5th June, 2022

It was Pentecost Sunday. Obiegelli was dishing rice and stew in the kitchen to serve Chibuike, her husband, after their return from the eight o'clock Mass when she heard him scream suddenly "Jesus Christ!".

" What is it?" She rushed with the half-dished plate into the living room.

"Hmm," Chibuike sighed and stretched out his hand to reveal his phone screen to her.

"I can't see it clearly, just read it to me," Obiegelli said.

"Owo, Ondo State Reports say that gunmen entered the Catholic church, fired rounds of shots before setting off explosives" he read from an account on Twitter.

"Ondo State? Owo?" Obiegelli felt the plate slipping from her hands and her knees trembling, so she moved closer to rest her body on the couch. Her eyes were already dewy when she further asked "Which Catholic church?"

Chibuike, unaware of the seizure about taking place behind him, responded by saying "They say it's St. Francis Catholic Church".

Obiegelli rushed back into the kitchen to retrieve her phone which was lying on the table and dialed a contact which was saved as 'Uche' on her phone. It rang twice, but there was no response. She dialed again and was met by the customer service voice informing her that the number was not responding at the moment, but that she could try later.

Next, she dialed another number, saved as 'Uche's Husband' and like before, was met by the voice of the customer service with the same information, that wasn't much.

Right there on the kitchen floor, forgetting about her husband's stomach, Obiegelli proceeded in prayer.

"Oby" Chibuike called when he did not see his food and heard no sound from the kitchen. "What is happening? Where is my food?".

Paying him no mind, Obiegelli continued strongly in her prayer, "Lord you said in your word that a thousand will fall by our right, ten thousand all around us but we will not be harmed…"

"Oby is every…" Chibuike paused in his steps when he saw his wife on the kitchen floor, tears rolling from her tightly shut eyes, her lips quivering as she battled between making sobs or words escape from them, and her hands swinging vehemently in the air.

 It was then that it hit me. Oby's only family, Uche, lived in Owo, and like Oby, she too is a strong Catholic and would never miss Mass, even on weekdays, unless Christ himself told her to. 

He pressed on the power button of his phone and went straight to his contact list, and like Oby dialed the number saved as 'Uche' and was met also by customer service. He was about to dial 'Uche's Husband' but figured Oby had probably tried already.

He looked up from his phone at his praying wife. If he didn't know better, like Eli to Hannah in the bible, he would have accused Oby of being drunk, but he knew, so instead, his heart became heavy with sympathy. He didn't know what to do. How does one make a person who thinks they have lost someone calm down?

In gentle steps, he approached her and knelt beside her, seizing her hands in his, he said "Amen" to prayers he did not hear. When Oby felt the warm presence of her husband, her body grew weak and words failed her as she collapsed into his embrace and sobbed. 

"Uche" she kept saying.

"Sshh, we don't know yet" Chibuike tried to comfort her.

"What if…?"

"No what ifs. We'll keep trying to reach them and if by 1 o'clock we hear nothing, I'll start going to Ondo today".

With that she rested, sobbing less till she fell asleep in his arms.

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Two years had passed since Oby buried her pregnant sister, together with her brother-in-law, and her six-year-old nephew. It's also been two years since she set foot in the four walls of a church, read her bible, or knelt to pray.

"If God could stay put and watch as his people were being massacred while he reserved a common image of the crucifix, he might as well save my purse and damn my soul whether I worship him or not" she had argued with her husband and anyone else who dared to question her decision on giving up on God.

"Oby, what has happened to you is terrible, but is it because it hit close to home that you're saying this? This is not the first bomb blast that has happened in a church na", Grace, a sister from Legion of Mary, a pious society Oby had belonged to in church, unsentimentally counseled. 

Oby squinted her eyes to zoom in on her image, the furrow on her forehead was red-hot as she drew closer to her.

"It will happen to you too" Oby pressed a finger to Grace's chest, "so we'll know just how much your love for God will save you". With that, she walked away.

The incident had also caused a rift between her and Chibuike. He continued attending Masses, and saying his Rosary every day while she watched. They occasionally tried to convert the other to their beliefs, but neither budged.

"Father Amos asked of you today," Chibuike told her over his meal one Sunday.

"Hope you told him I'm doing fine?" Oby replied.

"He said to let you know he's praying for you and would like to see you sometime".

" Tell him I don't need his prayers and he will not be seeing me ever," she said and walked out of the sitting room where they had been conversing. 

Oby also developed a new sense of sexual urge, and would demand satisfaction from Chibuike first thing every morning and before they went to bed every night.

It was a demand Chibuike had no problems with, but things hit the ceiling when her demands became too awkward for his Christian fate. 

Once he returned home to find her in red lingerie, and she demanded he make love to her there at the doorstep. He refused.

"We must live in a holy and honorable way, not with lustful desire. Thessalonians 4 verse 4, or have you forgotten?" Was his argument.

As if possessed by the devil, she waged war on his sleep that night, denying him dinner and silence until she became exhausted and slept off first.

Occasionally when they did make love, she demanded that they try a different style she saw from pornhub videos, and when he refused, she waged war.

And so it was until she stopped demanding sex from Chibuike as she learned to satisfy herself with toys.

She had played with the idea of going outside her matrimonial sanctity. Daniel, a worker in her confectionery, thirty-eight years at most, with thick dark skin that highlights the curves of his biceps, the glint of his eyes, and perfectly arranged white teeth, had been a worthy consideration. 

But it wasn't about God. Her morals just wouldn't let her do that to herself or her husband. So she learned to make do with whatever sex Chibuike had in him and appeased herself later with porn and toys.

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5th June, 2025

The day had become one she had sworn to hate, and though it was a busy day at work with several orders coming in, Oby had taken refuge in the privacy of her office and ordered that no one disturbed her no matter what.

First, she had cried grievously, then she slept and only woke up when she could no longer take the continuous banging on the door.

"Who's that mad person?" She muttered as she raged to the door, ready to shout and perhaps fire the unlucky knocker.

"Who's that eh?!" She shouted as she pulled the door open.

"Madam pe…" it was her Manager.

"Did I not say nobody should disturb me?" She cut her off.

"Madam something is happening".

It was at that point that Oby noted her beating chest, the terror in her eyes, and her trembling fingers.

"What is it?" Oby asked.

"People are disappearing".

" What?!"

"At first we were looking for Audu, the security man. We thought maybe he went home to get something because we saw his uniform on the chair he used to sit on. Then we started looking for Aunty Maggi, we thought she hadn't come to work, but Daniel and Luvy said they saw her this morning. We didn't take it seriously until Esther came, Madam if you see the rush she used to enter inside here?"

"Ehn, what did she say?"

"Madam, she said in her front, with her own eyes she saw one man, you know that mad man that used to stay on that turnabout road before you enter this our street?" Oby nodded, "She said she saw the man disappear".

" Where is she?"

"She's there" The manager pointed to the long corridor that led to the room where Esther was with three other workers, all looking about themselves in fear.

"Where is everybody?" Oby asked.

"Madam, they all went home oo".

"Why haven't the rest of you gone home?"

"Our people are not here, we're trying to reach our families but network is not connecting".

Oby looked around her, not sure of what to make of what she had just heard. 

"On that day, two men will be in the field, one will be taken and the other left" she recalled a passage in the Bible where Christ had spoken about his return.

"Ah," she scoffed and shook her head. "Lock up" she ordered her workers, while she made her way back to her office.

"Of all days for this to be happening, you choose today. I must be a joke to you" she spoke under her breath. "You take my sister on this same day, then now you want to take everybody. Like what is it with you and 5th June? No other day is perfect for your big show? You had to pick today!"

She was about to leave her office when the sound of something that fell startled her, making her heart jump, for though she was putting on a brave face, she had been terrified when she heard of the disappearance of the madman.

"Are you OK?" Someone said to her. The voice soft and gentle had also startled her a little because she had not expected anyone to still be in the building.

"Yes, I'm fine," Oby said and breathed in deeply before exhaling. She looked up to the face before her but couldn't recognize her as a worker. "Who are you?" She asked.

"Oh, sorry. I was passing by and saw that you were still open. I was hoping I could get a plate of my favorite ice cream before the entire world collapses and that would be the last thing on my mind".

" How is that not the last thing on your mind right now?"

She gave Oby a sad brief smile "I have nothing to lose. I've been alone all my life. So while everyone is going about wondering if their loved ones have been taken to heaven or if they will stay together to suffer the Antichrist, I only have to look out for myself, which is not something new to me".

Oby looked at her for a while and considered her life in the shoes of this stranger. " I'm sorry," she said, with great pity.

"It's all good" the stranger laughed it off. "You think I can get that ice cream?"

"Sure. Follow me".

Oby opened the deep freezer and brought out a medium-sized plate of ice cream and a spoon, set it on the table for the stranger, and sat across to watch her eat.

"Why is everyone so sure it's rapture?" She suddenly asked the stranger, trying to make small talk.

"You don't think so?"

"I mean, it could be anything".

" Like what?"

"Aliens?"

The stranger laughed, "You don't believe that," she said.

"But it could be"

"Mm"

There was a brief moment of silence before the stranger said "Why are you still here? Don't you have a family or people you care about?"

"I have a husband. The only person 'He' left me with. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, 'He' usually disappoints when I do that".

"You seem mad at him".

Oby's and the stranger's eyes met and remained fixed on each other for a while.

" If you're done, I'd like to lock up," Oby said as she stood up to turn off the fridge. "Or you can just…" She stopped talking when she turned and didn't find the stranger sitting at the table where she had left her, but the ice cream plate was still there.

Terrified, she ran out of the shop, locked up, and for the first time, saw first-hand the chaos happening before her.

Everywhere she turned, people were crying, some held up clothes or pictures of the person they were looking for, the road was jammed and no one was heading to the traffic laws, people were running to and fro, and some were collapsed on the ground, there was yelling everywhere. She looked at the time on her wristwatch, it was only half-past two, yet the sky was darkening.

"Chibuike!" It had hit her then that it wasn't a joke as she had wanted to believe, that the end time was before her, and though she had a lot of wrongs to pay for, she wanted to see her husband.

She fished out her phone from her bag and dialed his number, but there was no reception. She thought of driving home, but the sight of the road told her it would be a lost cause, so off she raced on barefoot, leaving her slipper heels behind.

At home, there was no sign of Chibuike, though she called and called, he was not there. The weary of loss overpowered her again and she wept.

"Chibuike I'm sorry" she kept saying as she recollected how hard she had been on him for the past two years. In her self-reflection, she also found remorse for her sins and it broke her heart that she had let death destroy her faith rather than strengthen it. By whims she could not explain, she found herself longing for God, to be in his presence, and though the voice in her head told her she was late and her remorse was no good, she carried herself still. And for the first time in two years, she went to church.

There at the altar of God, like many others that came before her, she wept and asked God for mercy.

"Oby" a familiar voice called from behind her.

She turned slowly, holding her breath in disbelief at the possibility of voice belonging to Chibuike, but when her eyes met with her caller, her eyes almost budged from their sockets and she gasped with relief before running to embrace him.

"Chibuike 'm (my Chibuike)" she cried.

"I went to your shop, you were not there"

"I went to the house to check for you"

"Oh, OK".

" Chibuike, I'm sorry. Please I beg you forgive me" She was almost kneeling before he held her up.

"Oby stop. I understood what you were going through and that was why I kept praying for you. It's OK now. We're here, together. That's all that matters".

"But why are you here?" 

He scoffed "The same reason you are here. We're not holy enough to see God"

"So is it too late? Is it too late for us now?"

"We've been given a second chance before the final judgment. I'm happy that we're here together. I believe we'll get through whatever temptation that comes our way if we work together".

Oby nodded and hugged him again tightly as if never wanting to let go