Confessions: The curious case of a dreamer

The music in the background had been playing on repeatedly; each time the sound went down, Gorrel thought he could soon sleep, beleiving that the party or whatever was going on around the neighbourhood was over. What was more disturbing for him was the monotony of the sound, it kept on grinding, each time he remove the hands from his ears.

The author: Ebrima Baldeh

Gorrel has never felt this way; to live a life of boredom; at least poor as he was, in his village of nativity he commanded respect, pride and power. Infact, no one dare challenge him when it comes to doing what he thinks is the best. Now, he was locked up in a fierce battle with a force which is capable of exposing his weaknesses; face with the task of telling the people at the party to stop their madness, but he changed his mind when he thought about the consequences, after all he was just another refugee.

The music was strange; so was the situation in which he found himself, if anything Gorrel has realised that no one can be a King in your own village and expect to assert your power in another man's land. May be others are capable of doing it, but in this case, Gorrel has completely ruled himself out.

Throughout the night, Gorrel could not even blink his eyes, he could not even think properly because the sound from the neigbourhood penetrated his mind and rendered him useless. Philosphers have come to the conclusion that the best time for rational thinking during one's moments of solitude is during the silence of the night when the galaxy of stars shone brightly.

Somehow the music started to fade at the start of the early morning prayers, unconsciouslessly the poor lad fell asleep and started dreaming.

A briefcase-trotting journalist approached him and urged him to get up and run away because organisers of the party had stopped the music just to come and beat him. The man repeatedly told Gorrel to get up and run away, this people know you very well, they want to humiliate you...

Whether he was under a spell or not, Gorrel attempted to get up the 'kibo kibo gal' ( Fooish devil) could not allow him to do so; he heard the man shouting to me, he could neither talk nor move his body. It seems he heard the footsteps of people walking toward his house, now the enemies are finally here he said in his mind. According to our cultural orientation, the kibo kibo gal usually appear before people who are depressed or disillusioned; what it does appear it makes the individual afraid so that you will wake up and remember him.

At long last, he has been freed after struggling for several hours to get up, just as he was about to open the door; someone knocked on the door. There was no need for him to open, Gorrel thought the enemies have now surrounded him and ready to kill him, suddenly he decided that his fate was in the hands of God, that whatever happens he would know that it was predestined. The door was flung open; no one was insight. The fear that had engulfed him in his dream had succeeded in reducing him another man, a coward and hopeless being.

When he went outside to find out the individual who knock on his door, he saw Professor Chara returning from his early morning walk, Gorrel did not know what to tell the Professor who was fond of asking so many questions. ' I had a dream that I'm running with you, but you were faster than me... infact I could not catch up with you suddenly I woke up' Gorrel thought this was the best way to tell the story; he did not want the Prof to look at him like a coward.

Prof. Chara urged him to translate the dream by sporting on his vest and shoes and hit the ground running to regain his consciousness. There, he went running like an animal by haunted by some evil spirits or a group of matchete -wielding men.

The point is that boredom can lead you to madness thats why I decided to write this piece to share with you the untold story of Gorrel who was virtually obsessed with anything foreign, it shows that if you are consumed in thoughts, you tend to visualise certain images in your mind, those things sometimes appear in the form of a queer dream, like the one Gorrel had.