STORY : THREE DAYS GONE.

 AUTHOR-  ROOSEVELT BERNARD

When every young man gets a job it is the best feeling ever he looks for the sweetest lady to share the news and even share his house and plan a home together. At this moment naivety and inexperience dominates. A drunkard would prefer spending most of his time in pubs drinking and merry making. He enjoys life which is cool he is carefree which is sad. This goes on for the better part of young adult life until something happens. The job is lost. No savings no investment no plan B. The employer simply says NO. This young man is stranded with no way forward and he realizes the only help he can get from his regular friends is a bottle or two. What of his lady? What of his food? He is lost and confused. He lives on hopes and regrets for every coin he spent on unworthy friends and activities. Faced with responsibilities and nothing to do or cover for it. He is broken, broke and sad. What to do next but walk with head down depending on help from relatives who mock and show fake pity before they give something small hoping you don't return soon as they make calls to others letting them know they just helped you. 

To a young man hard hit and jobless, nothing is as exciting as receiving a call for a job offer and more juicy still if it is a supervisory post job. If it is in a city like Nairobi then all you do is jump to it in happiness. A good offer and a housing promise. You wake up early prepared and smartly dressed ready to start your job. It is a Saturday so you get things set and you leave east lands for mlolongo industrial area. Things run smoothly and by 10 am everything set your contract signed and you are to report by Monday to your new office. You embark on a house hunting spree just to move your stuff next to your work station. Unaware that this is the day you are to die and disappear completely.
You meet a stranger and make friends trusting naturally without a doubt. You share a newspaper and he asks you for the magazine that stays at the center of the Saturday paper. There he says give me 10 minutes I am coming back with someone who will show you a vacant house for rent.
He returns in exactly 5 minutes with two canned drinks and hands you one and you both take sips as you wait. 

 
10 more minutes and you don't know where you are. You can't move your limbs,you are helpless,and allthat you hear are distance voices you black out at around Saturday noon. You are dead!! Literally Gone and your three days start from Saturday 1200 hours.

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After the drink of death all you feel is numbness your spirit is alive while the soul is gone. One by one I started to lose my senses. Can't talk, can't move. My phone is taken, my jeans coat taken, my shirt taken, my shoes taken, I am in a trouser and vest only. No idea where I am. I give up and well die literally. Gone. Saturday night in a place far from home,Sunday daytime still dead, Sunday night out with no sense yet the spirit is alive. Monday daytime and night, no feelings, and no memory at all. So how do people die? It's Tuesday morning I hear voices, I can't open my eyes but from a distance a voice tells me you are fine go home.
I lift my head and try to sit up but down I go.I open my eyes to look around yes I am alive but half dead. There's a crowd around me and they don't make sense at all. "This is not alcohol coz I have seen him here for the third day now" somebody says and I can hear now......

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For a man who left home at 0800 hours on a Saturday morning promising to return by midday It must be naughty to stay off air with mobile phone switched off exactly the time you are expected back home. So people get mad and keep waiting for you to return with a proper explanation. No if you spend a night out it gets worse. Two days is too much and people start worrying. You must be in trouble they look everywhere, sleeplessly, every corner every friend’s house, every possible leads. Call your parents to report that you are missing.
The search gets worse and your close relatives walk in gloom unaware of what befell you..."friends" meet in groups and start discussing how probably you are with a woman for the weekend, how you could be hiding from life's stresses because you are jobless. It reaches Monday and even your new employer can't get the drift...You must have feared the job and decided to escape.
Relatives send messages to anyone with information. Looking for ways to search major hospitals, listening to news bulletin in case of reports on accidents, you must be dead. What of checking on the mortuaries and morgues??
Two worlds apart your mum, your lady, your true friends and your close confidants remain stranded. They start looking for plan B.

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Meanwhile as I lie down helpless and with faded images of the crowd around me, I start to recollect what would have happened, whyI am here and when did I arrive here. I open my mouth to answer to the first question I hear

"Who are you and do you remember anything??

I talk in broken kind of speech half-drunk, half asleep almost alive.
This young man holds me close and asks again do you remember anything, how did you reach here? So I sit up with his help and I shake my head. Then I ask him where am I? You are at GM Nairobi do you know where you stay?? He asks.
I am literally reduced to a baby. No idea but willing to get to the comfort of home. I am drained and hungry, tired and helpless.
Some woman in this crowd says. ”let’s get him some milk.” so the packet of fresh milk is rushed to me in the best way only good Samaritans do to revive a life. I am grateful and I can see light in the eyes of trustworthy strangers. After the milk I fall back to sleep on the ground still weak.
With determination and courage they wake me up and ask if I would eat something solid. I remember eating some cakes which I can't recall their taste. I eat and drink more water and Boom!!! A life revived. A soul rescued and well to God be the glory one stranger killed and more strangers rescued.

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Finding strangers who can give you new sandals, a new shirt and cash to take you home is a blessing. So I pick myself up and board a bus for home. I fall asleep once again inside this bus and realize I am the only passenger left after everyone has alighted. It is 1130 hours on Tuesday and I am woken up by the abuses and shakes from this rogue conductor who asks me for bus fare and informs me that I have gone round my trip. I search for the hundred shilling in my pocket but mhh it's not there. Lost. I don't know whether i dropped it or pick pocketed again. The rude conductor tells me I am drunk and have to alight immediately. I walk down the bus and to my surprise and shock I am at buruburu and the man standing in front of me is my elder brother.

Lost and found or missing and returned? Happiness and as tears roll down his eyes I can see sincere love from a blood brother to his young one. He can't force anything out of me but his happiness can't be hidden. He calls home and the good news is broken in great relief. I comfortably reach home to kill the rumors that had filled the air and bring in a fresh hope, a warmth, sweetness and a smile that had GONE FOR THREE DAYS. 

***********************THE END!!************************************