Towards Tomorrow | Bankole Joseph | Fiction

The hero walked on, in the afternoon’s scorching sun, trying to tie a torn bathroom slipper while dragging along the other tattered one with his left leg. He looked haggard. His dress had multiple holes in it. His hair was dusty, he’d taken his last bath last week, and it was probably Wednesday or Thursday already. He no longer bothered to count the days of the week because doing that had almost no importance for him, asides helping him schedule when next Manchester United would give him a good reason to curse another boy’s mother and distant relatives.

But right now, the sun was scalding his skin, and if an “ajebuttter” were to come near him, they would almost shrivel in repulsion, he stank. Trickles of sweat poured down his dirty body, dirty water crawled down his spine.

His stomach was empty, it was way past noon, but the hero had eaten nothing today.

Beyond the hero, Ibadan swayed along, in the perpetual dance of life. The same sun that beat on the hero, beats on posh cars, highlighting the blacks and greens and blues of affluence, most of it ill-gotten. Fat rich men, fat poor men, rich old women, poor old women; everyone was here, alive.

Everyone was here; the handsome young Hausa man selling watermelons, his less attractive onion seller friend, the frowning POS operator, the endless line of market women selling smelly fish, jute leaves, and whatnot. Everyone was here, everything was here.

But the hero’s heart yearned for more, bled for more. To him, there had to be something beyond this endless loop of pushing wheelbarrows and receiving insults from weary, angry travellers after overcharging them for his services.

The hero’s mind slipped into yesterday’s years. His mouth tightened as he thought of his stupid mother. He remembered all too vividly how she’d sent him out into the world on his own a little after midnight because the foolish taxi driver who attached himself to her after her husband died said he wouldn’t father another man’s children. The hero’s heart ached for his tiny little sister, whom he feared would continue to have her privates fondled by her monster of a stepfather when her mother went out.

Realising he was already biting too hard on his lips, the hero decided to think about something more productive, lunch. He didn’t have up to ₦500 on him, and night would come, he would still need dinner. He sighed. He would have to steal again. It didn’t affect him too much. He just accepted it and continued his walk.

The hero faded out of sight and into focus came a fair skinned boy of about the hero’s height and age, but born with a better chance at life.

Michael was on his way to the studio where he worked as a photography intern. He was hungry too. His anger having forced him to leave the house with an empty stomach after a heated argument with his mother. In her opinion, going to “that place”, was only a waste of time, he should be at home, preparing for resumption, or even resting, he’d only been home for a week.

But Michael’s heart too, yearned for more. He dreamt of a tomorrow where he was a world-famous artist, taking original photographs of the models he would draw, then painstakingly recording their likenesses on his canvas, while adding his own opinions about their faces onto the paintings. It was all so clear to him: learn photography by any means possible, become skilled enough at it to fund a few art materials here and there, make the art, sell them as NFTs, and voila!

Something at the back of his mind advised him in his mother’s voice to just focus on becoming an accountant because a career in the arts was very risky business. He should probably just stick to making error free ledgers….

But Michael was stubborn.

“That will not be my life!” he gruffly told himself.

And so, he trudged along, the hunger in his belly, the belief in his heart. Out of habit, his index finger pushed his glasses back more firmly onto his nose, and Ibadan sharpened again in his eyes. The city was big, colourful, almost like a dream.

The air around him was hot, but so was the city. He could tell from the way the ground beneath him was vibrating, that the Solat mobile phone showroom close-by was loudly playing an amapiano song, very likely Seyi Vibez, or someone along that line. Around him, people hustled around in a hurry, their baggy jeans and skimpy skirts bustling around in a simplistic fashion parade. As he looked into their faces, he saw hope, despair, sadness, anger, a woman about to cry, a man who yelled at him for walking too slowly.

The city was big, colourful, almost like a dream.

But Michael was wise enough to know that this dream could easily turn into a nightmare.

As much as he hated his father, he owed him the compassion he feels for street urchins. Many times, he looked at them and wondered what was so different about them. People always said he was handsome, but some of these boys were handsome too. Or maybe it was because he saw beauty as synonymous with having features that would be good for a portrait. Still, he knew that in a flash, he could become one of these boys; dirty, smelly, poor. All it would take would be the death of a parent, or something else that catastrophic, and he would start sleeping in cardboard boxes by the roadside, lying and cheating for his meals, fighting and stealing to survive.

He closed his eyes, and willed away the gloomy thoughts. He told himself it was enough to feel compassion for them, assured that in a Sunday or two, his pastor father would organise another outreach for these boys that he would avoid by quickly returning to school. He told himself that just as it was possible for his father to separate his compassion for outsiders, from his love for family, it was possible for him to just pity these boys, and go on with his life.

He told himself that that was enough, and instead focused on his journey to the studio a few minutes’ walk away.

The rest of his walk was in silence of thought, listening to Tems’ Me & U through his cheap earpods. Her voice filled his head with hope and excitement and optimism and feelings of good until a loud screech of tires followed by a woman’s piercing scream tore at his eardrums. His heart jumped, and he quickly turned off the song.

Very quickly, a small crowd gathered by the median of the road by his left. Something beyond himself made him rush there.

A bright blue Toyota Camry had hit another of these street boys, presumably as he was trying to cross the road. The boy was on the tarred floor, with blood pouring out of his mouth onto the dirty road. There was another small cut on his face. A woman’s purse lay by his limp left hand, its contents strewn on the floor beside it. In the boy’s right hand, was one tattered foot of a pair of slippers that used to be blue, but had now taken the colour of black.

Michael’s chest heaved up and down very quickly, the way it always would in the final moments before his father threw down his heavy belt on his back. He was shaking now, watching this dead boy who could’ve been him but for his dirty dark skin and beautiful hairline. The boy wasn’t moving, the sandy hair on his chin caught Michael’s attention, a mark of adulthood that he craved but could not have because his father’s genes forgot to give them to him.

He was shaking now. He knew that none of these rough-looking people gathered here were doing so for the boy, but rather for what money they could exact from the frazzled looking Igbo woman in the car. He was suddenly angry, that no one cared for the boy, for his flat nose that would’ve been very satisfying for Michael to shade with his biro. He was hurt, that no one was trying to pick up the boy, to check if he was still breathing. He was angry too, at himself, for not caring enough, for not being brave enough to hold the boy and see if he was breathing, even if it was clear that he’d died already. He was angry with himself, for seeing him as a boy, because that made it easier for him to alienate himself from the fact that they were agemates, and might’ve been friends.

He was shaking now, watching the dead boy’s blood pour onto the floor, wondering if he too was a stubborn youth like himself, if he’d had big dreams too.

Short Glossary
ajebuttter: Someone who was born with a silver spoon in their mouth or who is spoilt and has not experienced the harshness of life.

About the author:
Bankole Joseph is 19 and curious about what the future holds, about tomorrow. Through his writing, he discusses the human experience, the see-saw of youth, nostalgia, and more recently, what it means to be a boy. ADHD makes it hard for him to concentrate, but once in a while, he’s lucky enough to find the strength to write about difficult things. You can find these articles on his Medium: https://medium.com/@bankolejoseph909