Turkma is small but a mighty town that had an unmatched history of birthing talented individuals who were good ambassadors across the globe. Many thought-provoking questions were raised as to whether the gift of talent to the children of Turkma was a divine blessing or the legacy left by the late and resting souls of the town. This, for decades, had been the great pride of every son of the town as anywhere one went, the name 'Turkma' resonated loudly down to the inner ears.
Another amazing thing that kept people thinking was the striking beauty of the women in that town and the extreme handsomeness of the gentlemen whose eyes, noses, lips, foreheads, etc., were like to say, by way of exaggeration, granted a creational licence by God to create those attractive organs for themselves.
At academic arena as well as the sports realm, Turkma was the talk of the day. This was the cogent reason most students who went to another town or city and even abroad, were hailed, held, nailed and given juicy offices because no nation could withstand losing such bright brains.
It was a pride to Turkma that its children were scattered across the globe as invincible ambassadors. Some foreigners even thought Turkma was a state and not just a small town.
The beautiful jewels were, every blessed week, given out in marriage to the hands of the outsiders. Surely, it could be said that the soul-soothing beauty of Turkma's ladies made those avid outsiders to rush to the town and sought the hands of the jewels in marriage. But that's not the only reason. The handsome gentlemen who were supposed to marry them settled outside their own very town. The ladies had to accept the hands of the strangers; and as the practice went, the groom took his bride to his town, city or country.
In Turkma, the story began to change as one hardly saw a naming ceremony. No birth at all. The mothers had grown too old and passed away; the fathers too were visited by old age and thus kicked the bucket. The once beautiful young ladies of Turkma were only giving birth for their husbands and the children bearing the names, cities, towns and countries of their foreign fathers. The gentlemen of Turkma who worked in different parts of the world as bright bulbs with the record of their wonderful talents and spectacular achievements, married foreign wives and gave birth to children for the foreigners.
There was once a Turkma but not now. The children unfortunately destroyed the bridge constructed by the now disappointed ancestors after crossing the valley of pythons, crocodiles and deadly aquatic creatures.
As life progressed, the world was thrown by the forces of dynamism into a new epoch and things suddenly changed. Foreigners in every country were chased away because population grew; a country had to take care of its own citizens first with employment who now possessed the needed potentials. This was also the case within the country where Turkma situated; most of the states who had strangers working there chased them away. The once beautiful jewels of Turkma grew old with a wrinkled skin in their matrimonial homes. They fell victims to the new epoch and got divorced by their husbands who saw young, busty and chubby ladies hovering like birds in their various residence. It clearly spoke so well that the outsiders married the jewels for such striking beauty, but now as debris of old age had faded the beauty, their use had come to an end.
They returned home as disappointedly ashamed widows and widowers. Worse disappointing was how they could not locate their own ignored town because a famous foreign company had, with the consent and/or in collaboration with the government, built a large company in Turkma filled up with foreign employees.
Had they stayed and worked in their hometown together, they would have married their ladies as kinsmen, formed a nation, the talents would have benefitted them and their posterity as something that belong to the kinship, development would have followed them where they were as the world even at that time had respectful and admiring eyes on them. But as they scattered themselves and spread the mats of their talents outside the boundary of the town, the outsiders sat comfortably and eventually chased them away and claimed ownership of everything. One could go anywhere on the earth but should never make the mistake of not taking home the proceeds of his/her talent. Where is Turkma? It could only be found in the squeezed, dust-clouded pages of history books.
Fiction
Written by Abdul Mutallib Muktar
abdulmutallib.muktar@gmail.com
2nd Dec., 2019.
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