Suicidal is now served….
AARON ANSAH-AGYEMAN
THE CHRONICLES OF THE STRANGER
SUICIDAL
EPISODE 1
Perhaps, in a really morbid kind of way, life really began for Juliana Dorman when she was thirty years old.
That was the day –the exact day, she lost both of her parents in the most violent of ways, leaving her so guilt-ridden that she felt she could not live a day longer on earth.
Julie had been preparing for her thirtieth birthday all year.
She had purchased an expansive plot of land for her father’s company and had turned it into a beautiful resort.
The Hideaway, as she called it, was located on top of the steep Samanku Plateau.
She was sure her parents would love it. She planned to commemorate the resort on her birthday and had sent invitations to some prominent people in the society, and outside the country, to attend.
Her major problem had been the road to the resort.
The road up the surface of the plateau was steep and dangerous, and so she had spent a lot of money to change the ascend from a straight uphill horror into a series of L-shaped turns, with both sides of the road protected by strong concrete and metallic railings.
And so, on the afternoon of her birthday, she had set off with her parents to surprise them with the beautiful resort she had built.
But, as fate would have it, her parents never set eyes on the edifice.
They had been meandering their way up the incline in the sturdy car.
Her parents had been in the back whilst Julie sat beside the chauffeur.
And then, quite suddenly, the driver had lost control of the car alarmingly, and slammed into a concrete railing, which hadn’t held as expected, but had collapsed, and suddenly the car had somersaulted down the incline, and everything had gone dark for Julie!
***
Julie woke up in a hospital bed.
She had a splitting headache, and her neck really pained her.
She was wearing a cervical collar around her neck, and her whole body ached.
Also, she had a slight painful sensation in her right leg too.
Julie stared at the ceiling.
It was dark, she guessed, and a low fluorescent tube was on at the end of the ward.
She shut her eyes tightly as she heard that horrible sound again…
…the sound of shearing and grinding metal, the sound of the whining engine, the sound of breaking glass, and then the horror of the car somersaulting, the screams of her dear parents…
Tears seeped from under her closed eyelids, blazing a hot trail down the sides of her face…
She opened her eyes slowly again, her heart beating with trepidation as she tried to sit up.
Her head and neck throbbed painfully as she tried unsuccessfully to get up, and just as she got ready to scream, the door opened and a portly woman in the white uniform of a nurse strode in.
Behind the nurse was a medium-built handsome man in his early thirties.
He was dressed in black trousers, a navy-blue plain shirt, and a darker shade of blue tie with white dots.
The tie was loosened at his neck, and his sleeves were rolled up.
He was bespectacled, and as he walked toward the bed he slowly removed his glasses and carefully tucked it into his top pocket.
“Please, don’t try to move, madam!” the nurse said sharply as she put a flat tray she was holding down and quickly held Julie’s arms.
Julie’s eyes, however, were focused on the man standing at the foot of the bed with his hands thrust into his pockets.
His name was Akwasi Dapaah, and he was part of the accounting team in her father’s company.
Julie, a top executive in the company, had never liked Akwasi although her father trusted the young man very much.
He had always seemed to go out of his way to frustrate most of her initiatives, always stressing that there was no planned capital available for her initiatives, or that the money would be better served in other ventures.
Akwasi had raised a lot of fuss and misgivings about her intentions to build The Hideaway Resort, and for a time her father had almost stopped her from assessing the funds to complete the project.
However, the Financial Manager, Jacob Acquah, who happened to be Julie’s fiancé, had come in whenever the going got tough to convince the Board that they could spare the extra funds for the project.
Recently, Julie and Jacob had been planning to have Akwasi sacked from the company.
Jacob had been building up a case against the young man, much to Julie’s delight.
She would be happy to see the back of Akwasi.
She couldn’t explain why she hated him so much, or why they always seemed to be at each other’s throats.
Maybe it was because Akwasi was the complete opposite of her.
Akwasi, still a bachelor, was a staunch Christian who believed in all that stuff in the Bible which, to Julie, was a bunch of fairy-tale crap.
Akwasi was still a virgin at thirty-two, but Julie wasn’t.
She had eventually decided to settle down with Jacob, and they had planned their wedding at the end of the year.
That didn’t stop her from sleeping with him in the four years since she accepted his proposal to marry her.
Jacob was forty-eight years old, much older than her, but she loved him to bits, and that made up for any other differences between them.
She didn’t believe in the Bible, or the Great Judgement Day of God, or heaven and hell.
Maybe, it was Akwasi’s disdainful and judgemental attitude toward her way of life that made her hate him so much.
“What the hell are you doing here, Akwasi?” Julie asked tightly.
He regarded her for a moment, his face completely expressionless.
“I asked you a damn question!” Julie threw at him. “If you’re just going to stand there like some silly gargoyle just get the f**k outta here!”
“Madam!” the elderly nurse said with a disapproving frown. “Please, stop that! This gentleman has been here for many hours now, since the accident, just waiting for you to come out of the unconsciousness.”
Akwasi sighed softly.
“Don’t waste your breath on her, nurse,” he said in his calm, deep voice. “Just checking on you, Julie. I can see you’re okay, so I’ll take my leave now.”
He turned, but suddenly Julie spoke again.
“No, wait, Akwasi!” she said quickly. “My parents…please, how are they?”
Akwasi stopped, but his back was still to her, and for several minutes he couldn’t speak.
EPISODE 2
Julie felt her panic rising by the stiffness of Akwasi Dapaah.
She stopped breathing for a split of time as the fear hammered through her heart, and the agony tore at her.
“Akwasi, how are my parents?” Julie asked, her heart tearing apart. “Answer me, goddamned you! Answer me, please!”
“Madam, please, take it easy, please,” the elderly nurse said, her face troubled, but Julie slapped her hands aside and struggled into a sitting position as Akwasi turned slowly.
He just looked at Julie, and she saw his jaws working hard, and then she saw the tears slowly trickling down his cheeks.
“No!” Julie screamed, her heart almost jumping out of her chest into her mouth as the grief tore her to shreds. “No, no, no! They’re not dead! Don’t tell me they’re dead! Oh, God! Oh, no!”
“I’m sorry, Julie,” he said finally, his voice shattered. “They didn’t make it. The chauffeur is dead too. God saved only you, for a purpose, I guess.”
“F**k you, you bastard!” she screamed fiercely, totally out of control, her voice anguished. “F**k you, Akwasi, and your f**king stupid beliefs! Saved me for what purpose? Your God should have killed me instead and spared them, yes! I’m the sinner, and I’m the fornicator! I’m the one who doesn’t believe in the bloody existence of your God and His son Jesus Christ! My parents believed in all that crap, and have been Christians all their lives! So if there were lives worth saving for purposes, theirs should’ve been saved! I should be the dead one, you f**king stupid bastard!”
Julie bunched up on the bed and wept bitterly.
The elderly nurse walked up to Akwasi and looked at him with sad eyes.
“Don’t let her get to you, please,” she said gently.
“She’s hurting. Please, go to her. I’m going to get a doctor,” she said and walked out quickly.
Akwasi Dapaah took a deep breath, and then he walked toward the beautiful wailing woman on the bed.
“I’m sorry, Julie!” he said, reaching out for her.
Julie looked at him with maddened eyes. Then quite suddenly she slapped him hard across the face with her left hand.
The sound of her hand meeting his face was a horrible one, gratingly violent and undeniably horrific.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed. “Keep your filthy hands from me, you bastard!”
For a very brief moment, she saw the rage on his face, and the fire burning in his eyes, but it was gone quickly, and he took a step back from her, then he turned toward the door, his hunched shoulders suggesting a rage he was trying to keep bottled up.
“Akwasi!” she called in her abject grief, and again he stopped and turned sideways toward her.
“Where’s Jake, please?”
“How would I know?” he asked in a tightly angry voice. “He’s your boyfriend. You should call him and ask him.”
She looked at him, her beautiful face shattered with the depths of her grief.
“But how did you know about the accident?” she groaned. “How did you hear, and get here so quickly?”
He smiled grimly.
“I was waiting at the resort,” he said slowly. “I heard the sound of the crash, and we rushed down. So I got there first and called an ambulance. We managed to get all of you out of the car before it exploded.”
“You were at the resort?” Julie asked with shock. “It was my birthday surprise to my parents. I invited only my friends! You were not invited!”
He looked at her angrily.
“Yeah, you didn’t invite me, but your father did,” he said softly. “He wanted me to be present too. I refused it but he wouldn’t listen, and insisted I be there. So I had no option but to go over. I could never say no to your father.”
“My father knew? It was supposed to be a surprise. Anyway, what about Jake?” Julie asked numbly, her heart beating with pain. “Wasn’t he at the resort? He promised me he would be there early.”
“He wasn’t, didn’t see him,” Akwasi said calmly. “Look, don’t worry too much about your parents, okay? Both of them died on the spot, they didn’t suffer much. They’re good Christians too, so I know there’s a good place for their souls.”
“You’re happy, aren’t you?” Julie asked scathingly, her eyes blazing hatred at him.
“Yes, you never wanted me to build the resort in the first place, you bastard! Are you happy now? You must be happy, yes, and must be feeling justified right at this moment.”
He raised his hand and pointed a stiff finger at her.
“You make me sick, Juliana!” he said with unrestrained bitterness and anger now. “Even now, even at this horrible moment, you still think the world revolves around you. Grow up, Julie!”
The door opened behind him, and an elderly doctor with grey hair entered. He approached Julie quickly.
Akwasi turned away and walked out of the ward.
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