Deaths At A Funeral.

The house was as I remembered it, except there used to be fewer employees around. The mansion had been in the family forever, my family lived and died in the building for generations. The Danjumas were one of the first settlers and one of the oldest families in the city. The walls of the main house are full of old paintings, most of them portraits of old masters of the house, dating from the first to the last, my father.

I stared at the paintings for a moment, blocking out Khalid's voice. 

"The master's bedroom has been prepared for you, son," he finally said,  slapping me on the shoulder to bring me back to the present.

"Oh, thank you, Khalid," I replied, startled by the sudden feel of his hand on my shoulder.

I was thinking about how much I hated the house as a kid. Oh, I hated everything about it. The quietness made me want to lose my mind, even when my mother was alive. She was sickly and always looked unhappy. Dad was never around, and how could he be? He was the C.E.O of a multi-billion company, he cared more about his money than anything else.

As if Khalid had heard my thoughts, he looked deep into my eyes and whispered "you and your father had your differences, but he loved you very much, kid. I see him in you now, so clearly.  Find it in your heart to forgive him for your own sake, you have a lot of work to do now, and staying mad at a dead man would only make it difficult."

I was unable to reply to him, so I just smiled and walked to my room, the master's bedroom, my father's room.

As I made my way to the room I heard loud music coming from somewhere in the house and followed the sound to my old room. 

"Oh, the kid. I totally forgot about the kid," I whispered to myself.

I knocked on the door a couple of times before I heard footsteps coming towards the door. The door finally opened halfway, and the boy reached his head out of the little space.

"What do you want?" he asked looking irritated.

"Wow, what are you angry about?" I asked smiling.

"Who said I was angry," he asked sharply.

"Well, you look angry."

"That's just my normal look. You expect me to start laughing for no reason?"

I wanted to say something, but he unexpectedly threw the door shut, and then I heard his footsteps walking back as I heard it walk towards me before.

"Well, that is one angry kid," I whispered and started walking to my room. 

I made my way to the room, and as I opened the giant doors, I discovered that everything in the room from the rugs to the bedsheets, and even the curtains were new. "I am the new master of the house, "I whispered. I walked over to the bed and sat on the edge, thinking what this meant. I thought for while in silence with my eyes closed, and when I finally opened my eyes and looked to my right, a new suit hung on a hanger was there waiting. Father's funeral was the next day. What this meant was that I would have to meet a lot of people I would rather avoid and talk with them, I would also have to pretend to know a lot of people I can't remember or don't simply know. The thought of this made me sigh loudly, as I tried to lay in the bed. The bed felt too soft against my skin that it irritated me.

"Hell no, I whispered, getting out of the bed. I went to the windows and threw them open, letting in the cold night breeze. I then removed the sheets and the pillow threw them on the rugged floor and laid on it.

"Better," I whispered as I closed my eyes to sleep.

That night I dreamt of Choji as I did ever since I left the monastery in Japan. He appeared to me looking so real and alive. And once again he whispered to me like he always does.

"Every man and woman has the responsibility to choose whether to be good or evil. It isn't our place to judge others for their choices but it is our right to challenge evil wherever we find it, most especially in our hearts. After all the human heart is indeed the birthplace of evil."

Immediately after the dream ended, I opened my eyes, checked the old large clock on the wall. The time was just three in the morning. "At least I didn't wake up in the fields," I thought. Every night I had the dream before that night, I woke up in places different from where I slept. 

I wasn't going to get any sleep after that, so I opened my backpack and brought out my training gear. I heard Khalid moving around somewhere in the building some minutes later. As I moved and jumped around in the room I heard his footstep got close to the door and then turned back, "he never sleeps," I whispered. The room was so big I didn't have any need of going to the gym in the first couple of months of my arrival. I didn't even know a gym was in the house.

"A real warrior is one who maintains control and harmony of the mind, body, and spirit at all times, purging himself of hate, greed, and everything evil. To have control of one and not the other is the beginning of failure," another one of Choji's sayings was in my mind as I sat down to meditate after training. 

A lot of people thought I was home because of my father's death, some thought I was home to claim his wealth, but my coming home had nothing to do with these things. I hated the man when he was alive, I probably wouldn't have attended his funeral if I had another choice. I told him that I didn't want his money and his company too, coming home for me was an escape, it was about survival.

I got ready for the funeral, and I was joined by Abbas. Putting on the suit felt better than I thought it would. It had been years since I wore anything expensive.

"You are now looking like Mr. Danjuma, my friend!"Abbas joked.

"What did I look like before, you clown," I chuckled.

"Oh, I told you. You looked like those professional fighters. It's cool, but remember you're a billionaire C.EO. now. You're the richest man in Africa Danny, you can't go around beating people up like you used to."

"Not even assholes like Mahmoud?"

"Well, Mahmoud is definitely out of bounds. He's a senator now."

That's a shame. Let's go bury my father, Abbas, "I whispered as we made our way out of the house.

"It won't be that easy, Dan. You're gonna have to meet, greet, and converse with a lot of people. Knowing you, I know you won't like it, but you must do it."

A limousine was already parked outside, waiting for us. The driver came out, opened the door, saying "Good morning Mr. Danjuma, good morning Abbas."

"Danny, meet your new driver, and bodyguard, Kabir. He's Khalid's son, he was in the army, and he just got back home too," Abbas said.

"I need a bodyguard now?" I asked.

"This is Lagoon City, Danny. Have you forgotten? You are worth a lot to a lot of bad people now that kidnap for ransom is the crime of the day. Kabir, he's a killer, he just got back from the north where he was fighting insurgents. Anybody trying to get to you would have to get through him."

I watched as my best friend explained how important my safety was, he wasn't wrong about how dangerous it is to be a rich person in Lagoon city without protection, I was kidnapped once as a kid and my father had to pay a lot of money to get me back, you never forget something like that. The situation is worse these days, even poor people are getting kidnapped. I guess that's what happens in a society where you have some people with everything they could ever want, and some struggling just to survive. Like a wise man once said, "If you refuse to educate, and empower the children of the poor, they will grow up to haunt and kill your children that you've given everything to."

I smiled and got into the vehicle. The thought of being kidnap as a kid kept circling in my mind, and I thought about what it would be like if it happened again. "They can try," I whispered. 

The limousine stopped at the front of the church, and there were people already waiting. News crews and photographers made it impossible to even move. Fame was never something I fancied, and I realized it wouldn't help me very much, in fact, I needed to stay off the news. My survival depended on it. I escaped from where I came from, thinking I would be safe from those who would chase me to the edge of the world, those after my life, but I was wrong. Not only was I wrong about not being able to hide from my pursuers, but I was also wrong to think the home was any safer than where I escaped from.

The service lasted for hours, and finally, I was called to do the eulogy. I was just going to say a few words, things everyone expected me to say. What else could I have done? I never really knew the man. I stood up and got on the podium, in front of over a hundred people, just to give them a show.

"My Dad was a lot of things to this city. He is a defendant of one of the founding families of this great city, a philanthropist, a provider, and a helper f the people. He was a father, not just to his biological children, he was a father to the children of this city. He left a big space, a space that going to be hard to fill. But I tell you now, I promise you that I, Danny Danjuma will do my best to fill it."

Everyone in the church got up, clapping and chanting. It couldn't have been better. The service was ended shortly after that, and Dad's body was finally laid to rest. It was time to go home, after shaking hands and chatting with a dozen people I didn't even know.

I walked over to the limousine, sandwiched by both Abbas and Kabir. Then suddenly the rambunctious sound of gunshots was heard, a sound I was very much familiar with. The sound of automatic weapons sent everybody running for cover and screaming wildly. Kabir pushed me and Abbas to the ground, but I managed to see one of the men who did the shooting before I got pulled down, and that was enough.

When the shooting stopped, and everything got back to normal, that was when we realized how many people had been hit by bullets.

Their target was unknown, they just shot into the crowd, and at first, we thought the people that got hit did so randomly but we couldn't be more wrong. Even the policemen were caught by surprise, as always. 

As the air cleared and people were able to come out of hiding and check the unfortunate people that lost their lives that day, someone shouted "Khalid!" We all rushed towards the voice to see for ourselves. Khalid laid in a pool of blood unconscious, he had been hit by a bullet too. As the sirens of cop cars and ambulances rose in the air, I held Kalid tightly until I heard a strange voice say: "It's okay Mr. Danjuma, we have it from here."