STORY 1: LOST IN THE VALLEY

The early morning breeze was whispering calmly to the estate settlers. The estate was neatly kept. Noise making was never encouraged. The Houses were of the same design and sizes. The houses are very beautiful and looked attractive. Power failure was a forgotten issue as the estate had a powerful 300 KVA generator that turns on automatically and supplied power to the estate when the national power authority interrupted power supply.

The surrounding environment was colourful being beautified by beautiful flowers properly planted strategically in a meaningful manner. At night the street light made it look charming and appealing to the eye.

I am only ten years when dad and mum bought our expensive house located at this heaven like environment. It was indeed an obvious direct opposite of where we were living before now. I made new friends here and became familiar to the life style of people living in the estate. I wouldn’t have been here if not that luck smiled at my dad as he was appointed the commissioner for education in our state. This was instrumental to the sudden change of class from our former low state to a higher class. We now receive visitor more than I personally expected and never fancied. Most of them stayed late night being carried away by streams of political related issues centred on the quest for money. Dad was fast been taken over and swallowed by this callous and immodest behaviour of politicians. He now comes back home at mid night and wake up as early as 4 am and goes away. Often times he fails coming back home at all and when mum complains. He would proudly rebuff her by giving flimsy reasons of being involved in one political meeting or the other schedule to hold night hours. We had food on our table. We wore good fashionable clothes, respected in the society and had many flashy cars. But something was lacking unlike when dad was: a nobody in the society we had peace and joy.

We suffocate amidst dad’s snappily accumulated wealth in depression and fear. Dad pays no attention to us any longer. He was obsessed and mad with his political appointment, always interested and talking about money. I really wish God would take us back to our past happy life. I had made it a prayer point. Everything now was boring and uninterested. My friends ironically wished they were me. They never knew what was eating me up. Had they known they wouldn’t consider a second thought of saying that again. An igbo proverb had it: ‘one in a particular place/position, desires passionately to be in another place he knows little or nothing about.’ That was the problem of humanity.

Meanwhile mummy had become conversant with daddy’s wahala and had decided to cope. She was soft and calm whenever she confronted daddy for crucial matters. Mummy had not allowed the political appointment of her husband to throw her off balance from what she naturally was inside of her. Instead of letting down her old friends, she renewed the friendship with lots of gifts. Her attitude had not in anywhere synchronized with that of daddy and this made daddy angry with her. She was very soft and loving at heart, she spent a higher percentage of her income on the needy and less privileged in the society.  Daddy in one occasion tagged her philanthropic deeds a waste of time and resources, but she never got discouraged.

Amidst the newly developed discrepancy between mum and dad, the love for each other remained incomparable irrespective of all surrounding distractions from daddy’s political ordeals. This explained why they had never been loud-quarrel between them, as often heard in other families. Dad and mum were excellently coordinated as husband and wife. Though, a higher percentage of the secret behind this inseparable bond of love was mummy tolerance and good character.

Good character a costly and rear quality among Nigerian women. Mummy was very beautiful and lovely. She remained the best mummy in the whole world.

After our first Christmas cerebration here at the estate, on a sunny day I walked 5 km  away from home and found a very quiet place surrounded by trees, conducive and was very colourful. Without a second thought, I decided and went and sat under one of the trees. The serene breeze went in and out of me until I felt sleepy and my eyes became heavy. As I availed myself an opportunity and closed my eyes and slept while relaxing my head on the very tree I lean on.

It wasn’t long I started enjoying this, I slept off; I was distracted by a kick on my leg. At once I jumped, being tensed up, I saw a beautiful whitish Ass running towards a bushy path off the estate. I chased after the Ass. She ran so fast into a sloppy path and went off my sight. In curiosity to catch a better sight of the Ass I speedily ran into the slop and fell into a trap, as I couldn’t held back from falling into the deep slop. The force at which I ran into it threw me down and I rolled on the ground continuously until I landed on a sandy soil deep down the slop. I stood in fear and trembling, look up from where I had falling from and shuddered disappointedly and muttered: “I have gotten myself into a big mess.” I knew I was trapped, but highly confused, “How can I ever come out from here,” I wondered with my arms on my waist. It was now I even remembered that mummy had instructed me to carry out some domestic chores, before she left for the market. I was yet to accomplish the task before I conceived the idea to have a walk round the estate. “It may be the devil that fed me with the idea,” I thought, “mummy must have come back from the market and probably would be searching for me now. What troubled me most was the horror and pain mum and dad shall suffer, if they failed to discover my where about.  I was their only son, the seed of their happiness. Mum will surely cry to death and dad may suffer high blood pressure. “God please serve me out of here. I don’t want to lose my lovely parents,” I prayed.

What I hated was now inevitably going to take place, dad would likely take my picture round all the TV stations in the country and have my name published on the national dailies.

By Martins Francis Ifeanyichukwu

@ExperienceNovels2018

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