Signs of danger

AS I strolled through the neighbourhood, feeling quite relaxed after a tedious day’s work, I noticed a few cracks and bulges in the walls of a storey building. These are warning signs that the walls were no longer able to support the weight of the building’s upper floor and would soon collapse. “Shall I warn the occupants or send to the authorities that there was danger of an imminent building collapse?”
I chose, instead, to tell one of the occupants who seemed intelligent enough to recognise the danger. “Sir, we did notice it too and informed the landlord. He promised he would do something about it when the next rents were paid.” I pleaded with him that he should tell everyone in the building to pack out quickly before it caved in on them. He simply smiled and asked, “Sir where do we go? I have paid for two years and only spent 6months here. We shall continue to pray. “No evil fashioned against us shall succeed,” he said prayerfully. I responded by saying, “Amen,” and moved on before I was regarded as agent of the devil, wishing them bad luck.
A few yards away, a huge tree had fallen across the very busy road bringing traffic to a standstill. I watched as some of the men tried to remove a few of the obstructing branches to create an opening for vehicles to pass. I approached them, “Why don’t you get more cutlasses to chop down the big trunk. This is a busy road and at night someone will surely drive into it with dire consequences.” They were all too busy and in a hurry. “Anyway, what’s the job of the local government? What do they do with all the allocations they receive from the Federal Government and the various taxes and rates they collect from us?” they echoed in unison, walked away to their vehicles and took turns to drive through the path they had created.
I was helpless. I had an uncanny feeling that someone would die on that spot that night. With the help some young boys we placed a few leaves on the road to warn drivers of danger and prayed that they would stop in time before they ran into the tree.
It was getting dark and as there were no street lights, I decided to take a short cut back home. I ran into a middle-age woman – a fishmonger. Her eyes were red as if she had Apollo. It was only when I saw tears dripping from her face that I realised she was actually crying. “Why?” I asked. She replied that the government had pulled down her road side stall because of the city’s beautification project. I explained to her the rationale behind government’s action. “It is laudable,” she said and added “but hungry people want food. Will that put food on the table for my children and I? Please tell your friends in government, I have succeeded in keeping my children away from the streets so far. Now that I cannot provide for them, stopping then from joining the hordes of young miscreants in our area will be a daunting task.”
The following day, a young woman in her 40’s who had left home very early to beat the traffic on the road, ran into the tree. She died before help could reach her. A few days later, I received the sad news that the building had collapsed killing the young man and eight others in the house. I cannot predict the fate of the fish seller’s children. I can only pray that I am not a victim of the hordes of jobless youth she was talking about. I do however know that those who have no stake in the society would not baulk at pulling it down.
When we ignore obvious signs of danger, we court disaster. A painful red eye could be due to an acute conjunctival infection or glaucoma or an inflammation of the middle coat of the eye – the uvea. A wrong diagnosis, a delayed or inappropriate treatment may lead to blindness. Visual disturbance may be a sign of optical problem and often can wait until the appropriate correction is given but when caused by a disease process, prompt attention can limit complications and prevent blindness.
Some warning signs may not be obvious to the patient thus there is need to pay a visit to your ophthalmologist once a year even if there are no noticeable problems. All diseases have silent phases during which there may be no obvious signs or symptoms. Your eye doctor, quite often, can pick up the hidden signs of danger and prevent your eyes from going bad or blind.