PERDITION
IT’S JUST SO BAD FOR SOME PEOPLE
What happens when your knuckles are too frail to return fate’s hard punches? Do you surrender your slouched self to the pains or muster all the strength and courage left in you to fight back? Well, I can tell you, it’s not as easy as it is for you to pull out of depression, mistreatment and grief for some people, people who are always satisfied to live in the past rather than the future, because it keeps on getting worse and they are incarcerated in a world where happiness is a million miles away. Now, the question is, what do people like them do?
Heavy thought lashed his mind, like the rain beat the soil, leaving it all wet and slippery so that all memories refused to stay. Yet desperately, his mind jogged for memories and pondered over some incoherent words humming loudly in his head, causing his eyes to squeeze shut and his teeth to grit so hard.
In a total blackout, his mind wandered, with only a vague hint of the past. He sat deserted near the village lake and watched every heron take off one by one.
It was still the time of the day when the sun was still staring paling, waiting for the moon. “Mama”, he muttered in his tiny voice and curled his arm around his body as though he was feeling cold, loneliness tinged his voice and he yearned badly for his mother’s warm embrace. He had a fair complexion which was turning faint since he came to live with his grandmother in the village. He also had long legs and thin arms that at first sight one would think he didn’t eat, he had cream-brown teeth and whenever he talked, he had a way of lifting his upper lip, that his canine tooth which was missing would be revealed. He had always sought solace by the lake, he took delight in stoning it to form beautiful ripples and he also loved watching the herons fly to and fro. He had heard it from his teacher when he was still in the city that crocodiles lived in large lakes and out of curiosity, he would calmly watch each day to see if he would see one. But today was not one of those days. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing any crocodile. It’d been about three moons since his mother came to drop him off with an old woman whom she claimed was her mother. The woman looked too feeble to look after herself not to talk of an eight-year-old boy, but his mother seemed to fail to see that.
“Iyanda”, Iya àgbà has been looking for you”, a young boy who looked two years older than him yelled and ran away. Iyanda dropped his gaze somberly, he picked up the stick he had dropped earlier and took his leave.
He was now approaching home, he peered from afar and his gaze alighted on a huge jeep which had been there since he left home. He wished the jeep owner whom Iya agba called his son would have left. He shook his head sadly and walked slowly into the round compound. There were eight houses built, sheeted with palm fronds and the compound was forming a round frame. One could find large trees, scantily providing shade, and there were no grasses in the compound, only animal dung, which they always waited for farmers to come and pack whenever it was dawn before the villagers would start waking up.
“How are you, small boy?” Mr Oke rubbed his bushy head lovingly and smiled at him. Iyanda felt something was weird about him and was feeling uncomfortable around him.
“I’ve packed your clothes, your uncle is set to leave”, Iya agba said in her usual shaky voice. Iyanda closed his eyes to stop his tears, for a brief moment, the world seemed to be spinning wildly around him. He had run away from home earlier, to the lake when his grandmother broke the news to him that he would be following the huge jeep owner to the city. He at first felt excited about the news and jumped around the compound, thinking he would be able to continue his education but then Iya agba blighted his happiness and told him he was going to learn a trade.
But what kind of trade could he do with his young thin legs and arms? He knew at the instant he was in for trouble. He found himself running to the lake to see if the man would have disappeared before his return, but he was disappointed. In any case, he knew that he was following the man to the city
“Eh! Better wipe your tears and follow him”, Iya agba sneered, handing him his clothes which were roughly packed in a dirty sack.
“Small boy, come with me”, Mr Oke said smiling mischievously. He curled his arm around Iyanda’s shoulder. “I’m not a small boy, my name is Iyanda”, mucus was running from his nose, he wiped it off with the back of his palm and beat the big hand away from his shoulder. “Iyanda”, Mr Oke scoffed and his eyes travelled to the boy’s bushy head, he surveyed him from head to toe and muttered something no one heard. He seemed to be confused too, if the boy would be able to work for him. He looked about suspiciously, but no one was in sight, he dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out a bundle of money. Even before he could stretch it forth to the old woman she snatched it from him hurriedly with smiles sketching her face.
She further opened her buba and exposed the worn-out ‘igbanu’ that was loosely tied to her black wrinkled stomach. She brought out a two hundred naira note and handed it over to the small boy. Iyanda received it reluctantly, he dipped it into his shallow pocket and followed Mr Oke who ushered him into his car.
On their way, they passed the village market where sellers were already packing their goods and hunters were already heading back home. There were young girls with water gourds on their heads walking in groups, returning from the village stream and there were young boys, some were Iyanda’s mate while some weren’t. Most of them could be seen rolling worn-out tyres on the sandy footpath, while the older ones among them were trying all sought-after stunts. Iyanda wished he could be one of them but he knew how hard the past three months had been, especially with those village boys. They victimized him and criticized all he ever did. Throughout his stay in the village, he was an outcast everyone found weird, as though he had leprosy. His complexion was frighteningly fair which got everyone scared whenever they moved around him perhaps they had never seen someone as fair as Iyanda, even though his accent was different from theirs, he could speak English fluently and he found it very hard to communicate in their common language ‘Igede’.
It was a relief that he was finally leaving the village but it was so sad he wouldn’t get to see his mother. Growing up, Iyanda discovered that his mother hated him. Whenever he called her ‘mummy’, she’d always shun him and warn him strictly never to call her that, so growing up he would call his mother ‘mama’ in her absence but call her ‘Aunty Helen’ to her face.
By the time they left the village and got to the highway, the sun had finally closed its eyes, it was looking down despondently and it appeared the moon was also sharing Iyanda’s grief as it stared down palely. The road was already full of blaring horns and different kinds of car lights. Iyanda fed his eyes with quite a lot before he finally fell asleep. Some hours later, the car came to a halt in front of a gigantic gate. For about ten minutes, Mr Oke and Iyanda sat stranded in the car as Mr Oke couldn’t stop shouting. Of course, it was the darkest hours of the night, the time when witches perpetrated and ghosts vacated their graves to visit the market or probably play around. A lot of stories about witches and wizards crept into Iyanda’s mind and a tremor of fear ran through him. The neighbourhood was very silent, there was no light anywhere except the dim light peering through the moon.
“Uche!” Mr Oke screamed in annoyance for the umpteenth time.
The gate rattled and opened making some noises that were capable of waking a ghost. A slender man with a bushy beards staggering like a drunkard opened the gate. “Kpaa!” It was a thunderous slap, Mr Oke dashed Uche once, and he scolded him hard for keeping him, his boss waiting for minutes. Uche apologized and immediately brought out Iyanda’s sack from the car boot. They all went into the main building. The building contained three floors and it had a very large compound. Unlike Iya Agba’s house, the compound was designed with interlocking and one could not see any sand anywhere. All these, Iyanda could not notice until the following day when he was given a tall broom to sweep the whole compound. At first, he looked around unbudged but he immediately overheard Mr Oke’s wife telling her daughters that he wouldn’t eat if he refused to sweep the compound neat. He hadn’t eaten since the previous morning and a terrible hunger was killing him. He hastily took the broom and swept the whole compound with his tiny hands.
By the time he was done, the family were already having their breakfast. He walked in devastatedly with the long broom pointing forward. “I’m done, my food?” He blinked innocently. The family burst into a prolonged laughter and when they finally stopped, Mrs Oke gestured to Iyanda to come and carry a plate full of spiced spaghetti, he walked towards it hopefully, dropping the broom he was holding. He was sweating profusely due to the effort exhausted on the compound. They watched him reach the table, on stretching forth his hand to carry it, a resonating sound echoed sonorously, Iyanda’s hand was clutched tightly to the back of his head, his eyes watered as he wilted in pain and watched the spaghetti messed the floor.
“Eieh, egbami”, do you think you belong here? Have you not been told? What gut do you have to have confronted me and request for your food?” Mrs Oke spatted angrily and her daughters couldn’t stop laughing. Mr Oke was busy with his meal, Iyanda searched his face to see if he would stop his wife from being nefarious but he was disappointed for Mr Oke looked undisturbed about the whole matter.
Iyanda’s throat constricted and his pumping heart raced fiercely like an engine. Downcasted, he rushed out of the dining room to his tiny, frigid room, lying in the cold tiles, with a love deficit soul. Iyanda knew he was in for it already, no one was coming to save him and no one would, not his old grandmother who had sold him into slavery or even his single mother who had abandoned him. He felt a splitting headache hit his head again, he struggled to keep his eyes open but he was feeling dizzy, he wrapped his tiny arms around his body on the cold tiled floor. His eyes began to close slowly, he closed his eyes in total submission to the pains and hoped someday, he would find peace in this new abyss called home.
