Some minutes of restraint saved him.

Our teacher had gone for a brief outing, and we saw an opportunity to take a break. So, we suddenly stormed out of our seats to the window side to check out what one of my playmates had called us out to see.

It wasn’t something that was supposed to be amusing, but we found it amusing and we laughed a bit out loud. The women passing by heard us laughing and overheard our loud whispers and at that point realized we were talking about them. One of them had dressed in a kind of funny way, and even though it wasn’t our business, we couldn’t look away without laughing. We were five kids.

She looked up to the window of the storey building where we had stood and cursed at us. Even though we didn’t respond to her, and instead, we laughed and looked away, she got more angry and located the stairs.

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Gba gba gba, it was the sound of her footsteps rushing up the stairs like a preying giant who was about to descend on its prey. We realized this, and we all rushed to the door to prevent her from entering, but Somehow, she overpowered us, pushed all of us to the side and beat the hell out of all five of us.

We wondered what we did to warrant that level of beating, even though we knew we were wrong, she beat us like she was ready to kill us. We ran for our dear lives, but she ran after us like we had stolen her most cherished property.
I ran to my uncle who was just coming from the football field. My uncle is super protective of me, so, I knew the woman was in trouble already. She moved closer to me, but I hid behind my uncle with my swollen head and arms while I screamed like a kid whose mom was lost.

I realized I was in safe hands already, and I stopped screaming. My uncle was about to teach her the lesson of her life. She would realize that you don’t just beat people’s children anyhow. At this point, I was so happy already and I felt like a winner. I was happy because her sharp mouth that didn’t stop raining curses for the past an hour will finally be shut up by either a slap across the face or a punch from my uncle. I was very happy and ready for the movie that was about to unfold.

Silence…

The silence of my uncle was deafening. Despite how much curses this woman rained on my uncle, he didn’t move an inch. But why? I asked myself. This woman had just beaten your beloved sister, and you are there watching. Just teach her the lesson of her life already!!! Those were the thoughts in my head. But still, my uncle stood there and watched her putting efforts into making sure she annoyed him to the level where he would finally make a move.

After about twenty minutes of ‘no show’, my uncle moved a bit closer to her, looked at her from head and toe, and said, “if I choose to deal with you the way you’ve dealt with my sisters, you really won’t get home in one piece”.

Wait, did he just say he wouldn’t do anything? For real? Nope. Uncle, look at me now! Just look at my sisters too. She had given us too many injuries already. I kept screaming in my head.

My uncle looked at me and said, “let’s go home”.
I was disappointed at my uncle because he had let the woman go scot-free without regretting her actions. I wasn’t so pleased, but I followed my uncle home anyway.

Three days later, we heard the news that the woman had died.

Actually, the last time we saw her, and the fight happened, she had just recovered from a series of ailments and was also suffering from a terminal illness but we were not aware.

Maybe all that was needed to send her to a vegetative state till her final death would’ve been a punch or a slap across the face from my uncle, but my uncle controlled his anger so much that he chose to run from the temptation that could’ve turned him to a criminal.

Maybe by now, my uncle would have been in a cell waiting to be executed for being a ‘murder’, if he had chosen fight over flight.