3
Splash, Splat, Splunk,
Dirt, Sweat, Mud,
Curse, Bless, Mourn,
The Market breathe to life and once again, It cries.
The market was rowdy and the noise splintered the ears. Collins moved farther from the market but the noise kept trailing him. It was almost dark and his uncle was nowhere in sight. He held up the direction once more and focused on it as if he could read the letters. The last passerby he had shown had confirmed that he was in the right place. Collins placed his travelling bag on the floor and sat on it. Tears were rushing to his face again, waiting for a brief hint of being summoned before they soaked his face.
‘Collins’
He stood up abruptly and fell down immediately. He recognized this short plump man with sleepy eyes. A carbon copy of his father. The man helped him up and Collins dragged his luggage behind him.
‘Don’t mind me for coming late. I was sleeping’.
The Uncle lived in a tight one room apartment in the suburbs. The room was scruffy and smelled like incense. On seeing this, Collins almost ran out and crawled back to his father’s house. His lips tightened and he resigned himself to a stool close to the bed, since that was the only chair in the room.
‘You will manage on the floor. I will get you some wrappers. Rest for today and tomorrow. As from the day after tomorrow, you will start as an apprentice in my shop. In this house, mind your business with the neighbors, they are very nosy’
Collins had noticed the unfriendly stares they had offered him as he walked through the short dark passage.
‘We don’t have any bathroom or toilet. You do your business behind the house. There is a bush there. Or you can use the toilet in the bank close to the market’.
That evening, Collins helped himself to a delicacy of overheated beans cooked with groundnut oil. He sponged his mouth full and swallowed his disgust quickly with the tasty water. After the food, he spread his clothes on the bare floor and slept on them. Assured by the loud snores of his uncle, he cried into the night. He knew that he could not survive a month in this hell. Sometimes we predict our lives based on events that have happened to us and we believe that events in that manner will continue to happen. If it is good, then good things will follow. But if it is bad, that means we are doomed. And so Collins thought gravely about his life and the events that had transpired days before. He saw a gloomy future for himself if he remained in Agbor. He did not account for a second splintering miracle, shattering his despair and guiding him towards the light. And so he devised a plan. With the huge amount of savings, his mother had given to him, he searched his uncle’s home thoroughly the next morning after the man had left for his shop. He found the man’s savings and broke the wooden box. He thought of bathing first, but the idea of bathing in a bush nauseated him. He wore the clothes he had put on the day before and packed his luggage. His father had rejected him and his mother was too weak to do anything. he couldn’t read the signs on the notice board and so he jumped into the first bus that arrived.
‘Where to?’
‘Lagos’.
He didn’t know this city called Lagos. He hadn’t heard of it before. But he knew that he was going to go there, make a man of himself and return home to taunt his father.