Reminiscing
It was a breezy raining day, I stayed by the front room window watching the restless trees swaying under the unforgiving force of the wind. Living in an area that’s prone to flooding, I hated rain with a strength I never knew I had. Seeing our goats and other goats from neighbouring streets hiding under the collapsed uncompleted building across the road, was not particularly pleasing. The chickens were not spared even, they were actually the first to scamper to safety at the approach of the rain. The popular rain song came hurriedly to mind even at such a grand age of twenty. I started slowly
‘Rain rain go away
Come again another day
Little children want to play’
Then fiercely singing it with the venom of a falling iroko tree (hard wood tree from West Africa). Five minutes into my trance inducing singing I could no longer discern if the water flowing down my beef-starved cheeks was from the rain or my precious tears. So unlike me but I tend to enjoy this vulnerability residing at the core of my being. A sure sign of weakness, not mine but of the entire human race. Waking up from my folly, I realised I had stepped away from the window, walked through the doors and sat on a branch of a rain-battered tree, gently swaying with a milder breeze whose ferocious father had just vacated the throne for his son, a gentle ruler. It was nothing after all but another episode of my infantile day-dream.
Nature must really be laughing me to scorn but I dare not complain. I have been to heights were mere mortals are afraid to dream about and to depths where even the beasts of the sea dare not venture. I am not the master of my own fate but an actor whose script was written before he was conceived in his mother’s womb. All I ever wanted was to be great in everything not necessarily the best as I have an innate obsession with shyness, you see I hate any effusive adulation.
How I survived I do not know but I understand my place. The little village of eminent personalities. The home of the great elder statesmen. The likes of Prof Timidity and Dr Caution. Not to forget Chief Judge Rational and the much loved wife of the President, First Lady Realism. Imagine all originating from a place you could define as Dystopian yet all becoming more refined than expected, my safe humble self. Do not feel sorry for my naked emotional dissonance and do not applaud my perceived fortune of mental balance.
My existence has been misrepresented by my experience so I became who I never wanted to become. The son of a noble father and a mother who refused to learn how to drive a car. I am not ashamed of her, she was one of my best friends until my father took over. Being the second son and child I escaped the pressure of the first son and only child. A beautiful place to be if you are infinitely lazy. I am not implying my laziness, only alluding to the artistic resonance of it. It takes a lot to be lazy, requires the skill of an artist whose strength revolves around having attention to detail. Never mind being called lazy so many times by my noble father. I escaped the rigours of hard work, hiding behind my elder brother and younger siblings. I sailed through the ranks in flying colours. I hid in the cracks in the wall of eight children sired by my noble father.
I become a genius but an angry one. Nay, more like an irritant. Perfectionism was my obsession. I like to toy with the label of autism, though undiagnosed. Many people called me weird, an appellation I was inclined to accept without any hint of guilt. Yet they loved me. Who wouldn’t love a clown? A clown? Yes. My existence had shrouded my nature in secrecy. Funniness was the regalia and clowning the rag tied to my waist. Life was my stage and survival was the script so I acted with the seriousness of a method actor. No child’s play, no mean feat either. I surpassed the standard set before me, my mother’s. I passed with flying colours, only if colours could truly fly. I was my mother’s son when I was bad in school but now my father’s son after nature had become lenient on my mental fortune.
At a young age I realised the gulf in strength between my mental capacity and that of my siblings. Theirs was as bright as the Vitamin D inducing early morning sun and mine was weaker than the tailboard of an overcrowded rickety molue (not your typical bus). The beginning of my journey into the land of day-dreams. I was a cheat living a double life. My quiet simple self and my genius self. My quiet simple self was shy, boring, blatantly awkward and lacking in confidence. My genius self was a beast of a man. He was the best at everything. A footballer, doctor, actor, musician, writer, engineer and many more professions I can’t remember. He was everyone from Bill Gate to Wole Soyinka (Nigerian Nobel Laureate in Literature) . Bill because he is rich and Soyinka because of his English.
I maintained a level-headedness expected of me as being badly behaved with a porous brain is a recipe for disaster. A porous brain? Yes, not just a self-deprecating way to describe myself. The words of my noble father. He had few words to describe me; dunce, dullard and porous brain. Looking back to those beautiful times still brings smile to my unchanging face except for the beards masking my childish heart.
