Not Quite a Fairytale
The mosquitoes are not bothered. With those thin, needlelike proboscises, they bite into his skin. He repeatedly slaps his hand in antagonism and stares at his palm expecting to have had the luck of killing one of those little devils, but as usual, he had failed to get any of those sharp-witted, winged pests. He brushed his Ghana-must-go bag as he hurried towards the jerry-can, which was filled with just the right amount of water to wash his clothes, do the dishes and the rest would be enough to quench his thirst. He groped the blackened walls of his room which still reeked of the pungent smell of the cheap cigarettes he had been smoking.
That room had borne all the torture. It bore with the smell of these hairless, witty rats, lurking in the corners. The room had lost his fineness whilst being the shelter to these ragged clothes. Its walls had been distorted with these ugly nail holes, which his gruff hands had artlessly hammered into it. He sees that they have become weary and quite due to fall on this man who would only create voids in them, without putting the supposed electricity socket. “Is this man so comfortable with this marriage to poverty?” The walls seem to ask him. That worn-out mattress or perhaps, “the kingdom of bed bugs” was at another rough end of the room. A fluorescent bulb hung from the ceiling and dangled alongside the fan-holder, which was bereft of any fan.
Wearing an unconcerned expression, he jammed the door hard enough, behind him. He spat on the fast growing weeds in his front yard as if casting a spell that would kill them all and walked towards the main road. The distasteful smell of the gutter assaulted his nose soon enough. The cursed trench swallowed the inhabitants of that alley as frequently as it could. It was poorly constructed, so that there was no difference between the flooded road and its shallow might. He hissed, as his slippers dug deep into the mud, so that his trouser was soaked at the ankle. He lighted the last cigarette in the box he had bought on credit yesterday from Mama Saratu's shop, which was his actual destination. He puffed some smoke and eyed those kids standing half-naked in the mud, who were staring at him. He soon walked past a group of vibrant youths, who where pinging on their phones.
“Una Well-done oo,” he said.
“Well-done broda!” they responded.
He walked past some kids, whom were still at the age for swaddling clothes. They were throwing stones into a gully and enjoying how the brown, chocolate-coloured water stained their dresses with these blotches. They were free. They knew little of what was going on since problems were for adults to deal with, except that recently, children were also being trapped in the tragedies. Children were being raped by unknown men. Bandits are taking parents’ peace, in the form of children, as the news declared. These little ones would understand only cartoons however and not the formalities attached to news casting. He passed by without much ado, but was still able to hear their mothers’ yelling at them in high pitch. He wanted them to grow up and see "fun" metamorphose into "boring" and how growing up does not amount to a fairytale in a world haunted by these many defects. He wanted them to have their fair share of fun till daybreak opens them to the world –to reality.
Older kids sat at the front of their mothers’ shops creasing papers into planes and throwing it upwards, witnessing how it went beyond their reach. The height it ascended to, determined their happiness. He recalled being this small, and thinking that life in the future would be as easy as folding a paper into a "buy all you want till infinity” cheque. He remembered spending those teenage years playing with balls around the mud and thinking that his mother’s shop would be an ever blooming source of income and that the people you love would live till eternity. What a joke! Life really is a joke.
Aloe-Vera hotel was regarded as a place of integrity, because so much mud had been splashed at whatever amount of goodness its name carried prior. This was where a boy was robbed and almost murdered. This was where Mama Sekinah caught her husband one late evening, running his hands over an underage girl’s body. Mama Sakinah was the popular, carefree food vendor who had the sharpest, razor-like tongue. She would never take shit from anyone. Nobody knows where she is now. She must have been too ashamed to appear in public after that cat fight, where she was stripped to almost nothing by someone younger than her first daughter. She used to brag a lot about having total control of her husband and had to be spanked by reality so ruthlessly. The hotel buried crimes like cement. It was the depot for drug dealers and the place where youths ruined their future. Their bars served anyone who had funds. Their slogan was that, “Age is only but a number”. The police have raided the place quite a number of times, only to shut their mouths about their findings whence bribery dives in.
Men sat beneath the tree adjacent, Aloe Vera Hotel. They would discuss politics this minute, football the next and then talk about that boy who was lynched for mining on a rice farm. Later in the afternoon, they would march unto a bet shop and make elegiac jubilations for their wins and losses.
As he walked past a POS (Point Of Sale Machine) stand, his ears caught unto the voice of the owner.
“Fresh, we no dey collect transfer again ooo, na so last week dem do me fake transfer alert”
“Hah! Nah so these bad people go dey spoil our transactions now,” the angry customer said. He shook his head in appreciation of how far technology is moving. Fake transfer alert! It was unfortunate that people with talents have been wasting them on things which were not worth it. The situation in the country makes people see illegalities as the usual.
He reminisced on the conversation he had with his friend a few days before.
“If I see pesin with fine car, na only two things dey my mind. He be Yahoo boy or politician.” His friend had told him.
“Wallahi, me sef oo. If nah yahoo boy, you go see dreadlock on top him head. Kai! This life no balance at all.” He agreed with his friend’s analogy.
He sees how people in his street are being tested with poverty and neglect. Yet rather than being a solution, those people contribute to the problem. They do not respond to the injustice of a pastor being shot dead on his way back from church. The question they ask is where he got the three million naira, which was snatched from him before the murder. They ponder on where a man of God could have gotten such a huge amount of money.
He crosses to the other side of the road, narrowly surviving a hit from a reckless motorcycle rider. He argued with the mosquito coil seller for a while, yet she was adamant on not offering her goods on credit. He left her shop dejectedly and was in time to hear the children scream “Up NEPA! That was the Nigerian way of celebrating the restoration of power supply. As he returned to the compound where his rented one-room apartment was situated, his neighbour’s son came running towards him.
“Brother Sam, fire don catch for your room oo, e be like say the light too strong.” He stared for a moment in shock at his neighbours, whom were deliberating on what the cause of the fire could have been rather than help in dousing it. Thence, he dashed into the room, only to see that all of his belongings were on their way to dust. The choking scent of smoke enveloped him. A tear drop slipped from his eyes. Mayhap it is the smoke, or the fact that growing up keeps turning into everything farther than a fairytale, he just could not decide.
That room had borne all the torture. It bore with the smell of these hairless, witty rats, lurking in the corners. The room had lost his fineness whilst being the shelter to these ragged clothes. Its walls had been distorted with these ugly nail holes, which his gruff hands had artlessly hammered into it. He sees that they have become weary and quite due to fall on this man who would only create voids in them, without putting the supposed electricity socket. “Is this man so comfortable with this marriage to poverty?” The walls seem to ask him. That worn-out mattress or perhaps, “the kingdom of bed bugs” was at another rough end of the room. A fluorescent bulb hung from the ceiling and dangled alongside the fan-holder, which was bereft of any fan.
Wearing an unconcerned expression, he jammed the door hard enough, behind him. He spat on the fast growing weeds in his front yard as if casting a spell that would kill them all and walked towards the main road. The distasteful smell of the gutter assaulted his nose soon enough. The cursed trench swallowed the inhabitants of that alley as frequently as it could. It was poorly constructed, so that there was no difference between the flooded road and its shallow might. He hissed, as his slippers dug deep into the mud, so that his trouser was soaked at the ankle. He lighted the last cigarette in the box he had bought on credit yesterday from Mama Saratu's shop, which was his actual destination. He puffed some smoke and eyed those kids standing half-naked in the mud, who were staring at him. He soon walked past a group of vibrant youths, who where pinging on their phones.
“Una Well-done oo,” he said.
“Well-done broda!” they responded.
He walked past some kids, whom were still at the age for swaddling clothes. They were throwing stones into a gully and enjoying how the brown, chocolate-coloured water stained their dresses with these blotches. They were free. They knew little of what was going on since problems were for adults to deal with, except that recently, children were also being trapped in the tragedies. Children were being raped by unknown men. Bandits are taking parents’ peace, in the form of children, as the news declared. These little ones would understand only cartoons however and not the formalities attached to news casting. He passed by without much ado, but was still able to hear their mothers’ yelling at them in high pitch. He wanted them to grow up and see "fun" metamorphose into "boring" and how growing up does not amount to a fairytale in a world haunted by these many defects. He wanted them to have their fair share of fun till daybreak opens them to the world –to reality.
Older kids sat at the front of their mothers’ shops creasing papers into planes and throwing it upwards, witnessing how it went beyond their reach. The height it ascended to, determined their happiness. He recalled being this small, and thinking that life in the future would be as easy as folding a paper into a "buy all you want till infinity” cheque. He remembered spending those teenage years playing with balls around the mud and thinking that his mother’s shop would be an ever blooming source of income and that the people you love would live till eternity. What a joke! Life really is a joke.
Aloe-Vera hotel was regarded as a place of integrity, because so much mud had been splashed at whatever amount of goodness its name carried prior. This was where a boy was robbed and almost murdered. This was where Mama Sekinah caught her husband one late evening, running his hands over an underage girl’s body. Mama Sakinah was the popular, carefree food vendor who had the sharpest, razor-like tongue. She would never take shit from anyone. Nobody knows where she is now. She must have been too ashamed to appear in public after that cat fight, where she was stripped to almost nothing by someone younger than her first daughter. She used to brag a lot about having total control of her husband and had to be spanked by reality so ruthlessly. The hotel buried crimes like cement. It was the depot for drug dealers and the place where youths ruined their future. Their bars served anyone who had funds. Their slogan was that, “Age is only but a number”. The police have raided the place quite a number of times, only to shut their mouths about their findings whence bribery dives in.
Men sat beneath the tree adjacent, Aloe Vera Hotel. They would discuss politics this minute, football the next and then talk about that boy who was lynched for mining on a rice farm. Later in the afternoon, they would march unto a bet shop and make elegiac jubilations for their wins and losses.
As he walked past a POS (Point Of Sale Machine) stand, his ears caught unto the voice of the owner.
“Fresh, we no dey collect transfer again ooo, na so last week dem do me fake transfer alert”
“Hah! Nah so these bad people go dey spoil our transactions now,” the angry customer said. He shook his head in appreciation of how far technology is moving. Fake transfer alert! It was unfortunate that people with talents have been wasting them on things which were not worth it. The situation in the country makes people see illegalities as the usual.
He reminisced on the conversation he had with his friend a few days before.
“If I see pesin with fine car, na only two things dey my mind. He be Yahoo boy or politician.” His friend had told him.
“Wallahi, me sef oo. If nah yahoo boy, you go see dreadlock on top him head. Kai! This life no balance at all.” He agreed with his friend’s analogy.
He sees how people in his street are being tested with poverty and neglect. Yet rather than being a solution, those people contribute to the problem. They do not respond to the injustice of a pastor being shot dead on his way back from church. The question they ask is where he got the three million naira, which was snatched from him before the murder. They ponder on where a man of God could have gotten such a huge amount of money.
He crosses to the other side of the road, narrowly surviving a hit from a reckless motorcycle rider. He argued with the mosquito coil seller for a while, yet she was adamant on not offering her goods on credit. He left her shop dejectedly and was in time to hear the children scream “Up NEPA! That was the Nigerian way of celebrating the restoration of power supply. As he returned to the compound where his rented one-room apartment was situated, his neighbour’s son came running towards him.
“Brother Sam, fire don catch for your room oo, e be like say the light too strong.” He stared for a moment in shock at his neighbours, whom were deliberating on what the cause of the fire could have been rather than help in dousing it. Thence, he dashed into the room, only to see that all of his belongings were on their way to dust. The choking scent of smoke enveloped him. A tear drop slipped from his eyes. Mayhap it is the smoke, or the fact that growing up keeps turning into everything farther than a fairytale, he just could not decide.
BIO:
Abdulrazaq Salihu is a Nigerian award winning writer. He’s a member of the hilltop creative arts foundation and has his works published/forthcoming on brittle paper, Kalahari review, black moon, masks literary magazine and more.
Abdulrazaq Salihu is a Nigerian award winning writer. He’s a member of the hilltop creative arts foundation and has his works published/forthcoming on brittle paper, Kalahari review, black moon, masks literary magazine and more.
