PROLOGUE

Moses felt the biting warmth spreading across his back and shoulder and could picture his own blood, spilling out over his flesh. A piercing pain cut through his chest now, and he felt the onset that familiar undertow of disorientation- the body’s defense mechanism against the pain. As the biting heat tore through all his muscles now, Moses clenched his eyes tighter, determined that the final picture of his life would not be of his own killer. Instead he pictured the coat of arms and its ritual symbols displaying one after the other, he smiled. “My work is done, everyone will hear”.

CHAPTER 1

Renowned Professor Allotey staggered through the entrance of the lecture room, from the  Vice Chancellor’s  office and smiled to the class. He lunged to the nearest seat he could see and sat down, grabbing his suit case which sat close to him and opened it, the seventy- six-year-old man heaved a piece of paper from his suit case and stared at the class. As he had anticipated, a lightening push of a table brought his attention to the class and upon seeing the number of students in the class he crawled his hands from the bag and said “hello class”, without a response from the students he realized that they were shocked at his sudden move into the class.

Edward awoke slowly as the class turned quiet. The lady next to him frowned as he turned his head to ask her what was going on. The lady fumbled for her book from her bag and opened the first page to him. Edward squinting at the first page of the book, he saw the name of the professor.

PROFESSOR ALLOTEY AIDE…

“I didn’t bring my copy, can we share?”

He looked at the left side of the lady on the breast and saw a metal plate on which bore the monogram Vice President- Student Representative Council, ENITON AVUYI.

Slowly, the professor stood up from the seat and stood in front of the class.

“Hello class?”

“Professor Allotey” a guy spoke from the back. “I hope everything is alright with you?”

Dazed, the professor looked at the class and looked at the clock. It was 14:30 pm. He had been poisoned form where he took his cup of coffee; he felt like the world was moving around him and collapsed.

The Vice President of the Student’s Representative Council rushed to the front of the class where the Professor was and picked his phone from his pocket and dialed the hospital’s emergency number.

“There is an emergency; I need assistance in the upper class, now!!!!”

Edward felt fuzzy. His eyes focused now on the professor who was on the floor helpless. He took a paper from his pocket which had the coat of arms symbol on; it was a flyer from his pocket.

THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION

Proudly invites

PROFESSOR ALLOTEY BENSON-AIDE

Edward groaned. This afternoon- a slide show about humanity and symbolism. “This was the same topic he was supposed to teach us today”. Immediately, some medical expects rush to the scene and took the professor to the hospital.

Approaching the Vice President of the student front, Edward said “I’m sorry, but I have very strong feeling that the professor was poisoned”.

That night, Edward hardly slept, at exactly 12:00 am; his cell phone rang in the darkness- a loud and unexpected call at such a moment, trying very hard to think that it was his girl friend Julia Prempeh from Yaa Asantewaa Senior High School. They have been dating for some months.

 They had met at the annual children right camping after a short incident between the young beautiful lady and her previous boyfriend. Julia was very much of a respectable personality and such instances; she tried very much not to retaliate to the behavior of her boyfriend.

Edward upon several days of surveillance finally approached the young woman and assisted her in her fight against child labor. This yielded the path for him to get access to the lady. As time went on, they moved together as friends and later as they were seeing the difference and the sudden change in each other’s behavior, Edward took the mantel on himself and proposed to the young lady.

 The lady was shocked to hear the sudden proposal from Edward and laughed the hell out of it. “Why did it take you so long to say it?” the young lady asked, “maybe I was waiting for the right time” Edward said in shyness. Julia was quiet for some time and furthered questions. “Do you have a girlfriend”? This question posed a threat to the loyalty of Edward. Julia knew everything about Edward and wanted to know if the young man was the lying type.

Edward knowing more about the current relationship and its trend, he realized he had no choice but to tell her the truth. “Yes, I have” Edward answered with a squeeze on his face. The girl was shocked as to hear him speak the truth about his personal life. “But we are no longer dating, we broke up because she had lied about something very important to me” Edward continued with the permission of the young lady.

Edward fumbled for his bedside chair where he had placed the cell phone before he slept on the bed; right beside the phone was his wrist watch from ULTIMA. Edward picked up his phone. “Hello?”

“Edward?” a lady’s voice spoke. “Have you forgotten I said I will call you so we talk for free night, how could you sleep?”

Dazed, Edward looked at the clock on the wall. It was exactly 12:15 am. He had been asleep for more than three hours and he felt he had just began his sleep. “Should I cut the call or is ok for us to talk?” Julia asked in a slow voice. Turning over and facing the other side of the bed, he put his hands in his pants and pulled his penis back into them after a minute of scratching, “No Julia, we can talk” Edward groaned.

They spoke the whole night talking about each other and the way they wanted their relationships to go. Edward was the social type and loved to explore more than ordinary people would imagine doing. He had little doubt that the professor was poisoned and wanted to find out why he was poisoned or better still why someone wanted him dead. His books on several symbols were very marketable since people wanted to know more about the nation Ghana.

Professor Allotey had made himself a reluctant celebrity in the symbolism world, and had put his class on a serious competition in Oxford University. Since then, the whole school was very much happy to have a man like him.

Last month, much of the professor’s work were been issued in the Daily Graphic as he was working on the national symbols and what they represented, the symbol which caused a lot of controversy in the country was the one on the swearing sword used in the swearing-in of presidents.

The professor was brave enough to say that the symbols on the sword were ritual symbols and that the presidents were not swearing by the perceived ideas but were rather swearing to a particular god, which later he confirmed it was not necessary to continue since it had no direct impact on the population. The most annoying question that a journalist asked was the implication such symbols had on the people of Ghana.

When the professor was invited to the University of Legon on a lecture, a dubious honor that made him run his car into a building nearly causing his life because of the excitement. That very day, over thirty thousand people made it to the University Auditorium to listen to the professor. It was a great night.

“Ladies and gentlemen……..” the MC had announced to a full house at the University, “our guest tonight is a man of integrity and extraordinary mind as compared to any symbologist in this country and the world around. He is the author of numerous books: The symbology of the Ashanti People, The symbology of the Ga People, the Art of the Creators and others made him associable to the people who read some of his works in Ghana, many of us use his books in class”. Most of the students in his class nodded before the MC could make mention of it.

“Thank you very much” professor Allotey said, standing maturely and edging his way to the podium.

 “She is really beautiful, and I believe most of you here will be planning of dating her, have you checked yourself and your money to date such young and energetic lady” he turned to the audience and smiled to them.

“And if I find which one of you have been able to court her, I will have the consulate deport you”

The audience laughed.