My Nine Lives

January 11, 2021January 22, 2021 ~ Gottfried

As one who will readily throw himself into harm’s way, you might want to sit down for this one. In the days when men were men and women were married by only men deserving of them lived a handsome young man called Gottfried. As I took care of my father’s sheep as assigned by my oldest sister, dangers were all around. One day a bear came and attacked my sheep, I let it take the sheep because I wasn’t in the mood. But when a Lion came to steal another sheep the following day, I wasn’t having any of that nonsense. I charged at the Lion, and suddenly I only had eight lives left.

In the face of adversity, I thrive. Some say that I thrive off negativity. They couldn’t be any farther from the truth. I am an agent of change. I exude positivity. But when it’s time to let the dark side win, who am I to argue? There was a time the entire faculty, heck the entire school was on my back for something I allegedly did. Rather than offer an apology or at least show remorse, I went on the offensive. Because when they go low, you go lower. So I did the only sensible thing and asked them all to suck it up and stop bitching. This was my first experience running away from a charging angry mob. All that running reduced my number of lives to seven.

Everything is perceived as a threat. Are you saying I wouldn’t be able to live without you? Girl please, tell me another joke. It may work for one girl, but don’t try this for every one of them, gents. Gina and I were an item. No seriously, we were listed on Walmart and Amazon for $7.99 only. She was the possessive kind. I mean she was actually possessed with demons. But as a daring guy, I was into that kind of thing. She always jokingly said that if I ever left her, she’d kill me. I didn’t know she wasn’t joking till I tried to leave her in the kitchen to go lounge in the living room. Kitchen knives shouldn’t be that sharp. Anyway, six lives it is.

Did I tell you about the time I almost got beat up by thugs? So I’m taking my cousin to the park to drop her off. We get there and we cross the road to meet other transport companies. We get accosted by some thugs who wanted her to patronize their transport companies. They start pulling at our bags. In my rage, I go, ‘If you touch these bags one more time, I will slap the living daylight out of you. Try me’ Bear in mind I’m all about talk. This thug looked me in the eye, mouth oozing with alcohol, cigarette in the other hand, and said, ‘Say that again’. And true to my daring fashion, I said it again. This time with more defiance. And five lives it became.

Driving home from work is the best part of my day. Who likes working anyway. Anette from HR had already fined me two weeks salary for breaking the company printer. It’s not my fault I got carried away and choke slammed the printer. Why would a ‘color’ printer not print color? Is it crack or cocaine? Anyway, back to. So I’m driving home with my colleagues and they’re shouting and arguing at the back. So I turn around and tell them I feel like veering off the bridge for a bit. They look at me like I’m crazy. David, another madman, dares me to do it. You don’t dare a daredevil. So I veer off the bridge and plunge headfirst into the Atlantic. Just like the fast and furious. Four lives.

I got robbed. Or at least I thought that’s why the robbers came. I hear noises at about 2 am and I go to check. Who needs to borrow salt at 2 am, are you cursed? I open my front door and I am greeted by the butt of a gun to my head. When I come to, I hear a voice screaming at me, “Where is the money?” I look at him bemused. ‘What money?’ These robbers really came into a house with no furniture expecting to find the money? I politely ask if I can fix them dinner on the house. Now they’re looking at me with twice as much anger but they oblige. I walk to the kitchen, turn around and tell them I’m sorry, the dinner I thought I had isn’t there anymore. Almost instantly I get hit so hard I actually die twice. Two lives.

I just bought a microwave and I’d been meaning to test it out. So I placed it on a stool and tried to connect it to power. I noticed that the adapter needed to be assisted to be plugged into the wall socket. So I got a fork and tried to put it in. I completely forgot to turn it off on the wall first. As I put the fork in, shock waves ran through my body. Oddly in that five-second window, I felt like the superhero Shazam. So I took it up a notch and got my hands and feet wet. This time the shock threw me across the room and I smashed my head into the adjoining wall at a sharp edge. Lights out, one life left.

On my last life, I’m taking things really slowly. I barely raise my voice anymore. People now walk all over me. My wife keeps talking to me nonstop and I don’t as much as ask her to stop. All sorts of vehicles overtake me on the highway. I let them all pass, I’m no longer in a hurry. You see, life is like looking for your phone. Most of the time, it’s in your hand. My life now is like a romantic comedy. Except there’s no romance and it’s just me laughing at my own jokes. The good book says that ‘he who saves his life shall lose it’. Now, what shall I do with this life? Life in itself is a tough proposition, but the first hundred years are the hardest. So I’ve resolved to enjoy this life.

There’s plenty of time to be dead