*Gulp* [Archives]

Then there was the day I nearly died of asphyxia. I think I might have invented a silly way of committing suicide. I indirectly obstructed my airway with boiled yam- the public boarding school variety- laced with some really fishy fish stew. I figured if I went down, I might as well go down with caviar and gourmet. And I didn’t leave a note because I had sign language- I was clutching my throat like crazy.

I think I must have been too overwhelmed with the possibility of participating in our own bizarre high school version of the rare yam festival to think. Secondary school resembled Kirikiri maximum security prisons in many ways- the hunger, the basing on garri, the jonseing on things other than heroin, the ‘one boy’ calls that sent underlings scrambling in the direction of the often unseen voice of feudal lords, the hugging of pillars and other forms of creative torment, the bathing under boreholes with another unlucky inmate pumping. Everyday, you would wash soak-away pit cement tops literally full of shit (and you know I don’t swear) from people who lacked eye-butt coordination, you would get your mind fixed and your brain tortured in class, you would do slave labour as hewers of wood and fetchers of water at the hands of seniors, and on top of that, you would experience the frustration of unrecognised attempts in futility at keeping your white uniforms some of the lighter shades of brown. This was respite. This was heaven. I kept going faster. Not that the yam really tasted good.

You see, that day was a buffet. Free for all. Rushing. No rules, no limits, plenty competitors. I happened to be one of the first at the breakfast table for 20 or so and shoved pieces of yam in the back of my throat like I was filling a jello jar with rocks in full view of a 30 second ticking time bomb or shovelling snow off the driveway on steroids. The only thing was this snow was yam solid. The mass in my oesophagus kinked my trachea. I know you kind of get the feeling- kind of, but not exactly.

If you had been within the remand system long enough (an apt antonym for boarding), you would know that buffet days are like white, sabre-toothed Siberian tigers- few and far between, wild and rare. Mr. Ogunsola, the dining hall master, never allowed them more than once in a blue moon. But that day was a blue moon; the bell rang.

So close. My eyeballs were red, teary and almost popping. My throat was huge. For a moment there, I was like a boa swollen with an oversize dinner. My hands were around my oesophagus in desperation. Then I stood there helpless in one place hoping that the condensed complex carbohydrate would pass. 1, 2, 3, 4…I can’t really remember if I prayed. 5, 6, 7, 8…It crawled down my gullet at snail pace ushered along by a perceptible peristaltic wave. 9, 10, 11, 12…I can still feel it. 13, 14, 15, 16…I can remember the very spot. Second table from the wooden swinging doors by the far right of the hall. One meter from the wall. Maybe a few meters from heaven.

A prefect just passed and off-handedly muttered, “Don’t kill yourself over yam. Take it easy o!”  I think he chuckled before breathing, “Ordinary yam; you want to kill yourself.”  I still can’t remember his face. Who would?

When the bolus passed, my gluttonous zeal was dampened. I ate by revelation. It was the greed, not the yam that stuck in my throat.

That day, I learned a juvenile lesson about greed. In life, chew your yams well.

Even if it is a buffet.

Take heed and beware of covetousness [all manner of greed], for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.

~Yeshua Al Meshiac