HOW JOHN DIED - (FICTION)

I was itching to write. It felt like I was going to die if I didn’t. I just had to. I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was your uncle. I told him. John looked at me then smiled, 'a writer should never apologize for his work' it’s the people who’ve to either like it or leave it, and I know you to be a good investigative writer, if that piece wasn’t the fact you wouldn’t have done it.

I felt relieved. I wrote a piece on a politician who had been smuggling arms not knowing that he was the uncle of my best friend. John had always been there from the beginning. We literally grew up together. We attended all schools together. When it was time for tertiary studies, I opted for Communication and Language Art while he just did English. We were both prolific as far as writing was concerned.

There was John in my hand in the pool of his own blood. I've always thought about the future and never have I, in this light. I needed answers and no one was giving them. I was at a function that day and John had gone on a field work which I was supposed to be. Oh, we work together for a national daily.

I got a call that my friend had an accident and on getting there all I met was an almost dead John. He had waited for me to come before he took his last breath. He had waited for me all of his life. He was always the first to be ready for school when we were young, he always had to wait for me. On our first admission trial at the University, he had been offered while I wasn't. Instead of going ahead, he told his dad he wasn't offered yet. We were that close. John had told me something before he finally dropped dead and I needed to work on it.

I stepped out and into my car. Off I went to the village where John was killed. I put up a little bit of Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis performance and I was able to get little information. The hospital reported it was an accident but the villagers said he was shot, they refused to say by whom.

It took a lot of calls, connections and days before I was able to get a trace on the bullet casing I saw on the scene of the incidence. Greg, an agent of DSS was helping on the case. I almost didn’t believe it when Bayo called me that morning and reported it was for a gun made locally for members of the Police Force in the local government where the village was located.

Was it months? Or years, I lost track of time, and my job. I just wanted John avenged. I listened to the judge with precision as he sentenced the officer who killed John to twenty years with hard labor. The foolish man who had killed John over a little threat John made after taking pictures of the man extorting and bullying some villagers.

Justice was served but John was gone.

Picture Credit @penciledcelebrities