aadota (50) UNEDITED

Fourteen: Revelation

Revelation

When fortune surprises a man with a great preferment to which he is neither advanced by Degrees nor raised before by his own hopes; it is scarce possible for him to behave well and make the world think he deserves his character.
Pg 119
Moral Reflections

Often I've sat alone to make sense of my life in its entirety. I've chosen to solely reflect on the point of it all. I've tried to tell myself that money and power rule the world but at what cost? How did money and power rule the world if they came from a darker source?

Money is good. Money is very very good. It puts an end to a lot of irrelevant things that can trouble a man's sanity: especially disrespect. Every man begs to be regarded and respected by other another man, (a thing of vanity), they sometimes think in the darkest corners of their minds that the worst thing that can happen to them would be a word of insult by someone they couldn't insult back because of their lack in finances and this sometimes fuel their need to have money and power; a very stupid reason if I might add because why are we so afraid of mere humans like us? Why let their mere projections and opinions of us lead us into questioning our own lives when we can just focus on our lives and enjoy the journey instead?

During one of my in-depth thinking at a strip club one night while wayward girls betrayed and disrespected their bodies for the ill-gotten wealth we splashed at them, I started thinking—or maybe it was the Hennessy combined with the marijuana that got into my head, but I got this crazy idea that Wealth and Poverty were like two brothers from the same mothers, just like Peter and Paul.

Wealth was the attractive and interesting brother and this got him a lot of friends, loved ones, and ladies but deep down, he had nothing but pride, wickedness, and plans of destruction rooted deep inside of him and the only way in which people discovered this part of him was when they took a step back to access him for a while but he was so attractive that you'd sooner forget your assessment of him and get swooned by his beauty at the end of the day and the deeper you loved him, the more you wanted him and by then he'd gained control of your entire being, leaving you a puppet to his flimsy and callous whims.

Poverty on the other hand was as unattractive as his name. You just heard his name and loathed him so much because you thought you knew him well and sometimes you just feared his attitude towards people without realizing that he was indeed the good brother because inside of him were some of the good virtues of life-like genuine happiness, contentment, gratitude, discipline and wisdom, things that you'd never find in the bosom of his attractive twin, Wealth—but things that you needed the most to end up being a good person in life. And I'd usually cringe at this thought myself because of the fear of poverty and then I'd also remember that poverty was subjective because truly, we're only as poor as we let ourselves think we are in our hearts; I mean, I didn't think I was poor when I was slowly climbing up the ladder of life with my wife and kids until I started comparing my life to that of other people and I slowly began to feel poor.

There is only so much money that one needed to be truly happy and everyone one of us in the Brotherhood knew this in fact, this was the heaviest burden some of us had to bear for the rest of our lives because, at the end of the day, a man could only sleep in one room even if he had houses all over the world.

My Brothers were mere groups of rich but empty souls. We only felt powerful when we were hailed by ignorant outsiders who their peace of mind, we secretly envied.

What was the essence of so much money when we felt like hooded puppets in the hands of dark energy?

What was the essence of the wealth and power when our demons didn't care about the bulletproof doors of our cars nor the bodyguards in front of our doors when they made their way into our minds to haunt us so bad until he fell into the graces of drugs, alcohol, and women?

Sometimes I'd meet my Brothers at functions and I could tell that they wanted to share stories of their sleepless nights judging by the dryness of their skins and tiredness of their eyes that even the most expensive of sun shades couldn't hide.

"I can't do this anymore!" I cried to Ireti one night when I caught my son crawling with spittle drooling down his mouth like a well-made okra soup. "I just do this anymore!" I repeated and I thought she was going to laugh at me or scream the words, "I TOLD YOU SO!" along with a burst of hysterical laughter, but she knelt beside me and told me we were going to get over it.
"Just tell me everything, Ajibade. Just tell me everything." She cried alongside me. But I couldn't. Her life depended on my secrecy.

...

"You've destroyed my life! You've ruined my life, you this wicked man!" She charged at me in the presence of my three daughters and I held her tightly while she fought to break free from my grasp as I yelled at her to calm down which she eventually did.

"This is the last straw, Ajibade. You've gotten not only yourself but every one of us involved in your evil deed and if you're not going to come out with it," she snatched the necklace I'd given her off her neck, "I'm also not going to put up with this madness anymore. I'm leaving!" She yelled angrily and this time around I knew it was for real.

Rate this book 1/10

And please...

Vote!

I've lost my former IG account to Internet scammers but I'm grateful for reasons I don't even understand. It was distracting and I'm glad to start afresh. Follow me now (cinmithewriter) on IG AND I'll follow back!

Please vote and leave comments.

And please tell your friends about this book because it's more than a book, it's a movement!

I've decided to use my voice to change things in my little ways--this is an attempt.

You can listen to me telling this story on my podcast (Middle Of The Night Stories With Cinmisola) and follow me up on IG (mnswcpodcast)