Visionaries -- A true tale of Religion and Mystery #3
This is the story of an event that happened in a catholic school in Nigeria, events which I witnessed and was a part of, and which have never been resolved till date. Names have been changed, but the tale is true, and told as I remember it.
3:32pm
A chill ran up my spine. “Others?” I asked. “What do you mean, others?”
Augustine threw a glance up at the boys still gathered around my angle and turned back to smile at me, a little smug. “I wasn’t the only one who has seen,” he replied quietly. “Some others have had the vision too.”
“Really?”
He nodded happily, and threw another glance at the crowd. I followed his gaze this time. He’s glancing at Sho-sho.
Suddenly, something clicked. “Shola,” I addressed the boy in the crowd. “You saw, too?”
Sho-sho nodded shyly.
So that was why they had been in his angle, and why Augustine had pulled him along when they came to mine. One of their class boys had seen a vision –of course they wanted to hear about it themselves.
The significance of this was not lost on me. If more than one person had seen, I could no longer call it a dream. But visions! I was a firm believer and knew such things were possible. But in my school? And during my time? Was I about to be a witness to something miraculous, something that could go down in the history of the church? My attention sharpened at once –this could be much more important than I thought.
“Come!” I called.
Sho-sho stepped forward shyly and entered my angle, stopping directly in the centre. I couldn’t blame him. I was not only astronomically higher than him on the school’s totem pole, I had also punished him several times based his uncleanliness both in and out of the dormitory. In fact, now his white shirt was much, much dirtier than all the others, with oil stains from the afternoon’s lunch and several other days’ worth. He looked generally unkempt too. The shirt was only partially tucked in, his hair was a mess, and I believe the word for how his face looked was ‘grubby’.
I ignored all these. “You saw what Augustine saw?” I asked. The others outside watched with interest.
He nodded.
“Where you guys together?” I inquired.
He shook his head ‘no’.
“We did not exactly see the same thing,” Augustine piped in. “Tell him, Sho-sho!”
I raised an eyebrow and glanced from Sho-sho to Augustine and back again in surprise. “What you saw weren’t the same?”
Sho-sho shook his head again.
“You didn’t see the lady?” I inquired further.
Sho-sho spoke for the first time. “I did,” he said. He had a high pitched voice, higher than that typical of boys his age. He didn’t speak with much confidence, but I expected that. “But she didn’t take me anywhere,” he continued. “I was just looking at the picture, then she started talking to me. I don’t know where we were, but I was with her and we were talking. Everywhere seemed red, but she was wearing this white cloth. No, not white. It was like cream.”
He finished and fell silent. They all turned their gaze to me, including Augustine sitting by my side. I didn’t say anything yet, just placed my elbow on my knees and my chin on my hands in a ‘thinking’ position. This was what I was afraid of –they wanted me to give a verdict, and I still wasn’t willing to give one. I needed to make sure I got all the details right first, then I would think of what to do.
As I contemplated, something both Augustine and Sho-sho said suddenly registered.
“Hold on,” I looked up at both of them. “What picture were you looking at?” St George’s was a catholic school, so there were many religious images around, especially in our chapel.
Augustine replied. “It’s a picture of Mary,” he said. “Ogwara, this picture is miraculous! You have no idea how many persons have seen while looking at it.”
A picture which transports people into visions? “Where is this picture?” I asked.
“It’s with Igwe Stephen,” Augustine told me. “He owns it.”
Igwe. Another very religious person I was fond of, though, unlike Augustine, he had some problems keeping up academically. He was in Augustine’s class now, but they hadn’t gained admission into the school the same time –Igwe had repeated a class, which meant while his real classmates had gone on to S.S.1, he had remained in J.S.3. He was much more religious than Augustine, to the point where some thought he was quite fanatical. Of course, as would be expected, he didn’t care about what others thought or said.
I would need to see him.
I nodded and made a decision. For the first time that afternoon, I turned to Augustine and gave him a small smile. “Do you know where Igwe is?”
“I’m not sure,” he said.
I nodded again and glanced down at watch. “Okay,” I said, standing. Augustine stood with me. “Have you guys washed?” I asked the boys. The sheepish look they gave themselves answered my question. “Alright, go and wash. Sho-sho, make sure you wash. No stories.”
They scattered excitedly. I turned to Augustine and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”
He nodded and grinned. Then he too hurried away.
It was 4pm.
Click here for the continuation of the story in Visionaries #4.
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