I am dying. Though I am not yet dead, But I see it, I am about to die. To me, death is imminent and looming over me like an angry cloud. To us, death is inevitable. We don’t die the normal way of being stuck with a knife or poison or the numerous ways one can die.
We die swiftly and silently amidst laughter, giggles, merriment and drunkenness. We are maimed with our worst enemy-a metallic weapon with a hole in the middle while some crude folks bite us to death with their dirty crooked teeth but many love to get the joy of killing us to the fullest by using glasses and straws. People prefer to kill us cold, iced or even frozen over reasonable talks, debates, celebrations or arguments.
Our only consolation during our death is our companions. The rich folks kill us in the company of edibles like fried or grilled meat, fish, salad etc. At least some of us have good last memory of the earth before leaving it.
Our life span is just a week in the average. Unfortunate members of my clan do not stay more than 48 hours before they are shipped from our hatchery to different parts of the world where they are abused and maltreated without any justification while the fortunate ones lasts for a week or more depending on the location and type of folks surrounding them. Our life is nothing interesting. We are abused all day long from our hatchery to the last individual that finally slices off our protective helmet.
Drivers have been warned to desist from killing us, yet they pay no heed to this warning. They kill us with no mercy, slicing and maiming many of my kind at once and jumping into the steering wheel. Some even kill us while driving, ignoring the pleas and cries of mercy we echo. But our spirits never rest; we become restless and aggressive after our deaths and attack our murderers. We possess the driver that showed no mercy to us, leading him into an accident where he kills himself and probably any unfortunate person around. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
We hate the young men with passion. They treat us with disregard. They show no respect to us. Their regulatory body has told them to minimize the way they kill us though we say no to killing but still, they refuse to stop or minimize as they have been advised. Their level of abuse is so extreme that they sometimes take it as a competition or bet to determine the person that kills the highest number of my kind at an agreed time. But they never go scot free. We usually come back in full force to retaliate. We disgrace them like never before, we make them utter their darkest secrets and deepest desires in public, we make them do things they abhor or would never have done ordinarily, we throw them into ditches, pits and gutters, we make them loose things they’ve craved for all their lives, we rip into shreds their essential internal organs slowly but faithfully, we scatter their homes and make them rascals. Only a few that are too strong stagger pitifully and agonizingly to their homes after killing us but we tie the nerves and veins in their heads into knots and they feel the effect as headaches.
Only the elders and a few wise ones show us a little respect. They kill us in twos at most in a day though we strongly disprove of that but a thirsty man in a desert will accept any type of water he is offered.
Many of us give up our lives willingly for those that appeal to us. We make them courageous to do anything they want to do, we offer them solace from their sorrows and woes, we give them momentary satisfaction and happiness when they are troubled and many other things we do for them.
We don’t claim to be saints as we are mischievous when we want to be. We cause quarrel in homes and break marriages, we make men of God and religious defy the very oath they guard, we put the human system in disorder and we cause catastrophe anywhere we are abused and lacerated.
Our short life is a life of slavery. All our life from hatchery to butchery, we are held captive in bottles covered with big helmets.
Though our death frees us from the bottle captivity, but we are ushered into eternal damnation, greater captivity and everlasting helotry in the belly of the humans where we pay them back in their coins for their misdeeds by creating pandemonium and turmoil in their system.
We so much hate festivities and celebrations because that is where people especially the ignorant young boys display their high level of stupidity. Even burials and interments where people are meant to be sorrowful and in a state of mourning have been converted into an avenue where they feign sadness for few minutes before delving into the business of the day-merciless abuse of my kind.
My cousins too suffer similar trepidations and abuse as we do. We are given different brand name in our hatcheries. Some sparkle very bright when cold and shine intensely when killed with a glass and are called STARS, while some are proud as a lion and hence are called KING TUBOR, some are just bulky and corpulent and are called STOUT, some are hatched in trios and hence are called 3 3 while some are just so brave that they are called HEROES. If you don’t want to feel our wrath and our temper or experience the havoc we wreck, then you better adhere strictly to this my kind warning-DESIST FROM KILLING AND CONSUMING US OR BETTER STILL, CONSUME US REASONABLY AND RESPONSIBLY. Right now, I’m placed on a table awaiting my death with an opener by the side and a bowl of fish and meat spiced with pepper and onions in a noisy raucous bar, waiting to be uncorked and gulped down by arrogant young men of no attitude. I blame my rotten fate for delivering me into the hands of these young dummies to end my life but I’m going to make them pay dearly in their drunken state. Fools! I’m sure by now, you know who I am. I am beer and my brand name is life but foolish young fellows call me green.