Sad Note: The Voice Of Urchin (I)

Peace beloved brother,

I write this sad note with pain that comes from the sigh of a broken heart, and I believe by the time you will be reading it, you will understand the pain of a boy born into a gutter of groan called Nigeria, my dearest nation, where dreams die before the dreamers- a cesspool of sheen talents!

I once wrote a note like this when we were together, but I still see the need to re-claim the memory of it again on the downy page where it was lost- perhaps my last note of sadness if I have victories over my anguish in days coming. I have been a victim of time that flies like hunted deer since you left home brother. You have indeed forsaken me here like cows condemned to death at abattoir.

Before this time, I had wanted to die of depression but you said no. You said trial is not the end of time. I wanted to die of solitude but you said tribulation is not the end of the tunnel. You said that life may be full of up and down, yet it is not long like nozzle of a den gun.

Now that I have waited so long for sun to rise again from my eyes, but it stands aloof like embittered enemy about to strike, I've suffered like waif and stray through the decades of rehearsed pledges. I have perused through the cantos of promises to discover my name stenciled with watery ink on the page of hope.

Like an urchin with many scars of dusted streets from Kano to Lagos, life is no more meaningful to me, except that I have fear for one thing. I don't fear gun of mad dogs in black hide called police, nor the fear of sleeping but never waking up the following day. I neither fear death anymore nor the misery in the silence of evening, what I dread most is the questioning of the grave which I have been forced to wait for all days by the entangled situation of my puzzled country. I have heard and had enough of sad stories and rejection. I have noticed the moment I take six feet forward I find myself back- where I left brother. And my happiest moments are usually in the midst of my worries and woes. I am indeed like a mere image on the page of book in a country of no clues.

I'm dying; weary of hope that never comes in time. I am going through turbulent time- the way you left me last time came home. I may not know what tomorrow holds, but I don't want to be useless like impotent penis today.

I don't want to die of fish that fails to swim through the deep side of dam. I need to tell you that I have determined to leave the sect of people looking up to crumble of bread falling off master's table, and roaming the street for their solace. Much words do not fill a loose basket my brother, teach me how to fish, or else I die with these lofty dreams ahead of me.

May God bless you as I see the sun rise from your words. Help me greet 'Damola and Bolade, Kunle and Bolaji, Rasaq and Khalid. These are my brothers we all hope everything good will come sooner.

I am still yours in pain, plight and penury in a nation of want,
M. Jalal.