Wounded Pilgrim 17

WRONGED AND ACCUSED

The text was from Deacon Musa whom for a long time had not communicated to him. The text from the old man was rather straight forward in what it was addressing. Unlike other elders in the church who would take time to address a point in church he was different. Whereas others would go to extra lengths to quote a scripture in the Bible and throw other religious quotes here and there before addressing the issue he just shortened the way in a sentence or two. His text could be read at a glance once it showed up on the phone notifications. 

"LET'S MEET IN THE PASTOR'S OFFICE TOMORROW AFTER THE SERVICE YOU BROKE THE WORD YOU BEAT RICHARD INNOCENTLY" read the text. He normally texted in capital letters. Most probably he was using a feature phone which didn't have the comfort of mixing small letters and capital letters and maybe auto capitalize like a smartphone would do. In the modern world such a text was equivalent to shouting to someone. Only someone who started to use a phone recently would think the text is well written since its as short as a telegram text and capitalized for even a person with a poor eye sight to read quickly.

The time was a quarter past midnight. He turned and rolled with a lot of uneasiness and pain in his body. He wished he had some pain killers to relieve the pain but he rarely bought them since most of the time he always drank water and slept and he would just wake up just fine. Moreover with such a peace of mind threatening text on phone sleep was not easy to come by for poor Bartholomew.

“Mama Becky, Its me Bartho”, he replied as his neighbor questioned who was knocking his door at that time of the night. Soon his neighbor unlocked the door and he stepped inside. She was in her pajamas looking really sleepy.

“So young man what brings you to my doorstep at this time of the night?” Mama Becky asked.

“I got some sort of emergency”, he replied.

“What sort of an emergency does a bachelor like you have in the wee hours of the night?”

“Actually my left jaw hurts and I cant sleep, do you happen to have some pain killers in your reserve?”

“Sorry my son about that, let me ask my daughter for some.”

“Sure it will help me get some sleep especially since tomorrow is Sunday”

“Becky! Becky! Becky!” She called out into the inner room. Then she went into the inner room for the pain killers.

“Here they are, my daughter can hardly wake up at this time to help someone. Yet these are the kind of people you are thinking of making your wives!”

Bartholomew said nothing as he swallowed the tablets and drank the water. He pretended he didn’t hear what she said last. He thanked her and went back to his house where it didn’t take long before him falling asleep.

It was already some minutes past eight when he woke up. Since he was not the type that gets late to church he hurried off to the bathroom and the rest of his chores were done in hurry. He could not help it as he liked to get to the pre-service and hear the specials that were being sung on that particular Sunday. He didn’t mind going with un ironed clothes and with no breakfast. Breakfast sometimes made people get late for anything be it work or church. You prepare it late and having to wait for it to cool down all becomes a nightmare.

Later that afternoon in the pastor’s office neither Richy nor his brother were present. Deacon Musa came rather late and expressed his concern about the missing brothers. The swollen jaw could be seen and that made it easy for Bartholomew to explain what exactly had happened. The pastor and the deacon were sorry for him and couldn’t help promising to follow up the matter with Eliezer and Richy on that. That evening Bartholomew was happy and he could not help singing some of his favourite tunes. His jaw was still aching but the fact he came out clean from the pastor’s office made him feel better. It was going to be a good week for him without much drama in his house and probably an awesome month for him.

It must have been almost two weeks later on Sunday evening that Bartholomew was relaxing in his house after church that thought he heard a knock at the door. Some feminine voice was calling from outside. He didn’t have the slightest clue who it was. Though it just six o’clock he peeped through the glass on top of the door to see who it was. The lady was short so he could not see her face. Then he turned to look from the window and there what he could see was the her back part.