The Phone Call

Yesterday was one of those days where I really got excited for not being able to help a friend and this was because I probably wouldn't have been happy with myself if I had.

You see, I was seated with my friends outside when one of them had received a call from one of his sisters, telling him about how she had received a call, telling her that their other sister was involved in a fire accident and the doctor needed some amount of money deposited first, before he could begin any treatment on her.

According to them, her sisters gas cylinder had exploded and she had been burnt severely. The moment my friend heard this, he had quickly gotten on his feet and began to walk towards his room. I didn't need someone to tell me that something was wrong, it was pretty obvious.

When he came out of his room, he was already well dressed and had pulled me to the side, gently asking me if I had any money to lend to him. Apparently the sister who go burnt doesn't stay far away and he was about to go stay with her at the hospital.

_{photo by Richard}

Unfortunately, I couldn't help because the amount of money he needed was way too much, so we both were thinking of ways to gather the money when he received another call from a different number, this was the same number that had called his sister to break the sad news to her.

My friend has spoken to that number for a minute and that was when things started to get a bit suspicious. For one reason when he had asked the name of the hospital that they were, so that he could start going there, the person at the other end of the phone had mentioned a strange name, then when my friend asked him for his name, so that he could know who he was speaking to, the man had ended the call.

And that was when he started to get suspicious and decided instead to go check if his sister was at her place of work or indeed at the hospital. Luckily for him, he had gotten to the school where she works as a teacher and had found her there, perfectly healthy.

Her phone had been dead all day and that was the reason why no one had been able to reach her during all of that commotion. According to my friend, his sister was shocked when she heard about the whole thing and they immediately had to called their other sister to stop her from sending the scammers any money.

And when my friend got back and explained everything to me, I was relieved that it was all a scam because I did feel bad for him for not being able to help.