Kanu, even in his adulthood stage, hated his dad because of his sleep-talking habit, he and his entire family tried so many times to correct him but his dad never agreed to the accusation that he talked while sleeping. Kanu would try to explain to him, that sleep talking and snoring work in the same mechanisms and the person snoring does not know about it because it happens in a subconscious state but his dad would always shun him whenever he started lamenting on the frowning habit.
The hatred lasted until his dad left the world of heart disease.
Many years after the death of his father, life went well with him, he has his own family and as life would have it, his 10-year-old son, Troost, took up the habit of talking while sleeping and Kanu got to know about it in a very strange way.
It was deep in the night around 1:00 am when Kanu woke up to pee in the bathroom and suddenly, he started hearing his son's voice echoing loudly from the next room, "Give me! Give me! Give it to me, it's mine!"
He was shocked, tiptoed closer to the wall, plugged his right ear into the wall and the voice became very audible to him, it's as if his son was dragging something with someone and the person was winning making his son voice sound beggarly.
He tiptoed to the door and opened it slowly in such as way that it didn't produce sound to either wake his wife or interrupt whatsoever that was happening in his son's room. He succeeded with the door, walked out of his room and tiptoed very quietly to the door of his son, and the voice was very real sounding with a mixed jot of cry,"I said give the ball to meeeee, give, give it to meeee
He stopped there and placed his ears to the door to check if there were other noises of people in the room because he was aware of the belief that children are somewhat connected to other children in the underworld but no, he didn't hear any other sound, not people talking with his son.
He tried putting his eyes to the door nob to try and see if he could see inside but the little hole at the door nob was very tiny and he couldn't see anything.
There was no option than to open the door, but he was sceptical of the sound from the door disrupting what he was about to catch, so he placed his hands on the nob, grabbed it firmly and pushed the door very slowly with it making a little sound that's capable of waking up a sensitive person from sleep.
He succeeded in opening the door, and he met his son lying comfortably on the bed undisturbed, not looking like someone who had been playing with other invisible kids from the underworld or someone awake searching for his ball in the room. The room was brightened by the sharp fluorescent bulb, and he was able to look around the room at a glance. At that moment, he sighed in regret, his son has been sleep talking and at that moment, the thought of his late dad filled his mind and got him weakened.
He sluggishly sat on the bed while his son was still sleeping comfortably and no longer sleep-talking. He looked at him with a dull face, shook his head, bent his head between his legs and suddenly, the door opened and behold it was his wife, standing on the door with her hand holding the door halfway opened and looking at the both of them.
"Honey, what's happening?" The wife asked faintly from the door.
"Nothing, let's go and sleep" he hissed faintly, got up, walked to the door and held his wife softly as they walked away. The wife was lost in thought which made her stop him on the way to their room and questioned again in a more serious tone wanting to know everything by all means "I asked you what's happening and you said nothing. You left our room at this hour of the night to Troost's room and you said nothing"
"Honestly, there's no problem." Kanu started but paused to think of how to put it clearly to her, *"okay, do you know the habit of **talking in your sleep?"****
His wife nodded.
"I heard talks from Troost's room and when I got there, I saw that he's sleep talking" Kanu ended with sigh.
"Well, if that's it, I've noticed that already and he has to live with it because from what I heard, it has no remedy." She paused, cleared her throat and continued, "Or maybe we need to go and meet medical personnel to see if there's a way to remedy it".
"Okay, yeah, we'll do that tomorrow"
They walked back to their room and cuddled and even in the midst of that, Kanu kept setting and readjusting his mind in order not to hate his son the way he did towards his late dad.
Thanks for reading.
It hurts to know that a son could hate his father just because he talks in his sleep. Good thing Kanu let it slide when his son did the same thing.
Yeah.
He had no option. He couldn't hate his son too
Thank you for stopping by