BURNT OUT

She made her way briskly through the throng. Watching her from a distance, she looked as one walking towards a purpose as she maneuvered her way around the human traffic. One walking towards a purpose, not away from it. She had just come from a job interview where one guy on the panel tried to paint her as a liar and all because she had told the truth. She had been asked where she saw herself in five years and she had answered saying she sees herself with her post grad. Degree. Of course, the guy had argued that since it hasn’t happened yet, she was technically lying. Who does that? Who puts intelligent people like that on panels? Was she interviewing to be a lawyer or something? She had thought. She knew he had just been trying to rile her to see what she was made of, considering the position she applied for involved lots of ‘people business’. Still, it got under her skin anytime someone called her a liar. She made the best out of a sticky situation and hoped she gets the job but she wasn’t holding her breath. Her demeanor never gave the outside world a clue to the crushed spirit within the carefree soul.

It was the time of day when the hopeful and enthusiastic smiles of people had started looking drawn and forced. The sweltering heat brought about by the unsympathetic sun as it attacked everyone’s head and exposed skin wasn’t helping matters any. Cool and collected, she made her way to the trotro station to board a bus home. Home. Home where she had her share of bills to pay and a boyfriend’s ego to stroke. Just before she turned a corner, she heard someone let out some insults; ony3 soormmi. The expletive was probably coming from a male porter somewhere. Yes, tensions were definitely high. She felt a clammy hand grab her right wrist. Stifling the need to sigh out loud, she turned to come face to face with a man in his mid-thirties, in a suit with a briefcase. The briefcase wasn’t what set out the ‘you-are-not-going-to-like-this’ alarm in her head though. It was the Bible the man held in his hand, which he was struggling to do, now that he had one hand gripping her wrist. Why would a person be holding a bible in his hands when he has a briefcase which can do that for him, if not for show? She reasoned. She plastered her best cryptic smile on her face and gently but firmly, tugged her wrist free. She so badly wanted to take out her handkerchief and rub away the feeling of foreign sweat on her wrist but didn’t know how to do it without offending the ‘man of God’. “Listen young lady, I don’t know you from anywhere but I feel in my spirit to talk to you.” He began with the accent and demeanor of one from the Ashanti region. Yep! I am definitely not going to like this. She thought. “I wish you had spiritual eyes to see with me what I see in the spirit about you. Are you married?” Biting her tongue was all she could do to keep from asking why he couldn’t see that in the ‘spirit’. “No, I am not.” Because fake or not, she had been brought up to respect ‘men of God’ and she didn’t plan on being rude unless it was totally necessary. “Do you know you are really blessed?” She didn’t feel like she was considering her current job situation but she knew for a fact that she was so she just kept looking at the man. “I see the kind of favour queen Esther had on you. What is your name, dear.” Esther. She mentally shook her head. She almost laughed out loud. Good job on coincidentally hitting a mark, man of God, but no chance am I going to give you that name to fan your spiritual delusion. She thought gleefully to herself. “My name is Nana Abena Amponsah.”

Make a date with me on my next post as I bring to you what happens next. **********************HAPPY NEW YEAR********************

SERENDIPITY

He had taken a turn for the better; character wise. He can honestly call himself a matured man now. The thing about pasts, presents and futures however is that, they are like building blocks and one cannot exist without the other.

Ernest Kojo Mensah is forty years old, a father of four; all from different mothers and all born out of wedlock. Granted he is currently married to the mother of his youngest child, a self-made man driving his own commercial bus (trotro) and a deacon in his church but you never truly outrun your past. Not on earth here, you don’t.

He would be the first to admit the credibility he doesn’t have was of his own doing, even discounting the string of offspring he’s left in his wake. 

His two oldest sons, Ekow and Fiifi turned thirteen a month ago, his third son, Ernest (Junior) was eight and he lived with him, his wife Naomi and their little girl, Adoma.

From the profession he’s chosen, it’s very obvious he had other things occupying his time and mind during the time he was supposed to be getting his formal education.

He was still trying to make the best out of the situation he found himself in. He knows he got off easy with only four kids because in his day, he would admit that no self respecting Casanova actually tried to mar his experiences with condoms. Thus he became a hunter of the unsuspecting females in his path. He hunted for the hymen.

It was this habit however that prevented him from denying it to himself whenever he was faced with the paternity of yet another pregnancy. Not that he ever admitted it to anyone but himself though. The age old “deny, deny, deny” has been his haven all these years.

His aged parents are always looking at him with the disappointment they could not quite hide. His meek sister, an ideal example of the well-trained Ghanaian woman, Evelyn, idolizes him. To her he’s always been “big brother”. His beautiful but brash and haughty not to mention rich sister, Alice hated him with a passion. It’s evident in the way she talked to him and their parents whenever it involved him. It always baffled him too because, of his sisters, he was rather fond of Alice when they were kids.

He understands now that everything changed the night their parents decided that the money they had could only sponsor one kid and they’d rather have their “only son” take as many re-sits as he could to qualify him for a tertiary education even though his sister already had the grades to take her to the university. Hell broke loose that night when Alice without mincing words told their parents that they were more or less taking a stupid decision. The old man of course was incensed; no woman talked to him like that let alone his own daughter. To him, they had done enough giving her an education to the secondary level and they must concentrate on the ‘man’ of the family. After all, he was going to save his family. Their father drove his sister out of his house that night, for a son that would amount to nothing!

Alice was a beautiful woman but her greatest asset perhaps was her brain. Not that it was any help to her in the early days though, apart from her studies that is. She loved to rub her intelligence in people’s faces, especially her male counterparts.  With years, however, came wisdom. She came to understand that though the majority may be stupid, it doesn’t help anyone to keep pointing that out. It certainly didn’t get her things she wanted; just enemies. She put herself through school, got her certificate and a job. It was quite a journey for her and no one dares blame her when she flares up whenever the “it’s the man’s decision” argument came up in family meetings. She had no compunction whatsoever to tell whoever to shove it. She would most times end up bankrolling the projects anyway.

She grew up hating the dynamics of her family. She saw her father as a tyrant who shoved his decisions down everyone’s throat, her mother as a spineless mute who never stood up to her husband, her sister as the mirror image of their mother and a never do well son she had the misfortune of calling her brother. To be fair, though, fate might just have dealt her a bad hand. She probably just had the misfortune of being born generations too soon for her own good.

************

This morning had started off as any other morning for Ernest. In the mornings, the majority of his clientele were the formal sector workers interspersed with a handful of market women. Fuel prices were up again and it was all everyone was talking about or wanted to talk about. Usually, he would just switch on his radio to drown out the sounds but his mate had broken it a few days ago and since he hadn’t budgeted for a new radio or even repairs, he endured the morning and all that was for the day.