Whispers. I awoke. Sitting up, I looked around. The windows were open, cold winds ruffling the curtains. The lights were still on. Can’t remember when we dozed off.

I rose to turn off the lights, and in the act caught a glimpse of the clock.

12:15am.

The whispering must have been in my dreams. Or from some sleep talk of my siblings littered across the living room.

Footsteps. From the compound. I listened harder. Who could be there at this time of the night? I tiptoed to the window. The bulb lighting that corner of the house was faulty. I spotted a dark figure, initially trying to peep into the living room, quickly bend and hurry away. My heart melted. A thief! What do I do?

I hurried to the second window of the living room, unfortunately tripping over a body and crushing into the window. Heard my brother grumble and doze off again almost immediately.

I rose from the crush, holding my aching head, a bump developing on my forehead.
I looked out the open window. There stood the intruder, a hood over his head, staring blankly into the living room. As we faced each other, I did not know where strength came from as I screamed.

“Hey! Hey!! Hey!!!.. ” I kept shouting, a deep intimidating tone that made me shudder.

In confusion, I started clapping too.

And yet, the dark figure in front of me wouldn’t budge. It stood there still as if confident that nothing will happen. And indeed, nothing did happen.

I was too scared to open the door and run after him. He could be armed, and I was alone.

Strangely, no one awoke. After about a minute, he hurried away. I could hear him jump the house wall.

It took a while for my siblings to wake up and for my parents to come to the scene. Some of our neighbors came to find out what the shouting was all about.

“I heard some screams. “

“What was it?”

“I thought it was happening in my dream.”

I did not answer any of them. Felt like punching them in the face. What took them so long?

“But where is the TV?” a neighbor asked.

That was when they began inspecting the house. I was still at the window, lost in my thoughts, too traumatized to move. These thieves. I heard they sometimes sprayed things into rooms to induce their victims into long sleeps. I sniffed about the room. No unusual perfume.

As I replayed the whole incident again in my head, I just couldn’t shake off the dark picture of the intruder imprinted on my mind, though I couldn’t see the face.

Days after the incident, I kept comparing the image in my mind to many faces I met on the streets. No one fitted exactly, but when I doctored the picture slightly, everyone fitted in perfectly.

That night, we counted our losses. We were not alone. Our neighbors too had been robbed. The robbery was impressive. The more we analysed it, the more we were convinced the thief was well known to us.

But who could it be?

Many valuable items were missing including a fat envelope of money from a fundraising meant for the construction of our chapel.

Because of rampant incidents of criminals raiding homes of pastors and church elders after major fundraising events in the church, the presbytery now worked with bankers who took the money straight to the bank right after the ceremony, even if it were not a working day.

Unfortunately, after our fundraising the previous day, it started raining heavily before the bankers could arrive. The pastor had to lie to the congregation that the bankers had come but were with those counting the money in the office. It was a way of dissuading thieves from raiding any church officer’s home. Behind the scenes, the money was given to dad so the following day, it could be taken to the bank.

Usually, after the rains come sunshine. But after the heavy rains of last night, it was going to be a long night before sunshine came…