Blockchain Memory Project - Journal Entry (7) - Always Follow Your Instincts

In the early 2000s, before I gained admission into the university, I operated a roadside phone booth, where I offered phone call services and sold recharge cards. I took over the business from my eldest sister who could not combine the business with her regular teaching job.

I look this picture with a Sony Ericsson W800i in my room during my second year in the University of Benin.

My phone booth consisted of an umbrella with three plastic chairs to serve the comfort of my many customers. The early mornings and the late evenings were usually the peak periods. Customers would troop into my phone booth to make calls and buy recharge cards. Sometimes, I worked late into the nights before I close business for the day.

My Instincts Gave A Command

One fine Harmattan morning in January, as I was setting up my umbrella together with the plastic chairs for the day's business, I noticed a well dressed woman standing on the opposite side of the busy road. At once, I assumed that she was just waiting there for someone to come pick her.

When I had finished setting up, I said a short prayer, picked up a novel, and hoped the day would deliver some good profits. While I read, the image of the standing woman on the opposite side of the road punctuated my thoughts. It felt really weird and strange but I just didn't know why. I could not concentrate on the novel I was reading.

A few moments later, I saw the woman crossing the road, towards the direction of my phone booth. She walked confidently to me, smiled, and asked whether she could sit down for a short while. I wanted to offer her a seat but my mind did not belong to me; I couldn't speak. My mouth was willing to say yes but my tongue was weak. I felt quite uneasy. Something was not right, although I didn't know what. So, I refused the woman a seat, a thing I had never done to anyone. I was unhappy but I had to follow the command of my Instincts.

And Then it Happened.......

The woman went back to the other side of the road and sat on the corridor of a shop whose owner was yet to open for the day's business. The sun was gradually peeping from the curtains of the sky by now and the road was getting busier. I went back to my novel and my mind became peaceful.

Source

Less than a quarter of an hour later, when I lifted up my eyes from the pages of the novel before me, I noticed that a crowd of people had gathered on opposite side of the road. I became curious. So, I crossed the road to know what had caught the fancy of the crowd. There, at the centre of crowd, was the corpse of the radiant-looking woman who had asked me for a seat. She had slumped and gave up the ghost.

I was terrified, was dumbfounded. I wondered what would have happened if I had offered her a seat and she had died right there. I would have been a victim of police harassment and intimidation in a world where police investigation is crude. I had learnt my lessons, a very good one: to always follow my Instincts no matter how weird the instructions are.

About the Blockchain Memory Project

The Steemit Blockchain Memory Project is a project aimed at sharing some of your memories whether good or bad on Steemit. Give it a try and you would not have a problem writing your autobiography some day.
Special thanks to @ericvancewalton for initiating this fantastic project.