The ‘Black Days’ In The Streets

Creative Works by : Melting Ice Towers

At the sides of the road, they crawl using their ischemic worn out palms and semi-gangrenous knees gradually as they look upon the riders of cars and those walking with a pair of blessed legs. Others watch from their wheelchairs as they wave to at least get something for the day from you who sometimes dismiss them as pretenders.

‘wachana na uyo anajifanya. Io mguu amekunja tu!’ (Leave that begging man alone, he has just coiled his leg so we give him money)that is how they say.

Their eyes depicting the kind of suffering they have endured all through their entire life.Some are children aged between 6yrs to 14yrs, young adolescents and the aged who should be taken care by their children and grandchildren. Why abandon your parents and grandparents who survived on ‘weaving baskets and selling soap stones’ for you to live that kind of posh life in the city? Why don’t we have that heart to care for our parents despite everything they have done for us? They brought us into this world. Young girls begging on the roads are raped repeatedly, men sodomized day in day out, and nobody raises an alarm nor cares about whatever happens to them. Haven’t we heard enough stories?

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There is something that has been happening in secret that should be brought out to light. There are certain people who are taking them for a ‘bad ride’. There are certain people making the disabled people feel the pain of whom they are. Some even wish they could be left alone to die than continue suffering in the places they are in. Some have cried until they cannot do it anymore. Life has become a misery to many of the disabled people in town.

This is the story:

There are cartels or groups of people who are operating by manipulating the disabled around the cities. Let us not pretend we do not know what is happening. They are minting money from the disabled children and adults.

As you walk along the pavements alongside the roads, you meet them placed in strategic positions. They are conspicuously placed to catch the attention of the well-wishers. Have you ever asked yourselves who places them where they are? Have you ever asked yourselves who takes them when evening encroaches? Have you ever spent some minutes of your time to talk to one of them and hear what they have to say to you? Have you? That is why you are missing lots of details.

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We came across this man by name “John” (real name withheld). He suffered a severe road accident 4 years ago that led to the loss of his two lower limbs. Life has never been the same again. His friends disowned him, his relatives forgot about him and the most hurting, the family and the girlfriend who he was to marry in a month’s time, left him for good. That was the most troubling event in his life. He started wondering where he was to get food and even do the normal basic activities of daily living e.g. bathing, cooking, going to the toilet, washing his clothes among many others. He had to adapt to his new life alone.

 

At his newly acquired one bedroom house, where he was living with his girlfriend –Linda (name withheld), he wandered crawling on his hands and feet. His girlfriend never came back home since he was discharged from hospital six month later.

 

To make the situation hurt most, the girlfriend had brought another man in the same house that John paid rent even while he was in hospital. He asked the lady to stay by his side but she strongly refused and she escaped with the foreign man. He had not eaten for two days until his neighbor heard him screaming inside the house. The neighbor saw his agony and made him some food to last him two days.

image from: DailyNebraskan.com

After two days, the neighbor came back to meet him again. This time around, John seemed healthier than before. They talked for a while as she cooked for him food for the next two days. At that time, John came up with a plan.

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‘You may not be able to stay with me for the rest of my life helping me. I need your help on something.’ He proposed.

‘What help do you need?’ the worried neighbor asked.

‘I need a wheelchair’ he paused. ‘I need you to sell all the valuable items in this house so I can afford one. I do not feel good seating all day without seeing anybody.’

 

After some weeks of hard work, the neighbor had managed to purchase a wheelchair and John could be able to view the world from the outside. He would push himself through the pavements in town and borrow money from people who passed his way. Her neighbor would always catch up with him in town and give him some food, clothes and umbrella because it would sometimes rain while he was ‘strolling’ in the streets.

 

At one point in time, John disappeared. The neighbor who always looked after him could not find him. She searched the entire street asking for him from his fellow beggars only to get a negative response. This made her report the Incident to the police who offered to search for him. After one week, the report from the police was negative. He was nowhere to be found.

Shocking Reports got her two months later that John had been found begging in a faraway street around the city kilometers away from where they used to meet. She was also informed that a sleek Land cruiser V8 would drop him in the morning along with other beggars and place them at strategic points where they would beg the entire day from 6 am to 7pm. This made her curious. Her heart felt warm and she smiled. She thought that John’s friends had taken up the duty to assist him.

 

One Saturday, she planned to visit him across the streets. She did not know the exact place and so she kept asking the small scale traders who were lined up along the streets she had been previously informed. As she was asking the questions, she spotted John at a certain Junction where multitudes of people were frequently passing. She approached him from the behind and held his shoulder.

image source Rachel Jones Art

‘John!’ she called out and faced him.

He turned his head abruptly and met the face of his neighbor. He at first kept quiet as he looked around to see whether someone was watching. He did not look the normal ‘John’. The neighbor looked at him closely; she spotted some markings on the face and shoulders.

 

Gradually, she pushed his wheelchair to a nearby corridor in front of a curio shop and held his shoulder.

‘Tell me everything.’ She questioned him with a serious look. ‘Someone has been mistreating you. Isn’t it?’

 

John nodded in agreement.

After a short while, she noted huge chunks of cash that John had collected for only half a day. His clothes were stinking and he looked as if he was always under harassment. She wondered.

‘Where have you been all these days?’

‘Are you working for someone?’ she asked.

John opened his dry mouth and tried to utter some words as his frail embodiment threatened to fall. His neighbor bought for him an energy drink and some snack to at least give him the energy to speak.

‘I am beaten every single day. I miss the days we ate food with you despite living alone. I regret the day I bought this wheelchair and started walking out in town away from good people like you. I met monsters. They drop me here every morning at 6 am locked at the back of a huge car along with 7 other beggars. We collect money for them every day. In the evenings around7.30pm, they come and pick me up throwing me inside the back of the car. They also give us food according to what we collect per day. If you had not achieved their target, they deny or give you very little food. I am suffering. I miss home. I want to come out of this life. Please help me!’

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He started crying on her hands.

She started crying too. She could not imagine the kind of life he was undergoing especially adding to the fact that he did not have legs. How could someone with a pair of legs mistreat such people who cannot fend for themselves?

 

She got up and held him by the shoulder. She called her friend who worked in the government and explained to her the story of what that was happening. Luckily, her friend organized for a deployment of a group of plain-clothes police and CIDs to the area to monitor when and where the lady was. The police met with the neighbor and she informed them the time that John was to be picked up by the people who kidnapped him. The plan was initiated and they hid in strategic inconspicuous places and waited for the said-posh car to arrive at the scene.

 

Just as 7.30 pm was encroaching, a huge Land cruiser V8halted and two men got outside. One of them picked John with his hands as the other took his wheelchair. Both were thrown at the back of the car as the car skidded in speed. All this undertook as the police watched along with the neighbor. The police chase cars were already set in place to follow the location of the vehicle to get the real mastermind of such insane, inhumane and brutal acts. The neighbor was inside one of the police chase cars. After a 30 minutes’ drive, the Land cruiser swerved inside a storey building and zoomed to the basement. It halted next to a sleek Mercedes Benz.

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The police cars were on time and just before the exchange happened, the CIDs had already covered the premises and they guys were all surrounded. More soldiers were deployed to the scene and the guys were arrested. The beggars showed the police officers the dark rooms in which they were being held captive. The disabled men and women were saved from the bad guys and put in a rehabilitative Centre where they would be served well expect for John. The neighbor offered to take care of him for life. She did not want him to suffer again from the jaws of death.The three black suited people inside the Mercedes Benz were held responsible for the acts and suspected to be the masterminds of the business.

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Abuse of the disabled is still happening in the streets. Its upto us to identify and take care of these people. Take your time and talk to them. Get to know how they feel in their hearts. You might save a life

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Read also : the Pseudo Prostitute

 

Read also: the Silent Killer

 

Read also: the Cry Of The Oppressed

 

Read also: the L Bomb