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What Surviving a Lunatic Asylum Taught Me About Fear and the Less Trodden Path
Pause. Then Act
Sometime in 1996, while in secondary school, I experienced what would become a constant reference point for me later in life, on how to assess risk and remain objective in taking life decisions; or reacting under extremely tense or unpredictable circumstances. As a quick background, I attended Federal Government College, Idoani in Ondo State — one of those secondary schools where young boys lived out the story of Lord of the Flies on a daily basis, going through often extremely harsh conditions, while their parents reveled in bliss back at home sure their children were safe and sound studying in a good school environment. While the scholarly activities and academic achievements of the school at the time was commendable, social life outside the classroom was a constant struggle for survival. Idoani was a walled-off arena where disturbed teenagers discovering power for the first time role-played their fantasies in the meanest, most gruesome and most disturbing of ways. It was a constant line up of power play performances in a mad house one couldn’t break free from until vacation.
Not too far from where I was sitting, one stray pane hit a boy on the head. He fell mid-run, and is head began to bleed.
