A close encounter

Have you ever had a close encounter? This question may get varied responses depending on how an individual perceives the question. For the purpose of this piece the close encounter being referred to is with a creature no one would ordinarily want to meet as such meeting is usually accompanied with a period of grief. How long the period turns out to be depends largely on how those who feel the impact of the encounter relate with the creature.

This encounter is with none other than death. Having a near death experience can be a traumatic encounter which could leave one scarred for life. It could also be a turning point in one's life. It may just be the jolt one needs to begin living a purpose filled life if that was not previously the case. Some individuals may have just one close encounter in the course of their lifetime while others may have several of them especially if their job is a hazardous one such as law enforcement.

I have had two of such encounters which I vividly recall till date. The first was in my third year in college. This encounter was the one that scared me most probably because I was still rather young then. Being a student at the Faculty of Agriculture, it was a routine to have on farm practicals weekly. On the fateful day, we had completed our routine farm assignments with an additional task of clearing out and cleaning a preiously occupied poultry house.

At the close of the practicals I proceeded to see a friend who was managing a shop outside the college premises. Nothing seemed amiss during and after I had seen my friend. However as I proceeded for Friday prayers I started to feel funny. By the time the prayers were concluded it became obvious to me that something was wrong as I had developed a slight fever . I immediately proceeded home hoping that with a little rest I would feel better and everything would have normalised.

However by the evening, the fever had increased and I had started to develop chest pain with little difficulty in breathing. I managed to keep up appearances with my folks at home that all was well but as the night progressed it became increasingly difficult for me to breathe properly. With each breadth I took it was as though a huge rock had been placed on my chest making breathing a labourous exercise. Thankfully I made it through the night.

By the next morning my folks were alarmed to discover what I had gone through the previous night and promptly took me to see a doctor who prescribed some antibiotics pending the outcome of medical tests. A physical medical examination and an X-ray later, I was diagnosed to have contracted pneumonia which could have been fatal had prompt medical attention not been given. For the next few days I had to take a bed rest and miss a few classes but it was a little price to pay considering the worse case scenario that could have played out.

The second encounter was when I was travelling to a neighbouring state. For some reason which I can't quite remember now I had departed on the trip rather late in the day. I boarded a bus belonging to a well known transport company in my country. From the moment we boarded, I observed that the driver was unusually in a hurry and was driving at a rather high speed. While we were close to our destination, there was some traffic and vehicles were moving at a snail's pace.

The next we saw was our driver alighting from the vehicle to engage a tout locally called 'agebero' in a fist scuffle. Eventually he returned to the vehicle after much outcry from the passengers . His actions were out of character for what we had come to know employees of his company for. They are generally civil and well mannered. His actions made passengers including my self to be on edge and apprehensive as we doubted if he was not under some sort of influence.

For a brief moment I dozed off only to be jolted to reality by the screenching sound of our vehicle against the road. Our vehicle had fallen on its side and was skidding with speed off the road. It finally came to a halt a little distance from an electric pole. In the midst of the confusion as to what had just transpired we managed to evacuate the fallen vehicle to safety through one of the broken rear windows. While we were contemplating what would have been out fate if the vehicle had collided with the electric pole, someone raised an alarm that the driver was nowhere to be found.

It was at that point that one of the onlookers who had witnessed the accident and had rushed to the scene informed us that the driver had bailed out of the moving vehicle like a stuntsman in an action movie as it fell on its side leaving the passengers to their fate. Aside a little body pain that night I was largely unscratched by the accident. Only God knows if I would have been alive to narrate this today if indeed our vehicle had collided with the electric pole. That mere thought still sends shivers down my spine anytime I recall the encounter.

On a bright side, these encounters have further reinforced my belief that death will only come at its appointed time. It cannot be delayed or hastened by even a millisecond. When the time eventually comes there's no escaping it. With this in mind we should all live intentionally by having a purpose or goal in life. Don't just be a number in the statistics of the human population, strive to leave a mark and impact the lives of others positively.

Shukran

Danke

Merci

Gracias

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ধন্যবাদ

Спасибо

for reading.