Euroclydon

THE PRISONER
(Acts Chapter 27)
 
“Captain, is there no way we can save this ship 
without throwing the cargo overboard? 
These containers are my entire life!” 
I was shouting and screaming. 
How in the world is this happening to me? 
I am a business man. I buy and sell goods. 
I import clothes and shoes and sell. 
I bring in these goods in containers every 
three months. 
The turnover is good and I live a fairly comfortable life.
Until today.
I was not the only one. 
Alhaji Sambo has loads of containers with
 exotic vehicles for his clients. 
He also imports them to sell to his clients 
who are mostly politicians. 
They pre-order these vehicles from him and 
he personally gets them. 
He does not delegate anybody to handle 
this for him because of the clout of his 
clientele.
There was also Chief Emeka who has over 
a dozen containers filled with spare parts 
of all kinds of vehicles. 
Another guy whose name I can’t remember 
also has containers on board. 
I think he brings in cartons of wines and juices. 
And the lady whose containers contain fabrics. 
She’s already fainted. Her heart could not 
handle the pain. I wish I could faint too, 
better to be unconscious than seeing your 
entire life crumble before you…
The captain’s voice jolted me back to reality. 
“I’m sorry there’s not much else I can do. 
I am more interested in saving lives than goods. 
I have 276 people on board this ship. 
Under the Geneva Treaty, saving lives takes 
preeminence over saving goods sir. 
I am very sorry- we have no other choice but 
to lighten the ship by throwing the cargo 
overboard!”
And that was it.
By an executive fiat, the ship’s captain 
ordered the containers to be offloaded 
into the sea. 
We all stood there, watching all our lives 
work thrown away…
The captain stood there with us muttering, 
“But who would have known this would happen? 
The weather report gave us reason to believe 
we would not meet with this storm on the high sea…”
Chief Emeka turned and stared at him. 
I could see the anger in his eyes. 
“Who could have known? 
Captain, don’t even go there! 
Who could have known? 
Did that prisoner not tell you not to sail? 
Did he not tell you he perceived this journey 
would be like this? If you had listened to him, 
we wouldn’t be here having this discussion! 
See all my containers! All gone!”
The captain tried defending himself: 
“But Chief, you must know that I have 
been sailing for over 30 years, been the 
captain of this ship for 10. I have over 
20,000 knots…”
Chief’s eyes were blazing by now. 
“Shut up! Who cares how many knots you have? 
The problem with you people is, you trust too 
much in your knowledge! How did an ordinary 
prisoner see this storm and you, an experienced 
sailor didn’t? what does he know that you don’t?
Captain cleared his throat. 
I noticed he picked his words with care- 
he didn’t want to aggravate the situation. 
“Chief, I don’t know who that prisoner is, 
I have never met him before until that
 soldier brought him and the others on board. 
Yes, he said he perceived the ship would run
 into a storm, but should I have taken a decision 
based on the words of a prisoner?
 Especially when the facts on ground are contrary 
to his perception?
Alhaji Sambo interjected, “Ok, what is the 
guarantee this ship won’t sink, even after 
throwing away all these containers? 
What comfort can you give us? It would be 
double trouble if we lose our goods and lose 
our lives! Madam Tinuke has already fainted, 
there’s no guarantee she’ll recover from that. 
What is the way forward now? 
This storm is not relenting and it seems it is 
even getting worse.”
The captain said he had sent out some 
May Day calls and he is sure help is on the way. 
“Let’s be optimistic we will get some help soon.”
Suddenly I had an idea: 
“Where is that prisoner? 
If he could perceive this storm a few days 
before it happened, he may know what is 
ahead of us. 
Please, bring him out, he may be able to 
perceive something else!”
Everybody agreed with me. The captain talked 
with the soldier in charge of the prisoners. 
They spoke for a few minutes and the prisoner 
was brought out.
The Captain approached him: “Good day sir…”
In that moment, a wry smile played on my lips. 
I remembered a few days ago when this
 prisoner told the captain he perceived
 this journey would run into a storm, the 
captained eyed him like he was mad. 
He even asked him sarcastically, 
“You perceive my ship will hit a storm? 
Did you perceive you would be a prisoner 
today? Nonsense!”
Now, same captain is calling same prisoner, 
“Sir”!What an irony.
“Sir, sorry for not taking your advice before 
we sailed. Please, do you have any idea 
what will happen to us all?” 
The prisoner smiled.
“You should have listened to me before 
we sailed out of Crete…”
Ah! Now he’s rubbing it in.
He continued, “If you had, you wouldn’t 
have lost all these goods. But don’t worry, 
gentlemen- nobody will die in this storm. 
We will lose the ship, but we will not lose 
anybody, even madam Tinuke!”
He winked.
This guy has a strange sense of humor!
“The angel of God whose I am and who 
I serve stood by me this night and told me 
God will spare all your lives because of me. 
Be cheerful, I believe God will do as he told me.”
Wow.
Just wow.
This guy hears from God?
Interesting!
Next time I hear anyone say, “I perceive…” 
I will do well to take him seriously!

- Haruna Daniels