It was a cool, quiet evening—one of those rare days when the city seemed to exhale. I boarded the bus home from work, grateful for the unusual calm. The vehicle was only half-full, a welcome contrast to the usual chaos of rush hour. The driver was sealed off in his little cubicle up front, and we passengers were scattered like leaves on a still pond. Among them was a man who immediately caught my eye—late 60s, wearing a crisp white cap that read ' Chosen One' in bold black letters. He was flipping through a newspaper with such frantic energy it looked like he was searching for something long lost—or perhaps arguing with the headlines themselves. Opposite him sat another older man, though you wouldn't know it from his clothes. He was dressed like a teenager—like someone clinging to relevance with both hands. Then, out of nowhere, the man in the cap spoke, loud and clear, as if addressing a courtroom rather than a quiet bus. 'Does time determine what's right or wrong...
There’s
absolutely no big deal about this lockdown and the coronavirus outbreak.
Despite my tentative unemployment and fear of the unknown, the shutdown means
nothing. It is like another sixty-day public holiday. The type you get for no
reason – like the collision of a few work-free days and some weekends. So that
instead of closing on a Friday and resuming work on Monday, you enjoy your
bliss from Thursday till Wednesday.
Then
the churches are closed. All football matches are cancelled. And there is a
compulsion to spend this normal public holiday at home with your family.
Exactly this is what the lockdown is for me. And there are no lessons to learn
anew. No "aha" moments of any kind. Life is the same and there is no
newness under the sun.
The
only exceptions are the things I noticed. One of such is that Zainab (my
immediately younger sister) and I do not see issues in the same light. She was
a youth corper in Ibadan until the family convinced her to come home, just
before the lockdown took its full effects.
This
girl, we would be having a discussion, and she would suddenly find my opinion
repulsive. Is it possible for a younger one to be wiser? I had thought that the
elderly are more equipped for the rumination on the affairs of life. But I am
now forced to think otherwise.
Zainab
told me the other day that I was violent. This had a devastating impact because
I couldn’t have braced myself for such a blow. I used to think that I was
convincing – not violent. She said I was insensitive, I thought I was
descriptive. To Zainab, I was rude when I found myself humorous. Do you see
where this is going? We don’t agree on anything.
I
also started to notice how grown my baby sister, Aisha, has become. I was
always away for work, and we haven’t spent much time together these past six to
seven years. But this smallie is now actually a mature teenager with mood
swings. I miss when she was a five-year-old.
I
met Sir Kay during this lockdown and he died in the middle of it. He was a man
I respected, starting from when we watched the night together, during the
unrest that erupted after cultists started invading people’s homes for lack of
security. Sadly, Sir Kay died in his sleep, survived by three children and a
loving wife.
Nothing
has changed during this lockdown. I have only seen how people can change –
especially those you thought you knew very well. And what it means to say that
nobody’s promised tomorrow.
By
Alawoki Akeem
Don’t
Forget to Be Honest!
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