The Pool Club

Like all Mondays, this Monday was blue for MuCondemn – a blue Monday of the bluest month of the year. Yours truly, the only person to be adorned with a condemned rank, was playing the damn hide and seek with a damn blue day. 

He cursed.

Actually, he was burning to say, Damn! but his mouth – a mouth that should go into the Guiness Book of Records for being the only one with a mind of its own – mouthed a foul word that it had excavated from the nether depths inside the Titanic that had shipped the Queen’s nosy language into the country.

The Condemned One smiled; he loved his mouth, especially when it was up and running. When MuCondemn’s mouth ran, its full course was worse than a running nose; even worse than a running stomach for that matter. Queen’s language was really weird – a nose ran, a stomach ran – but feet grew cold! Hell.

In its heyday, MuCondy’s mouth ran faster than Usain’s lightning Bolt. Come to think of it, his bionically athletic mouth was why he was here at the stable plains, gaping at two amorphous, monstrous geomorphological features and exchanging briny words with a senior man two ranks higher.

Life behind the stables. He smacked his lips – and cursed again as a cracking canker reminded him that he had not eaten anything that morning – the life of an attested bachelor. MuCondemn was hungry. He was broke – so broke he could not even pay attention. He was unshaven. He was hung over. And he was suffering from that insidious ailment of Janus. Why did they call it the January disease anyway; MuCondemn was broke all year round, like the faithful rainfall that waters the equator on an almost daily basis. In all reality, they should call it the disease of January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October and December. Except November. Oh, sweet November; hallowed be thy name, you blessed month of Goat; for you bring forth my extra cheque.

But this particular Monday was turning a particularly unusual navy hue. See, yours truly has always revered himself at the station, as that lucky lump of coal that withstood the fiery furnace of time. The diamond boy (golden boys are no longer in sync these days). Lord Reverend Chief MuCondemn The Chosen One. What a title. Boy, was he so happy in this, his self-appointed capacity as the think tank of the whole station.

Until that navy blue Monday, when he glanced up the notice board – and realised that his name and a precious few others of the Rank of Condemnation had been chosen to form a novel station committee.

The Pool Club.

“What the eff!” A flummoxed MuCondemn exclaimed, oblivious to the fact that the Officer-In-Chief was milking his smooth shave behind him.

“What the eff is an effing Pool Club?”

“It’s a special club MuCondy,” The OIC startled and smiled at him. MuCondemn’s heart gave two massive bang baaaaaangs – this guy had never smiled at him before. Except that time when MuCondy realised he was about to do the roll-roll on the wet front yard under the orders of a Saa Mheja of his own choice.

“A very special club where especially condemned people like you belong. There you do special duties with a senior man of your choice.

“Come, I’ll take you myself today, ‘cause honestly, I don’t wanna miss your first day in the pool.”

MuCondemn cursed under his breath – this was not a good new year. It was a cursed new year.

“Special duties, my foot!” A few rags were wrapped around his one hand, a container containing dishwasher in another. He stared at the two gargantuan mounds of red earth before him; they looked like giant red anthills where bulls sharpen their horns and horn their fighting skills before engaging in the real thing. MuCondy guffawed when the OIC told him the two reds were actually vehicles; and that they needed cleaning.

“But shefu, don’t you mean they are mineral ores which need to be refined at a place somewhere else that is not here at these stables?”

No car on earth looked like those things.

“You should be done in an hour. That is an order.”

Bloody orders. MuCondemn wept, but since it had started to rain, no one saw his tears. Effing orders. Hell; maybe the OIC should summon that petulant minister who ordered his poor workers to show him where the money was so he could just scoop it and dole it out (all the time MuCondemn wondering; if they knew where the precious quids were, wasn’t it the logical law of human nature that would silently dig them out themselves, and bypass the self-important guy as it were).

The way that the minister – who has been on the job for only two years – loves barking orders; he surely must be in the wrong profession. MuCondy really thinks the OIC should grab the scallywag under his smelly wing, and start by ordering him to lead him to a shop – any shop – in this great nation that sells food for free. Then they should make a stopover at a school were the cost of education was a kiss on the... anywhere. While there, MC’s OIC should order the guy into a pool like the one MuCondemn had been condemned into, and ask him to breath in water. Yea. That will sure work wonders to his PR inabilities, and in the process, also teach him few free lessons about the sanctity of human life.

“MuCondemn!”

The demoted, now rank-less, status-less and definitely disgraced ordinary rank member was jolted out of his phantasm by the OIC bellowing. MuCondy – who had lost all his previous titles and was now known as only MC – smiled. This must be a season of ignominious demotions; at least his was a very localised and very private affair that wouldn’t leave the gates of the station. Outside, some organisations were hanging their dirty linen on national lines, publicly dragging each other through the mud and cow puddles from their lofty echelons where they had thought they had done enough to nail themselves to the high places.

Ahh. Life must be the fairest thing on this land, MC mused, grinning.

“Young man, I said what did you do to my cars!” The OIC barked. The stubborn dog in MC’s throat started growling, and his twisted mouth thought of saying something at that time.

“Holy s...”

He checked his mouth before he had committed another felony that would surely have the OIC ordering him to spend the day doing all vehicles at the stable bay. And that would mean his life as the life president of the Pool Club would be cemented.

“What did you say?”

“Why; holy sorry sir.”

“MuCondy; did you lick my cars?”

“Sorry sir, I...”

“You cheeky devil. You literally licked them clean! You know what; this was your redemption. I know stable duties have never been your domain, but this is extraordinary!

“I should give you a week off. A week of your choice. And as of now, you are immediately fired from the Club, and back to your old duties.”

Just like that: MuCondy had never earned a day off work in his life as an order-taking automaton, save for those that were set aside for every Jack and Jill. But now he had seven whole days away from this hustle and bustle – by doing the very thing he had hated the most. He reckoned right now he could ask for a few quid to spend while on holiday, and the OIC wouldn’t say no.

So’ dig that my fellow Pool Clubbers; not everything that spits on your face does so to spite you.

The same fate befell a fellow member, who sadly does not belong to the club, who cursed his ancestors when he was moved by a crane from the border to the nethermost parts of the country that suffer from terminal and persistent attacks of flooding; even when the storms happened in a teacup. Like the say in MC’s homeland, dumbu remurume rakapweva – literally within twenty-four hours.

Nevertheless, he relocated, kicking and screaming – only to profusely thank his lucky stars the next day after he recovered his car that he had lost some years back.

Who says life is not fair?

Because apparently, we even have members in our midst who could give Jesus a run for his money, as far as performing minana is concerned. MC wondered why some prominent figures in this land of opportunity spend gazillions in travelling expenses when they trekked to the great TBJ seer in Nigeria to seek divine mercy.

MC heard it being whispered in a meeting recently that some members in the anti-stock theft cluster could miraculously turn an Obama note into a Form 392 – right before one’s eyes. The only catch is in that there is a specific type of note involved, and the minana only happen when you bring the note to the station.

But more on that in the next instalment. Meantime, let’s all put our glasses and bottoms up and drink. To condomna.., sorry, condemnation!

May we all gather by the pool and enjoy its holy waters!