TUNNEL

      He stood there watching his children wail. He was numb; staring at them, unaware of how much unrest their uproar caused by-standers. In anger a smallish lady walked up to him, she had had enough! 'Excuse me but your kids are a little out of control' she said politely but with a stern voice. With sweaty palms and face still as if spell bound he turned and whispered to the lady 'their mum just died'… The smallish fish vendor in an attempt to go pacify the wailing kids got a disapproving nod from the man, she muttered "like hell it's not even my business", and turned briskly heading towards her shop.
      Mr Aries met his wife 14 years ago at a fraternity party, not that he really was all over her, she was the only one available to dance so he took up the opportunity, they had a weird connection and after the party you could almost taste the air of love between them, the love wasn't instant but it felt deep. They started dating barely four months after and he seemed pretty normal it was funny how he hid his psychopathic persona successfully from Whitney; he hadn't even hit her yet. They eventually got married above her mother and friends disapproval. Not to say they had the best marriage, but it was sustainable at least off-springs were birthed.
      "Babe I don't know how we became so distant, I feel like I'm the one the blame should be laid on, I don't know how our seemingly éclat life and marriage has been reduced to this, but I miss my best friend and I miss us and the perfect memories we were struggling to build, I know you're pretty damaged and almost ruined right now but I and the children really need you now more than ever", Whitney sent the note to her husband when he was in the mental home, and apparently this was all she ever wrote to him.
      He was in between mental homes and hospitals and even got himself a shrink, he knew he had messed up, killed his wife, murdered his child and drove his children away from him, he was trying so hard to make good of the ruins he now lay deep in, he was mortified, what if he never gets his children back again, he was a failure he muttered, he just took his gazillion drugs meant for the afternoon when his nurse knocked on the door interrupting his long chain of thoughts and walked in briskly, his therapy session was at 2:15, three minutes from now.
      A few years after his wife passed on, Mr Aries plunged himself further into his act, he had a near perfect criminal record that included female mutilation, rape, killing and every other possibly inhumane act that can be listed. It was irritable to almost everyone, he was in papers, in the news, he was in and out of courtrooms and in between lawyers and their outstanding bills he was yet to pay. He was a shadow of himself, he missed his wife occasionally but could that be the reason he got back into this?
      Grace and Jerome his two children were successful in both their careers and were able to make good out of the faulty foundation they were born in , while Grace was a renowned Medical Doctor with two kids, Jerome just finished his call to bar exams, they each hadn't spoken to their father in over a decade, they had been construing plans for that but kept it on hold because they still believe he killed their mother, I mean it was glaring he was breaking her heart with all he was doing which was far from what they planned to do and the very last straw, was when he raped and killed their four year old son.
       They were planning to go home for thanksgiving, they were going to meet at the airport and fly into Nigeria from Ohio, they got gifts for him as they really had missed him, he wasn't perfect but face it, he was all they've got. They met a couple of aunties and uncles on the flight where they did a little reunion and exchanged contacts. As they approached their house with unaltered enthusiasm, they saw their father being carried into a police car and he couldn't even muster the courage to look at their faces, so they walked up to one of the policemen and went on to inquire the cause, and they were told he was sentenced to life imprisonment for multiple crimes last week and they came to pick him up to the station.
      Jerome called the airlines and booked a return ticket for him and sister for later that evening, they had only just realized that this trip was a mistake.