The Change: a flash fiction

By Tobi Idowu

the changePrevailing circumstances were what made him see this change in its stark wholesomeness; the change that was to tear at his heart, and dig a fountain of salty stream in his eyes. He had not been at home the previous eight months. In fact he should not be home this time… The other time Niyi would not know why his solicitous mother would ask him to take up any job instead of coming home for the holiday. He hardly could absorb his mother’s “it will do you a lot good if you can get something to do in school instead of coming home doing nothing…”

“Do something? You’d not allow me stretch the strained tissues of my brain that needed deserved rest the other time.” His mother protracted explanations rather perplexed him. But he heeded. He always wanted to avoid the boring stillness at home, especially when his friends were not on holidays from their schools. So, rather than coming home for the break, he worked at a pharmacy store. He literally walked into the job since he had formed a warm acquaintance with the manager who also lived in the same house as he off campus.

But Niyi was to be on the road on that revelatory day he wanted to surprise his parents. “Eight months without me seeing anyone at home? The next time we talk on the phone, you shall hear me speak in the midst of my mama’s love,” he told his bewildered friend who called him when he learned that Niyi had travelled suddenly from his neighbour.

He meant to unleash pleasant shock on his unsuspecting parents, especially his mum who had called him the previous day. She had seen students demonstrating on the TV. It was Niyi’s school. Her mind soon flew to her only child whom she deliberately kept away from herself these last eight months. Eight month of falling grace. Change had gnawed at her fulsome lineaments; they had lost their rich juices. Mama Niyi, as her son fondly called her, had transformed to a sunken replica of her former self… thanks to a deceitful mirage. She would not let her son see what change had wrought on her, perhaps till it changed for good; it was heart wrenching wisdom that made her restrained Niyi from coming home when he completed his third year at the university. But change unraveled…

Change was sweet when it swept away the incumbent government in the country. Niyi saw in his mother’s glinting eyes the hope-for happiness many fellow citizens wished when the result of their cast ballots was announced by the calm electoral umpire.

‘We badly need this at this time if we’ll survive. Things are not good, and that defeated man is as clueless as his words of submission.’
‘Mummy, yes. But we must not expect too much.’
‘Son, you better be; your father salary hardly can feed himself. And you know my business…
‘Naira will do go now, mummy. You’ll get more dollars to import’.
‘Hmmm… I pray so o, my prophetic son.’

These last conversations with his mother played on Niyi’s ears as he fell into the warmth of the soporific wafting breeze that teased his eyes as he looked at the sprinting bushes that ran neck to neck with the bus along the highways. It had been eight months he was on this long pot-hole invested, yet the busiest road in the country. Eight months had also seen nothing changed on the road or in the country. Like the road, things rather sank more, more precariously, he thought. Wasn’t it the bad state of the country that seeped obtrusively into his school, the premier institution of his country? Conditions were that bad on campus many students had to go to classes without baths for days, nor were they able to read without inhaling the flames of hardly available candles: electricity came and gone like a vicious abiku. Students could not push their drawn out spirits any further. They demonstrated. The school authorities, insouciant at the students’ plights, closed the school when students peacefully grieved their excruciating pains.

As the bus halted at the bus terminal in his town, Niyi heaved a wistful sigh.
“They fooled us with their warped change!” A familiar stink greeted his nostrils as he alighted; but there was much pungency to the stink which birthed a sneeze from his nose.
“All the promise of cleaning up this place, and building a modern motor garage.” He soon was straddled at the back of a motor-bike for his house. A scuffle would ensue between him and the bike-man when he got down in front of his house.

“Your money be 100 Naira, no more no less.” The man quipped while cleaning his sun glasses.
“I paid 40 Naira the last time, how come now?” A shocked Niyi rejoined.
“E be like say Na another country you dey live; you know sabi say change don rocket everything… guy I must meet up my daily contributions, pay me quick, I dey go get new customers.”
Someone must have heard their exchange from within the compound as the gate was opened. As the person appeared, Niyi went into a momentary trance.
“Niyi, give him what he asked for,” the shriveled figured drawled…
Mechanically he handed the ruffled 100 note to the man who thought he had won a repartee battle from his passenger who seemed unable to block the many cuts in his eye pipes. Tears came of their own accord profusely.
“See as you dey cry like a boy them just circumcised,” the bike-man leered as he wheeled on his motorbike.
“Mother you’ve changed a lot,” Niyi’s lips at last could form when he came to from his disbelieving trance to look again at his wizened mother.

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