XPILAR WRITING COMPETITION (109) : JOURNEY TO KOROKOROSEI

It was on fateful Friday evening, I and some of my neighbours left for a journey to a small village called Korokorosei. It is located at the southern region of ijaw in Bayelsa, Nigeria.

The reason for the journey was to attend the burial ceremony of one of our neighbours who died of motor accident the following Saturday morning.

It was an exciting and adventurous experience.

When we got to Bonny Getty, we saw a lot of speed boats and people on board. I thought they were all going to Korokorosei, but they were going to different destinations.

When we bought our ticket, we were advised to put-on personal flotation devices also known as Life jacket to keep us alive and afloat in case of unexpected end up in the water.

Few minutes after we entered the boat, the pilot started the engine and moved with speed towards the middle of the sea. Meanwhile, before we entered the boat we had prayed and handed our souls to the almighty God, we have never traveled on the sea.

When we got to the heart of the sea, we saw the cloud rolling down as if it was coming to cover the sea. When the pilot noticed that we were becoming afraid he said " don't be afraid, it is rain". When we got closer, there was a heavy down-pour. Few minutes later the rain stopped.

Just about 10 minutes after the rain, we saw another speed boat coming with excess speed and over took us. This generated a strong wave that made our boat to continuously waved zig zag as if it wanted to capsize. Like what the sailors in the biblical Jonah's ship did when their ship was about to sink to the bottom of the sea, we started calling on the God of heaven to have mercy and save us. The pilot started shouting telling us to calm down that there was no problem. After some time, the wave stopped.

As we were trying to recover from the shock of the wave, the boat engine went off and the boat stopped at the middle of the sea. The boat started floating on the water. The pilot searched for his paddle and could not find it. He exclaimed " ooo no! I left it at getty". When I heard this, my soul almost left my body, but as a man of faith I tried to coordinate myself. My fellow passengers who were mostly women started shivering and crying that this one would be their end. Some of them tried to call their family members to inform them that they were about to die in the sea, that in case they did not return that they should know that they have gone to meet the Lord. Alas, there was no network connection. The boat was floating on the sea and following the movement of the water without the pilot's control.

As the boat was helplessly moving towards the direction of the water movement, our fears were getting worse as we were heading to unknown destination and may be we would be taken to a place were we would meet dangerous and harmful sea creatures.

Fortunately, we saw a fisherman coming from a far with canoe. We started shouting and calling him for help. When he saw us, he paddled faster close to our boat. The women were taken into the canoe first and he took them to the nearest sea shore, which luckily was a neighbouring village to Korokorosei. When he dropped them, he came back and rescued us.

Original Digital Art by @xpilar
Original story by @culzee

Original @xpilar Contest post : https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@xpilar/digital-image-for-the-day-is-made-according-to-my-own-imagination-and-thoughts-your-writing-story-competition-109