Sometimes he would wonder if there will
ever be a time when the cold hands of destitution employed by the huge pangs of
distress would slide away. Moments after moments, interesting fantasies about
big bungalows constructed by the Japanese, one of those cars driven by
foreigners in the movies and a woman with a face to hope for, would surface and
be the factor responsible for the only smile he might have for the entire day.
He would wake up quite early with the
mornings, hoping to smell the air that his father would always tell him is the
"real breath of life." So
much heat and stickiness clanged around the room. Sweat dripping from his chest,
even after bathing twice before going to sleep that night. It wouldn't change anything if life does not give everyone a chance to
create something, after all, those who had so much affluence may need a lot
more diligence and consistency to maintain the change they create. He
imagined electricity as an affluent side to life, a burden to bear if it was
always continuous. "Such an ambiguous standard it will be to exist with
constant electricity", he imagined. He would sit close to the window
gazing into through the torn mosquito net, hoping to smell the "real breath of life" and at the
same time expecting to see a night flee perching their tiny self on the old
dusty hollow net. In the deep gloominess of the young morning, still from the
same hole, his eyes peered horribly at the darkness, but sure to say, he saw
very nothing coming out from it. He would rub his sleepy eyes with his hand and
keep them opened against his resolute neglect of slumber; something his mother
has always worried about every moment she beholds his eye bag, "see your eyes, you didn't sleep again today
abi. Ah! This boy, you will not kill me o." Even when she complains,
and his eyes are conspicuously showing the resultant bags from his
sleeplessness, he would still cover for his lack and tease his mother "mama that is how my eyes are. Or have you
forgotten that I took after your beautiful eyes?" His mother would
chuckle mildly at his silly joke and prepare the merchandise for his venture
for that day. Yes, he hawked stuffs for a living!
Now, before all of that, he would rub his
eyes again and again until they began to bleed tears- not emotional though. “Let me wash my face, that would help”,
he exclaimed. The kitchen was not in the same room they slept in, so he knew
that if he wanted to go there, he had to raise his legs a little higher than
normal to prevent using his siblings' heads as football when moving; even
though football remains his best sport. But he needed no victory or bestowment
at that moment, so he moved with great care. He would have to open the noisy
door that has been like that for several months. Earlier in the day, the
woodsman asked for 3,500 naira man-hour. "Ah, it’s too much oo", his father's lamented. He wasn't
worried about the noisy portal so he walked right through it and along a narrow
passage ducking when necessary to avoid close lines. Most times he forgets
these lines, so his neck bears a soft stigma to that effect. Until he gets to
the zinced door that tells him where the kitchen is, he would not stop touching
the closed walls that aided is movement along the way. When he finds the
kitchen entrance, his hand would reach for the light switch, 'kpam kpam kpam kpam', as the switch
goes. "Ah! No light?" The
perplexing look on his face was phony, as if to say he wasn't coming from the
room where darkness blossomed. Most times he would look at white skinned people
on their monochrome television and imagined if coming from a different world
where electricity wasn't a big deal is actually real. He only sees white people
as white because they come out white on the black and white TV, whether they
are coloured or not doesn’t make any difference. He called them oyibos like
every other Nigerians would. As a fact, he would argue that the other people
who aren’t black in the TV are the coloured people, and not Africans. He was
such a controversy to so many people, especially adults. He didn't think that
was a problem because he was just being normal.
He was looking for water in the kitchen, so
he found the barrel. After he washed his sleepy face with the liquid and tried
drinking a little, he still didn't find a reason good enough to explain drinking
water at that early hour of the day. He listens to professional rumours that water is so good for the body, especially
when one drinks it quite early and eight glasses too. Now, he would argue,
"how has water become nutritious, is it food?" Most lessons he got
from his Integrated Science Teacher- Mr. Olayinka, he feels, are simply what he
(Mr. Olayinka) has been told to tell the pupils. It was not like he
(Mr.Olayinka) even knows or believes what he teaches or reads. He would wonder,
"If my teacher doesn't believe these
stories about water, why does he even teach them anyway?" He then
remembers that teachers get paid for talking and writing people's names and
addresses in a big blue-covered leaflet note called register. "How pathetic to be a teacher", he would
imagine.
Just a sip from the cup, which was the
quantity he drinks on such occasions. It wasn't because he thinks water keeps
him healthy when taken at that undesirable hour, he just wants to keep calm and
enjoy the tranquillity of the juvenile morning. The noticed the floor was cold
and sandy, giving way for nocturnal crawlers and sticky insects to come out and
do their monkey businesses. His feet were bare, but no one goes into the
kitchen barefooted, at least that was their father’s instruction. "Oh, I remember Mama poured some sand in the
kitchen yesterday. Ah, no wonder. I can feel the sand on my feet. But why would
she even do that?" Yesterday, his mother tried to cover several holes
dug by rats and millipedes in the kitchen walls and floor, so she felt sand was
the only available and costless adhesive. The rats from the neighbour’s kitchen
do come around to steal and befriend the ones in their kitchen; surely the only
way to send messages and visit each other is to create channels through those
walls. Those holes were really big. 'Sometimes
these humans hold meetings to close our doors, let us create an underground
tunnel to give us easy passage while they worry about the walls.' Of course,
the rats in his place do think like that, especially when stealing and sharing food.
His mother knows that even though the covering wasn't effective, it still
covered something. So, he tiptoed out of the kitchen, ducked again for the
close lines along the passage and entered the room.
His mother seeing him coming back into the
room, "did you clean your legs before
you entered the house? Shey you know I poured sand on the kitchen floor."
His mother was surely awake as a result of the noisy scrunching sound the door
made when he went out, and quite aware of whom that was, she didn’t worry to
ask. "Yes Mama, I did." His
mother, who is already aware of his habitual waking up and staring at the
window every morning didn't even bother asking why he was awake and not resting
his head like every other person. "Make
sure you sleep o. Remember you have to go and sell by 5am." He wonders
if there will ever be a time when he will quit hawking and be like every other
kid on the block with so much time on their hands; it was not like they do
anything with it though, they just play it away. He doesn't play that much, but
football has always been his favourite leisure engagement. "Yes Mama, I know." He gave a bright
smile in the gloominess, even though his mother has already fallen back to
slumber, but it was positive to him, because he needed it to continue his
ritual for the day. He tapped his mother at this time, "Mama, I am hungry. Can I take some beans
from the remaining one in the pot?" He always does that whenever he is
awake; eating and keeping vigil. His mother sometimes wonder if that's one of
the reasons he always wakeup that early. "This boy, you are disturbing me oo. You are beginning to form a bad
habit. You don't eat when others do, must you wait till this time before you
decide to eat. Hmm, I won’t give you again the next time. Did you hear me?"
That’s what she said yesterday, that's what she said two days ago, and that’s what
would always say. But she can't seem to stop giving him, maybe because he
hardly eats like others or because he selects food a lot. His mother would
always remind him that they don't have the luxury to meet such selective needs
of his at the moment; that he should perhaps select meals when he's able to
cater for himself in the future. Who cares, to him, those were sermons from his
lovely mother who wouldn’t refuse him any good thing within her reach. Still
again, his mother would look for something close to his need and give him, not lending
hears to his father, who has always complained about spoiling the children with
over-pampering and unnecessary attentions. He (the father) would always say he
doesn’t know what to call that.
As usual, he would have to go back to the
kitchen for his habitual late night meals, so the process was now a piece of
cake. He ate and felt satisfied as typical, and said thank you to his mother who
was already snoozing in dreamland. It doesn't matter, he still said it anyway,
a custom expected in the house as family courtesy. Whenever he finishes chomping,
he would always keep guard for others; looking out for mosquitoes and
cockroaches with torch in one hand and a broom in the other. Sometimes he goes
as far as slapping his elder brother on the face just to kill a mosquito
perched on his (brother's) jaw. Of course, a cry would ensue. They were still
young, so who wouldn’t cry at the heat of a slap. “Who slapped me?” He would dodge and pretend to be sleeping until
his brother mellows down. While on the floor, he would laugh sheepishly at the
reaction of his brother and later continue in his quest. He only does the
face-slapping to his brother because, he thinks others wouldn't stand the pain,
and Chika was the eldest, so let him have it. They were four in all. "Good for him, he beats me sometimes, so let
me slap him small." He would laugh at his gentle revenge, but he was
only doing it not to pay an eye for an eye, but to scare the mosquitoes away,
as he alleged. Not so good an idea though, he would reflect. Sometimes when his
father gets paid his meagre salary from being a civil servant, the entire
family would plan the murder of these nocturnal
creatures by buying a locally made multi-pest killer. It wasn't as if that
was the industry way to eradicate these pests, it was just the local and cost-effective
way to follow. “These things were made of
petrol, or better still kerosene, how do they kill pests?” he would query. As expected, the product, which only
smells of petrol or kerosene would scare these creatures away, only for a while.
They sure surfaced again when the coast was clear. That night was a case study.
He was tired but needed to gaze one more
time through the net. He was now cold and also needed to sleep, but something
tells him to still keep awake, as if to say, something spectacular was about to
happen, something that was going to define the shape of dread. Yes, he always
listens to himself, so he stayed put. Waiting and still staring, he began to
remember stories and tales as told by distant neighbours who live at the other
side of the community. Grown children in the neighbourhood would always relate
and exaggerate stories of how someone who saw someone who knew someone in the
barracks that was a friend to someone whose sister was confronted by a dead
person when she came out to urinate. True, everyone there comes out to urinate
because the toilet was never in the room, it was in the kitchen. News of how
dead people appearing from nowhere and scaring others became a bestseller in
the area. He does not always believe those stories, but like most enthusiasts,
he would sit and heed, as he likes listening to them for the pleasure of well-crafted
scary tales. Surely he was going to hear a different version of the same story elsewhere;
maybe the ghost wasn’t actually a male, but a hairy female with white robe.
Ghosts sure wear white robes everywhere they go, but that is in the movies
though.
His eyes began to fail him as nature called
for sleep, but he persisted to defy as usual. He stroked them with his cloth
and opened them even wider. Alas! Something then happened. The scare he was
waiting for, a gentle pat on his back. With a lurid cry for help “Oh God! Who is
that?”
Story
Continues...
A short story based on the life event of the writer.
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