This was the third time in the space of a month that the water had gone even with the regular irregular supply of electricity, “or this pumping machine don get fault again ne?” Tade thought to himself, enough were the problems he was battling he thought, he doesn’t deserve to be stripped of water too!
Tade had had almost enough, but unlike many, he didn’t have the seemingly nice option of crying out loud to family, the best he could do was lament part of his apparent problems to Kunle, his bosom/best friend(he’s not sure where he stands jare) and business partner.
After finishing the business of clearing himself of the mess caused by the innate desire of man to feed; as that is necessary for survival, he exits the lavatory and headed to his one-room apartment. You’d be thankful for him for at least having a roof over his head. But even that is threatened — his rent is just about due in a month’s time. His Americana Landlord is going to ping his phone with texts serving as a reminder, an occurrence which is alien to him as he had always paid a month in advance. However, Mr Akpan his neighbor had casually informed him of the LandLord’s practice.
Back to his problem, “O, Lord! Shame me not. Help me Lord and I will be a cheerful giver.” And of course, he knows ALLAH is all-hearing, and that God always answers prayers. But He does that only at a time HE knows (with certainty) is best. “God! I need this now, extensions are detrimental to my situation.” If I had known are not thoughts Tade ever condoned. He’s a more realistic individual. He’s up for risks and plans quite well, but even the government’s plans with all their manpower and resources sometimes fail. Oh! Justification for failure? Of course! It’s been known to be the natural state of man to make justifications for his actions. From why they need to eat extra, why to act manly, why they should prefer boobs to ass, justifications are a very common part of our lives but we fail to acknowledge that. We justify it by attacking people who are loud about it.
Kuma the power supply is currently paused. He could at least watch a movie, or play scrabble, or chat with one of those babes. “will I sincerely be able to pause my worries with these?” He attempted to tell himself the truth. And while that is the truth, It’s not a lie that he’d actually be able to pull it off, albeit at intervals. He’d watch 30mins and think about his life for about 5 minutes and then play scrabble for a few more minutes more than that, he’d maybe read; God helps him if he goes across the first two pages from his stop then he can be sure his worries will be put on hold for a longer while.
Debts, Bills, Commitments, Love, Sex, Religion, all of which to important levels, are parts of what keeps him going, all with their own deficiencies at the moment in his life. But is a man ever without deficiencies? Without problems? Without need? But the body is not firewood, so you know? But person ‘gats’ enjoy life too,
Also, Hellfire certainly isn’t an enticing destination, and we can’t do away with family, we can’t avoid billings even if we try to, if people who we term outsiders can’t bill us, people who are ‘internal’ can, if we still refuse those, then we will bill ourselves, and when we stop billing ourselves, we bill others. We will bill them to find resources to put us 6feets under. Even when we are rich, we bill them to bath us, we bill them to wrap us, we bill them to see to it that our properties (if we have any) are disbursed to the right party, we bill them to not touch our wives, we bill them to remember us, either in prayers or when we are without belief; in good memory.
“Now That I Know Life, Now that I know how stressful adulthood is, I should be more careful. I should be more dutiful and be easy on myself, I should live and save. I should go make mistakes and learn from them. I should plan such that if it fails, I’d know I’m not a failure. I should love more easily, and be more peace-loving” Tade thought as he again got lost in the nothingness of life. The adhan he heard and off he went.
