A wrong accusation

Source

We had this neighbor who has a home poultry for just family consumption. Let us call him Mr Festus.

We also had another neighbor who was yet to have a child with his wife. Let us call him Mr Felix.

We were all living our lives and minding our business until Mr Festus started accusing Mr Felix of breaking his eggs.

We woke up one morning to Mr Festus spitting fire and accusing Mr Felix of breaking his chicken eggs.

Mr Festus who was also yet to become a father, was verbally abusing Mr Felix, “You say you are looking for a child, but you keep breaking my eggs. How will God answer your prayer for fruit of the womb when you are killing the children of my chickens?”

We all stood in confusion as we do not know where the argument was coming from, or how Mr Festus managed to jump to the conclusion that Mr Felix was the one breaking his chicken eggs.

But then, Mr Felix didn't say anything to defend himself, he just kept quiet, took all the insults and then entered his house when Mr Festus was done cursing. Hence, we assumed that maybe Mr Felix did break Mr Festus's chicken eggs.

Later that evening, when my father returned from work, we narrated to him all that has happened in his absence so he called both men and tried to make peace. Mr Festus however, was not interested as he kept accusing Mr Felix of breaking the eggs and being a hypocrite.

Mr Felix on his end kept calm while he questioned Mr Festus in a calm and soothing voice void of anger, “Why would I be breaking your eggs? Of what benefits do I stand to gain with that?”

After listening to Mr Felix defend himself, my father then asked Mr Festus how he managed to know that Mr Felix was the culprit.

Mr Festus narrated.... "I had left my chickens to free-range and Mr Felix had been complaining about the chickens coming to liter at his front yard. Out of anger, he threatened to deal with the chickens. Thus, when the chickens started laying, their eggs kept breaking".

After Mr Festus's narration, my father gave him a stern look and then inquired, “did you see him (Mr Felix) near your poultry?” Mr Festus responded no.

“So you base your accusations on mere words? And you are supposed to be a police office? What happens to investigating the matter?” My Father fired at Mr Festus who became really upset and started accusing my father of taking sides with Mr Felix. The meeting ended with more bad blood, as Mr Festus counted my father as part of his enemies.

Not too long after the confrontation between Mr Felix and Mr Festus, both men moved out of the compound, with Mr Festus leaving first.

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Recently, we had a rat invasion in our house. A branch from the coconut tree in my compound at the backyard got bent by the heavy wind, and it rested on our roof. Somehow, these giant rats were able to access that bent branch, bore a hole in our ceiling and gained access to our house.

At first, we did not know where they were coming from, we kept getting rat poison for them, but the poison did not deter them as they kept multiplying.

They would eat our food stuffs, cooked food, meat and fish. At a point, we started storing our foodstuffs in buckets, but these rats were not having it as they started eating the buckets with its cover, boring multiple holes in them and accessing the food stuff kept in it.

The one that got me upset the most was when I was in the office and my mother called that she wanted to make noodles and fried eggs for my daughter, only for her to go for the eggs we kept in the bucket and saw that they were all broken.

Men! I was so upset, over thirty pieces of eggs gone.

That was when we knew the rats had to go. My mother told my father to move round the compound for any openings in the roof, because at night we barely sleep from the rat race on the roof.

It was on this inspection that my dad noticed the coconut branch resting on our roof and chopped it off plus other branches that were growing in the direction of the roof.

The hole that the rats bore in the ceiling was sealed by ceiling replacement. Next, we exterminated all the rats left in the house with rat poison.

After the incidence, my mom and I took a trip down memory lane and talked about the whole experience, it was then we came to the realization that those times Mr Festus was complaining about his broken eggs, it was the rats in the compound and not Mr Felix.