevent this

It is his destiny”

And then the voice continued

“Dele, there’s no time to waste

It is time to get rolling

And remember to stay focused and stay sharp”

The last thing Dele heard was a whisper

It was from the second voice

It was almost inaudible but Dele still managed to pick up the words

“How terrible is wisdom when it brings no good to the man that’s wise”

He doubted if the first voice had heard this

Else it would have responded

When Dele stepped into the morning sun and looked up

He could see the sun high in the sky

He dialled a number on his mobile phone and spoke into the phone for 30 seconds

A guy appeared four minutes after the call and he was riding a bike

When he got to where Dele stood

He parked the bike and Jide joined him on the bike

By the time it was 10:30am

Dele and the cyclist were already on the side of the road – opposite the girl’s office

At precisely 11am, the girl came into view

She was wearing a black skirt suit and then Dele recalled his girlfriend’s dream

“I’ve got work to do,” he said to himself

“There’s no room for distractions,” he added

From a safe distance, he watched the girl cross to his side of the road

She hailed down a commercial cyclist

Dele watched as she got on the bike and zoomed off in the direction of the bank

Dele was glad that the girl was always alone else, he would have had to use a weapon

He didn’t want to risk getting stopped by the cops for a stop and search

So had decided to leave his gun at home

By 11:34, Dele could see the girl’s bike approaching from a distance

He crossed to the middle of the road and waited there

By the time the girl was getting off the bike and paying the cyclist

Dele was already crossing towards her

Just as the bike was zooming off

And the girl turned towards the structure that housed her office

Dele was behind her

“Hey!” Dele said in voice that was almost conversational

The moment the girl turned around…

The second and final chapter to this sequel would be released later in the month.

Dedication

This story is dedicated to Nikki Laoye - for always being there for me. She reminds me that friendship is not how long but how well. May everything you touch turn to gold and I ask the Lord to continue to watch over you and every single member of your household. God bless you Nikki. Also dedication this to my friend, Tola Olaifa – Thanks for your effort...

This poem was composed by Samod Biobaku – Author of Out of Time, KNUCKLE, Her ROOM, CLOSE, KNUCKLE II, Faceless FOE, Her ROOM II, Morgan, Dramatic GOODBYE and KNUCKLE III.

Other stories on the ‘POETRY PAGE’ of simplysamad.blogspot.com.

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