Last Strands of Hope

I had zoned out. These notes were unbelievably dirty yet so pure. I sat on that park bench with my earphones nodding in agreement to every vibration that staggered off the saxophone, drums, keyboard and the bass with a well pronounced grimace that expressed how much of my mind had involuntarily and unconsciously gamboled to every note. I usually come out here for the cool breeze, the serenity and to watch people play table tennis… and to judge them mockingly in my mind; have you ever seen the priceless looks on their faces when the ball is mid-air and they are just about hitting it? That Friday evening just wasn’t one of those evenings. My eyes wandered over to my wristwatch, “7:44pm”, wait, what? I needed to get dinner and head home so I got up and shoved my phone and earphones in my pocket, adjusted my jacket and raised my head up only to see this lovely elderly woman staring and smiling at me. I smiled back but just when I was on the verge of losing eye contact, she beckoned.

“Good evening ma”

“My son, how are you?”

“Very well. You called?” I asked with my raised left brow signature.

“Eh yes. You’re a very handsome young man. Are you into music?” her smile had not dropped a notch.

Okay, this was interesting coming from such an elderly woman. “Sorry ma but why do you ask?” I was looking ready to indulge in a conversation…a conversation about music with an elderly woman. It is a big deal.

“You know”, she replied while gesturing towards her face, “these beards you have on just suggested you should be into music”.

My emotions flickered between indifference and disappointment. Is it that she didn’t see me drenched in my musical trance or she just wanted to narrow down who I should be to my beards just to spite me? “Madam, these are natural facial hairs that grow on an average male’s face when puberty hits. It should not be, and is not, a determining factor of his career or interest. Liberate yourself from this sort of thinking because I consider it naïve, the world has moved on way beyond this.” These were the words I didn’t say. “Yes ma, I’m into music”. This was what I said while fronting a smile.

Just the other day, probably because I forgot my earphones, my tummy thought to tune me into that realm. Quite a misconception, it sent me into an entirely different disco hall. I hadn’t had any meal all day and it was 3:41pm. I definitely would have noticed this if I had indulged in some sort of conscious fasting. I sauntered into a restaurant like I possessed the Certificate of Ownership for the building. I was just about placing an order when I opened my wallet. My eyes opened to match its width as I heard echoes of my beating heart from what was left of that battered leather container of a wallet.

“Please hold my order, I need to use the ATM” I said after heaving a sigh of relief when my fingers traced the familiar contour of my debit card.

I walked up to the man who was about my father’s age and was standing at the end of the ATM queue.

“Good afternoon sir, are you the last person on the queue?”

“Yes” he replied abruptly, then turned to see this six feet two inches tall creature addressing him then slowly and reluctantly added, “Yes, I am”.

“Okay sir, I’m behind you” I pretended not to read his emotional flinch as I peered right into the ATM console, patiently waiting my turn. It then got to his turn and since we were the only people left on the queue, he begged me like his life depended on it.

“My brother, please I beg you in the name of God, can you please help me with my ATM card? I don’t know how to operate the machine. I want to withdraw the last small money I have so I can pay my wife’s hospital bills because the doctor said he’ll not attend to her even if she’s at the point of death. I can’t lose her, she is all I have. My only son is in the village taking care of my wife’s mother, please my son will you help me?”

I sympathetically said yes even if I knew that he didn’t need all that information to get a yes from me. I reached out for his card and walked him through the steps. He thanked me with an emotion sprinkled with fear and relief when he was done withdrawing the money.

“I wish your wife quick recovery sir”

“Thank you my son”

“But sir, why did you have to narrate all that to me first? I would have helped you either ways”

“Hmm, you see, I even prayed in my heart that you would help me oh”

“Prayers too? Hahaha, you should have just asked, but it is okay sir. I’m glad I could help”

“Well, you can’t be too careful, especially with young men like you with all these beards. Thank you again, God bless you.”

I felt a very deep sting just above my right eye as I watched him hop into an SUV and drove off. I reached in deep to find a smile to flash back at him in response to his wave, it wasn’t just forth-coming. I retrieved my money from the machine and shoved it into my wallet, all my appetite, gone.

The Sunday was far spent and I still felt the urge to go out for ice-cream…one addiction I was willing to walk back to temporarily…again. You can imagine the joy on my face when my friend asked me if I wanted to join him play pool, no not gambling, really guys? It’s snooker. I knew this was an opportunity to satisfy the crave I had caved so deeply in. I threw on my dark blue sweatshirt and my blue ripped jeans and a pair of sandals. Ice-cream, here I come!!! I got the ice-cream quite all right, but it was after being whopped mercilessly in the game of snooker. I wasn’t even allowed by my excitement of my expectation to feel bad, it was time to head home, and to get my precious creamy bundle of ice. I spent all my money, yes, even my transport fare…our transport fare on the ice-cream. Before you judge me, you should know I’m not proud of it. But the ice-cream though, still gets me drooling. How do we get home? It was almost 10pm and we were stranded, not until my friend suggested we hire an auto rickshaw (keke napep) and pay him when we get home. Works for me.

“Keke, abeg you go reach Plaza?”

“Two of una?”

“Yes, how much?”

The look on his face was something to write a book on. He stared at us like he knew I spent all my money on ice-cream but we went on to exercise our bargaining prowess till we agreed on an amount. We sat behind and got so engrossed with our discussion that we barely noticed that the driver paid rapt attention to us.

On getting home, he asked, “Please don’t be angry oh, are you both from here?”

“Hahaha, is it because of the way we talk? Our accent?” my friend asked.

“Eh yes and you see these your beards, not many people from here keep them. To be honest, I didn’t even want to carry you but then I heard the way you talk and I felt you were good people”

If only he had heard the words from my eyes at that moment, I’m sure it would have been this intense.

“Oga, why do you choose to live in such mental bondage? I am a writer, a poet, I sing, I play the bass guitar, I have a Bachelor’s degree from a prestigious institution. My parents are very proud of me and they boast about me to their peers. Someday, I’ll get married to the woman I love and have the most beautiful kids ever. I have very big plans for my future, very big plans, none of which involve any form of negativity. So please tell me oga, how do these beards, the same ones you shave, make me a bad person?”

But how could I tell him all of this? I wish I had found the strength to let him know how I felt. I looked at him and felt pity for him.

All I could say was, “Here’s your money oga, thank you very much, good night” the smile on my face was as fake as the confidence exhibited by a goat marching through the den of hungry lions.

It was time for me to vent, I had had it. But who needed to be addressed? Who was responsible for all these blows? To think that these are a few of the experiences from complete strangers. Oh words don’t fail me now…

Dear Society,

I’m writing this letter with hopes that each word slashes you like whip made out of razors as it would still be nothing compared to the hurt you have caused me. So relatively, we can agree that I’m even being nice to you. You’ve inflicted emotional and mental pain to me from people I know and people I don’t, just because you have laid down rules out of your own jurisdiction that were, and are not up for debate.

Who do you think you are to rule over us? To dictate who and what we turn out to be? To put us in a strait jacket and feed us with stereotypical ways of thinking? To narrow down all our potentials just to please you? To lower our standards just to accommodate you? To force us to dance whenever we hear the tunes played by you? No, I refuse to be subject to you anymore. Call me a rebel, I would wear it proudly. You need humans to survive, not the other way round. Without us, there would be no you so quit flaunting your cheap colors of tyranny in our faces, we own you. It’s sad that you have succeeded in subtly seeping your self-proclaimed sovereignty in the minds and hearts of unguarded humans that most people no longer exert their full potential just to avoid stepping on your toes. 

You have robbed us of our freedom that we seem to believe that not listening to you means we’re headed towards irrationality, lunacy and delinquency? Why can’t I dance to the music blaring from my earphones along the pedestrian walkway and not be looked at like an insane person? Why can’t I take pictures along the road without being slashed by quizzical stares from passersby? Why can’t I grow and keep well-groomed beards without being compared to the negativity you have branded it with? Why can’t I be examined based on what I carry upstairs and not by mere paper qualification? Why can’t I make a choice and seek pieces of advice with regards to it and not be judged by what you expect from me? You have erased the thin line between complete loss of the mind and complete freedom just to satisfy your greed. Because I keep beards, you have stripped me off my cloak of responsibility and have forced people to judge me negatively before giving me a chance to speak, talk less of showing them who I am. What gave you the idea that a bearded man is less of a person? Why did you feed us the idea that a bearded man is most likely a menace to the society? Do these beards help him store weapons or do they influence his line of thought? Yet you place corrupt pot-bellied politicians as human representations of you to be worshipped and kissed on the feet, you create runways for naked ladies to be applauded by the world, you sink us knee-deep into technology, yet wipe us out by the cancer that emanates from it.

You seem to be oblivious of the fact that the need to fit into your path is the exact reason for what stabs you in the back. Quiet and so-called well-mannered people grow up with bottled up emotions and turn out to be psychopaths, or in modern day terms, world terrorists. Those deprived of their freedom of expression take the slightest opportunity to do so with all forms of weapons. Greedy illiterates forge the papers you require just to sit at top positions and starve those who deserve it. Those living by all your principles get one hard hit to the head and grow up to become your worst nightmare. Those acting based on what you expect from them grow up hating themselves due to egotistical clashes.

You should know though, that I am older and wiser and I refuse to let your insecurities place me in a box. I speak for the twenty percent who have broken free from your zombification spell, those who have decided to live and not to be lived, those who have snatched the pen and script of their lives from your hands, those who have snapped off the strings and wires binding them as puppets in your hands, those who have ripped off the bars of the cage and marched out of your circus, those who have taken the steering wheel from you, those who have gotten off your farms and taken your whips and guns from you, those who have shattered the shackles around their feet. With one voice, we say it’s over. For one moment in our lives, we choose to live, we choose to be free and we choose to be happy. We are not asking, we are subjecting you to our will.

Signed,

A free human.