Mr William Ogbonna had just lost his job at Lestor Foods, a fast-food company, due to the recent layoff.
Mr William was not opportune to finish his secondary school as his parents did not have enough money to train him. He began to do odd jobs as a young boy just to survive. Years later, he got the job at Lestor Foods as a messenger and janitor working for minimum wage. With the little money he made, he got married to Mrs Mercy Ogbonna and they had 4 children from the union. His wife opened a shop in the market where she sold tomatoes, pepper and onions.
Mr William worked in Lestor Foods for 16 years. During that time, the fast-food underwent expansion and he was given odd and difficult jobs that arose from it. The fast-food management also went ahead to buy machines to aid efficiency. They employed new workers to operate the machines which they deemed more cost-effective than training their already existing workers in order to eliminate the risk of damaging the machines due to misuse.
It was not long before the company's administration had to explain to its employees that the company did not generate enough revenue to pay all its workers. As a result, they had no other option than to lay off all the 'non-essential' workers. And even though Mr William was the most hardworking employee, he was among those termed non-essential.
The fateful day that Mr William was laid off, he was home early and was in deep thoughts. "I vowed that all my children will be educated so that they'll be bosses, but Chidi, my first child has already dropped out of school last year due to lack of finance and is helping my wife at her shop and doing odd jobs. And now, if I don't get a job soon, all my children might drop out of school."
Just then, his children came back from school with their report cards. Chidi had been the only one among his children termed intelligent. He had just finished JSS3 when he dropped out. His daughters; Nkechi, the second-born and Precious, the last born, were average students and his other son, Promise, always failed his exams. Nkechi was about to enter JSS 2, Precious, Primary 3. As usual, Promise took the last position and was to repeat Primary 4 which would be the second time that he repeated a class. Mr William, with all the anger from losing his job, slapped Promise twice and then proceeded to get a cane to flog him.
"I'm doing everything to make sure that all of you are educated, all of you! Do you know what I suffer every day, all the insults? See these marks in my body from wounds, all to make sure that you all are educated. I have starved myself even and this is what you bring back? What is this? The children that get 1st position and pass all their exams, do they have two heads?" he scolded Promise as he flogged him.
Just then Chidi entered the house with his mother. Seeing how angry his father was as he flogged Promise, Chidi rushed to plead on Promise's behalf and took the cane from his father. Then, he took all his younger siblings into the 'bedroom'.
The family lived in a room apartment in what people called 'face me, I face you' because the rooms in the house were in two straight lines facing each other with a thin corridor between them. Mrs Mercy had used a wrapper to divide the room into two, one as bedroom where the children slept and the other as parlour and a small part of the parlour as kitchen. Most times, Chidi's parents slept in the 'parlour'. They made use of a general bathroom and toilet and usually cooked at the corridor.
"Why are you so angry?" Mrs Mercy asked her husband.
"We are petting that boy too much. That is why he always gets the last position. He needs to be taught a lesson so that he will learn how to study hard!" Mr William replied.
"You know that I am your wife and I know you very well. Please, don't lie to me. I understand that Promise's failures in school are very annoying. They also anger me. But what I saw today is not you. It is like you're angry about something else and transferring the aggression to the poor boy. What are you angry about?" she asked.
