Fabian is is Dead

Fabian Okon has died

A 32-year old guy (as he told me he was), Fabian was a 300-level student of the Department of Guidance and Counseling, Faculty of Education, University of Uyo.

We said "hellos" today, in the morning, before I went to school to submit the last chapter of my project to my supervisor. And then this evening, I returned home to meet words that he's no more.

I heard he died this evening, about two hours ago, here in Itu Road, very close to the junction that leads to Ikot Ndem.

I have spent the last one hour in the dark interior of my room trying to fix myself into the belligerent horror he must have endured before he eventually breathe his last, and I can't stop saying it, that nobody deserves to die that way, people should stop taking laws into their hands, for God sake!

See, now, the truth has surfaced, but this guy can't be brought back to life. Terrible things like this shouldn't be happening!

This girl who told me said she stood and watched as youths in Itu Road at the time hurled stones of different sizes at him until he died. And when she told me the reason he was stoned to death, the offence they said he committed, that made them stone him to death, I demurred it immediately, I found it oddly contradictory to Fabian's beautiful character: full of integrity, selfless, empathetic, contented but not complacent... I was certain, even from a single hearing, that it mustn't have been him.

And now, they have stoned him to death, they have killed him —just like that. This is not good at all! I strongly consider it a crime against the Providence that gave us life.

Fabian had a son, a little boy of 6. Since his mother, Fabian's girlfriend, left a few weeks ago, the boy has been coming to stay with me sometimes, especially when Fabian has lectures to attend. And even as I write this, even now, the little boy is with me, eating biscuits in silence and staring into nothingness. Poor child. I'm sure he doesn't understand what's happening. I feel for him.

Fabian's girlfriend left him two weeks ago. She needs resources to indulge herself in some of her interests, and after she concluded the guy lacked the resources for the kind of interests she desires, she left; and since then, accommodating himself to the new situation she left him to — that of singlehandedly taking care of the boy — coupled with the stress of attending lectures, had been very difficult for him.

Fabian left his 6-year old son in the house to get a few things for soup at his regular customer's shop, so he would also return the woman's phone to her (last night, as she loaded Fabian's bag with stuff he bought at her shop: some cups of garri, plucked ugu leaves, grinded melon, isam and smoked fish, she mistakenly put her small Nokia Torchlight phone, too, inside Fabian's bag. Sadly, some minutes after Fabian left the shop, it was rubbed by some small, small boys — gunshots everywhere — so Fabian couldn't return to the shop to give the woman her phone the same night).

So this evening, he went to the shop to get stuff so he could also return the phone. The moment he brought out the phone from his pocket to give to the woman, madam started screaming, pointing at Fabian as one of the boys that rubbed her with guns last night, the Nokia Torchlight phone was an evidence, she insisted, screaming and screaming, in Ibibio: "ino..! Ino...!" Thief! Thief!

Other times, she screamed — in Ibibio, still: "Edise inor ado mmi o ...." Make una come see the thief here ooo....

That was how boys descended on Fabian, dragged him to the ground and stoned him to death.

But now, Abigail, another of our neighbour, who went with Fabian to the shop last night has confirmed the woman actually forgot her phone inside Fabian's bag last night...

The woman wants to lie, she wants to insist it's not true she forgot her phone in his bag, but her tears have betrayed her. She has finally accepted. Fabian wasn't one of the rubbers. But he has already been stoned to death.

Just like that.

...let go of your tendencies to make snap judgement,
Ekemini Mbang 2021
FICTION