Love from Angel

Consider a certain hot afternoon in October. The sun was sending its savagely fierce missile of rays upon the earth, the kind of missile that knows neither friends nor enemies. The strong and persistent sun rays that knows every secret passage to the skin pores. The unkind summer sun that amalgamates heat and make couples dread lovemaking. The scorching rays that encourages young ladies to put on jumping, skimpy and sleeveless dresses that expose their flaccid biceps, and the mouth-watering lower part of their abdomen that would never satiates the appetite of the morally malnourished men, those men with gimlet eyes – those whose stares can rip to pieces any apparels that women use to cover their nakedness.


Helen Jones had defiled the lingering insurgence of the sun and had gone to a near by Shopping Mall. She had gone to pick assorted candles, flowers, perfume, new blue CDs and DVDs and all that would sparkle and spice up her traditional Sunday lovemaking with her husband. Though there are varied opinions on whether lovemaking between couples should be spontaneous or pre-planned. Helen and her husband chose to make it spontaneous, due to certain circumstance she wished they could change.

Angel Crimson Jones had been a busy husband who was married to his career rather than his wife, an act that had in the past put the marriage on a verge of disintegration. The family counselor had advised the couple to fix a particular day for their lovemaking escapade, a suggestion that had put an end to the aged-long squabbles. Sunday was unanimously chosen.

To Helen Jones, every Sunday was special. From the food that would caress her hunger to the mood of the plates used in serving the food; from the bright-coloured apparels that would hug her curvy and voluptuous body to her breathtaking walking steps, every activity of her on Sunday speaks romance. Sunday was the day she would feel like a woman, the day she would feel the warmth of her ever busy husband.

Helen was at the shopping mall when her phone beeped. It was her “Sweet Angel”. Before she picked the call, many things had run through her mind. She thought her husband had called to “carry-over” the much anticipated act to the following day. The second thing that came to mind was may be to remind her to pick Joan from school. But it was neither of the two.

“Hi my sweetie, please kindly come home now. I’ve a big surprise for you.” Angel Jones beckoned with excitement.

“Ok my Angel. Give me some minutes, say fifteen.” Helen replied as she hastened up and quickly summarized her shopping activities.

Before ten minutes, Helen was home. Right from the gate she was shouting in ecstasy, “Honey…Honey… I’m home.” When Helen got to the sitting room where she thought “Honey” would be waiting, she saw that the whole place was deserted, quiet and dead. The television was off. The CD player was no longer playing Don Williams MP3 she had inserted before leaving the house. Only the well-arranged books, old magazines and shredded newspapers were staring at her curious face.

“Honey…Honey…where are you? I’m home.” Helen called with agog. “Hey…Hey…Please…there’s…there’s no time for pranks today” she muttered as she walked faster to the bedroom.

On getting to the bedroom, Helen sighted her husband lying on the floor. Sleeping? Searching for something? Immediately, she quickly flung all the things she had bought for the memorable Sunday night, not mindful of their frailness. Helen was as silenced as her silenced husband.

“Angel…What are you doing on the floor? What surprise do you have for me on the floor?” Helen moved closer to confirm her fear. As soon as she grabbed Angel’s body she knew that something tragic had happened. If a loud piercing scream could wake the dead, Angel would have come to life. Shortly, Helen’s eyes were overwrought and dampened with water. After much condensation, there was a sporadic heavy downpour - rain of tears. Can the rain stub out the fiery furnace? It was a furnace of great passion and pains; furnace of unprecedented shock and disappointment. It was hell.

It all happened in the ambience of the same room where they frequently kissed every Sunday night, and giggled like Tom and Jerry, and later climaxed with lovemaking. The room that would always steam and glow of romance was now filled with sorrow and agonies; the room where Angel Jones Crimson would seat to write all those controversial articles and books about developing countries. Helen couldn’t just believe it; her tears understandably couldn’t stop gushing; her heart couldn’t just stop bleeding; confusion had built a huge tent on her sobbing soul. Her grief stood tall; like Zuma Rock it stood broad, unbreakable and immersed in an obscured spherical aberration. Her husband, Angel Jones Crimson had just aborted a dream and robbed the world of an inestimable asset. It was an act people considered bizarre and stupid but to Angel, it is the “wisest decision ever taken” - suicide.

In a two-paragraphed note Angel left behind for his thirty two years old wife Helen, he had written philosophically: “My dear Helen, the world is laden with mysteries of different magnitudes: about the known and the unknown, our likes and dislikes, about what we hate and what we love and above all, about life and death.”

The send paragraph read: “My recent decision is the hottest and most recent of all mysteries. It’s painful though but don’t cry for me. This is the best decision ever taken by me, the best way I can prove my love for you. Because of your love I lived, and for your sake I’ve died. This is the greatest love from me to you. Tell Joan how much I love her.”

Angel had once described Africa as the Continent of Agonies because if “you give them gun or machete, they will use it to slaughter themselves…give them aids for AIDS the ruling elites would turn it to money making venture.” It was from this same room he had written “African leaders are living large, always fetching fortunes from the misfortune of their fellow humans.” Is the agony Angel bequeathed to his wife and seven year daughter not greater than that which was handed to Africa by her leaders?

Angel was adjudged by all standards as a successful journalist in all its ramifications. He had won many awards in journalism including the prestigious Pulitzer Award for the Best Investigative Journalist of the Century. His books always top on the United States and UK charts. He had special interest in Africa and Africans and had written several books with controversial, enigmatic and sometimes ridiculous titles. Check out the following: “Oh Foolish Africa”, “God’s Second Mistake”, “The Prodigal Continent” “The Hottest Part of Hell”, “Who Ate the Umbilical Cord?” and “The Foolish Poor Who Feeds the Rich”. Though these books explore different themes on the origin of the numerous problems of Africa including corruption, religious intolerance, greed and violence but did not ignore the roles of the Western countries in the woes of Africa especially in flaming some of the home-based violence, genocide, ethnic annihilation and political despondency. But truly, only a coward and the weak would continue to have the feeling that he is being limited by historical, political and social circumstance. It is not colonialism that has limited Africa. It is not neo-colonialism. It is not globalization. It is the inability of Africa to take responsibility.

Angel had taken responsibility about his past and he felt the best way to do it was to commit suicide, an act of cowardice. No one could fathom why Angel Crimson could take solace in terminating his own life at the peak of his fame. Not even his wife whom he had shared fourteen years with. Not Bill Herbert, a loyal, faithful, reliable and professional colleague whom he had worked with for more than a decade. Not even Joan, Angel Crimson’s only begotten child who he always spend his leisure with at beaches, ice cap of Alaska, and in some notable places in Africa like Obudu Cattle Ranch, Tinapa and sometimes, in South Africa and Kenya. Want to know why Angel committed suicide? Watch out for my "The Hottest Part of Hell"