The Most Awkward Thing I've Done In Church

I woke up at 5:30AM, brushed my teeth, took my bath, got dressed up on my well ironed native attire, gold colour wristwatch and necklace (emphasis on the colour, not the metal), fragrant perfume and black shiny pair of shoe. Having cut my hair the previous day, my hair was low and the razor sharp carvings were very visible. I looked at the mirror and all it reported was my magnificent reflection. I was looking sharp. I need not ask anyone how I was looking, I was very confident my outfit fitted me flawlessly.


I grabbed my Bible, hymn book and my phone as well. I usually don't go with hymn book, but since today was a special Sunday, I decided to give it a go. In all exuberance, I matched emphatically to church. I still was double minded about going with my phone though, of what use would it be?

I got to church quite early enough. So I decided to sit in the main auditorium. Of recent, it has been something of a habit to always sit outside the main auditorium, in the corridors owing to my late coming. But all that was about to change as I perched on an unoccupied extreme of the 4th pew. I don't seem to know why people prefer sitting on the extremes of a pew. I wasn't going to change that practice anyway.

Having secured a place among the front seats, I was able to have an unobstructed view of the altar. The choir stand was adjacent to my position, so close that I could hear the choir master mumble "hymn number 5" without using the mic. I opened my hymn book and joined the choir in the entrance hymn.
Soon the bell rang and the mass began.

Everything was going smoothly until the offertory collection. Towards the conclusion of the collection, I began noticing something funny. I was dozing. The nap came in series, one after another, with each lasting about 45 seconds. I tried fighting it. Honestly, I tried. I came up with a make shift plan by trying to bat my eyelids continuously until the sleep flew. And it seemed to work. Anytime I felt my eyelids were coming close like unlike poles of a magnet, I'd just blink, blink and blink again until the sleep varnished.

That remedy was short lived.


What followed next were series of prayers that demanded the whole congregation to stand, sit and kneel down at intervals. The next thing I heard was,
"let us pray",
the whole congregation including me stood up in unison to pray.
And that was it.

Soon afterwards, my upper eyelids gradually but steadily started migrating downwards. At that moment, I couldn't keep it from coming closer, even a force of 100K Newton would have stood no chance in keeping them apart. So I gave in to sleeping. What I had in mind was just to take a light nap for about 3-4 minutes; but I couldn't afford to appear sleepy before the 3 young beautiful ladies that sat by me ( I have a prestige to keep), so I placed my hands together and lifted it up to my chest region to put up a perfect disguise, appearing as if though I was praying... and then off my mind went on a voyage to dreamland. The next thing I witnessed was me dreaming about how the mass ended and I was exchanging pleasantries with my friends, taking selfies... I think I even bought roadside ice cream and buns.

All these happened a midst the prayer session that was ongoing, and of course the congregation standing up, sitting down, kneeling and standing again when due, yet I was still standing and sleeping.

The communion time came and passed, the second offertory came and passed as well... I was still standing and sleeping.

After what seemed like 30minutes, a church usher tapped twice on my shoulder, then I woke up, my hands were still glued together . For a split second, I had no Idea of what, when or where I was. In a bid to revive consciousness, I closed my eyes tight, sniffing, rubbing the back of my palm against my nostrils and shaking my head simultaneously, then I opened my eyes again, they were red, the usher must have seen the red eyes which made him grin a bit. He said he had been tapping on my shoulders for a while now, and he was on the 15th count before I woke up. That was when I realized I had been sleeping while standing (the rest of the congregation were long sited).

The intensity of the whole scenario became clearer when I noticed the young man on the altar side delivering the church's announcement (prayers and other rites were long concluded and lastly, announcement), from the look of things, he was about concluding. As if something was waiting for me to see at the back, I turned around, lo and behold the multitudes, a million and one eyes of both familiar and unfamiliar faces were all glued at me. Like a celebrity in the disapproving sense of it. Their mouths were not moving but I could hear them speak - thanks to their wide-open eyes blaring at me with teetering revile, it did all the talking. As I turned around trying to avoid the unavoidable eye contacts, my lower jaw dropped ajar as if the screw that kept it in place was loosened, the more I turned, the wider my mouth was opened in bewilderment. I noticed that I actually was the center of attention, every direction I looked at, I saw nothing but pair of eyes fixated at me; eyes on CWO uniforms, eyes on CMO uniforms, the choristers and even the 3 young beautiful ladies that sat by me weren't left out. There were eyes every where I turned.
The look of mischief on the faces of the children on the upper layer of the church building suggested something funnier occurred, could it be that I was staggering, dangling involuntarily from one position to another while sleeping? or did I snore?...

That was when I wished rapture would occur, no no no, "mba", not rapture, not now please; Instead I wished had the powers to manipulate time, to time-travel.