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THIS WORLD, THIS MAN By: Lord eBay





The world is completely green to an innocent mind, but an innocent mind is indisputably blind. Evil has no chance in water and I've swam a Spring river, says a friend called Latifah. Ask her who sinks the ships in Bermuda, she would never know it's Lucifer.

I once read about a lady. In the house of her parents was an adored baby. Give any code of conduct she would always obey, not in any way rough or uncouth; she would walk splendidly without relay. But sometime, her dresses started to fade, and when she went to a river to bade, she was kidnapped and eaten by a mermaid. No revenge possible; a river is not a place to attack or raid.

To a child, the world is beautiful. He would sit by fire, not afraid but considers everything wonderful. But soon enough when burnt, he gets dreadful. Writers know what the world is: a man could gather all sorts of wealth but for a while would the wealth be his. Yet when we write we call the world "beautiful", how we love to tease! If you have your money, I advise you pay your fees, dine in the shade of the trees, enjoy the bliss, death will soon come to claim the keys, so I told my friend, Afees.

A mild soldier in a war, saying the killings and bombings sadden and bore, and to peaceful places he started to tour, getting wine to drink and asking for more and more; sipping, gulping and never ceasing to pour, tell him, his death awaits him at the door.

The You left your hometown because of the witches, you are now in Lagos flirting with whores and bitches. They demand wears and Mexican dishes. Oh! You will never understand the lesson that life teaches. The you are a warrior but a kind-hearted one. You don't fight for fun and even spare the begging ones, look at the stake prepared for you, you will burn.

This world is not made for the good hearts. The rats, the cats and the bats... They are ready to make people the wretched tarts. My great grandfather had the body of a wolf but the heart of a dove. He wouldn't be burnt even if he sat on a stove. He created shelter for people who weren't sheltered but would rove, ignorantly harbouring enemies and giving each homeless a loaf. He was later stabbed in the neck by a boy of twelve, we found his writings and treasure trove. A good man does not expect people to be bad; he calls the old men his dads, sees hope in the lads, but at the end, we always found them back-stabbed to death in their yards. It is after their deaths we always discover the greatness in what we've had. Oh People! Why must we always be mad?

A prisoner once read one of my articles and I stood there, watching him as he began to laugh loudly, slapping his knees, rolling on the chair in an ecstasy of terrible mirth, rioting in a kind of awful rapture of self-loathing and hate and foaming ridicule. And he told me: "Lord eBay, you hate evil, but you don't comprehend the causes of evil, how then do you plan to fight it? For if you don't know, it lies within you, within your spirit, within every soul. If you dig more of human record, I bet you'll be caught in the teeth of your own researches and thus feel bound to finally agree that we people locked away in prisons are one sort of criminals and the government that put us there another.

After all, what is the difference between a man that kills with a licensed rifle and the one that strangled his fellow man? What is the difference between a killing that involves shedding of blood and a killing that is done politically? Murder is murder; death is death whether in the name of vengeance or in the coat of justice! Justice is only a mask under which uniformed men satisfy the love of watching other people die at the gallows. They did not abide by the law they say, but how do you expect good people to respect the laws made by bad people? The prison where I am is a fortress that hides me away from the oppression of the world, that dreadful world of man! Prison may be harsh, but it's a form of freedom on its own, freedom from the world, freedom from your bad government. I am not innocent of what brought me here and I wish to die here, for if I see the outside again, I will still kill. Why must I lie? Accept me for who I am, Lord eBay, for even if I live with you, in spite of my love for your writings, I cannot promise that I will understand the reason to let you live if I'm paid to kill you. So also must you trust no man.

I had six dogs and eight cats: one dog in my house, the rest on my farm. Each one a distinct individual but honestly itself. You'll never see a dog pretending to be better than he is; you'll never find a cat without self-respect. Even cattle are faithful to their nature. But coming to that man is faithful to his nature too, almost always. Almost always he is a fool, a liar, a hypocrite, a coward, a pretender, a covert murderer, a thief, a traitor. Name any vice he doesn't have. That's his nature. It's only when he pretends to virtue that he steps out of focus and out of character. Birds are birds unlike people who are rarely human in the best meaning of the term. It's the same with other non-human animals; they are what they are, honest in their being, solid in their ways. But man? You can never know what a man is. Never! Not in this world; not this man!"


- Lord eBay (and his random ruminations, 2014)
#eStreetWriters

Artwork Via: Museum Brandhorst

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