World Cup Casualties - Part 1

The Death that never made it into the Obituaries.

June 20, 2014
Abuja, Nigeria

I had the oddest feeling this morning while going through my favourite section of the daily newspaper.  Okay, so I love the obituaries part of the dailies to bits, and find humour columns rather depressing.

There, said it!

Yeah, feel free, think whatever you want of me.  Why, I suggest you pause this very moment and take a time-out to model, evaluate, and judge me based on what floats my boat.

Nevertheless, I plead my case:

Reading the obituaries helps me reflect on the essence of life, and has taught me some important life lessons. Lessons like, respecting and cherishing the gift of life, living a life worth writing about, and living everyday like it's my last - amongst others.

So, this morning I read through the obituaries a second and a third time, but could not quite put my finger on what was nagging at my subconscious.

It was not until noon, while taking a midday nap, that it suddenly struck me.  I quickly picked up the daily, read through the obituaries once more, and there it was - the announcement of the death of a VIP!

Conspicuous by its absence!!

You see, a very important world-cup personality had died Wednesday, June 18, in Brazil.   News of the death trended almost everywhere, everyone discussed it, yet no one thought to send in an obituary.

Laying on my bed, sweating profusely from the heat of the vengeful afternoon sun, I went over the life of Mr. Spain's-world-cup-dream in my mind.

Though not exactly a tall one,  Mr. Spain's-world-cup-dream saw farther than his contemporaries' sights permitted.  He had quite a bright future ahead of him; so bright, anyone who wished to look into it without getting permanently blind had to put on goggles recommended by the World Health Organisation.

He thought much of himself, and had planets of fans who adored him and thought much of him as well.  In so many ways he was like the king of pop (make that the late king of pop!).

He was the people's person.  Their champion.  And they thought - no, knew - he would do it all over.

Yeah, again.

But then, Michael Jackson's fans thought he would complete the 'This is it' tour and come out covered in diamonds.  And we know exactly how that story ended.

Sadly, like Michael Jackson like Mr. Spain's-world-cup-dream.

Bless their souls!

All good things come to an end.  The better the thing, the sadder its end.

Now, before you share this story (or move on to, well, more significant/pressing issues), I implore you to pause and observe a minute's silence as a tribute to our late star.

No, not the late king of pop!

On a second thought, you might want to share this story (or move on to that more significant/pressing issue) before observing the minute's silence.  Hopefully, if your internet connection is half as poor as mine, you won't be losing much in terms of time.

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