Chapter 11: Chapter 11

Songs for this chapter are:

Rich and Famous - Lecrae, Whatuprg, Ty Brasel

The beginning - Asa

Moving on - Asa

Ife - Asa

Restored - Lecrae, Hulvey, Wande, 1k phew

Dan

Captivity.

That word. What does it really mean? Is it an action or a state of mind? Is it an endless status quo that we are pathetically comfortable with or theft from the liberty that we enjoy? Is the desire to be free and liberated essentially an element of captivity? Is that what constitutes the whole idea of that phase?

Sitting in this prison cell for the past one month had provided me the perfect answer to those questions and I'd realized that being a victim of captivity does not necessarily make you any better than your captor. It does not even mean that you are generally the better person and mysteriously, this is the root of every deceitful mindset that every person who has been held captive has – the fact that we think we are the better person, whereas we are most likely the worst.

We deceive ourselves to seek liberation from captivity by plunging into or making use of some phantom or apparition that never has and never will fill that deteriorating vacuum in our hearts. We seek an escape from the gruesome, callous hands that hold us captive, and desperation being the underlying cause for our pursuit of freedom, makes us settle for anything.

Then we make use of that thing being our only hope, we make use of it till it destroys us and that thing which was used. Often, if we seek an escape from our captor irrespective of what it is, using material things, the day things go wrong and cut shorts our supply of these material things, we run mad, crawl back into the same dark hole we've been running away from and of course, we are back to square one; the painful quest for validation, the deficit of material things and penury.

How about seeking freedom with the use of hard drugs and substances? What happens when you have to stop sniffing in that wrap of cocaine or downing that bottle of alcohol? What then will be your escape? After being so attached to the only mannerisms you've been accustomed to all your life? The horror of never having that tantalizing feeling that each bottle of liquor gives you?

What about using innocent people to help yourself? The worst bone of contention, the roots of every delusion you could have that makes you think the person is your savior. The advent of every rehabilitation center that has been established; the insane, absurd normalization of making a stranger your therapist or your savior. The most brutal way to waste your precious time.

Isn't it such an abnormality to ever think that someone who knows nothing about you would be the one to save you from your plight?

How then, can we ever truly escape from captivity? How can we be free and be free indeed? Has desperation ever been the right attitude to imbibe when awaiting your exoneration? Or is patience an overlooked and underrated virtue?

What was the point of using Cassie and destroying her if it only led to me sitting idly in this cell? What was the point of wasting her time and robbing her of a good life? Why did it take this long for the scale to fall off my eyes so I could realize that I was being the worst captor to ever exist?

How did I ever see this as the right way to live my life? How come I never thought of this phase of life called the future? Why did I want to be free from the castle in the first place? Wasn't it to breathe the fresh air of hope?

Of course, I wanted to live a proper, sane life and I fought in the way that I could, using my most effective weapon to vindicate myself - viciousness. I didn't want to end up like my dad. I wanted to become a man with a clean, legitimate job, a man with a family he would love and cherish more than life itself, a home that I could be safe in. An abode that flows with undiluted, profound, and liberating love.

Did I fight the good fight to achieve these things?

I achieved some of these things but I wouldn't say I truly owned them in the long run neither could I say that I fought to acquire them in the right way.

I had my one and only child with a woman I could not dare to call my wife and built a house that I couldn't dare to call my home. Even the jobs I had managed to do all my life, I got them through the dirtiest of ways. Ways that I was grossly ashamed of.

I could not even call Farida my daughter. Never for once did I hold her in my arms to tender fatherly love to her. Never could I hold her in hands that murdered and assaulted innocent people. Hands that I'd used to cheat on Cassie when I already made things so ugly by using her in the first place. Hands that I'd used to set fire to that castle. The same hands I'd used to take nine-year-old Cassie out of the castle making her believe that I was indeed, her Messiah. Deceitful hands.

What made me think that Farida would grow up to love a man like me if I ever carried her in my arms? The poor girl who did not get to choose her father and then it turns out to be that in addition to that fact, her father is one massive excuse of a man. Certainly, she should grow up without me or any sign that leads to me.

I already did a lot of unforgivable harm to Cassie and now she deserves a break and a better life. So does Farida, Ahmed, and Youssef.

Even Mustafa.

He deserved a better life because if it wasn't for the wreck I caused in Cassie's life, he wouldn't have had to share in the pain he was feeling. The pain I inflicted.

There was nothing in my life that I could be proud of. It is often said that no one is outrightly good or bad which is true because heroes are not heroes neither are villains, villains down to the very last detail. There is a proportion of both qualities in us but certainly, with the likes of me, there is undoubtedly an exception to that rule.

Mrs. Jones was the only person who got to genuinely benefit from the compassionate and good side I probably had. I'd helped her escape that castle because I liked her a lot and hoped she could live a good life. I didn't want her to die pathetically under the loan shark's dominion like my mother did. Mrs. Jones was like a mother to me even if she didn't like to speak to me very much so I wanted the best for her but of what good was it now?

I knew she was thankful for what I did for her and I'm sure she has been able to live a moderate life if at all, it's not what she truly yearned for after years of slavery but I know she's grateful for the miracle I made available for her. I'm sure she even blessed me from the secret depths of her soul but what would she say if she learned that I grew up to be worse than my father and that I killed people as my dad did? That I had no respect for women just like him?

Wouldn't those blessings transform into a curse?

I knew this woman rooted for me like a parent would even if she would have found it hard admitting it but I let her down badly.

Thirty-six years of my life wasted to absolute nothingness and vanity. If at this time of my existence, I still couldn't figure out how to truly break free from the shackles of captivity then why should I try breaking free from it again? Of what good would it be to me and anyone?

Captivity has become my forte and so I shall abide shamefully in it like the miserable failure I was. A slave to everything that has more power over me. The pain I bear shall spread through my flesh down to every joint that holds my bones together like a sulphuric wildfire till I diminish to ashes - worthless and discarded forever.

Living my last days in captivity is the most adequate damnation for me if I couldn't get anything worse than that. Or maybe there is something worse or maybe even better?

Yes, there is.

If I die right now or any other time in my life, I know I am going to hell - a place where I would be gnashing my teeth forever and ever. A greater or rather, the greatest punishments of all.

So...

Instead of wasting my time in this dark, cold, empty cell in which I can see nothing but all of my atrocities and acts of wickedness swirling before me in a fiery, red pool of blood, I should go on to the afterlife — the place destined for me so I can be held not only as a captive but as a beastly criminal that deserved to suffer gravely for his depravities. It's time to leave this earth – to join my father in hell so we could burn together.

After all, misery loves company. A pathetic company that is. A company damned till forever and beyond.

Just when I'd started to think of how to go about the fastest way to aid myself to the journey of the afterlife, a sudden ray of light, small but the adequate proportion I needed to spot a blade that shone distinctly under the glint laid on the floor, I moved from the cold, wooden chair which I was sitting to reach for the object.

As I moved closer, the object came into a clearer view. There was no mistaking it that the object was a knife. A good, sharp knife.

But as the ray of light grew wider in reflection, I started to hear a close jingling of an object, perhaps a key till the door was wide open, revealing the view of a lanky man in a seemingly black overall uniform who was just in time to see what I was trying to do and obstructed me by placing his heavily booted foot on the knife, making it impossible for me to get a hold on.

Next, I heard the same jingle sound and when I looked closer, I realized that they were handcuffs.

I raised my head to look at the man's face like the giant he seemed to be with his frame serving as a small shadow to the blinding lights reflecting from the outside world. A light that I hadn't seen a glimpse of for a full month. Not even when I needed to eat or pee.

The officers that guarded the cell saw to the fact that I was truly entrapped in darkness to be appropriately consumed by my wild, deranging thoughts till I become insane. A punishment that wasn't ample enough for my brutishness.

But when the man before me opened his mouth to talk to me, I realized that I'd been harboring an enormous misconception about what punishment was appropriate for me. I realized that maybe, death and the afterlife were quite the luxury for a Beelzebub like me. I was crazy enough to think that those were the damnation that I deserved.

This was certainly the beginning of the punishment that awaits me. The punishment that is right for me.

Captivity that will destroy me and make death a sudden, scarce commodity. I could feel it already, my judgment day.

"Mr. Man, It's time for your court trial."

***

Exodus 14:14 - "The Lord will fight for you and you will hold your peace."