Aaliyah to the World

10 | Runaway Mum

•Hamza

Our little episode of pretty little liars had come to an end with Aaliyah finding out and bursting into a fit of fury which I must say was quite amusing.

I knew we would get caught the moment she messaged me and I started fumbling. I was a terrible liar and just didn't feel the need to hide anything from her but again I didn't want to hurt her feelings so I lied instead.

Today I wanted to go to Imam's bakery to get some pastries for me and Bilal before I leave for work. As I reached the staircase, I remembered I hadn't greeted my mother so I made a turn to her room.

"Are you sure he's an expert? I don't want to waste time and money going somewhere without getting the expected results." I heard my mum say as she paced back and forth from her wardrobe to the bed as she threw her clothes into a small box that was already arranged with a few toiletries and some newly bought shoes.

She froze the moment I walked in and ended her call, muttering inaudibly into the phone then she threw it on the bed.

She sauntered towards the bed once she was done setting her things in her box, picked up her veil from the bed and wrapped it around her her petite figure. I watched in awe and confusion as she held my hands and motioned for me to sit on the plush carpet as she sat on the bed and narrated an ambiguous and vague story that I failed to understand leaving the exception of only two words. Grandmother and hospital.

I despised and tried to ignore the disgustingly itchy thought at the back of my mind that I couldn't scratch away and was threatening to surface. I didn't want to think she was lying but her demeanour contradicted her words, she seemed calm as if she didn't have a problem in the world. This left me wondering what really instigated this surprise trip she embarked on to Yola. This was probably a guilt trip to blow off some steam...

She just got up and decided she wanted to visit our ill grandmother whom she had already seen two weeks ago.

She asked me to drive her to the airport and left with as little as no comment or filler about her surprise getaway.

My lateness would definitely get me queried but at this point I couldn't care less. Instead of lamenting over what could be described as spilled milk in this case, I called my father to narrate the sudden ordeal that had struck our house. I decided against telling my sister's and thanked God for the last wedding events that was to end in two days before they'd finally return back home. I just prayed they would never witness the distressing events that plagued this house in their absence.

My father didn't bother about my absence since he knew the reason. All he did was send me on a few errands before the day ended then I came back towards the end of the day to give him a feedback on the days happenings.

Today had to be the best day. He seemed impressed...

****

"You're not serious." Imam said, laughing.

I managed to go to Flavours for more after I left the office to eat and talk a bit with Imam. He was also one of my good friends whom I'd met during my school days. He was the life of the party, always there to entertain our little clique and to be the mediator that set the line for us whenever a fight erupted.

Imam was the realist among us with his pragmatic ideologies about life. He was someone who believed Malala was the epitome of bravery and Mandela that of Freedom. I definitely learnt alot from him, he was the one who'd advice us against the wrong things we usually did or wanted to do and encouraged us to read for upcoming examinations. It was no surprise that he was the valedictory student of our set.

I admired the zeal he had for his studies and how he managed life and people in general. I always pitied him because he lost both his parents to the claws of his fathers' evil relations at a very vulnerable point in his life. Ss3 was supposed to be the joy of every secondary school student but his was the time he lost everything to the point of depression. I wished I knew him that time, maybe my parents would help him but he was lucky enough to have been able to get a scholarship to study abroad.

His story is quite touching.

From grass to grace. He seemed to be comfortable with solitary confinement and constant scribbling of math equations that usually left us having a migrane. One day Bilal found his diary and read it in his absence, that was how we realised he was calculating his annual budget that wasn't even enough to feed him properly. We then got the idea to help him whenever we got the chance to the point we became friends. The three musketeers we'd named ourselves. He had trust issues so it took some time for him to start sharing things about his past with us but later on he realised me and Bilal could be trusted so he opened up to us completely but I was sure he'd hate us for invading his privacy so we never spoke of it again.

I'm grateful to him for being a good friend and most of all, proud of him for what he has become. He didn't have the privilege of getting an internship handed to him on a silver platter but Allah with his wonders blessed him with money that he was able to use and set up a business that he had passion for and was also profitable for him.

Masha Allah we all succeeded in different ways but I believed there was more to achieve for me. I always wanted to be a travel blogger who'd travel across the seven seas, learn as many languages as I could and walk from China back to Africa. Those were probably dreams that people deemed unrealistic but I'd like to think of it as a way to broaden my horizon with knowledge from around the world.

I wanted to be the man with the ear to the ground.

If only...

If only I didn't study engineering, maybe I'd be a linguist of sorts, fluent in numerous languages.

If only I went ahead to study my dream course: Mass communication, maybe I'd be able to use my occupation as a journalist to travel as an anchor for CNN or Al Jazeera to interview individuals about their life choices and meet people who also shared similar views with me on certain topics.

If only I told my father from the beginning that I wasn't interested in working in his company, maybe I'd have support and a solid foundation for my dreams to be constructed to reality.

If only...If only...If only...I could turn back back the hands of time.

The truth is I've grown tired of the if's, maybe's and what if's. They're all diluted words created to paint off walls of uncertainty. What I want to say is, to be, to work hard and to achieve are three things my heart and soul have turned greedy for.

To be...another Julius Ceasar, Shakespeare, Socrates or our Nigeria's very own Wole Soyinka. Apart from my hunger for constant travel, I also had a romantic encounter with poetry and since then I couldn't stop expelling with my pen words my mouth couldn't form.

To work hard...so that by the time I'm sixty I'll have stories to tell the world and my unborn children.

To achieve...numerous things that can't be counted but making Aaliyah my dearly beloved wife is one.

Fame.

Money.

Glory.

They can all come later.

Ok, maybe just the money...

I'll be satisfied once my insatiable hunger for knowledge has been fueled but I doubt that so I'll remain relentless till I've run of out energy and zeal to run the unending spiral in the race to acquire the most of it all till I can't anymore.

For now, I shall thank Allah and work on what I've been blessed with till the point I've grown and can finally detach myself from the gossip town I work in.

I talk for a bit longer longer with Imam before I decide to dissappear back to the confines of my home to sleep away the brooding exhaustion eating my every bit of liveliness.

I do that without forgetting to leave a message for my cinderella in black before I drift into a blissful sleep.
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~Aisha Safiyanu🥀