“Since when are you a Pastor?” laughed James Adjei, pushed by his neighbor to bring him to order and sleep.
“Before someone here in the bathhouse uses me for his sexual desires and gives me his AIDS or Hepatitis, I better walk the walk of Jesus Christ that accepted anyone as a human being, even a Murderer like me,” turned Henry Asante around only to stare into the closed eyes of Peter Walker, a Man of massive body structure trained to be a Boxer in the Slum of Accra to survive among Drug Dealers, Rasterfaries, young Prostitutes, small children working in Toxic City with infected lounges to make ends meet, and tried to find sleep in the increasing heat of the cool night outside.
“My good friend”, presented Henry Asante his bread crumbs to his little mouse which he had named Amanda,” you should not have to suffer like us. Among us humans here in Africa, you must know, it is like in the wilderness out in the countryside, only the wildest and strongest can survive, all others are pushed aside and fall into the gutters of unforgiveness and will be washed away into forgettness by the next water flush.”
James Asante looked at his friend, raised his eye-brows commenting:” Your Amanda will certainly not understand what you share with her. All she wants to have from you is her daily bread. As long as you provide each day for her, she will come. When the time will come, you will no longer give to her, she will look around to find food from someone else that can provide for her. Life is simple as that. Do not think too much, it makes you sick in the head and does not bring you food on the table or your freedom.”
Henry Asante took a deep breath, looked closely down unto Amanda, smiled at her hoping she could understand his gesture, presented her the last bread crumb for the day and said with clear voice:” In Prison we only waste our time while outside we could do something useful for our family when we get the chance to do so, and will be helped by other people. Here we get food, are guarded expensively while in Prison many of us, especially the younger once, will only develop hate against their life time lost; when out from prison, they start all over again to step into an endless cycle of misery.”
“You mean, punishment must have a sense, not only be a place to be looked away and kept save until the comes the Sardine Tin gets opened and the inside released for Human consumption?”
“You look so depressed!” came Mama Dora to the two friends enjoying the cool, fresh breeze in the shadow of a Mango tree planted near the Football Field.
They shared their thoughts with the woman they saw as their mother substitute behind the white walls around their prison, overweight, big breasted with wide hips comfortably accommodating twins observing how she intensively followed each of their words carefully.
She swallowed twice before she responded:” We are all prisoners, in one or the other way, the once that we are here in this facility. You think because you cannot move away from here and I can, it makes me a free person?” She laughed seeing Amanda running away to her favorite place behind the reddish shining stone. “Read the Bible and you see who was in prison; yet as their mind was free and set for freedom, and freedom only, they in fact were more of a free person than the once that kept them captive and guarded their imprisonment. I depend on the money I make here from my work and do not get it to help my children grow up. Does it make me a free person…ask yourself?”
“Our black mentality makes as prisoners in ourselves…is that what you try to explain?” asked James Adjei seeing Officer Kwame Nkrumah-Ampong with hanging shoulders fast approaching, his face grim.
“We Blacks live in Darkness and need someone that can lead us into the Light…someone that is blind needs someone that is at his side and assist him in life or miraculously make him see again to look into the light. A blind man can never see light out of himself,” Mama Dora said standing next to Officer Kwame Nkrumah-Ampong asking her to come to the Prison Warden’s Officer for report.