text: ‘This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives...’ Benny said this in a low tone as she was cleaning the blood stained card. You can only hope for a better tomorrow. You never can tell what it brings. Your only consolation is that your future is in the hand of the Almighty who controls tomorrow. Benny was still holding the wedding card when Melford stepped out of the toilet attached to their three bedroom flat, on the 4th floor of one of the high rising buildings in Ajayi Estate, Ogba Lagos. ‘This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives, God.’ She muted the same words again. “What did you say?” Asked the husband. She threw the blood stained card at him and made moves to leave the bed room. On the card were lying flat two giant mosquitoes which met their waterloo after an adventure on Friday night. With well fitted mosquito nets in their room those mosquitoes still found their ways through. “Whose blood is this?” Melford the man of the house asked Benny after blocking her at the door and throwing the card at her feet. ‘It is not about whose blood but rather, how the blood got there?’ By now the husband knew that trouble was brewing. She picked the card from the floor and headed towards the balcony crossing their sitting room, their kitchen. Bishop Melford followed. As Benny was sitting down, her husband cited another chair close by, drew it nearer and sat, still gazing at the wedding card. “Oh that! I’m happy I was involved in that wedding. It was a talk of the town.” ‘Really...?’ The wife countered. The previous Saturday was the first wedding ceremony in Christ Holy Church after the Corona Virus Pandemic in Nigeria. The counseling session took three weeks, sometime in October, as the practice of the church was. Three major tests were required, Pregnancy, HIV and Genotype tests. ‘Free at last from the ordeals!” Angelina said. Having a societal wedding is the dream of every lady. A wedding where cream De La cream would be present to grace the occasion. Everything was pre-arranged and contracted out. That was exactly what she got. It took two trucks to evacuate their gifts from the venue of the Reception. Angelina, full of expectation and apprehension was caught gazing into the thin air. ‘It’s your wedding day.’ Agatha her chief bride’s maid reminded her. “Thank you, my dear, I’m just thinking, how the whole thing was going to end.” ‘End or begin?’ Agatha queried. She changed the topic and ordered for a snap shot with two of her siblings. First night in the palace as a wife! The expectation was very high, the level of acceptability was huge. The first son of a Crown Prince, the second marriage ceremony into the palace, after the Crown Prince’s. All the gifts were moved into a newly constructed duplex of about five rooms. It was a special gift from the King to a Grandson. Benny, now charged, took a long gaze at her husband and said; “This is a real mess.....” The words were still coming out from Benny’s mouth when they heard an explosion behind the door. With that heavy sound and vibrations everywhere, without thinking of his wife Benny standing beside him, the Bishop jumped for ‘safety’ from the balcony of a five storey building to the ground. ‘Help!’ the wife shouted. It was a Saturday morning in Lagos, Nigeria, every one supposed to be resting after a very hectic week. Mrs. Melford had heard the story of the Stinky Wedding already but needed her husband to collaborate or deny. This was a good opportunity for her to get the details, if not for the explosion, the heavy smoke and her husband’s adventure to ‘safety.’ The fire fighters were being awaited. Fire was everywhere in the apartment. Benny could not enter their room neither could she jump like her husband did. She could hear the wailing from the people who saw the husband spreading large in midair. The smoke was filling the entire building when the elevator machine was set. Gasping for air, Benny, grasping the belts and carefully, she was rescued. When she woke up in the hospital she requested to know if the husband was safe, nobody answered her a word. It was on her second time of asking that Bishop Melford gently held her hand from behind and whispered, “Thank God we are safe. It was the mattress they were taking delivery of that saved the day and my life. I landed on the foams and I later learnt the people brought me to the clinic. Doctors have confirmed I am safe and sound.” Later that evening they were both discharged and back to their home. The previous Saturday Cletus had a major achievement of his life. He walked down the aisle, the girl he loved and desired most the whole of his life. It was a societal wedding and the Crown Prince, his father, had made every arrangement for the consummation of their marriage in Dubai (United Arab Emirate). They went through a very successful counseling session with Bishop Melford the presiding Bishop of the church and his team of pastors where both Cletus and his betrothed wife, Angelina, worship. The entire congregation was happy for their union. It was 10:00pm on the dot that Saturday. The guests were dispersed and shortly Angelina’s phone rang. It was the voice of Bishop, sounding with an air of authority from the other end; “Keep calm, my daughter, be yourself for everything will be fine.” ‘Yes, my lord!’ She responded nervously and looking at Cletus’ direction. As soon as the call ended, the officiating pastor’s sermon earlier in the day re-vibrated in her ears: “...And the two were both naked and they were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). Cletus was naked in every way in this journey but Angelina was not. She moved a step backward from Cletus and said: “Clet; I have something important I want us to discuss.” What can be more important than a couple being together in their matrimonial home for the first night after wedding? This was the day, the night they all hoped and worked for all these days. Free at last from unnecessary parental controls. Now they have their lives to live, a future to build together, they had everything figured out. The Dubai trip was slated for Monday. ‘Angel; today is my wedding day!’ Cletus softly uttered those words as he was heading for her lips. “Wait, very seriously, we have known ourselves for some time now, have I ever been this serious?” She re-emphasized. Well a husband should listen to his spouse and give a rapt attention if that was what she desired first. As Cletus just finished saying; ‘I’m all ears...,’ then the big one happened: “Clet; I’m pregnant!” A newlywed should be pregnant with hope, expectation, ideas and love. Cletus, by his nature, had never been a humorous individual although he enjoyed jokes thrown around by those he cherished. ‘What! Are you joking or something?’ By the palace discipline and his faith they are supposed to keep their matrimonial bed undefiled until they tie the knots. ‘Wait a minute, are you pregnant of hope, ideas, love or what?’ “It was the Bishop’s advice.” She continued. “I confided in him that ‘my conscience will forever judge me if I kept this secret from Cletus.’ That was immediately I missed by period. I’m now five weeks pregnant! I never wanted to lie to him. I told him it was Appolos his son who was responsible.” Cletus could not believe his ears. ‘I’m listening.’ “It was one of the days Amanda was rushed to the hospital. Five weeks after the birth of their second child. The time you requested I should assist in staying with their first son at their home. I was there for three days. The first two days I was alone with Paul, their seventeen months old boy. The third day Appolos came home in the night from the hospital. He reminded me of how I turned down his marriage proposal without any cogent reason. He pleaded and pleaded that the only gift he wanted from me was to allow him make love to me. I resisted vehemently. I stood my ground until it was late into the night when everybody had slept. He pleaded on his knees and I vowed that first thing in the morning I was going to leave his house. I promised reporting him to Bishop his father, upon this he held I tightly, shook me to my marrow and........... You remember I told you of his overtures?” ‘You mean Appolos my senior sister’s husband?’ Before he could secure an answer from Angelina, he left the bedroom. He was heard banging everything that could make any sound around. His head was hot and his body was wet. His legs were wobbling. Right in his inner self, a voice was very strong; “thou shall not kill.” He rushed back to the bedroom; ‘Angelina, can you answer this one question, just one? Up until the night of this ignoble incident, were you still a virgin?’ As the word “No” was coming out of her mouth, another question followed; ‘How many times did you sleep with Appolos?’ There was no more patience to wait for the answer; he left the room, straight to his father’s door. The Crown Prince woke up not knowing the direction of his door except that he could hear unmistakably the voice of his adorable son. “Is all well, my son?” ‘All cannot be well, Dad? In fact I don’t know what to think right now Dad.....’ “Calm down son.” He said after holding his right hand and heading back to one of the cushions in his sitting room. “This is an abomination.” The Prince said, looking for what object to hold tight: “This has never been heard of, what happens to the palace? What happens to the church? Why did Bishop conceal everything? Why did he not cancel the wedding?” Cletus busted into tears and; filled at the same time with anger, he cut off the necklace that has become his trademark. He threw it at no object in view. He never bothered what Angelina might have been going through all alone, upstairs right now. ‘Dad,’ he finally opened his mouth. ‘I need a place to think.’ Not knowing exactly where he was going, except that his wallet and all his travelling documents were intact with him. Going to a friend’s house was out of question. He checked into a hotel, a few kilometres from the palace, switched off his phones and forced a sleep that never showed up. The whole of that Sunday he was his own companion. Right in the church, on Sunday morning, everything went on smoothly although they expected Cletus and his wife to be present. Everywhere was quite like a battalion of rats that swallowed poison. As a young man, your desire in life is to have a wife who can help you built a home. Whether marriage is an achievement or not, Cletus was thankful to God that at last he had a successful wedding, or so he thought. Having come from a well to do family, a son of a Crown Prince with a business empire spread across Africa, he was happy that his first visit to Dubai was going to be with his spouse on a honey moon. All these are now in abeyance. ‘Suite UFC 6!’ He kept reminding himself of the hotel room in the United Arab Emirate (UAE), booked for one week. ‘What next, Cletus?’ He muted to himself. Few hours into Monday as the plane was touching down he switched on his phones and as the phones were booting, he whispered to himself again, ‘Cletus, Dubai here you come.’ Everything on his phone was different. No network, the time zone was at variance. He noticed too that everything about his life was different. This was the first time ever he was traveling out without a bag, spare cloth, everything. He choose to make necessary and a surprise contact but first, with his father back here in Nigeria. The line was not going through. The whole of Sunday neither Cletus nor his wife Angelina was cited anywhere in the palace. The father headed for their apartment at least to say a word as a father. No sound! His phone rang showing a foreign number, “hello, who is it?” As he heard; ‘Dad, it’s Cletus,’ the phone dropped from his hand. When he picked it up, it had gone mute. He went close to the door and knocked, expecting a response from within but none. The phone rang the second time, ‘Dad, I’m in Dubai!’ He knew immediate that Angelina was not with him. The news filtered in the following Friday night and Bishop’s wife having made the necessary contacts throughout that Friday night and very early on Saturday morning, charged at her husband demanding for an urgent explanation. Saturday evening, back from the hospital, Bishop knew a family crisis was looming: ‘How dare you mislead this boy and this girl? Why did you not tell them the truth and shame the devil? Why deceiving the church?’ “My dear, I was afraid for our home, our Ministry and our son.” ‘Hey!’ She charged again, ‘leave Appolos out of this!’ “No, my dear, Appolos is all of this.” Douglas the Crown Prince kept knocking; hoping Angelina would show up. “Quick! Bring this door down now!” He ordered. On getting to the sitting room, Angelina’s legs were dangling in the air, with her neck stocked in Cletus’ belts. “They are dead!” the Prince exclaimed. Only he understood that. The next challenge was who to talk to. Could it be the Bishop, the police or Mr. Cletus? “I did this to ensure the coast is clear, signed: Angelina”. Monday night Cletus attempted calling his father again, still everywhere was mute. Feeling very much uncomfortable he decided to end his stay in Dubai. At that point his phone rang, it was his father. “My son.....” On getting to the lobby of the terminal, back in Nigeria Tuesday evening, his friend, Mella, certainly sure that Cletus had heard everything met him and said, “I’m so sorry that all these are happening to you right now...” He dashed to the hospital Ward from where he was referred to the mortuary. He stood there holding one of the pillars in confusion. Bishop Melford, not knowing who to avoid in all these, left the house early Sunday morning, eight days after the wedding for his church. The rampaging youth wing of the church had locked the church against everybody. Tension was high. The members had scattered. The fear of facing the council members at the Headquarters kept tormenting him. He chose the best alternative for himself. He decided to send a letter to explain his position and to ask for forgiveness. By then it was too late.