VILLAIN AND THE HERO: THE VINDICATE

Every child growing up, with the understanding of going to school and finishing at a prestigious tertiary institution has an aim of white colar jobs after graduation, wearing a perfect ironed packing shirt/blouse on an ironed gator trousers 👖 or skirt coupled with a shining pair of shoes, sitting opposite a working laptop and multiple files on the table to sort for the day.

This and more was the life Christabel dreamt of having and everyday of her life she tried working towards accomplishing this dream by applying for jobs but kept on receiving an email that starts with appraisal of her credentials and qualifications but followed with a paragraph of "unfortunately".....
As soon as Christabel sees the starting word then she doesn't bother to proceed reading the rest because multiple times she had written to get a feedback why she was not picked or selected for the job but with no response.

At some point, Christabel gave up on the idea of seeking for white collar job and sat down to think of an alternative means to cater for her livelihood. There is an aged mother who has struggled her whole life to send Christabel to school, with the mindset of "education is the key to success" but only for her to realize that the key has gotten lost in a while and the door to success is only accessible by people with luck.
"If Only I can get capital to run a food business" and more were the thoughts that filled Christabel's mind but unfortunately like the job emails, she has no funds or supporter except for her aged mum.

On a fateful day, Christabel was on her way out to see if probably she could meet with luck and get a job somehow even if it has to be a caregiver or house help job just to have a means or source of livelihood but still yet, she found nothing. Grrrnnn Grrrnnn! Christabel's phone rang and it was a call from her mum's neighbor. She picked and she was informed about her mum being hospitalized after a fall from the bathroom and she is needed to give consent for an urgent head surgery which would cost them the sum of 7.5million naira. With no special invitation, tears came running and flowing down Christabel's face. "Where do I get this from" was what kept running through her mind. She looked confused and pale instantly like a sick patient of several years.

She felt shattered and down spirited to continue in her search and decided to go back home and plan on how to visit her mother at the hospital but on her way back, she saw a crowd around a car. Some were taking pictures and videos to create content on their social media space shouting and exclaiming "Nemesis has catch up with this one too o, guys can you see him" while another group are busy discussing about some other incidents they've witnessed too about ritualist "naso their ends dey be nah. After dey don use ladies do juju finish, na stupid death like this dey catch them" while some would watch a bit and proceed with their journey.

Christabel moved more closer and realized that the man probably had an attack related to health issues. She shouted and scolded the people for looking at an helpless person or busy taking videos of someone who needed their help. "Some people would have still made it alive but because we chose to resist in helping and minding our own businesses, then death rates keep increasing. Despite Christabel's outburst, there was no sign of the crowd rendering a hand of assistance in helping the young man in the car. Instead, they kept wallowing in pity for Christabel who was about touching a cursed man.

With the knowledge of riding a car that Christabel once had while in school with her friends cars since, she moved the man to the passenger seat and drove the young man to the nearest hospital. On arrival at the hospital, she came down to rush to the reception for help so that the nurses on duty would be alerted and take over to attend to the man and Christabel filled all necessary documents in treating the young man.

After a while, Christabel remembered the call she received last about her mum in the hospital and jumped up from the seat with exclamation of "Oh My God!". She was about to rush out when the doctor came and said she had to see him in his office. "Hope all is well?" was the question that came out of her mouth and the doctor answered "why would you wait for that long before you bring him to the hospital? If you had used 15 more minutes then this won't have been the story anymore. His condition is stable now but we would still have to monitor him for some days before he will be discharged. Please see me in the office for his drug prescriptions and bills".

All through the time the doctor was lambasting Christabel as if the young man was her husband, she stood there speechless and dumfounded. She thought of checking the young man's car to see if there will be any form of contact to reach out to his family so that they can take it up from there since she also has her mum to check on unfailingly at the same moment.
Christabel found the young man's phone and was happy but sadly, the phone had a password lock on it. She dropped the phone since it was not useful but when she was about getting out of the car, she saw a small brown bag at the back seat. How come she didn't see this before? She took the bag, opened it and saw the packed 💵 dollars. Christabel shouted "JESUS!!!" and after this, so many thoughts started running through her mind. "God has done it, oya oya carry your testimony and sort your mother's surgery" while another one kept saying softly "leave the bag back there, you're not raised to steal" Another one would come again and say "Your business idea are finally coming true in a big way with this huge money". Should I? Should I not? were the deliberations in Christabel's heart when the security man came asking, "madam you dey okay?" and she responded "Yes I'm fine, thank you", sweating like a Christmas goat.

The heat of never seeing so much money before let alone in dollars almost run Christabel mad but later she made the hard decision not to be tempted. She left the money bag, closed the car door and dropped the key at the reception saying she might lose the key due to her current situation.

Christabel left and never came back since she was now with her mother in the hospital crying and pondering on how to go about her mum's surgery. At some point she lost hope of having a mother in her life anymore and just as she was lost in thoughts, 2 men came in. One in a police uniform and the other in mofty holding handcuffs and asked "are you Miss Christabel?", she answered confusingly "Yes I am" and the next thing she heard was "you're under arrest for the theft of 1million dollars of one Jeremiah Ernest. It's advisable that you stay quiet because anything you say will be used against you in the court of law".

(Backward a bit, the young man Christabel helped to the hospital had regained consciousness and had asked about what happened to him. He contacted his family and informed his wife of the money in his car which was later not found by the wife. So they concluded the strange helper was the suspect and got her contact details from the documents she filled and made a complaint at the station)
Christabel became perplexed, she looked at her dieing mother on the sick bed and then at the handcuffs been put around her wrists and she started crying. She followed the policemen and was taken to the station, detained in the cell and underwent questioning and interrogations for her to confess about the money she stole from the person she claimed to help but all she kept saying was that she was innocent of the theft accusations. She explained how she had saw the bag of money, left it back and dropped the key at the reception but all her explanations were like pouring water at the back of a bowl or calabash. The policemen claimed she knows about the money because if not she won't have deceitfully dropped the key and ran away without looking back.

The policemen proceed with investigation by inviting the nurse at the reception for questioning since she had the car key given to her but she also claimed she knew nothing about it. They proceeded to checking the CCTV footage of the hospital for the date the young man was brought to the hospital and fortunately, it was retrieved.

On seeing the footage, and image of a man was seeing moving towards the door of the car at the driver's seat, trying to open the door but couldn't and then he left. On seeing this, the policemen calmly watched the footage and saw the same man come back to the car with some tools in his hands trying to open the door and this time, he was able to open it. He spent a while in the car and then came out holding a bag, tiptoeing towards the security post.
The staff in charge identified the culprit as the security guard of the hospital and steps were taken to track him down and he was arrested.

Christabel was released and apologized to by the the young man, Earnest's and his family for their grave mistake of locking up their helper but Christabel could not listen to their pleas saying she had to go see her sick mum at the hospital. They offered to take her to the hospital in their car and when they got there, they quickly rushed in to see her and Christabel was at a fierce pace like the one on a 100m race. Ernest and his wife had concluded in their minds to foot the bill of Christabel's mother no matter the cost as well.
Fortunately, it wasn't too late to save Christabel's mother. The bill for the surgery was sorted by Ernest and the surgery was carried out, leaving Christabel with the hope of having her mother to herself again. Additionally Christabel was offered an employment of huge renumeration at an associate company of Earnest's and she became fulfilled at last after the whole struggle.

The security man who stole Ernest's money was charged to court and after presenting the whole evidence against him with no counter, he pleaded guilty of the crime.
The Judge complimented Christabel for her truthfulness and good heart, saving the owner of the money from death and still kept his money safe without taking a penny. The judge recommended her act as one that should be emulated in the society as it will reduce lost of lives and properties unlike the security man who chose to be greedy at the point of duty on the properties he was primarily employed to safeguard and secure. After this, the judge sentenced the security man to 15years imprisonment with hard labour and ordered that the money be returned back to Ernest as the rightful owner of the money.

From that moment onward, Christabel and her mother lived a good life as she was seen as Ernest saviour all the time.

"Taking the path of dignity isn't about taking the crown but to every outpour of utterances in the absence of the accused that VINDICATES the accused and nullifies the accusations."

This story is not real but fictional including the names, characters incidents and places, and all pictures are generated using AI

Originally written by AfriKen 🥰