Dominion Okon @grandmaster

Being haunted by the dirty things someone did in the past is just the way to describe this story, we have to learn now or we "learn the hard way", according to VeryDarkMan. Just the other day, my neighbor who just signed out from the university, was following up a dispute between her coursemates, which escalated to something, and is still escalating to something bigger. It's just like someone about to receive a crown, but then a coffin of dirty secrets that was buried for years, got exhumed and opened.

My neighbor's coursemate, a girl by name Cynthia, who is pregnant and was supposed to get married to the father of her baby on the 28th of December, 2024, had a little misunderstanding with her fellow female coursemates, they confronted their selves physically and Cynthia slapped one of them. The coursemates, who were once her friends and partners in crime, knew in and out of her and vowed to bring her down with the information they had about her.

The coursemates released stuffs about Cynthia public, with evidence which includes pictures and videos, and also sent them to her husband to be. In Cynthia's past, she has worked as an escort girl, stripper, worked in a prostitution company, has slept with married man, several abortions and has slept with numerous lecturers. Her friends had evidence of the things they presented against her. She was even said to have slept with a lecturer of recent, while preparing for her wedding.

All this were sent to her husband to be, which raised a big question; whether truly the guy is the father of the baby. The guy called off the wedding, and wants to do a DNA test after the child is born, to confirm if it's his. I doubt that Cynthia still sees the sky as blue, it must be looking like black to her. The disgrace is huge, her family is very disappointed, her father even disowned her, people are scared that she might commit suicide.

Wedding that was supposed to happen in less than a month, shattered right before her eyes, everything has crapped on her. She upsetted her friends and they decided to spill her buried secrets and ruin her life, they succeeded. But then I feel that if she was able to open up to the guy before now, and tell him everything, the guy would have forgiven and believe that she has changed. Instead, she still continued in the act while preparing for wedding, see where it's landed her.

There was an incident that I witnessed in my short time of stay in a particular community, nobody has really been able to explain why till today. A guy named Robert left home for 18 years, to work in a far place that no one knows, and he didn't communicate to his family throughout the 18 years. His parents and siblings thought he's dead, so many years without hearing from him is more than enough to have solidify their thoughts.

During this times, someone reported to the parents that he saw Robert somewhere, but Robert ran away immediately he recognized the person. The parents and siblings didn't believe that one of them would be life and decide to abandon his family for no reason, so they didn't believe it. Others thought that the guy must have gotten frustrated in the place he went to, and maybe got into a lot of mess with his life, and that might be why he disconnected himself from home entirely.

One day, on a chilled evening, I heard that Robert has been brought back home, I went to their compound to see how he looks like, being that I was told about him. He didn't come back willingly, the guy that reported to his parents before, tracked him and forcefully brought him back home, with the help of some guys. Robert refused to say why he rejected home and chosed to live waywardly, he lived poorly like an outcast, when his parents had a house. He needed a very intense haircut, change of clothes and enough food.

Few hours after he was brought back, his family made him look like a human being again. The family was happy that he's alive and back home, but it wasn't up to a month when Robert ran off again, leaving everybody in shock. Nobody could reach him, no one knew why he didn't want anything to do with home. Few months later, he was found again and forcefully brought back home, this time the family decided to seek solution to Robert's mysterious exile life. Pastors and therapists were invited into the case.

It didn't still change anything, Robert ran away again, never to be found till date, this happened in 2013, I left the community in 2014, I don't think the family are still expecting his return. The guy obviously doesn't want to be home and doesn't want to be part of a family, nobody knows why. I see it as a big loss to the family, giving birth to a child, and then the child run aways from you completely without any reason. The fruits of that labour will never be reaped, that's the bitter truth.

I returned to school today after a splendid holiday, a whole one month of holiday, it was a good time, at least I rested. Every other thing went very well, but one thing was missing out; my brother didn't come home from his school for the holiday, holidays are always bored for me if he is not around. I slept a lot during the holiday because of boredom, but I was happy that lots of stress had been taken off me for a while.

Barely a day since I got back to school, I have gone to the market to buy foodstuffs and prepare myself a pot of soup, something I didn't do for the past one month, my mother and sisters always had that aspect covered. It looks a bit stressful, shows how much of a comfort a home is. Mistakenly poured hot water on my fingers, it still hurts till now, something that my mum will deep her hands in a boiling water of 100°C and will feel no pain.

There hasn't been any power supply since I got back, the reason is that someone went to the power substation to steal in the midnight, the person got electrocuted to death in the process, since then, there hasn't been power supply and it's five days now since the incident occurred. I now have to pay to charge my phone and power bank, something that a generator would have been powered on if it was home. Well, I will adapt, I have no other choice, do I?

Reflecting on the past one month at home and a day at school, it can be said that home is the better side, true, but it also has grieved consequences. I thought about it too; too much comfort will lead to failure, we need environments far from home, to help build and shape us into strong individuals with great mindset. We will never know what the outside world looks like if we remain at home, so you see we also need the tough side too.

So for me, I just see my time in school and the stress and difficulty that comes with it as a kind of training, and when I'm beginning to wear out, I run back home for comfort and come back stronger. The two sides are very important and we all need them if we are gonna build ourselves into great individuals. It's that time again where I do everything for myself without help, till it's holiday again. Life must continue, it must.

I met one of my friends today, I haven't seen her for over a year now, we only chat online and place calls once in a while. I'm on holiday, so I decided to go and visit her, just like old times; gist, laugh, play, talk about the future and many others. We sat at the front of the compound, under a shade, and it didn't take me long to notice the strange way her eyes was.

A drop of tears rolled out from her eyes, she managed to keep her eyes half closed, and at the same time trying to cover it with her hands. I asked her what was going on with her, she told me she has an eye problem, and it gets worse under bright lights like sunlight and florescent bulbs. I began to wonder how the eye problem came about, because I've known her for a long time, there was never a case like this before.

She began to narrate the story of when she was living at Niger State, and was working at a restaurant back then. They used to cook in the restaurant with a kerosene stove. Everyone knows that blowing off a kerosene stove with your mouth will bring up toxic gas that will inflict some pains to your eyes for a moment. This was what she did everyday, blowing off the stove like up to 15 times in a day.

The toxic gas will inflicted pains in her eyes on daily basis, I asked why she had to blow off the stove, and she said the stove wasn't good, and so it won't go off without having to blow it. Her boss didn't care to repair the stove since she didn't complain about it. And overtime she began to have this permanent eye problem, so sad. I felt very sad and angry at the same time.

Sad because she's my friend, angry because it is somehow her fault. The money she was working for had finished long ago, but the eye problem still remains. Doing a job that brings health complications is very dangerous, the pathetic thing is that the money paid to you all together might not be enough to cure you. Some of the problems might be with you forever, for how much?It's not worth it. Carefully avoid jobs that inflicts damages to your body, or you spend your entire life battling with the consequence.

Some years ago, I decided to get a driver's license for myself, since there are occasions where I'm asked to help out in driving people or items to places, and I didn't want any embarrassment from the Road Safety or Police. One of my relatives directed me to someone at the Secretariat, that will do it for me without extorting money and too much of my time from me because they knew their selves. So I went, with the hope that at least I have who to meet that will help me out.

On getting to the Secretariat, I stopped a man named Mr Benson and asked about who I went there to meet. He asked me what I came there for and I told him, he told me to follow him to the person, only for him to take me to an office and asked someone to do driver's license registration for me. I told Mr Benson that I was directed there to meet someone already who is going to do it for me. He replied by saying that the office we are seated is the office of the person, and he wants to go and find the person for me.

I reluctantly believed and carried on with the registration, I felt compelled to do the driver's license there because I was directed to meet someone who would have done it for me. Mr Benson came back after the registration was done and told me that the person I came there to meet has gone home. I paid 18k, they gave me a driver's permit (that will let me drive without disturbance from security forces) that will expire after three months and told me that the driver's license will be ready before the driver permit expires.

As I was about going, I met someone and the person told me that the person I came to look for doesn't work there anymore, that it's been up to a year since he left. I asked myself why Mr Benson had to lie to me, he obviously has a cut in the registration money. The driver's permit expired and the license wasn't ready yet, little did I know that this man scammed me, he didn't even save my number on his phone, as he will always ask "who is this" whenever I called him. I didn't want to believe it.

He didn't submit my form for the enrollment of the driver's license, he made away with the money, I went there but couldn't find him. Someone told me that he won't do the license, that it is what he does to people; collects money from people and disappears with it. Mr Benson blocked my number at a point, I used another number to call him and he changed his number. Till today I have not heard from him and I have not collected my driver's license, my 18k wasted just like that. I didn't have a strong will, that is why I fell for this, that is why till today, if I plan to do 'A', no one can convince me to do 'B' if I can't execute the 'A', I must take my time and analyze it thoroughly, I might go with 'C' at the end. When I say 'NO', you can't make me say 'YES'. I call it THE STRONGEST OF WILL, that is what it takes to survive in a real world.

There is this compound we used to live in, it was a rented apartment, my mother, father and my siblings all lived there together. At first when we moved into the compound, my mother was so free with the landlord and his family who were our church members, she will stroll to her house any day she's at home and have a fun chat with them. I can even remember a day I wasn't feeling fine, she told me to go and help the landlord to move some trips of sand with a shovel. There was this close, and I really liked it.

But everything suddenly changed when I was away for four months in school, when I returned home, I noticed that my mother no longer goes to check on our landlord's family, and she didn't seem to be in good terms with them. She wouldn't even let me go there for any reason, I asked my siblings, but they said nothing happened, I wondered why everything suddenly changed. I didn't like it. The landlord had one male and three female children, they didn't look healthy and fit to do heavy task because of their poor genotype and blood group.

The landlord needs external help at times to get some tasks done, but my mum for reasons I don't know disallows it. There was a time that the daughter was having a convocation ceremony and invited me, I offered to assist in the little way I could, but my mum tried to stop me, I refused to let myself be stopped, I helped her out. At some point, I helped out anyway without taking permission from my mum, because I knew she won't approve. I refused to let myself be involved in whatever ever hidden dispute they have.

Life has to be simple, I can't let what you think or feel about others stop me from associating with them. My good deeds paid off, there's a time my laptop had an issue, it was the son who is a computer engineer that fixed my laptop for free, the parents bless me with money and other items every time I travel back to school, there is a time my landlord happened to be driving to the state where I school for his business, he asked me to join him and he drove me straight to my house in school, transport fare of 10k was saved. I once had a little issue in school, the son used to be a student in my school, so he called someone to assist me.

So many other favours gained, the relationship is good. No one knows where the future will take us, so it's an error to dislike someone without a reason, humans are supposed to look after each other, that's the only way a better world can be created. So many instances where I've heard people say negative things about people, but on getting close to the people that negative things is being spoken about, I discover that it's quite the opposite and they are much more nicer than their accusers. You look and care after each other, because it's natural and biblical, you might need their help tomorrow. Don't believe every negative things said about people, most of them are lies. From experience.

I was home alone, I slept most of the day sleeping, so I decided to a little stroll when it was evening, to stretch myself a bit, just to make sure that fatigue doesn't get much of me. I didn't really have anywhere in mind to stroll to, so I just walked in any direction I felt like going. I use enjoying the cold breeze of the evening, at the same time listening to music using my headset. I felt good.

I came across a site where an hotel construction was ongoing, they just closed for the day and labourers were receiving their payments. Just as I almost walked past the site, I heard some commotion among the labourers, I turned around to see two grown men in their 40s, fighting themselves aggressively. I stopped and walked back, wondering what the problem could be that would warrant such.

I got to find out that the Engineers of the site gave both of them their wages for them to share equally, the money was shared, but unfortunately a change of 200 naira remained to be balanced to one of them, but there was no change, and the two of them refused to let the other go home with the money, or perhaps get the change the next day. They preferred battling themselves, other than looking for where to change the money.

200 naira looks too small to be fought over, but here it was enough for grown men to exercise their muscles, this is where the present economy has pushed us to, I couldn't blame them much. I felt embarrassed on their behalf, they have families, how will it look like if their wives or children passed by to see their father fighting. I was with 200 naira, I gave the money to them so they won't damage themselves further. They have families to feed, I guess that makes the smallest amount of money most valuable to them.

I was happy I could help, I watched as they took their different routes home. I didn't give because I had too much, just couldn't bear to see such men fighting over such amount of money. The incident kept flashing back in my mind after I got home, they could have inflicted damages on themselves that 200 naira won't be enough to treat them. I was happy that I was of help to them, it's a small world and a small life, let's spend the most of it happily and looking after others.

I returned home after a very stressful semester, it was a very tough semester with lots of challenges, but I thank God that I wasn't consumed. After the conclusion of our exams, I didn't want to travel home for the holiday because some of my colleagues were going to be around, but my parents insisted that I must return home and so I couldn't refuse, I saddled up and travelled back to my state.

I had been away for months that I even forgot the kind of reception I always receive at home, I should have been the one to insist that I must travel home. Immediately I arrived home, I was served a very delicious rice and stew, compared to what I eat while at school. Life at school is a very different one, you can never see a free food, you will starve if you don't cook. I wish my colleagues would know what they are missing by not traveling home.

Back at school, I live alone, so I'm literally bored almost all the time, but here, you can never get bored with siblings and parents around. About three hours after I arrived, white soup that I have been craving for in school was served again, I would have said that it feels like I'm dreaming, but that is the reality of home. Just imagine my mum saying if the food isn't enough I should let her know, meanwhile at school I measure the portion of food I eat to save money. Ha!

And then I thought to myself, imagine a person without a family, without a home, you can't enjoy these things then. The joy and love that is shared in a family, you can't feel alone in a family. I have some rest now from the stress of looking after myself, at least for now, it will ease the pressure and give me strength when I return to school. The musician that sang the song " wherever where you go, remember the road that will lead you home" know the feeling. It's good to have where to go and rest up for a while after series of stress, and that can only be home, family.