The story below is a fictionalized account of a not-so-great moment in the life of my school, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology where students' demonstration to hit home their interests, spiraled out of control and led to rather "unfriendly" happenings. This story is already on the internet and can be found here: https://campus360gh.com/literary-corner/a-song-of-fire-and-freedom
MONDAY
OCTOBER 22, 2018
I LURCHED awake with a groan. It was half an hour past seven, and the early morning light had already stolen into the room draping it in a whitish glow. The air around the room, and outside, as I would later find out, was tense and taut, despite the fan wheezing overhead. I went outside into the balcony and stood staring at the starless sky as thickets of pale clouds fluttered across effortlessly. A vague fog hang around me like the vestiges of a mystical witch. The morning had a picturesque shade to it. As if it had been taken out of a movie or a novel. I looked beyond the motley of hostels that stood gloriously in front of me, letting my gaze travel until it fell on one of the tallest buildings on campus: Architecture Dept Building.
The realisation dawned on me.
A new day. Time for lectures. Time for assignments.
I sped back into my room in a heartbeat, recalling that I had drawings that needed to be completed and submitted before 4 pm. However, before I could set out to complete my drawings, a song with a communal ring to it, as if it were being bellowed by a choir but with more fervour and verve, rippled through the almost soundless morning. Kicking my drawing board away, I went and took my post in balcony as the song drew nearer and nearer, as if it was meant for me, headed to where I was standing.
From outside, I heard my roommate stir awake with a similar groan. And then as if on cue, students started trickling into their balconies like cats out of their cradles. All around me, they stood draped in pink-tinged night gowns with flowers strewn across; plain-white pyjamas; and like me, tank tops and boxers, staring with bewildered and excited faces in the direction from which the song grew closer and closer until almost every word fell on us, one-by-one as though the words were being picked out and thrown to us.
I picked up on the lyrics, first mumbling them under my breath as if for fear that the whole spectacle would take hostage of my body if I sung too high. And then everybody picked up the words, repeating every syllable with throaty ferocious shouts:
"ANOTHER CHALLENGE OH...."
"ANOTHER CHALLENGE OH..."
"IS A SMALL CHALLENGE OH...."
"V.C CHALLENGE OH..."
"AHOYA....."
It was the song of fire and freedom.
_____
A seething sensation washed over my body as I shouted those words as though my life depended on them. In a way, I was bewildered that I had summoned the courage to sing such a song, to even dare to mumble those words. But then, something creaked open in my mind, and the whole thing came clattering down. I suppose I had known all along, why my body and mind and soul were in sync with the song even as the entourage fiddled away from my hostel. Maybe I had know, that, that door was still there, waiting to be opened so that I could face whatever lay beyond it. Maybe it was the spookiness of the truth, the ghastliness and the sheer realization that such wickedness could be perpetrated on a university campus that had forced me to not open that door. But I had opened it, and the pieces started to fall into place:
It had began with a distress call from my father warning me to stay away from campus, and then of the pictures and videos spread across the internet--videos and pictures of students being brutalized, especially the pictures of the "Katangee" who had been brutalized. How horrible it was. How wicked. The fear that had taken over my body as I skimmed through pictures of blood trickling down his spine, the gullets and trenches of wounds on his back and the part of his head that had popped loose with a boil so big you'd think he'd been toasted. I remember squinting at the dreadfulness of it, and thinking it must be a mistake even though there was no escaping the truth that it wasn't a mistake.
And then there rumours had started coming. Everybody had had enough. This was the last straw. The SRC had had enough and the students sure as hell had had enough. And so, there was going to be a demonstration. Minutes later, the SRC would comfirm that there was to be a "peaceful" demonstration, and I remember looking at my roommate with sad incredulous eyes because we both knew the point of lividity we had reached could not be cured by a "peaceful demonstration."
______
Monday, October 22, 2018, would forever remain in the "annals of KNUST history," as they would later report it. Because that was the day we seized control of our rights and freedoms and privileges, and purged our fears with boisterous singing, ferocious clapping and spasms of angry gestures. It was when we, as a student body, decided to sing a song of fire and freedom; fire to burn our oppressors and freedom from being brutalized.
I suppose it was the angst, the deep-rooted anger and the razor-toothed brutality that we had suffered that caused everything to fall apart. Even so, the peaceful demonstration we'd promised was rife with shattered windows and doors and shards of glasses that glided past us as we threw stones at them; classrooms sitting empty housing only chairs that sat almost ghoulishly; cars burnt to a frazzle as the smoke and fire and flames accompanied by our collective voices, came together and rocketed into the sky. KNUST campus officially became the Wild West as the cars and vehicle of the Vice Chancellor and other members of the upper echelon, lost their colour and glow to the fiery orange of flames.
Before long, our voices had been heard, and if any harm, done. The sun started to peel into gloomy clouds as the rise of dusk drew closer and closer. Together we laughed and giggled and wiped the musty smell of sweat off our foreheads. Maybe, there was a lingering regret at how things had easily spiraled out of hand, however, we didn't feed it, didn't give it the time of day, never gave meaning to it as some left in groups and others met in clusters.
I stood in the midst of the throng of bodies, spinning in circles, as if this very act, this very moment had thrust me on a ferris wheel. All around me, the crowd pulsed with laughter and sweat and mouthful sighs of relief. Of freedom. I felt something in me untie, it felt closely like an anxiety which had been clanking softly in my subconscious. Even as I bellowed freedom songs, thrusting and punching the air with the mere force in my voice. My heart lightened as freedom whizzled through me. I was like a bird soaring in the midst of a colony of birds.
As we exchanged hugs and jokes, something else occurred to me. A realization of how monumental, how historically vital this very moment was, to us and the generations to come. That this fleeting moment, this ephemeral time, was an interlude which would forever dictate and set the wheels of decision-making in the right direction. I beamed with pride, and was equally proud of my comrades who had contributed their voices, time, energy and sweats and risked being banned toward ensuring that this happened. Because it had to happen.
As if on cue, the sky rippled with a thunderous clap--which felt as though the heavens were in agreement with my thoughts--and then the rain started to pelt down on our bodies.
Amidst the giggles, the hugs and the laughter, there were words unspoken, and opinions forever buried in the deepest corners of our minds because irrespective of how we felt individually, the air was thick with the communal feeling that we had done the right thing. We had sang heartily, and our voices had been heard and that was what was important.
The conspiracy theorists and the media and other factions would spend hours poring over the whys, the hows and the whos and whats but our song will forever reverberate through the hallways of the school like notes of a symphony...Our song of fire and freedom.
FOR VARIOUS REASONS I DECIDED NOT TO SHOW ANY PICTURE
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