It has been troublesome since this week began, and I keep wondering how unserious and, at the same time, serious my city is about life.
I'm in the laundry business, and most laundry shops dry clothes under the sun by hanging them on ropes. That's what I do too. I make use of ropes tied to poles over long stretches as my hangers for sun-drying clothes.
But there's one thing that happens in this city. They have a law that whenever someone in the city commits suicide by hanging, no one is permitted to use ropes to hang clothes in the big city for a period of seven days. And it doesn't just stop there; they have people who go around enforcing this rule by seizing clothes hung on ropes. At the end of the day, the affected individuals have to go to the palace of the city to retrieve their clothes by paying a huge amount of money.
Honestly, I don't have issues with the law because I was brought up in a village governed by laws of this nature, though not that particular one, and everyone was expected to abide by the rules. I'm also the type of person who doesn't discriminate against or talk down on people's laws, traditions, and religions. So, I don't have any issues with it at all.
But hey, there's something, and anytime I think about it, my thoughts get even crazier.
The city is a big one, with different people living in it, not just the indigenes of the community. Whenever a suicide incident occurs, only about 5% to 10% of the people in the city get to know about it. Most of the time, we only get to know when clothes have already been seized, and they go ahead to justify their actions by saying that ignorance of the current situation is not an excuse.
Did you get that?
Their task force would start moving around, sneaking into streets and targeting people, especially those they know they can extort huge amounts of money from once they seize their clothes.
It's my first time living in a large city that is still keen on enforcing laws of this nature, despite the fact that not everyone would be aware of a suicide incident to know that they are expected to obey the rule.
Back in those days when I was living in my home village, a small village, whenever a masquerade was to be brought out and women were not allowed to set their eyes on it, everyone would know that such an event was about to take place, and women would stay indoors until the parade was over.
On Monday of this week, I had just arrived at my office and was about to start work when I received a call from a colleague who is also in the laundry business. He informed me that a suicide incident had occurred again and that I shouldn't bother washing clothes unless I had a means of drying them without using ropes; otherwise, my clothes would be seized.
So, it has been a matter of constantly juggling between sun-drying clothes on stained block walls and finding other available spaces, while my ropes have remained untouched.
The Photo used is mine