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The Asylum Resident

Lino A.K

    They will tell you of a dangerous criminal and madman now confined to one of the cells of Juba teaching hospital. I won’t dispute those claims but don’t you listen to that hearsay. The true story lives with me in this cell where I now settle down to write, one word at a time and careful to act some madman feats before the doctors think I’m well enough to face the hangman’s rope. Hahahaa! Laugh, that’s what I do when I think about the goddamn hangman and his rope. It works every time like alcohol, I instantly forget about many things.
    The holy book says that the kingdom of heaven is within you. I should add that the kingdom of hell is within you too. The question is about what you always think. You want to know the truth and I will tell you just that. How I ended up here is a long story (forget the one you heard), a very long story. I was born Bol Deng, Barnabas Bol Deng but that does not matter. I forgot that name since I arrived into this hospital, into this cell five years ago. They now call me “the lunatic,” the more polite doctors call me “psychiatric patient,” I call myself asylum resident. I’m just residing here, see.
    I remember when it all started. It came naturally like putting food in your mouth. You don’t learn, you just know. I was then a young boy, God knows I miss those days. I was studying at Gordhim Comboni primary school or otherwise just going to school. I just went to school and sat in class. Then she came, sister Roseline came. Beautiful she was and strangely enough, sister took some sort of liking to me. I would have sworn it was love. She taught us English but volunteered to personally help me learn the Queen’s language because I was terrible. Terrible in practically every subject. I already said I didn’t go to school to learn, I just went there. Then every after classes, I went home and returned to school later in the evening for my personal English lesson with sister Roseline. She would open standard three English and start reading for me word by word, This... is...the... way...we...wash...our...clothes.
    Kenyi....lives...in...Yambio. All that standard three stuff. I learnt anyways but that’s not what I wanted to tell you. See, after all the good work we did in evening classes, sister Roseline suggested I start coming to her room for final touches to my English as she had nice story books stocked there. She could not bring out the books for reasons best known to her. A boy of twelve can’t question a teacher, especially in those days. When the teacher says yes, nobody can say no. So I started coming to the sister’s room every evening. For a good many days, I read from some interesting books (can’t remember their titles, not important anyway) while sister Roseline watched me and smiled. From the look on her face, she was hungry but then she had more than enough food at her disposal. Sometimes she kept massaging her thighs and smiling with the same hungry look on her face. I should have known what she was hungry for but then, I was only twelve.
    Well, sister Roseline kept getting weirder day by day and her hunger for whatever it was kept increasing. Anyhow, I kept reading. Undisturbed. I could watch a girl massaging her thighs but not a sister for Christ’s sake. She was sacred. I had been told all sisters are. They had feelings for one person, God and maybe the needy and the pagans.Then it occurred one day, the sister grabbed me and held me close. To this day, it still seems fictitious that such a thing really happened between me and a sister. I don’t remember what happened within that time but I only recall that I later found myself on a naked sister Roseline with my hands firmly grabbing her neck. Shame weighed down my young head as I removed my hands from her neck and hurried to put on my clothes. Sister Roseline did not stir. She just lay there, oblivious. I felt relieved that at least I could not see the shock on the sister’s face. ‘But what were my hands doing on the sister’s neck’ I kept asking myself that question. I shook sister Roseline, she did not stir. Then it struck me hard. Supposing I had killed sister Roseline. I looked at her chest. It did not rise and fall. I knelt down to feel her chest with my hand. Nothing. I placed my ear upon her left breast to listen to her heartbeat. Again there was nothing. Then for no apparent reason, instead of crying or reprimanding myself or immediately running away, I felt good. I kicked her legs. I played with her breasts. I played between her thighs. Then covered her neatly with a bedsheet and left. The following day, a young innocent boy mourned his dear teacher, sister Roseline. No investigations were done. There was no law, the CPA was not yet even signed. It was still war time. Nevertheless, I had acted so well crying as much as I could for sister Roseline. Only twelve years old. Hahahaa! I wish I still had that kind of creativity, I couldn’t be rotting away in an asylum dodging the hangman’s rope.
    I thought the whole business was done. I promised myself that if I could go to hell, it would be for only that sin and nothing more. I was wrong. Better to promise somebody than yourself. When sister Roseline had lain still,I had felt good. Everybody likes to feel good and feeling good again is something to be looked forward to. Three years later when I was fifteen, I began to miss something and knew what it was. I opened my eyes wide to look for sister Roseline and saw her in Nyanut Ajak. The girl kept shaking her buttocks whenever she passed me. I deduced she was hungry and I could serve her. Satisfy her and send her heavenward early. It came as a terrible thought but I fancied it anyway. At that time I used to sell ball gum at the Allah Kareem market. Nyanut frequented my small ball gum retail shop. She loved ball gums and was partly the reason for the very existence of my shop. But there was another reason why she frequented my shop which I only could tell. I don’t know how I knew. I just knew she was hungry. Knowing that was one of the things I considered my talent especially after sister Roseline. I felt bad remembering sister Roseline but there was something like a tickle in that feeling. Almost like an orgasm. It felt good but I kept skipping the thought of how to go about Nyanut Ajak. I skipped days and days. I even drank our locally brewed alcohol on those days. I wanted to let Nyanut be....but the girl kept visiting my shop and shaking her behind the more. I felt obliged to do my duty. Nyanut was hungry and I had to serve her. I did it anyway. She went missing for a week and they later found her body rotting away at the Aluel Tok swamp. I damned myself for doing that but it was an habit then. Part of me knew it was bound to continue.
    I needn’t go into detail about every single deed I have ever done but there are these two that I particularly cannot skip especially because of the high amounts of pleasure derived and enormous risks incurred. In 2006, I joined the army not out of love for my country or such. Soldiers had started receiving salaries and the amount was damn too good to ignore. My old father was against the choice but I joined anyway, told him I was old enough to take my own decisions. At that time for the first time, the army was being distributed all over the country. As soon as I enlisted, I and some other colleagues were told we had to join a part of tiger division in Yei town. We were overjoyed because Yei was called, ‘up’ in our village. In effect we were going up. Sort of funny isn’t it? Most of my time in Yei was a drought as far as what I’m telling you is concerned. The only turning point arrived towards the end of my third year in Yei. One time I was thinking about the people I had served. Sister Roseline, Nyanut Ajak and Angelina Aker (haven’t talked about this one). In the process of thinking about them, it suddenly hit me hard, “Am forgetting my talent” Open your eyes Bol, open your eyes, I told myself. I opened them. I kept searching, I searched but saw nothing. I was almost convinced that my talent was gone then I saw her. She was a business man’s wife. I remember asking myself, ‘Boy, do you want to die?’
    In fact when I found out that Anita Tumalu was hungry, I first ignored it. For one thing, her husband had a reputation for being a womanizer in Yei. Anyhow, the thing was there, Tumalu was hungry. I figured out that serving her would be no problem, convincing her too would be no problem. The problem was what if I were found? What if the kids saw me enter and heard screams in the house? I pushed those thoughts aside, they weren’t my way of doing things. I considered every ‘what if’ negligible. I began talking to Tumalu, making myself as good a friend to her as possible. I even bought her a golden necklace. God knows soldiers were rich during those days. From the twinkle in her eyes and how she often touched my chest during conversations, I quickly made my deductions. Mine were deductions based on feeling, no testing apparatus but mind you, they were accurate deductions. So I deduced Tumalu was ready to be served. On the morning of twenty third in the month of April 2009, I took Tumalu for a walk. We walked for about a mile and all that time I kept holding her hand and massaging it. I was determined to serve her forcefully if need be. You can imagine my astonishment therefore when Tumalu looked at me and said, “Let’s go to my house, there won’t be anyone around today.”
    I smiled knowingly, I knew she was being frank, one of the few things a Lady is when she is hungry. We turned homeward and retraced our steps. All the while we kept massaging each other’s hands in turns. We laughed to unsaid jokes and pinched each other softly and for a while we looked like the one hell of a couple. But that was just for the time being, you know because we reached home at some point and by then, we had stopped doing the obvious lovers’ feats to avoid suspicion from neighbours. Damn the neighbours, they kept poking their noses into other people’s affairs like the police. We entered anyway without arising any suspicion and then it began almost immediately. I grabbed her hard breasts as I slammed the the gate shut. The whole thing happened so fast that I even sometimes thought it really never happened like most of my childhood memories, events that never really happened. I suppose most people have got those memories. I have a memory of having seen a werewolf devouring a neighbour’s son, old people say the child died of snake bite. So mine was an hallucination, see. I carried Tumalu across the tinny compound and entered the sitting room. I laid her on the sofa and rode her like hell. She screamed and tinny thoughts kept collecting in my mind,
    Heavenward... heavenward...
    My mind refused to react to the thought but by then, my muscles were no longer slaves to my mind. They reacted alone anyway and by the time I realized it, my hands held a pillow over a struggling Tumalu’s nose and mouth. She kicked and kicked and tried to scream. All that was futile. She died in a minute or two. Apparently, she had never learnt to swim or to hold her breath. I stepped back and looked at the latest person I had served. Her skin looked so shinny and beautiful that for a while I considered chopping a little part and trying a chew (crazy, isn’t it). I damned that thought, hell I was not a cannibal and would never be. I smelled horrible but that was not my main concern because I had heard the gate opened. I peeped through the sitting room door to see who had arrived. My intestines began making somersaults as soon as I glimpsed the newly arrived. It was Tumalu’s husband. I was in danger but I knew the man was no match for me, so I didn’t necessarily fear him. I clenched my fists and stood behind the door waiting for him, relishing the possibility of taking another life. I hoped against hope that he would not open the door. I stood and waited. Moments later, I heard a door open and slammed shut. I peeped through the door hinges and was just in time to see the bathroom door being pulled. It was a turn of events that I never really expected but I utilized it anyway. I opened the door carefully but quickly and tip toed across the compound. I kept thinking that the bathroom door would suddenly burst open but it never did. I reached the gate and swung it open and made a run for it, a mighty long run. In my flight, I saw neighbours watching me and making faces. I knew my days in Yei were numbered. I had made a terrible mistake. That night, I packed my things and hired a private car to Juba (I told you soldiers were rich those days). I joined the section of tiger division in Juba. A great multitude of soldiers without registered identities so nobody even ever noticed that a new member had come. Of course that was then before independence.
    In Juba I was shaken. The Yei incident had left a lot of doubt on my conscience regarding my ill acquired talent. I was afraid of the law for the first time because by then it was 2010, a year before independence and the law had began to flex its muscles. I was inefficient for a time and determined to forget about the accursed talent. I did a lot of things during that time so as to remain busy. Sometimes I used to smoke weed or go to Mayen Rual for a bottle of whisky just for the hell of it. Of course I never got addicted to any of the two. Then the thing came back again. I could feel it creeping and tiptoeing about my brain looking for the inner eye which I had closed. I did not allow it to open at least for a time. Then one day a female member of tiger division was having morning exercises with us. From her body language it was apparent that she was hungry and needed to be served. The thought came to me strangely and strongly. I had let the accursed inner eye open again. I bit my lips and scratched my head. If only I had a chance to grab that inner eye, I would have squeezed it to hell. But as it was, I couldn’t reach it. And so the quest began once again. Theresa Nyanguen’s shaking buttocks while she saluted a Senior officer kept haunting my dreams and when I reacted, it was fast as a lighting bolt but foolishly. It’s in fact because of Theresa that I’m now rotting away in a little cell at a lunatics’ hospital.
    The thing was so brief that it’s hard to explain at all. But it was no hallucination, it actually happened otherwise this cell would be empty. Most of my recollections about this incident are so distorted and disconnected that sometimes I feel my pretences about madness are indeed taking shape as real things. Anyway in late September 2010, I was walking towards Nyakuron at night with Theresa. The corners were so dark and it being a rainy season, frogs in nearby ponds were singing their rhythmic music in unison. I have now come to associate that natural music with bad luck. With frogs singing and it being so dark, I determined to serve Theresa there and then. I pinned her to a corner and touched her down there but the repulsion on her part was so great that for a moment, I felt I had made a mistake. She pushed me aside and clenched her fists. She was a soldier, remember. I reconsidered and came up with the resolution that Theresa needed serving whether she wanted or not and my muscles reacted instantly. I gripped her firmly and undressed her but believe me,it was no easy task. She screamed but I had already entered and gripped her neck. The screams came weakly, not enough to be heard. Before I could finish sending her heavenward or hellward whatever her destination was, I heard gun shots nearby and people shouting. I did not wait to find out what people were shooting for or shouting about. I just made a run for it. The following morning the military police came for me.
    Thereafter, a lot of people showed up connecting me with numerous murders. The Military court later convicted me of the murder of Mrs. Tumalu of Yei and attempted murder of Theresa Nyanguen. They wanted to give me to the firing squad but later settled for hanging because it was more painful according to them. At that time, I was acting weirdly, I even laughed during the trial so they recommended that the conviction be withheld and a specialist was called upon to assess my mental capability. I wasn’t stupid, I knew I had a chance to live. It took me some payments (hell I needed money no more) and pleas to make the doctor issue a fake mental assessment report. His report later said I was a necrophiliac. That was enough to buy me time on earth. Referendum was approaching and so they locked me up at Juba teaching hospital, they didn’t want to execute me before referendum so I could vote. After the vote, luck was on my side again and I was given amnesty provided I was still a necrophiliac. Recovery could take me to the hangman. So I acted for some years up to now.
    By the way I have a secret, my inner eye has opened of late. I have seen this doctor, doctor Mary Kiden. Every morning she passes near my cell shaking her almost liquid behind in the white doctor’s apron. I need to do my duty. To hell with the hangman. Hahahaa!

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