ADSactly Short Stories - The Killing

in #adsactly7 years ago

The Killing

Everyday Akin watched helplessly as The Terrorist took over his house. It had an annoying, fluttering sound that gave him the creeps. He tossed and turned. Try as he did to get back to sleep, Mama Bisi's electric generator would not let him. He could hear her loud TV set in the dead quiet of the night; only broken by the loud actors' voices. The generator kept making hammering noises like a mad carpenter. Akin could not imagine how that piece of machinery managed to power anything because every once in a while it roared as if it was being throttled by some invisible force. By Jove! Won't this woman ever SLEEP, Akin thought, as he was almost at the proverbial last straw.


Photo by Hans Vivek on Unsplash

He could feel his powerful arms, all sinewy, grasping at Mama Bisi's throat as he strangled the living daylight out of her Nollywood-obsessed mind until nothing was left but peace. Akin needed to sleep because he had some work to do the next day.

Calling what he does work sometimes made him feel like jumping off the Third Mainland Bridge and ending it all. It had been four years after leaving school, after studying Civil Engineering at the University of Technology, Mandiba. It was a course he enjoyed even though money was tight at the time. His aged father who married his mother as a sort of midlife crisis rebellion was barely able to scrape together his pension to pay his tuition fees. His feeding and upkeep were left for his mother. His mother, uneducated, tried her best by selling virtually everything known to man to send Akin upkeep allowance.

Source

Seeing the suffering of his mother, Akin stopped asking for money and became a 0-0-1 champion: A term students used to describe students who ate dinner only, skipping both breakfast and lunch. He was not on a diet neither was he anorexic. His appetite was excellent, but Akin had to skip meals to enable him to manage his little and sometimes non-existent allowances. His body was a mass of wiry muscles: muscles he gained from lifting many head pans of mortar as a labourer serving more skilled masons in some random construction site.

He even developed a forced bald spot on his head due to carrying the hard pan of mortar on this head for a long period of time. Thankfully, when he stopped the job, the hair grew back. It would have been weird to see him balding at 20!

He graduated with a poor grade and that was understandable as he missed many tests and classes in his foray into the job market to earn his upkeep. Initially, during the first two years in the University, he thought he could combine being a full-time student with being a full-time labourer. The latter won that fight.

Two years after graduation, he was still sending applications for suitable posts, yet none employed him. One morning, he received a phone call and it seemed to him that luck was beginning to shine on him. He left his mother's house and got a residence in an apartment weirdly referred to as "face-me-I-face-you" house. That was a type of tenement that the low-income workers live. He got a job as a bulk teller in the bank. The pay was low, the hours were long, and the work was tedious. But the workers were expected to dress very well as image was considered very important in the banking business.

Counting other people's dirty, foul-smelling money was not his idea of a job. But it was better than working in the sun in some random construction site.

But like some good things in life, or not-so-good thing, it ended almost as quickly as it had began. Somehow, bills got missing out of several bundles of cash, and the whole staff working in the Bulk Teller division were let go with their tails between their legs. His exit from the job he half-hated taught him a lesson he thought he knew: be grateful for blessings! His little savings quickly ran out as he was forced into the labour market once again. After walking around and dropping CVs, he received a call from a construction company. He was overjoyed. He arrived at the place, only to realise they were looking for non-disabled men that have some education to "help" around the site. The pay was better than it was during his school days. He grudgingly accepted. He had worked for three months now and was yet to get an invitation to interview with any of the other numerous online, and offline applications he had applied.

That night he was home trying to sleep. It was a Friday night, but the little terrorists that he had as neighbours were busy jumping and dancing, making his tired body stay awake even though he needed nothing more than sleep. The generator and the loud TV of Mama Bisi were not helping matters either.

Suddenly he was fed up. He was angry. It was a murderous rage. After the last one jumped and landed near him, he stood up and walked purposely to his "wardrobe". The wardrobe was just a piece of a wooden plank about 4 feet long, secured to the wall where he hung his few clothes. It was in one corner of the barely 10ft by a 10ft room that he called his bedroom.

A brief rummage through the pockets of the canvas-like material shoe organiser revealed his weapon of mass destruction. He picked it and walked purposely back. Thankfully, at that moment, the public power supply accidentally was restored. Yes, it has to be an accident as the area had not experienced such benevolence of enjoying the electric power they paid for. His landlord, like clockwork, always collected his part of the shared energy bill from him every month.

As the bulb in his room came on, tiny cockroaches and other creepy crawlers scampered to the safety of the dark. But it was too late as Akin unleashed the horror. The insecticide aerosol, sprayed with more force than was necessary, was there to kill themall. After about a minute, Akin realised his hand was still depressing the actuator. Die! He screamed inwardly, his frustrations, failures, bad luck, the noise from Mama Bisi's TV, the annoying noisy generator, the hot room, his indebtedness, all flowed through his finger and the aerosol bottle, annihilating the monsters that terrorised him and by extension subduing all the circumstances that conspired to make him an unhappy man.


Source

After about two minutes he released his hand from the actuator and watched. A particular cockroach was at its back. In death throes, it spinned. Akin observed as it struggles to live. It kicked. It turned. The whole legs were up. It was dying. After about three minutes of carefully watching it. It died. Akin finally found peace, well that is until the utility company took away the power as they must or Mama Bisi's little monster machine takes over.

Whatever happens from here onwards, I am grateful for what I do have and I am determined to be happy, he thought. He closed his eyes to sleep again and subconsciously listened for the whirring sound that had become the bane of his existence. He heard nothing. The sleep came quickly and there was peace finally.


Authored by: @greenrun


Click on the coin to join our Discord Chat



Go Adsactly

Vote @adsactly-witness for Steem witness!
Witness proposal is here: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@adsactly-witness/adsactly-steemit-witness-proposal
First open: https://steemit.com/~witnesses
In the bottom of the page type: adsactly-witness and press vote.

Use small letters and no "@" sign. Or, click here to vote directly!
Thank you!


Sort:  

Great story. I really like your writing style. Looking forward to reading more!

Great story. I must say that I have been reading the stories you post over the past week as I become acclimated to steemit and it has inspired me. I have always wanted to write my own stories and have never truly felt that I could write something good enough. The steemit forum seems to be a place where a new writer can cut their teeth and throw themselves into the mix without fear of judgement but rather with the hopes of critical feedback a support to produce better content. I have started putting together ideas for some pieces I would like to work on and I am looking forward to sharing.

I think it is not by accident that this is the first post am reading on steemit. The moment I crossed the first paragraph, I couldn't stop again.
Well done Bro. The streets in #nigeria and the struggle there in is well captured here. I love how you pay attention to details too. Kudos.

Go for it. Don't hold back.

New on steemit. A short story writer too. @greerun, i must confess that i wasn't expecting such a great short story as this here. You did a great job. I'll sure tighten my belt and work my way up.

I love the way you weave words, gently, adroitly, into a body of meaningful experiences that relates deeply with the reader. I can connect with Akin very easily, and his environment.

Man and sleep, na one big short story on its own.

Thanks for the kind words. You can start writing, the stage is all set :)

Thanks for the encouragement! I think that I am almost there. I just want to build up a bit of a core group of people to share with first. As a new Steemian it can be tough to get views on your writing and I want to have people see it to give me feedback.

You just have to engage more. You are already doing great.

knowledgist post

Loading...

This is so touching!

This story highlights the failure of society to readily integrate its own. Poverty is quite a disease and we have seen how it has helped ruin several lives and communities entrenched deep inside it, especially in Africa. If the government did its job well, and if societal imbalance was removed, maybe, just maybe Akin would not have had to go through all of that hardship. Life deserves a lot more decency than this.

There is hunger. There is bitterness
There is anger in the land. If we don't make the right decisions today and now, then we must kiss goodbye to a prosperous tomorrow.

Need I say that there are several millions of Akins scattered across the length and breadth of the world? Where a failed society and a failed government thrives, there you will most certainly find an Akin.

Thanks for this beautiful story.

That is very true. Thanks for this insightful comment. I'm happy you took out time to read the story.

wow that's what flag by d way

coz am from Nigeria too,please am new to steemit was wondering if I can get an assistance,and also add you up on telegram so we could chat,my name is wissyofenmu 07032183075 please add me up@greenrun

thank you D: /@williamshenry
please
visit in my blog

very amazing

Great piece. I used to ride with my dad in his 18 wheeler on summrr vacation. Trying to sleep was work the first few weeks listening to that monstrous diesel engine clater along. At 5he end of summer vacation i couldn't sleep at home because it was to quiet. The noise was a drug my brain needed. To this day 20 some years later i still have to fall asleep with the tv on to make noise

Some things do stay with us. Thank you for the heartfelt story.

Sleep is the way to the top. Sleep is all about recovering. So if you're not sleeping, you're not recovering. And if you're going to break your body down a lot, you better find ways to build it back up. And the only way to do that is get a lot of sleep. So for me, I go to bed at like 8:30, 9:00. As soon as I put my kids to bed. Because I'm up at 5:30 the next day. I wish Akin all the best and most importantly good sleep and peace.

Thanks a lot.

Wow.. what a beautiful plot. We need to have that type of story writers who put all basic ingredients in their story..Like above.I am highly inspired.@upvoted and resteemed

Thanks for the kind compliments. I appreciate it.

Phenomenal read. Finally he could find peace in his sleep. 😁

In sleep, I wish he'd find the needed sleep :)

I suspect this story never end ooo. Oya come and finish it biko

The story of life never ends.

I'm going to look good.

I do not live in an English speaking country, so I would appreciate your understanding if it is not English.

Always happy
I hope you will be filled with good things :)