THIS THNG...THIS THING

To begin these series of idle thoughts, I read a certain letter written to me by a friend about imagining if falling in love was capable of killing people. Love like HIV/AIDS or Cancer would kill slowly until full blown, leading to an untimely demise. Or worse, killing almost immediately like Ebola or a terrible poison. I pondered on this imagination for a while, and came to the conclusion that half the world, if not all, would have died from this terrible disease called Love. I let my mind run through several other imaginations. For instance, every social media would tell everyone to beware of the deadly disease called Love. I imagined people going everyday to a Brainwashing Center to have their brain washed from any symptoms of love. I imagined people dying from cardiac arrests caused by love. People with love symptoms would immediately be quarantined. I imagined people finding a means to erase every single memory of the person they love. I imagined how the heart would stop immediately it noticed that it was opening up for some 'human'. In a bid to shake it off, it would stop beating, making the person convulse perhaps, shake uncontrollably perhaps, and eventually, die. But don't people who fall in love die everyday? The heart sometimes misses a beat especially when one is with that special person. It is better this way, I thought. Love would have amounted to being a terrible disease. And so, these series of thoughts lead me to a story; my muse was and is God in addition to this letter written by my friend, they walked me to this story... "If love fit kill person, everybody go don die finish" A normal human setting as we have it. This place captured the hearts and souls of those who went there. It was Ibadan. The love disease had spread to every nook and corner of the world in less than a week. Everyone was dying every single minute. That morning Joseph watched his parents slumber on the floor after they had kissed. He could hear the echo in his own voice as he kept on screaming their names. The floor in the house seemed too moist and his face blurred. He had lost them. The people to whom he owed it all. He started to run. He ran as fast as he could because that was the only thing that came to his mind to do. In his confused state, he ran without stopping, without thinking, without looking back and reconsidering. If at all there was something to consider. Could it be?... He blotted out this thought. Thoughts, they said, would lead to more thoughts, and more thoughts would lead to love, and love, instant death. It was unfair. The world was never fair anyway. He had to stop schooling because of this. Maybe if the Universities had not been shut down for multiple deaths he would have continued. He had felt he was safe, but there was no more safety. Safety had become a big risk. He kept on running, running as fast as his legs could carry him. And as he ran, he saw people slumbering. There were thousands and countless continuous wails, and an instant silence after the wails all going into his head. He could hear them, then he could hear them no more. Every minute a person wailed, they died off. He decided to shut himself from all of this... From all of these things. His legs suddenly stopped, and his face was signified by a surprise. He stopped only when he saw her. The girl to whom he had written so many poems, but did not have the courage to give them to her. The girl who had charmed his very soul of existence. The girl who had given him a kiss that sent him into bouts of strange feelings. A feeling that he had never felt before. A feeling he could never ever fathom. A feeling he could never explain. He called it this thing... This thing. It was a thing, it was a beautiful thing. It was a beautiful feeling. He saw her, the girl he loved. She stood right outside her house which was a few kilometres from his with a sad face. He walked slowly towards her, his hand reaching desperately for her face. He touched her cheeks and stared at her sad eyes. It lingered for almost eternity. "I love you so much", he confessed. Something he had never confessed to her. All this time he had been too shy to say it. All this time, it had been "this thing". He felt his heart tearing away from his chest, and he kissed her the second time. The last time. He went on his knees and smiled at her. He died smiling.