Islander

Prologue

I arose from my slim mattress laid across the metal green bunk. My room was little. I had turned it into some laboratory of some sort, only it wasn't the laboratory you'd be imagining. It was more like a mechanic's workshop compressed in a small 4 walled compartment. I had all I ever needed to survive earth, in my room: ranging from a complete welding set to a small fridge filled with rotting food. I lived alone, so I never bothered to clean up. At least I lived better than the others who chose to live under the bridge. I wonder who does that nowadays anyways. My room was the back room of a grand house that served as an inn, one that used to be storage. I'd rented it from the janitor of the building who promised to keep my life there a secret, as long as I kept it quiet with my works.

I was the average Nigerian kid you'd think to find on the streets. Only I had one thing they all hadn't. I had brains.
Oh yeah, when I say average Nigerian kid, I don't mean the kids whose parents are politicians or judges or worked with Shell companies. Average Nigerian kid, was the type you'd find on the traffic lights in the day hawking something and at quiet spots with torn mats and dirty blankets at night. Like I said, the main difference was I had brains. I lived like every average Nigerian kid who'd lost his parents and siblings in a fire, along with all he owned, and had got scorned and kicked out by his relatives when he went to ask for assistance. I believe that's all about my life you need to know at the moment. Money was fantasy in my world. I never smelt any of it. The rich never helped us unfortunate ones out, ever. They preferred we wash their cars and fed their poultry and cleaned up their disgusting, spoiled infants before they could offer us the token we got. Like one out of a thousand deserved coins. I did that exactly. I worked for a man, a big rich businessman that lived in Lagos. But his wife lived in Uyo and controlled all there was to control, me inclusive. Life everyday was hell, for peanuts. But I had to work.

The man for who I worked was called Bassey, and he imported electronics. His house was huge, like the castle in Merlin. He found me wandering around his mansion picking flowers by the flowerbeds one day when he was taking a stroll with his dog and his probably 7 year old daughter. The dog barked furiously and I ran for my life, but he phoned the cops and they caught me. After a little beating, I was in his sitting room, on my knees, begging for mercy, and a job. He employed me, because I'm an excellent beggar. I was not to live with him, he said there were no spare rooms, or so he claimed, or so his wife made him claim. So everyday I left my little bedroom and came down here to work, for a woman that was cruel like the devil. For her husband was always away on business trips.

I tried to make her like me, countless times. But wealthy people do not have a thing for liking people that are not, or at least I thought. She always shouted at me, for no reason. The only true friend I had in that house was their dog. She was a Rottweiler who knew how to play, with none other than me. But this is not my story. This is not me writing my daily travails in the house where my days were made hell. I'd have to be writing over and over and over for the same things happened, over and over and over.
I was not a dead man. I breathed air, and these past years, I have had cause to live life again, like a normal human being. Maybe earth will give me a shot.