A NEW STORY, A NEW JOHN

A NEW STORY, A NEW JOHN

She had been his most beautiful dream come true until she turned into his ugliest nightmare. A tormenting nightmare he could not wake up from. Heaven became hell and paradise became a purgatory. The happily-ever-after became a constant pain that ate at his soul as he stared at blank walls and the promising future suddenly turned into a utopic Shangri-La.

Theirs had been the perfect love that poets immortalize in beautiful lines and rhythms before it suddenly turned into a deadly thing akin to the bloody scenes of horror movies except, it was real life and not a screen act, done by paid-up artists on an appetizing Hollywood budget. Theirs was a typical case of the reality of the phrase, "If things will go wrong they will go wrong."

The initial separation she had initiated under the guise of, "please babe, I think we each need a break," had been messy but the final of ways was the most acrimonious. Love had become poisonous and sweet nothings had been replaced by bitter pills that none of them was willing to swallow more so the chief architect of the breakup.

He could not tell how he got out of that dark pit or how he finally collected his little strength and walked away with the only thing he had left within him - his self-dignity, but he rose and found his feet again. At that point he never thought she would be back and take away the only thing he had been left to live for but that is a story cannot be told at this juncture lest it ends this prematurely.

From the dark abyss, he had gathered his broken pieces, found a good doctor who had greatly helped him in his efforts to fix them. The results spoke for themselves. A new life full of promise had begun for him. Out of the dark night had been born the bright dawn full of limitless boundaries and endless possibilities, even the subsequent dark nights had bright shining stars and not even the sky could limit him. Little did he know that his nemesis was hell-bent on turning his perfectly reconstructed world upside-down and downside up like a bad dream. Like an incessant bed dream, she was about to appear and through his entire world spinning 360 degrees yet again in the wrong direction. This too cannot be told at this point.

His life had changed for the better; hers had deteriorated for the worst and inside her resided remnants of vile bitterness and anger so fierce that it could burn the whole continent if directed towards it. Things had turned around and his previously miserable life script at that point read like the scripts of an Israelites exodus episode after more than four hundred years in captivity. He was living life to the fullest and without apology or regrets. He had become the perfect epitome of the maxim from rags to riches. Straight from the gutters and dark alleys, he was then the CEO of a high flying multinational blue-chip corporation and the best of days were yet to manifest. The world had not yet seen enough of him or so he thought and everyone else too.

The woman in his life was every man's dream, the right one to be precise, his good and perfect match all wrapped up in a single package with a ribbon on it that only he was permitted to open and relish the contents of the gift within. He was also the father of a very beautiful baby girl and a charming handsome little boy - perfect fruits of the love he and his wife shared. Pictorial memories of their smiles constantly flashed before his eyes and he too would smile at the world for no apparent reason, give his best to the work and rush home as soon as all was over to the welcoming embrace of the best thing that had ever happened to his life. He knew deep inside him that he could do anything in this world for them. They were his reason for living and he was a complete man once again. The story of his life had suddenly gone back to its original perfect script, the right script he had always strived to write for his life.

She on the other hand had been unable to forget about him. She also could not bring herself to forgive him for not fighting hard enough for the love they had according to her, never mind that she had been the one who had left, the one who had realized that there was nowhere the two of them were going, the wise one who had noticed quite early that the two of them could never be, the one who had actually brought to light the fact that the two of them had no future together.

Life is crazy. It had ironically in a twist of fate given both of them a future, each a reverse of his previously assigned template. It's as if life had intentionally switched the scripts and given each character on that stage new roles and identities. She lived the life she loathed while he lived the one she wanted. The joke was practical, insane and cruel and she could not bring herself to laugh at her own comedy show. She stalked him, lived for him, ate, slept and breathed for him, she was not about to let go of what was rightfully hers. She was determined to claim back her prize at all costs and if unable destroy it so that no one else gets awarded what she considered divinely hers. The bile within her could kill a million Nile crocodiles and the entire population of world polar bears. The venom inside her heart would shame the king cobra, black mamba, and puff udder combined.

She had lost. Her soul had darkened and her heart had turned vile. Her spirit had rotten away and her conscience was dead and gone. It became clear to her that she had to have him or no one else to and that was when she decided that she was going to do something about it. She was determined to right a wrong done to her. She was not going to end up the pathetic loser of a game that had been played by her rules and scripts, she was the one in charge of the outcomes and the once at present then had not been in her game plan. It was impossible, she could not lose, they all had to lose if she lost and she was going to make them.

She planned, she executed and conquered or so she thought. The last laugh in the script had to be hers and she had gotten it. Little did she know that the script had left her desk and hands, the script had flipped and the new director had rewritten the entire plot, storyline and the conclusion of the new one. She was about to find out who the real master of the game she had set in motion was.

He smiled as the prison gates were opened to usher him to his freedom. It had been ten long years and something inside him had changed. He was not the same man he used to be when he stepped out that fine cold morning to freedom. He was different and he knew it even though he had no idea of what were the specifics of the new man he was looking at. He wondered, "Am I walking to my freedom or to a bigger prison than the one I have been in?" "What is freedom?" he found himself asking himself that very question countless times. No one had come for him, actually no one was aware he was out and that was perfect for him.

He was walking to a new prison with a solid determination to free himself and serve perfect justice. He was going to take it back the justice that had eluded and failed him, thanks to skewed systems. He was going to redefine it. He smiled as the fresh cold air outside the prison gates hit his lungs. He was a changed man. The crooked world that had transformed him was about to discover what it had done to him. He looked at his list and laughed like the hooting owls on a dead silent dark night in the flat plains of Kano, Sidho-Obumba-his ancestral village. "I am back" he announced with his fist punching the air in celebration as he boarded the first bus at the station to nowhere in particular. He was a new John, a new writer with a fresh story that he was going to write with his own blood to erase the one they had written about him. "I am John, now let the story begin." John said one more time.