It was an august event I attended in one of the African most popular cities. My readers may likely think I will be writing about the striking beauty of the city or the perfectly organized, well publicized and heavily attended event that lasted for five consecutive days. But as a storyteller, unlike a journalist, the popular issues are not always the only subject of writing. The unknown or disregarded issues too are conveyed to the hearing of the deaf by a storyteller through the use of his wonderfully imaginative and creative tools.
I was fortunate to sit next to an unknown man who attractively dressed in his navy blue suit with pair of rectangular transparent eye glasses. Glory be to God that this man has fed my brain through the throat of my ears and here I am feeding my readers too. The man, grey-haired seemed to be in his 60s, well educated in the Western-oriented schools, smiled at me, gently rubbed my shoulders after I greeted him with utmost humility and respect.
It was a coincidence that the man was also from my country; in fact, I share the same city with him. As a result, we became very free as if we had known each other long time ago. Some people possibly thought I was his son. We had been together for the rest of the days of the event until the day we landed back to our country. At the airport, at the point of departure, I promised to pay a visit to the man at his residence someday. He warmly welcomed it and told me that he would be expecting my visit.
It was two months later I visited the man at his residence. It surprised me that a man of such age, calibre, intelligence and knowledge, had a home as quiet and as empty as a house of a bachelor. I was thinking whether his wife(or wives) and children traveled somewhere that day. But the state of the house showed no sign of being occupied by more than one person. It was strange, frightful and questionable.
After the greeting, I deliberately but absentmindedly threw a question about the well-being of his family but he tried to dodge. I then changed the approach as my curiosity kept heightening. Suddenly, I read sorrow on the face of the man which was boldly written. Something was surely wrong. I thought he lost his family in some kind of disaster but it was not like that. As the old man began to regrettably narrate his story in making me understand the reason for the absence of a wife and children in his house, I realised something very wrong in my society.
He told me that God blessed him with intelligence, brilliance right from his childhood days. He attended the best schools in his prime age and made spectacular achievements. He had been in different countries of the world and made huge amount of money. While he was making it in life, he never thought of marriage; to him a wife is a great burden and children were like roadblocks on the way to self-discovery; they would not allow him attain the pinnacle of his dream. He preferred following through the back door to relieve a man's desire. Some of his friends got married immediately after their undergraduate studies. But the man said he had to bag his Ph.D and whatnot before giving any issue of marriage a space on his table. He said those friends of his who got married at that material point in time were made object of mockery. As he was narrating the story to me, he said his friends had children some of which completed their degree programmes, working comfortably in different places and heavily helping their parents who were about or had attained retirement age now.
I discovered that it was too late for him when he told me that he would have his first marriage in the following month. His greatest worry was that he had no children to enjoy the fruits of his wealth, no children to tell about his bright youthful days. It sounded to me like a mythical tale that the man had never married.
Even after the wedding, he seemed like a bereaved man. He was deeply regretting his wasted years of blessing. The problem is that he will not benefit from the children because at the time they will grow to men, he will certainly be dead. The children will not also benefit from him because as he grew old, he could not do well to the children and may even pass away.
Two years later, I visited the man again. He was too old – both he and the child cannot steadily be on their feet — the former because of old age, the latter because of young age. He advised me to get married very soon not until I bag my Ph.D because children are really the future and not a so-called Ph.D. Those friends whom he mocked then married at the right time, worked contentedly and pursued their respective Ph.D at the end of the day.
I graduated from the university when I was twenty six years old and very fortunate to meet a lady of good virtues during my undergraduate days whom I nicknamed B–MUC which stands for Beautiful Mother of my Unborn Children. Our relationship stood the test of time as it graduated to a happy and peaceful marriage. I got two children with my beautiful and caring wife, a boy and a girl. It gives me a great pleasure watching them happily playing around me, taking them to school and welcoming me after I return from office. Oh, my happiness knows no bound when their mother welcome me with such a lovely hug which usually gives me goose pimples all over my body.
*Fiction*
By Abdul Mutallib Muktar
abdulmutallib.muktar@gmail.com
19 December, 2019.
Comments
Post a Comment