No wonder everything went that way. Not even a single sign, not a whisper, not a blink of warning everyone just ignored what happened to me without a second thought. Maybe they didn’t care, or maybe they didn’t understand. Either way, it felt like the world had moved on while I was left standing still, watching my life slip through my own fingers.
My heart panted so bitterly that night. Words refused to come out of my mouth; my stomach began to feed on itself. Hunger has a strange way of mocking you it makes your body eat itself in silence. I turned to my phone, hoping maybe it would light up with a message or a call, something to remind me I wasn’t completely forgotten. But it just lay there, silent and dumb, like a dead thing. My mind opened its doors to anger.
I didn’t even know what to do. So, I called myself back “Valentine, sit down,” I said out loud, my voice trembling. “What do you really want in life?”
That question hit me harder than hunger ever did. It was a question I had never dared to ask myself, not once. And yet, there it was the reality of life staring right into my tired eyes. I looked around the room and saw the papers behind me, those carefully arranged certificates and documents on my shelf, looking so clean, so polished, so useless. They told the story of a young man who once believed effort guaranteed reward.
Anyone who looked at those papers would think I had everything together, that I had worked hard and earned my peace. But I knew better. Behind those walls of framed achievements lived a silent struggle. My eyes drifted upward to the ceiling, where I often spent my nights counting the stains and cracks, whispering dreams to a roof that never replied.
I had built my life on hope, speaking light into my little world, even when everything around me screamed darkness. That night, as I drifted between thought and emptiness, I suddenly heard a knock on my door.
I froze.
“Who is that?” I asked with the shaky voice of someone who wasn’t sure they wanted an answer.
No response. Only the faint sound of the shelf’s wooden foot rubbing the floor or maybe it was just my imagination. I whispered to myself, “I wasn’t expecting anyone… but I’m not unwilling to welcome anyone either.”
My room was small, barely half a room, stuffy and cramped. My mattress was little more than a foam of worn memories. Because of that, I hardly ever let anyone in. There was no pride in showing people where hopelessness lived.
But that night felt different. Something in the air shifted. My heart pounded again. I stood still, staring at the door.
“Who is that?” I asked once more, louder this time. “How may I help you?”
Still nothing. Only silence thick enough to make my heartbeat sound like thunder.
It felt almost supernatural like a ghost had decided to visit me. Or maybe, just maybe, it was Uzuma, the deity of peace and gifts my grandmother used to tell me about. The thought sent shivers through my spine. I looked around my kitchen empty. No food, no money, not even a crumb left to deceive my stomach.
“Yes,” I whispered to myself. “It must be Uzuma.”
I jumped from the bed, my heart racing with sudden excitement. Maybe my suffering had reached heaven’s ears. Maybe the deity had finally come to reward a forgotten soul.
But just as I stood to move, the little candlelight the one my grandmother gave me, standing weakly in a stainless plate flickered and went off. The darkness swallowed me whole. My heart sank, fear tightening its grip.
Still, I stretched my hand toward the door, groping through the darkness. With every step, it felt like the door moved farther away, like I was walking inside a dream that refused to end. My heart whispered, this must be it, the best day of my life.
I remembered my grandmother’s story: how Uzuma, the great deity, visited the grandchildren of our community during their most helpless moments. I clung to that memory like a lifeline.
So I kept walking. I pushed through the shadows and finally reached the door. My palms were trembling as I opened it slow, careful, afraid.
But when I looked out, there was no one. No deity, no human, not even the sound of footsteps. Just darkness, stretching endlessly beyond the corridor.
My heart bled with anger. My body screamed for food. My stomach twisted in protest. I had waited, hoped, and prayed, only to find nothing but more emptiness.
I closed the door and returned to my bed, helpless again, staring up at the ceiling. I started counting one crack, two cracks, three anything to drown out the sound of my own thoughts.
I thought about my labour, all the years I’d given to education, to hard work, to patience. All the dreams I had buried in paper and ink, all the nights I went to bed with big plans and woke up to nothing. I longed for eternal comfort something, anything, that would make sense of it all.
But none came.
For a moment, I considered sleeping, just to escape it. But the hunger in my stomach refused to let me. It burned like fire, restless and cruel. That was when the truth hit me like a slap the reality of a young graduate.
The world doesn’t care about your effort. Certificates don’t fill your stomach. Dreams don’t always pay your rent.
I turned to the wall and whispered bitterly, “Did I miss it somewhere along the line?”
The room answered me with silence. My certificates stayed still on the shelf, watching like quiet witnesses to my downfall. I could almost hear them mocking me all that effort, all those sleepless nights, and for what?
There was no dignity, no honour, just an endless hunger gnawing at my insides.
The night dragged on, and so did my thoughts. I thought about my friends who once promised to stay close, about the city that promised opportunity but gave me isolation. I thought about my grandmother, her wrinkled hands lighting that same candle, whispering prayers I now tried to remember.
“Uzuma, if you are real,” I muttered, “why didn’t you knock louder?”
No answer only the faint sound of the wind pressing against my window.
In that silence, I realised something: maybe Uzuma did come, not to feed my body, but to test my soul. Maybe the real miracle wasn’t in seeing the deity, but in standing through the darkness and still believing light could return.
So I lay back down, tired but strangely calm. I looked at my ceiling one last time and whispered, “Tomorrow will be different.”
And even though my stomach still ached, I believed it because sometimes, faith is the only food the hungry heart can afford.