NOT A HOLIDAY

111

Tonight, the sky had divorced the moon leaving the heaven orphan with hopeless stars. I walked the night, soaked in the thoughts of what I have assembled for the coming week.

On the road, I was like an orphan. Wandering through the shadowless night having spent my entire day indoor. Even electricity had become boring.

I stared at the sky for a second but it felt like eternity. It inspired no hope and I was actually not looking up to its stars to show me the way. Definitely not tonight. I am not in the habit of relying on other source of light apart from the now constant electricity and the sun to torchlight my path at night.

I turned left then took the snakey path that lead to my ex-girlfriend house with no intention of calling by. Who has time for love with so much to worry. I bypassed her house for the thousandth time – this have become a new habit since I arrived home for the holiday.

“Is something wrong with me”, I wonder. If something is actually wrong, I would be glad but if this happens to be what I’ve grown to be – within the course of this holiday – then there is more than one cause to worry.

I turned another left, with my leg brushing the sleeping grass that flowered the road. The sky doesn’t inspired hope but the night does.

It offer an opportunity to stroll in the cloak of darkness without the usual boredom of familiarity.

I accidentally hit my foot on a stone – casting me into a swerve of gyrations – until I bumped into a lady who preferred to pick her android phone – the one that fell after I ram into her – without helping me up.

I was thinking of saying ‘I’m sorry’ but even words had dried up in my throat. The lady did not need it either. She continued her walk – and her chat- as she chart her way to wherever she was going.

The lady did look familiar, even smelt familiar. I curse my brain.

‘Remember you have many things to worry about’ – I cautioned.

I took another turn. This time right – right into the street that lead to where I call home.

It was almost ten fifteen when I opened the door that leads to our parlor. I was welcome by a chorus of rice steam with no aroma – not like the one Iya Adisa used to cook when we live in the city.

My siblings and cousins cared less, they were on the naked floor. Each religiously clearing the prepared rice grains into their ravenous stomach. They each drank a litre of well water afterwards. To filled up their stomach. To filled up whatever space left by the insufficient rice.

I sat there, watching unedited video of live poverty.

I wasn’t touched. It was not the first I am seeing this.

I quietly sat down after waiting for the kids to complete their meal.

My own plate of rice was atop the table, crown with an egg that seems to have been aborted from a mosquito.

I dare not complain. I am privilege; the only person deem qualified to eat egg after daddy. Mummy doesn’t eat egg. She hate eating something that won’t be enough for her stomach worms, it gives her ulcer attack.

‘Egg is a curse’ – she used to say, ‘It’s a sign you are eating what you shouldn’t eat’. I don’t subscribe to her view but I didn’t argue either. Poor people have a tendency to be religiously stubborn and addicted to their ideas and I can’t waste my little energy debating established ones especially the ones that is not palliative to our plight.

I picked the fork besides my meal – the only fork in the house reserved only for me – to quietly rake the meal into my sandwiched stomach-sack. My cousins watched me attentively – like I’m a TV star – as I hack the mountain of rice grains down my throat… with the sole hope that I will spare them some.

I, knowing what they were thinking but I was silently praying that they should all doze off because I know… Verily , there is no hope of another breakfasts until twelve tomorrow; and for them – it’s after school at three.

How such kids will pass, I don’t know. And I don’t think knowing will solve anything. Only hope will. And the prayer that this holiday should end before Sunday – before it begins at all.

111

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