FIRE IN MY CLOSET
Well, welcome to the story of my life.
It is exactly one month today since my house caught fire. So 2023 was being its normal self, hard difficult and very few things going right as the responsibilities kept increasing. I had developed a heart as hard as rock, atleast that's what I believed. I didn't know 2023 had it's not very nice plans waiting for me. Amidst everything going on in my mind one Monday evening in the last week of May I decided to go to a nearby trading Centre to check on something my sister had told me to buy for my niece. Usually I like to walk to the Centre as a form of exercise because it barely 2kms away from where I stay.
I came back after an hour and immediately I entered the gate I saw two of my nieces standing over my suitcases with with my clothes scattered on the grass, it was already 7pm so it was a bit dark and I couldn't see everything. With a confused look I asked them why my clothes were all outside, my niece told me the house caught fire and they are trying to sort the burnt ones from the ones that didn't get burnt.
You can imagine the look on my face and what I was feeling, whatsoever you are imagining triple it. Now that is what I was feeling at that time, I had all sorts of things going on in my mind at that time. One of my nieces read my mind and told me, nobody was hurt we are all fine. I didn't know i was holding my breathe because I let out a heavy OHHHHHH THANK GOD. Immediately I remembered ohhhh my laptop, I dashed inside to check if my laptop was burnt and I found it in one piece. My eldest niece was mopping away the water they used to turn off the fire and there was water everywhere, one side of the wardrobe was burnt properly and the once beautifully Turkish green painted wall was now black with smoke.
I was lost and I didn't know where so start, I thank God for my neighbor and my landlord they really did everything to make sure the fire didn't spread. I remember my landlord told me, ''go sit and collect yourself everything will be fine''. I picked my phone and called my two sisters then I told one friend. Now one of my sisters had gone for leave and was at our home in Lira meaning she was with my parents. And my parents being the normal parents that they are, they freaked out especially my mom. My parents are so different, my mom just wanted to beat somebody up at that moment ( somebody had set her baby's house on fire and they needed to pay) whereas my dad is the one that calms us down. He is very calm in extremely scary situations, he makes us all calm. So, of cause my sister told them and my mom was the first to call and just started interrogating me. I think my dad felt she was over delaying he got the phone from my mom and started calming me down, telling me it happens. The thing about talking to my parents is, you think you are talking to one but you are actually talking to both of them because 99% of the time the phone is on loud speaker and they are together.
Back to the fire, we cleaned the house and I do not know but I felt there was so much going on in my head, my heart and my stomach at the time. My entire firewall that I thought I had built around my heart was down, started imagining all sorts of what ifs. What if I had burnt down the house, what if my baby had died in the fire, what if any of my nieces had chocked with the smoke to death. I wasn't thinking of the things I lost in the fire because in bad situations I usually have my dad's attitude, things can be replaced. At that moment I was not so much into the cause of the fire, but of cause I asked the girls then I had this thing at the back of my mind that you don't beat a child for setting the house on fire. Apparently beating a child for setting the house on fire brings bad luck, its a cultural thing for us Lango people so my mind couldn't even think of punishment at that time, I didn't want more bad luck. It was just the imaginations of how different this could have turned out to be that scared the freak out of me.
I didn't know how much the fire affected me till it was time to go to bed, I didn't want to eat but I thought I would sleep well. My friend told me eat force yourself to eat then just carry the mattress from the bedroom and put it in the living room. When I went to the bedroom I couldn't sleep so I just decided to carry the mattress to the sitting room and put my baby to sleep and I sat on the bed and turned on the TV and watched a series till morning. Sleep caught my eye at 5 am but I woke up at 8 am and stayed on that bed in the sitting room till evening when I finally got the courage to get up shower and go sit on the veranda outside.
Bit by bit I started picking myself up, the following days were not easy. The smell of smoke anywhere would immediately send me into a panic attack. I was afraid to leave the house, thinking it would catch fire again, I was afraid to charge my laptop and my phone because I was afraid it would spark fire and burn the house down, I was afraid of the spark of fire from lighting the charcoal stove because I was afraid it would land on something and start the fire again. Just know I carried a very brave bold face around but I was Jello inside. I remember I was sending a message to my sister and it went to my WhatsApp status and before I could delete it one person had viewed. You guys needed to have seen the speed at which I rushed to delete it, am just the type who hates loading my stress on other people so am sure all my friends are hearing this for the first time. And it actually feels good to talk/write about it.
Am currently trying to rebuild back the wall around my heart, hopefully with the raw materials from the fire I will be able to build a stronger wall this time round, with proper firewalls😂😂.
Lucky Obangaber
Comments
Post a Comment