Seven years after graduation from the university, Paulus had strived to make ends meet. It had been from one office or the other in search of a job. While he was still in school, there had been times when all he did was read publications made every mid-week for job vacancies around the nation. And most of these jobs were around his discipline. How his life became trash can not be traced in a short time.
On this fateful day, he woke up as usual. He had an ironed popular white shirt, one that he had always worn to attend interviews. His black trousers were not left out of the ironing process. He made it so neatly with gators. Early in the morning, before cockcrow, Paulus set out to join a bus that is heading for Marina, where he has been invited for an interview with a new generation bank. The last money he had on him was one thousand naira. He had proposed to transport himself to and fro the venue of the interview and to eat his usual, two wraps of fufu and one chunk of beef.
"Odumota, Eko!!" "Enter with your change ooo". The bus conductor protested while calling in passengers. Passengers who had been standing at the bus stop jumped in without considering what the bus conductor had to say.
The eighteen-seater bus got filled in one swoop and the driver sped off from the bus stop.
"Oya, pay your money from the back seat". The bus conductor requested. All the passengers started bringing out their fares including Paulus. They all had the biggest denomination of the Nigerian currency, against the protest of the bus conductor before they boarded.
After he had collected money from all the passengers, he sat and started looking out of the window, caring less about how to settle the passengers for eight hundred nairas each. Paulus began to get frightened about the attitude of the bus conductor.
"Conductor, give me my change". One of the passengers demanded. As if the other passengers were waiting for someone to spur them on, they all chorused to give them their change. "I don tell una before say I know get change". Before the conductor could complete the statement, one of the male passengers with a hoarse voice landed a hot slap on the conductor's face and a fight started.
Everyone was just confused, especially Paulus. The interview he was going for is slated for 8:00 am and now, this conductor and impatient passenger is going to make him go late. Before the issue could be settled, time wasn't on his side again. This was how Paulus lost out on the opportunity to get a banking job.
He arrived at the middle floor of the headquarters of Golden Bank but was not allowed in because he was late. Paulus dejectedly returned home. He started walking toward the Park to catch a bus going to Ajegunle. In his deepest thoughts, some angry-looking men pounced on him, beating the heck out of him before they knew he wasn't the one they were chasing for stealing the phone of an innocent passerby.
"Could this be my fate?" Paulus asked himself and he boarded the bus back home. He has faced so many storms in life that he almost lost hope. As he returned home on the bus, the bus conductor told him that a lady who was sitting behind him had paid his fares. He turned back to see a beautiful lady, well-dressed smiling back at him.
"Thank you, I appreciate your kind gesture."* Paulus said to Amara. When they alighted, she walked up to him and asked for his phone contact which Paulus gave to her.
In the evening, Amara called Paulus but he was fast asleep from the tiredness and hopelessness that he encountered that day, and in all the situations he had been in all his life. When he woke from sleep, he met several missed calls from Amara and decided to return the call.
"Can we see this evening?" Without hesitation, Paulys agreed to meet with Amara at a not-too-distant street from his abode. When he reached the address, he met a high fence with heavily built security guards with dogs. Probably, Amara had informed them that she was expecting him. One of the men led him to the main building.
As he entered the beautifully furnished living room, he saw Amara sitting on what looked like a throne and said to her, "Thanks again for paying for my fare earlier". Instead of a warm smile, Amara shouted at him, "Don't you have respect for royalty?" Paulus wondered what she was talking about. It was not mentioned at the beginning of their conversation when they alighted from the bus. He couldn't place how a wealthy lady like her could be jumping from one public bus to another like a commoner.
The guard standing next to Paulus pushed him and asked him to prostrate. He fell flat on his face in homage to Amara, the queen's mother. He has been trapped in an occult world where only grace and a higher spiritual intervention could save him
"From today, you will serve in my chambers and take orders from me". Amara, the queen's mother said. Paulus served in Amara's court for quite a while. He cherished his low life even though he doesn't have all he desired for this servitude in the hands of a strange woman. Several men were brought in to run Amara's back each time she desired and they were handsomely rewarded. She possessed so much power that even the biggest politicians bowed in respect of her when they visited.
At this point, Paulus has no escape route than to resort to his creator, the Almighty. One night, when Amara was consulting the spirits in her shrine, Paulus engaged in a prayer session as his only hope of escaping. That night, there was a rumbling in the whole compound. As Paulus was calling the name of Jesus, every enchantment became impotent. He prayed with so much zeal that all his clothes got soaked from sweat. Then, Amara came out of the shrine and heard him.
She immediately ordered that he be thrown out of the premises. Paulus was bundled out of the castle into the street. By the time he checked the date, he had already spent three years serving the goddess called Amara.
Somehow, he got to his one-room apartment and found several employment letters asking for his services but they were all stale. Luckily, one of the letters was just eleven days old. He got that one and traced the company where he was employed.
His salary was quite mind-boggling. It came with a duplex and a car. All the years of suffering ended in one day because he prayed. After one and a half years, Paulus got married to Anita and together they have three children. He became very devoted to the worship and service of the Almighty God, the inventor of heaven and earth.
