By ‘Kayode Oyero
“……Pressure may endure
for a night, but treasure cometh in the morning.” –O.J.O
Shorter day, longer night, the sun retreats westward having
flailed the earth with vengeance magnetizing invisible waters. Few Skirts and
many Trousers of sorts follow suit. Like colony of bees they return almost at
the same time from the day’s forage for daily bread. ‘Welcome, welcome and
welcome…’ echo the Welcomers: full-time housewives. The Welcomers routinely
invest each day in the game of Ludo spicing the sessions with gist about the
latest controversy in the neighbourhood. Generously do the Welcomers dole out greetings
on a daily basis to the cursed set of beings from Eden. Beneath each greeting
is an ulterior motive: one in anticipation for a snippet- a dash. Their
greetings become warmer as the month folds its tendril: days the Labourers beam
with smile to the bank; days between the dusk and dawn of coeval months.
The sensitive ones among the Skirts and Trousers aren’t
disappointing. Like Father Christmas performing an annual ritual of
presentation of gift to lads, they compensate the cheerful faces of the
Welcomers stuffing Gala, plantain chips, kokoro and Cocoyam chips into the demure
palms of their kids: a message their mothers, the Welcomers, understand with
precision. ‘E kaa bo-welcome’ yawns them watching the cursed labourers stride
in, walking through the narrow aisle that separates the rooms of the
face-me-I-face-you bungalow.
Kunle is a non-beneficiary of the ‘welcome scheme’. The Welcomers
treat him like an outcast. His own ‘E k aa bo-welcome’ takes the form of hisses
and sometimes in the form of grimace and resentful looks. Most times, he
shudders off the unspoken ridicule of the Welcomers knowing fully that he
doesn’t deserve their welcome. He knew the rule: ‘NO G, NO G’: no gift, no
greetings
*****
Hopeless, hapless and helpless. Exhaustion glows in his
retina. Dejection engulfs his oval face making it scary a sight for children. His
sun-beaten black flat leather file hides in the crook of his left armpit
generating warmth. His arm rocks forth and back in a see-saw manner, Kunle
ambles towards his room disregarding the hostilities of his un-neighbourly Neighbours,
the bias Welcomers.
At the door, he dips a wavering hand into the front right
pocket of his trouser. His iron-pressed black-fitting trouser in the morning is
relaxed by the day’s hunt turning limp like vegetables lightly steamed to be
garnished. The insertion is brief. His left index finger dangles out the key
bunch. The keys rioted slapping one other by the sides. Kunle disgusts the
noise of the contending keys. The inharmonious sound produced by their dispute
disturbs him; a wasp irritation to his already frustrated mind. Quickly, he
kill the jingle with a firm grip tauting the keys in his palm. Then, with the
collaboration of his right index and thumb finger, he points the searchlight of
his internet-disabled phone in the direction of his left hand which lightly holds
the bunch of keys. The illumination serves a great deal of help. It saves him
from turning the keys into an object of gambling. And on a brief examination of
the bunch, he recognizes the silver-coated key that opens the room. A
hand-pick, the rest of the key points downwards. He then inserts the atrophy
key inside the oily hole of the padlock. The greasy lubricant spread around the
bottom of the lock smearing his callused palm. At a turn, a side of the U-shaped lock
jumps out, making the other side a bit lengthier. And finally relieving the hinges
of the handcuff, the wooden door swings ajar!
Inside the room, darkness is in charge like penumbra in
eclipse. Though, the Power Holding Company had been generous with epileptic
power supplies. But, even if the case is reversed, it won’t change his room
from being a tunnel. Kunle’s mind sprints to the non-distant past. He remembers
the verdict he faces. Just a forth-night ago, the chief tenant had ordered the disconnection
of the cable that ferried electricity to his room. Kunle nods, his chest heaves
as a pronounced sigh escapes his hot breath. His understanding that he is
outstanding at owing outstanding payments is unmistakable. His eight month old
NEPA debt dominates his thought. He bolts the door from inside.
Lying on his metal-elevated bed, staring upward, his gaze is
confronted by the de-colourized white paint of the ceiling. And almost
immediately, his retina becomes pregnant. And within a second or two, misty
tears fall on his lower lash staying there awhile like a passenger on the
foothold of a bus using it as a temporary springboard. He couldn’t retreat its
coming. A noiseless burst, hot tears snake down his cheek trailing his one-one
tribal mark.
The hot salty water on his face had not dried up when he
heard a rumble. His intestines agitating for digestion. He could feel the
effect of their protest. He could feel them beating the wall of his stomach
like an upcoming footballer in gestation whose foot kicks his mother’s womb to
make her aware that he has a purpose to fulfill in the game of Soccer. His hunger
for food re-livens his failure worsening his bitterness like pepper doused on a
wet wound. The futility of the day visits him. His unproductive wandering in
search of job taunts his consciousness. The many presents of ‘no vacancy’
weighs his heart turning his chest into a bed of sweltering emotions. Of all
the ‘no vacancy’ gifts, one pains him to the marrow. It fills his vision. The
organization had chalked the ‘no vacancy’ in an eternal manner. ‘No vacancy today. Come tomorrow.’ His mind
reverberates knowing consciously that tomorrow may never come.
“Do I bear a mark of rejection?
Why do fate antagonizes me this me much.” he agonizes romancing
the five fingers of his left hand around his forehead to check the invisible
mark of rejection. His voice slices through the stillness of the dark room.
In his self-sympathy, hunger calls, binding him to itself.
And with the arrow-shooting eyes of a famished lion who luckily spots a prey,
Kunle frogs to one of the four corners of his eight by eight meter room. He
bends, switches on his phone’s touch light and then roots the tail in his mouth,
his phone’s miniature search light provides lighting. From a yellow paint
plastic, he scoops an overwhelming quantity of Garri into a blue jug. His
action is swift as if he had just received the awareness that he had such granary
at home.
Hunger aggravated by the anger of failure could be fatal. His
first scoop was mouthful. The worms of his small intestine jumps joyously. Like
famished hen thronged round a poultry farmer in an open-air farm craning thin
feather-veneered necks to grab cereals or corn (which ever), they straighten,
springing to his throat level in a survival of the fittest struggle. And in
less a fraction of a second later, his throat let out a belch indicating the unhindered
movement of soaky bolus of Garri along his Adam’s apple.
*****
Uncle moon is out in his full regalia waving its fluorescent
cub on the earth. From a visible heavenly vantage, he looks downward with bright
harmless eyes, one that soothes tensed bones. Kunle snores; a temporary
escape from his predicament. He was thirty minutes into sleep when someone raps
at the door. Kunle’s mind jerks back to consciousness. It had wandered afar. He
quickly comes out of dreamland.
Another rap at the door, he jolts up assuming a sitting
posture on his nude sweat-flattened mattrass. Dizzyiness fogs his vision. And with
the back of a hand, he rubs his two eyes brushing from left to right.
Another rap, this time harder and fierce in the form of a bang,
he jumps to his feet as though pricked by a pin. Dazed, he stands stationary
like an Iroko tree contemplating whether to heed the bang-like knock or not. He
looks in the direction of the tattered door. The awry sight of ant infesting it
reminds him that he lives in squalor.
Then, a sharp pull-the-tower-of-Babel-down bang. This time,
a bark accompanies it. A sharp deep velvety voice squirms inside the room
through an unknown channel. Kunle quickly interprets it as elderly and feminine.
He knows unmistakably that it is Mama Risi’s, the troublesome commodity trader
who troubles anybody and everybody that trouble her trouble. Mama Risi is
popular for her Oshomalo way of life. She encourages financially incapacitated people
in need of commodities within her reach to buy them on credit and later
disgraces them for non-payment or late payment.
“Alakowe-literate man” she thunders. “Damilohun-you beta
answer me. Make you no pretend say you no dey inside. Na my korokoro (naked)
eyes I take see you waka inside house iseju die seyin (some minutes back).” Mama
Risi explains code-mixing English and Yoruba language.
Dazed and confused, Kunle recalls how he had hurriedly dodged-passed
Mama Risi’s shed on his way home that evening. He had thought of following an
alternative route but had murdered the thought because it was and not feasible. The street
being a close has one general entry route. Unfortunately for Kunle, Mama Risi’s
shop stands in front of the street’s first house by the right.
“Owo mi tipe lowo E-My money has long overstayed your bank
an investment. Today na today” gba-gba-gba-gba successive ground-shaking bangs attack
the door. The resultant vibration terrifies Kunle. His fear increases a tone
weightier. He becomes petrified on considering the possibility that the door may
unhinge from the wall. And like a group of midnight gentlemen rendered almost powerless
at the scene of a robbery attack by the entrapment of an over-powering police
anti-crime squad owning superior rifles, he racks his brain in a dubious attempt
to conceive a microwave formula to employ so as to save himself from what may
later turn out to be a disgraceful show of shame.
“Jade, Onigbese- com out Mr debtor” Mama Risi raises her
voice a din higher. The frustration and determination in it interrupts Kunle’s
strategy session. Her annoyance stood defiant like a sheep at cul-de-sac as guilt
shatters Kunle’s thought process like worms doused by a handful of salt. An
invisible handcuff bundles up Kunle as he chew the immortal line by the great Jihadist
of all times. Usman Dan-Fodio’s ‘the conscience is an open wound, only the
truth can heal it’ he rehearse. ‘To say Mama Risi has not being patient with me is
truth a lie’ he thinks, mentally calculating the sum total of his eight month
old debt. Having totaled up is outstanding, he finds the sum unbelievable. He
finds it difficult to believe how rapid his debt rose as though a yeasted-dough
set in a heated oven.
“Useless bookman. O je silekun yii to ba fe feran ara E- You
beta open this door if you love yourself.” yells an enraged Mama Risi.
Yet, all was still inside as though a prolonged supposed one
minute silence session in action. Inside, Kunle shudders disallowing himself to
go jittery. Silence licenses the room like a grave yard.
*****
*****
Outside, un-neighbourly neighbours donate mocking laughs
easing in and out of their rooms to the verandah. Their body languages thirst
for a retaliation: a face-to-face confrontation between the plaintiff and the
defendant, right in a face-me-and-face-you house to be used as a court
platform.
Eternity passes. Mama Risi’s protest retreats. Perhaps she
had grown tired and had returned home kunle assumes. He relaxes stretching out
both hind to allow blood circulate in and out of the veins. Tension gradually
creeps out of his pores. And through the window rushes frosty air the way sewage
gush out of vandalized petroleum pipes. It soothes his ripple-like collar muscles;
a comforting treat of nature. And just as he’s about to lie supine on his bed,
Mama Risi’s voice resuscitates thudding harder.
“Ogbeni-Mr. tomorrow is another day. Sa a maku kile ola to
mo- don’t dare try to die before the dawn of tomorrow. Aye lo ti je mi lowo,
aye kan naa ni maa ti gba- you owe me here on earth and you must surely pay it
here.” She declares with a tone of finality that tells that she has adjourned
the motion to the morrow.
Unsure of her departure, Kunle summons courage. He decides
to open the door for an affirmation. He tip-toes to the threshold and unbolts
the door from behind, the door creaks. Lo and behold, he saw the presence of
her, not her in person, but her absence.
*****
Chilly dry breeze lace the morning. Harmattan is at its peak.
Its fingers tear even the oilest of lips. Kunle is trapped at dreamland. His sprawls on his bed like a spread eagle on the altar of sacrifice. By his side breathes
his internet-disabled handset. It gyrates noiselessly in circular motion. And
with half-open eyes, his right hand gropes to get hold of it. Before he could,
the vibration stops making him think it’s an alert from Mama Risi, her Tormentor.
He shut back his eyes wanting to loll in bed a bit further before the day’s
resumption for job hunt. And like an afterthought, his eyes flickers open. He
grabs his phone. On the screen is a notification. A message had strolled in. he
checks. Incredulity fills his eyes. An audience participation from the renown television
reality show, Who wants to be a
Millionaire.
‘God has put my enemies to shame. Mama Risi, come and
collect your money.’ He shouts in joy. The thought of sitting on the ‘hot
seat’ makes him bounce in ecstasy. And as if he remembers something, stops,
then soliloquy: ‘for me to win a jaw-dropping amount, I must:
…Kip da Optimism Alive
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