9.
Until yams sprout above the soil,
And chickens hunt eagles,
Your turmoil shall prevail,
Your efforts shall wither,
And your peace faints,
Until we meet again.
If someone had told Collins that a lot could happen in thirty days, he would have sworn to the seas in doubt. The banishment from the garage was the event that heralded the misfortune that threatened to tear him apart in those days. Days after Collins believed that he had healed successfully from the near-death experience; he went back to the garage to beg for his source of livelihood.
‘After all, who will not have pity on a man who nearly died because he was cast aside for a mistake? I am sure that they heard about my experience. They must feel sorry by now’. He had told his wife that morning, reassuring his doubt more than hers.
And so, at dawn, Collins walked to the garage with spread chin, permitting everyone the privilege of seeing his bubbly face. But all he got were random grumbles and stares. Apparently, his saviors had forgotten to disperse his experience to curious ears. He was treated as a man who was too proud to come beg sooner and had merely taken a break and expected them to lick their own wounds. When he told one of the drivers about his experience, the man waved him off, dispersing him as one who had concocted a fairy tale to attract pity for himself.
And so, Collins stood and begged. He walked to and fro the garage, begging until his lips cracked and his heart sank. He was still in the garage when the sun left, but no one called him. If not for the event of the days before, he would have searched for Johnny in their regular drinking spot.
Instead, he trudged home, kicking rocks and spitting raucously in the gutters. In front of his street, he saw a small betting shop where boys and men were trooping in and out; it was the modern-day betting shops that were springing everywhere like flood in Lagos. People pitched bets using the popular European teams. Collins had heard about this modern gambling method and once, drunk, he heard that people won millions by betting with simple teams and fragile sums of one hundred naira. Collins was not a fan of football, in fact he had never given a thought to the sport, but an innate hunger in him began to awaken as greed sneaked thoughts into his mind.
‘Perhaps luck might shine on me today. One hundred naira for a million’.
Imagine the joy on Ofure’s face when he would come back home with a huge bag filled with a cure to their poverty. The twins would howl, Ofure would kiss him and the neighbor’s eyes would dance frantically around the passage searching for the uproar in the tight apartment. As the vision played itself again and again in Collin’s mind, he darted inside the betting shop. He saw a group of boys and men with pens and paper in front of a big board with fixtures of football matches. Collins was about to search for a pen and join the queue when a stranger pulled at his shirt.
‘Why don’t you play live betting? You will win quick and easy’.
Without prodding further or asking any questions, Collins followed this man to the counter. The man wrote the code from his own coupon and gave it to Collins. Collins gave it to the man standing at the counter and placed his last money on the man’s palm.
Collins watched this man’s face and stared at the television simultaneously. He observed the man’s facial expression jump, fall and fly again. A few minutes after this exercise, the man jerked Collins clothes with a resounding outburst.
‘Only one game. If not, we would have been millionaires.
In that moment, the vision that Collin’s had been nourishing collapsed. He had earlier been lost in his sea of thoughts, watching himself brand in latest fashion, spending and lavishing money. Imagine the jealousy that would meet him in the garage, imagine the respect that his wife and in-laws would have for him. He would have even dared to go back to the village and face his father with the wealth he had made. And so, Collins kept that vision. It followed him home. He did not walk like a downtrodden man who had lost a job and a bet. He walked with the arrogance of one who would be a millionaire soon. He passed the neighbors without returning their greetings and slept off immediately his body touched the bed. He was aware his wife was saying something about her breast, but he was sure it was her usual complaint of her children’s sucking, pulling the weight of her upper body.
The next day, Collins woke up when the sun was reaching in through the window and massaging his face. He woke to find only himself in the room. The mother and the children must have left early. The events of the days before relived in his memory and the vision returned. He picked himself up and began to search the room for money. He found where Ofure kept her savings and tore through the wooden box.
‘After all, she would thank me immensely after I come back home with millions.’ He smiled like a deranged animal. For three days, Collins went to the betting shop, a chameleon absorbing the tactics of others and hoping for a miracle. In those three days, his visions sank deeper as he lost and lost. He wallowed in anguish whenever he saw others jubilating about their wins. After three days, Collins gave up and went home.
‘Perhaps this is not the way I was destined to make wealth’.
He met an enraged Ofure when he got home. The twins were crying and Ofure’s wooden box of savings sat empty on her bed.
‘Good evening, my darling armed robber husband’.