It had ceased to rain shortly before daylight. The air at Ibadan still reeked of wet dust and of ripe mangoes dropped down the trees. Tunde was sitting on the wooden bench in front of his modest apartment, and there was a half-packed suit case beside him. His words of the night before that had been spoken by his landlord were still ringing in his ears.
“Three months’ rent, Tunde. I can’t wait any longer.”
Then he nodded and was too fatigued to protest. He was seeing the grey sky grow lighter now, and as though the city were now urging him to leave.
His little sister, Sade, is also moving around in the room, beneath the thin bed sheet. "You are going away today, right?" she said still with the thick sleep voice.
"Yes, yes, zip up the suitcase," said Tunde. "It is eight now, the bus to Lagos is leaving."
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “And when will you come back?”
He smiled faintly. "When I have something worth carrying home."
Both laughed rather subdued, but the sound was more of anxiety than of delight. Tunde had gone two years to Ibadan after university trying to earn a living part-time teaching, repairing phones, selling second hand shoes in the market, but nothing had worked. Lagos, according to all, was where dreams could fly, or, like butterflies, they could be burnt.
By midmorning the bus had already snarled through the traffic in the LagosIbadan Expressway. Lightning strikes of suffocating heat filled the air within, the smell of roasted groundnuts, and the odor of sweat stung the air with each inhalation. Tunde maintained his window and his gaze followed along the length of the road which was fading behind him.
An elderly gentleman in a battered brown jacket was sitting next him, and he was tapping his fingers on a plastic bag of oranges. "It is the first time you are visiting Lagos," the man questioned.
Tunde hesitated. “Not the first. But this time it is different."
The man chuckled. "Oh, Lagos is never the same. It tells you a different story each time you visit it. I have no idea, you need to have the pen."
Tunde smiled graciously, but he was not certain he had.
Lagos was not at all welcoming, the horns of the buses, the yells of the bus drivers, the mass of people that never appeared to rest. Later in the afternoon he managed to find the small apartment of his cousin in Surulere.
The room he was assigned in the building was cramped, yet it did have a window that faced the street and had a bed.
"Na here we dey manage," his cousin Bayo said smiling. "Get your work, save little cash, and get out. That’s the Lagos way.”
On this particular night, Tunde was lying in bed and planning what his next chapter would be like, as the city passed the information to him on the outside.
All he had was ten thousand naira, some shirts and an unwavering idea that he was going to begin again.
Weeks turned into months. He was hired in a small printing shop in Mushin where he was taught how to run machines that ran day after day and night. This was hot and loud labour, though constant.
On one evening, a woman greeted him when he was closing the shop. She was well in her late twenties, her hair was in a tie.
“Excuse me,” she said. "You had flyers printed on the occasion of my mother last week."
“Oh, yes,” Tunde replied. “I remember.”
“She told me to thank you. "The work was good.”
He smiled. “I’m glad she liked it.”
Yes, said the woman, who was hesitating. My office is searching a person who can deal with design and printing. You appear to be a person who works conscientiously. Would you be interested?”
Tunde blinked. “Yes… yes, I would.”
Good, then, said she, and gave him this little card. “Come by tomorrow.”
On the night he sat again at the window of the little apartment of Bayo, and observed the lights of Lagos as flickering stars. The city noise was no longer like a chaotic feeling. It felt alive.
Before midnight Sade telephoned. “How is Lagos?” she asked.
Looking down the street, Tunde saw it was already dark, the hawkers bringing down their stalls, the buses flying up and down, the people still running after something invisible.
"It is not like that," he said to himself. "But I believe it is now beginning to sink in."
He put down the phone, sat back and left the night air to circulate in the room. The uncertainty before was not frightening him, as it had not been in a long time. it was but like a page to be written.
And with an inadvertent smile Tunde turned it, his next chapter.
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STOPThere is a lot of melancholy in this beautiful story, it is a portrait of the sensitivity that appears in the face of the unknown and the uncertainty of having real hope. I like how the character's courage is shown in a few words. Sometimes it is better to have more in our hearts than in our pockets. It reminds me of the famous phrase: what is essential is invisible to the eyes because we only see well with the heart. Life is a promise ready to flourish. Have a beautiful day and many blessings.
Trying to navigate life can be a lot of work, finding stability career wise is some stage that would leave one clueless, but with consistency one would find a way even without one noticing
From the story, no knowledge is a waste. Have a skill today, because it can save you from troubles.