Short Story: USELESS

The first time you ever saw an F to your name was at the notice board in your faculty on a very sunny-rainy day. The day had started with the sun blazing and scorching, and without a warning from the sky it began to pour just after you had checked your result. You stood there, wide eyed, and unflinching. You did not quite believe that you could have an f, not you who answered all the questions in class; not you who read from dusk till dawn; not you who lecturers and even fellow students had predicted would be the best graduating student, the department had ever produced.

Tears began to well up in your eyes but you could not tell if the tears had formed because of your unblinking eyes or the pang you felt in your chest. The pang similar to the one you felt the day your father died. The rain became heavy and you ran to the paved footpath by the door of the departmental library. You stood there listening to the splatter of water that drilled holes on the sandy floor from the roof of your faculty, ignoring those who asked about your result and nodding when they said “you dey alright?” Because you were sure they would never leave you if you continued to keep your mouth shut, head stiff and eyes unmoving. And there you were like one who had been deserted by the world with no heaven to run to. You wanted to run, to hide, to pour fuel over you and watch yourself burn, you wanted die. You were nothing but a waste.

…

Those were the same words your mum had used on your brother the day he died. “What a waste”, she said. You remember that day clearly now. It had rained heavily that day, you had finally beaten level 534 on candy crush and your mum was frying chicken. The smell of thyme, curry and garlic was floating in the air. You were washing the plates in the sink but your eyes could not stay faithful to the smears of eba on ceramic plates and the disgusting sight of stale okra soup on ceramic dishes and so you kept looking at the brown chicken in the plastic colander and swallowed saliva.

You had just the ladle used in making eba left to rinse off when a call came through to your mum’s phone. She wiped her hands on her apron and swiped her phone. She stood motionless for a hundred years. You tapped her on the shoulder and brought her a hundred years back to her burning chicken.

“Ogini” you asked but she continued to remove the chicken from the pan to the colander.

She turns to you and says in the voice, she uses to say “I need to stock up our provisions when next I go to the mall” to say, “Ekene is dead. What a waste”. You search her face for truth, for sadness, for a tear but all you found is the sprinkling of sweat on her forehead dripping down to her cheeks. She turned to the chickens, her back to you humming to a song. You remember being shocked then disbelief creeped in, shock again, and then you were overwhelmed with sadness. But there was no tears.

You suddenly found your mum’s chicken-frying and humming annoying and antagonizing. The chicken no longer salivated you. You wanted to throw them into the trash can. You left the kitchen.

During lunch she asked if you’re alright, “it’s Jollof rice oh” she said and smiled beckoning you with her eyes to eat as though she had not just told you a few minutes ago that your brother, her son was dead. She tried to act as though everything was fine, laughing, humming and eating.

“Ngwanu, eat some chicken”. She said. You picked up the drumstick and bit a little piece of it. She asked if you liked it, if it was tasty. You wanted to tell her that it wasn’t and that you’re not eating because the jollof rice was over-salted but they were actually tasteless on your tongue, so you said nothing.

“You’re like this because of Ekene” she said, pointing her fork at you and then a smile that looked sardonic. She looked at you a while, pushed her head back, relaxed on the chair and sighed.

“They said he was robbing a bank when the police got him. He was shooting back at them. A bullet went to his heart. His cup was fool. He alone died. His cohorts are in detention. He has finally succeeded in dragging this family’s name to the mud.”

She chewed her words like kola-nut. Bit by bit, a sentence followed by a deep breath.

Later that night you overheard her sobbing in her bedroom, blowing her nose, sniffing, rolling on the floor and then she surrendered and wailed.

You tried to cry yourself but you couldn’t. You did not really know this brother of yours. You were just five when he left home for the university. His visits then were rare and short but when you turned seven, he stopped visiting. And since then your parents shielded you from him and his ‘negative influence’. He was never allowed to visit the house. You saw him again at your father’s funeral two years ago. Your mum was pulling his shirt and cursing. Your uncle separated them while your sisters begged him in a voice that sounded like a command to leave. But still you felt guilty for not crying. You desperately wanted your eyes wet. You needed those tears to wash off your guilt for feeling nothing. Or maybe you felt something. A kind of sadness common to the feeling you get when you lose something like a phone. He was your brother, you weren’t supposed to feel sad, you were to grief his death.

Days later your family’s name was pulled out of the mud. Your brother had not been part of the robbery. Some police officers visited your house, they apologized to your mother and asked her to go ahead and claim his body from the mortuary. You expected her to get angry, to bark at them and ask them to leave your house, instead she served them malt and chin-chin.

Weeks after the visit of the policemen, your brother had still not been buried. You wanted to ask why but you did not want to annoy your mother. Maybe she was planning a lavish funeral for him. You seriously doubted that.

And then there was a call. Your mother left the sitting room where she was watching a Mexican soap opera to take it. You decided to listen. Your brother’s name was mentioned and your mum confirmed she was donating his corpse as a cadaver to the teaching hospital. You did not know the word ‘cadaver’. You quickly looked it up the dictionary on your phone.

“Mum, you are going to offer up Ekene to a bunch of silly students to dissect and assault, giggle at and get frightened over.” It was more of a question than a statement.

Your mum walks past you to the sofa, her eyes back to the television.

“He is my brother, your son. You can’t do that to him”.

She picked the remote control from a side stool and increased the volume.

“Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum… ”

“Bia, let me hear them” she said pointing the remote control at you and then to the television.

“Do you even know him, eh? Do you know the kind of pain he caused? Your father is in the grave today because of him. Me and your father gave him everything a child could ever want. How did he repay us? He joined a fraternity, got himself kicked out of school. Heart ache for me and an early grave for your father.” You watch her talk, her mouth shivering as she spoke and then came tears. She quickly wiped them off.

“I’m no longer crying for him. He was dead to me a long time ago. He was useless. A useless child. Go to school, mba. Learn a trade, mba. Acquire a skill, mba.

“He was useless alive, let him be useful in his death. At least he would be atoning for his crimes and the sorrows he brought upon this family and who knows how many other families”.

You wanted to remind her that your brother had not been part of the robbery; that he was only a customer at the bank and that a stray bullet had got him at the chest. As though she had read your thoughts she said:

“He may not have been part of the gang that robbed the bank but he was an armed robber. I knew this was how he would die. My dreams revealed it to me a long time ago”.

She wiped her eyes again with the edge of her wrapper and returns them to the television. You shouldn’t have said anything. You wanted to leave, you wanted to say something but your legs refused to move and only air came out your mouth when you opened them. Then your mum turned to you again.

“Instead of you to plan on going back to school, you are here pining away over someone who cared about no one. Keep mourning a murderer and a thief, a condemned soul. I thought I was the problem. People were beginning to call me a bad mother but thank God for my beautiful daughters who turned out well shaming him and my enemies. Ekene was a useless child. He was a failure. But I trust you, you won’t fail me. You must never fail me.”

…

“I’m a failure, I’m a failure”, you tell yourself as you walked to your hostel in the rain. Soon you begin to hear voices singing “You’re a failure, You’re a failure”. By the time you got to your hostel these voices were not just singing anymore, you felt them drumming and dancing around you. These voices began to take a form. They looked like your brother this minute and then your father the next. This continued until they settled with your brother’s form. He laughed and jeered at you. You got angry and cursed. He cursed back and then began to cry. You cried too and then this form you confuse for your brother moves to your ear and in a whisper begs you to avenge him and punish your mother. Then like Ice it melted to the floor and like water it evaporated out of your sight.

With heavy steps, you proceeded to the bathroom. There’s a stain on the floor with bleach you began to scrub the bathroom until the whole floor sparkled. Then you turned on the shower and sponged yourself, scrubbing harder than you did the floor. You sat on the floor and let the water drain you or rather your tears. You sat there, naked,until your eyes stopped forming tears, until you became cold, until you began to shiver.

There was a tiny wrap of marijuana in your cupboard under your tin of milk. You brought it out, lit it and smoked. Dragging for too long and inhaling too deeply before you exhaled. There was a knock on the door. You did not want to answer but the hand was persistent. You opened. It was your next door neighbor. He wanted matches. You gave him and asked him to keep it. “You dey alright?” he asked before leaving. Why was everyone asking you that?

You made your bed and swept your carpet. Then you sat on your bed and played candy crush until you exhausted your lives. You got up and dressed up. You wore a suit, the one you wore on your matriculation.

You moved to your balcony that served as your kitchen and stood on its railings. Your feet doesn’t balance and so you fall before you said your last prayer. As you fall down the two storey building from its last floor, you pray your mum forgives you and doesn’t make you a lab rat.

The next time you opened your eyes, your vision was hazy but you smelt antiseptic. You were in a hospital, your mum by your side her head on the bed, praying and sleeping. You had failed again. You wondered how long you had been lifeless though alive. You closed your eyes and opened them. You see better now. You can’t find your right arm and your left leg. You are dreaming, you tell yourself. You bite your lips. You know you’re not and you know that for the rest of your missing-an-arm-and-a-leg life, you would not be living.

…

By Dika Ofoma.

Follow him up on instagram and twitter @dikaofoma.