(Exit Messenger)
Curtain.
Act 4 Sc 2
(The gate opens and someone walks in. He is met at the gate by the Messenger)
Cain: (To the messenger) are you the luggage carrier? I’m afraid there is no luggage to carry.
Messenger: I’m no luggage carrier. I’m a messenger.
Cain: A messenger? Whose messenger?
Messenger: I work for the one who made everything that you knew in that world below as well as all what you can see here.
Cain: I know who that is. Down there he was referred to as The Most High, Creator, Supreme Being, …. He had many names. But wait a minute, I was told that up here there were beautiful flowers, trees of all sorts, animals and birds living next to one another without being afraid, …quite a lot of nice things. But I see none here. I guess all those preachers just had their heads in the clouds.
Messenger: Maybe…..maybe not.
(As they walk by the rooms of Carlos and Vladimir)
Cain: (To messenger) Look, those guys in those two room don’t look ok. What’s wrong with them? Are they sick?
Messenger: Sort of.
Cain: Then I think I might be of help. I was a medical doctor down there. But I wonder if they would have the money to pay for my services. I am expensive and very conscious of it. When I was down there, I dealt only with the rich. Anyone who came to me and claimed to be poor was sent elsewhere or if they remained begging, they ended up dying.
Messenger: But I thought that when you are a medical doctor, your first priority should be to save lives and not bother whether they are rich or poor.
Cain: Well, yes….but that was the ideal and nobody liked the ideal. You know, I came from a modest family and I was not bright in school. So my parents used money to push me through schools and bought me certificates. Towards the end of my third year in the university, there were not prospects of ever finding a job. My parents still had to deep their hands really deep into their pockets to buy my way into the medical school. They went in for a loan and assembled six million which they paid. It did not end there….since I was not bright, they still had to keep bribing the lecturers to give me good marks until I finally graduated. When I started work, I had to recover back all the money they spent. I thought that after recovering the money, I would stop. But that was not the case. I soon discovered how it was so easy to make money from patients and my appetite for it became insatiable. I began to have numerous girl friends, good cars, beautiful houses, long travels to towns and cities that had sandy beaches….the list is long. Life was good down there. You can now understand why I made mention of money. Money is good.
Messenger: I see….I don’t think those guys would be in need of your services. What they are suffering from is some depression which would disappear with the passage of time. You know, time heals all wounds. But I think you would soon have to doctor yourself as you will have the depression too.
Cain: (Stops and looks startled) What do you mean I will soon have a depression? Is there a depression epidemic around here?
Messenger: Yes. It grips people when they learn of the truth and you know that the truth hurts and leads to depression. But don’t worry about it….since you are a doctor, I’m sure you are well armed to face the situation. Can I show you to your room?
(They enter the room intended for him. It is as empty as the rest. Cain looks around the room with a lot of curiosity).
Cain: Is this the room you talked about or another one?
Messenger: This is the room….your room.
Cain: This? There is no chair or table or cooking pot or anything….how I’m I supposed to survive here? Is there nothing better than this? Who is in charge of this place by the way? If I see him I’d tell him in his face that this place is below standards.
Messenger: I can see that you don’t like this place but you are the one who willingly made the choice to come here.
Cain: Me? Choose to come here? What are you talking about?
Messenger: A while ago you told me that preachers painted a very beautiful picture of the place good people go to after death, right?
Cain: Yes, I said that.
Messenger: They didn’t tell you what you had to do to get there?
Cain: They did but what they were telling me to do was too difficult. They wanted me to forgo all the beautiful things of life. They equally added that I had to sacrifice a good chunk of what I earned by giving it to charity as well as treat most of those that were poor, who came to me, free of charge. One of the preachers went as far as telling me that I had to use part of my salary to buy drugs for some of my patients who could not afford it. Those things were too difficult to follow. If I did it I wouldn’t have enjoyed my life.
Messenger: The picture of the beautiful place they painted really does exist. I’m equally sure they told you that the road to the place is rough and narrow. What makes the road rough and narrow are the temptations of that world which you call pleasure and a good life. Willing to forgo them meant that you had to be at constant war with yourself. Battling those things which your heart and body desired most was the way you were supposed to prepare yourself for the place they painted as beautiful. You said that following what they prescribed was difficult and so you sunk into that life of vanity or nothingness. By doing that, you were preparing for the life of nothingness and you are in the land of nothingness. Do you want to know where that beautiful place is? (Pointing) Look over there… that is the place.
Cain: So what is this place?
Messenger: Do you want to tell me you weren’t listening. I’ve said (pointing) that is the Land of Eternal Happiness over there while this one is the opposite side.
Cain: What can I do to get there?
Messenger: What can you do to get there? Well right now….nothing. While you were in that world down there, you were supposed to send something for us out of that world to prepare a place for you. But you didn’t do that.
Cain: Now wait a minute, how was I supposed to send money here for you to build me a good house when you don’t even have financial institutions here?
Messenger: I didn’t say anything about money. Besides, money is not needed here no matter the amount. What was required to prepare you a place here was resistance of those good things of life down there, service to humanity through your job especially the poor, help for those who couldn’t help themselves, charity to the poor and love for every man no matter the status, class, sex or origin. That was all that was needed to prepare a place for you over there. Now that you sent nothing, nothing was prepared for you there and there is nothing which you have to go and do there. That difficult path the preachers prescribed actually led to that beautiful place but since you felt it was too difficult, this is where your path has led you. I will be out for a while but will be back to clarify any doubts you may have. Loosing you was already too painful for my master just as all those who are here. He wouldn’t want that you feel that you are in this place unjustly as well.
(Exit Messenger)
Cain: Ok. (Does not look convinced. Jumps out and heads to Vladimir’s room where William, stone, and Sandi are seated on the bare floor. Bumps in. without greeting and almost in tears) Please I need some help. I am just a new comer here and that guy who calls himself a messenger has told me a lot of things which are pretty scary. Can any of you clarify me?
William: (Very calmly) Sure boy….what do you want to know?
Cain: (Nervously) He told me that He who created us has already lost those of us that are here and that we have no place in that beautiful kingdom over there because we do not merit a place there. Is it true?
William: Didn’t he tell you who he is? He is a Messenger of the one who created everything including all of us here. If he has said anything to you, you have to take it as the whole truth because when it comes to knowing the number of teeth in a crocodile’s mouth
, you are not supposed to argue with the fish.
Sandi: Just to add to what he has said, if that gate opened to let you in, it means that you were supposed to be here and once you get in here, you can never get out again. That is what I have learnt to my finger tips and I think you should do the same thing.
Cain: Is that all what he told you guys? How do you know he was speaking the truth?
Stone: Because some of us tried to get out and failed. That Messenger is the only one who can come in here and get out again. If that is not enough evidence to you, then find those that suit you.
Cain: So what is this place?
Sandi: It is called the Land of Eternal Discomfort or Hell if you want.
Cain: (Raises both hands to his head and crashes to the ground).
(Enters Messenger)
Messenger: (To Cain) I told you that you were going to suffer a depression. Given the situation in which you are, I would not bother you with many questions. But I will ask you just one and then point out why you are here. My first question is; do you think that you are in this place unjustly?
Cain: I admit that I did some few terrible things but I don’t think they were enough to land me here.
Messenger: Let’s try to examine what you call ‘few’. At your post of duty, you carried out surgical operations which had nothing to do with your field of study at school. You were actually or should I say presumably trained to be a general practitioner. I say presumably because you were not a bright student and your parents bribed the lecturers to give you good marks. You just had to prescribe drugs. But since the prescription of drugs was not lucrative, you forcefully decided to carry out surgical operations since there was a lot of money to be made. Your principal targets were pregnant women about to give birth. You took upon yourself to always program their minds to know that giving birth naturally was no longer possible. Your first victim was Anastasia Lee. You made her to believe that her baby was too fat and would kill her if she wanted to give birth normally. You charged 150.000 and operated her to take out a baby who weighed just two and a half kilograms. She would have given birth naturally. You successfully took out the baby but on stitching her wounds you forgot some pads in her which later rendered her sterile. Another victim was Juliana. You charged the same 150.000 as soon as she entered your office already in labor. After collecting the money, you went to prepare the theatre and on returning, she had given birth. You did not refund her money. So far, have I said anything which is out of place?
Cain: (Remains silent).
Messenger: That silence means that all I’ve said is in order. Catherine was yet another victim. She needed to actually go through an operation to give birth but her crime was that she was poor. What you did….
Cain: (Interrupts) What happened to her was not my responsibility. She did not have the money to pay and I could not operate her. She had the choice to either go and look for the money or call her relatives to come and take her elsewhere.
Messenger: You did not sound like you were giving her a choice. You told her family members to go and look for money. They were not just going to look for your initial fee but they had to equally provide money for drugs which you were the only one to provide and administer. Did they really have a choice?
Cain: But I ended up not operating her since I was incompetent as you’ve said. Haven’t you just said that I had nothing to do with surgery? So by not intervening, I did her a lot of good.
Messenger: I am not the one saying it. You yourself knew that you had nothing to do with surgery yet you went on practicing it. If not intervening was good for Catherine, she wouldn’t have died, would she? Are you then telling me that if her family members did come with the money, you wouldn’t have carried out the operation? You would have done it. Because of your love for money, you allowed Catherine to die with her twin babies. She was not the only one who suffered that fate. Most of the women you operated ended up dieing and those that survived were those who went for surgical interventions elsewhere.
Cain: So why am I here? Is it because jobs were rare and I found myself in the one that was available which of course I didn’t like?
Messenger: You must not like a job before carrying it out properly. Anyone who has the desire to do things right, and the will to learn, will always do the job he or she is in, even if he or she does not like the job. Well back at school, you did not want to learn because you knew your parents were going to bribe the lecturers to get you promoted. You were fully aware that it was the ‘Only available Job’ as you put it. That was supposed to be a galvanizer to make you develop love, dedication, determination and devotion to the profession. That is, saving lives. It is a divine ordination. The fact that you did not love your job was not reason to turn the hospital into a slaughter house. You did not love the job but loved the money generated by the job.
Cain: You are here blaming me alone leaving out my parents who decided to use money in getting me into school and bribing lecturers, and lecturers who were too corrupt and accepted money to award me marks which I did not merit. What about them? Let’s even say that I operated Catherine for free, where would have money for her drugs come from?
Messenger: As for your parents and the corrupt lecturers, they have their case files which they would come and face. Going back to Catherine, she died in the afternoon of the same day Juliana gave birth. Juliana gave birth in the morning and paid you 150.000 plus that for her drugs. If she had the choice to go out to the hospital pharmacy to buy her drugs, they would have cost only half of the amount you charged her. You still had the money on you at the time Catherine died and the drugs she would have needed after the operation were equally available. Why didn’t you use them to save her life?
Cain: What? I should have used my hard earned money or drugs to save her life for free!!! Who was she to me? She was nobody….a total stranger.
Messenger: That is what I’ve been saying all along. Was there any other way of testing your dedication to the life-saving mission? Your love for money prevented you from seeing her as a patient, sister and human being who needed assistance. You convinced her and she came to you because she had faith in you. If you were in that job, whether you liked it or not, your principal mission was to save lives whether the patient was rich or poor. If you discovered that you had some lapses, nothing stopped you from inviting or asking assistance from your colleagues who were specialists. You could not because you were afraid of sharing part of the charges you made with them. Because of your greed and selfishness, many patients paid dearly with their lives. That was not all….your boss received a lot of criticisms because of the chronic corruption which went on in the hospital and decreed that all consultation fee must be paid in a special office he created. You still charged consultation fees even after your patients presented receipts showing that they had already paid. You were not allowed to sell drugs despite the fact that there were notices all over the hospital premise preventing doctors and nurses from doing so.
Cain: Those who wrote such notices were still selling drugs as well.
Messenger: You were gaining a lot from the illegal sale of drugs but you were at the same time crippling the patient. It was not because those who wrote the notices violated them that you had to do same. You developed the habit of sending your patients to the lab even when you knew what was wrong with them and knew the drug to prescribe.
Cain: I had to send them to the lab to be sure that I wasn’t prescribing the wrong drug for the wrong disease. Through those tests, we could identify other diseases the patients were not aware of.
Messenger: I did not say that sending your patients to the lab was wrong. But the intention for sending them there was not proper. You had arranged with the lab technicians to be collecting money which they shared equally with you. As proof that you were interested more in making money, tests conducted had to be prepaid whether they turned out positive or negative. For people who were interest
ed in saving lives, the right thing would have been to conduct all tests and then the patients pay just for those that turn out positive. That would have been better and would have helped to save lives. But since you were more interested in making money, you fixed an amount first and patients had to pay first before any tests were conducted. You drained money from your patients by making them undergo tests which turned out to be negative and by the time you got to what they were actually suffering from, they no longer had money for drugs, which sent a good number of them to their graves. Such behavior made many to believe that the hospital was a money making institution which contributed in the killing of patients who went there seeking treatment. You inflated the prices of the drugs which you were not allowed to sell in the first place because you knew that people must buy to stay alive. You took advantage of some scarcity to inflate the prices. My master frowns at those who take advantage of desperate situations. Where did you keep your compassion? Even at this moment we are talking, the hospitals especially state run hospitals are big money making institutions. Using people for whatever reason for self benefit is wrong and failing to help or save someone in difficulties especially in a life and death situation is as bad as physically killing him or her. Can you tell us what happened to Luanga Thompson?
Within the Walls of Hell Page 10
