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MUSTARD IV – Ch. 5 | KT OLLA

BACK in Ede, Nigeria, there was this ruin in Banji’s soul, long after those first rain storms ruined his roof.

For it looked like his former place, the rented apartment, came after him.

Like he shouldn’t leave.

Now it frightened him that this happened not once, but twice. So he’d been pondering why.

‘There are other houses in this place,’ he’d thought then. ‘How come that roof keeps landing on mine?

‘I didn’t owe the house owner his rent when I left there, so what is this?

‘How can a house be following... I mean, following me?!’

Joshua had asked those questions then, yet he found nothing quite suiting.

Then today, after those years he stayed up in bed pondering again.

Now when he couldn’t sleep anymore, he settled in a seat and drifted in a slumber.

So there in the stillness of night, Banji found an answer... in the quietness of soul.

It was as though someone came on his sleep to whisper. Like God’s angel brought the answers.

Bamiji woke up from the light rest, then went on musing like he hadn’t just slumbered.

You accomplished something for you, building a house. It’s for your life, for your own self, Joshua!

Definitely, it is for me that I climbed this high in my job, too.

Or even how I got myself to study against the odds... isn’t it for me? For my life and future!

He stopped and breathed a sigh. Then he muttered:

‘Well, after spending a whole life to build this, I got the load of another man’s house on it.

‘I shouldered the roof of Dekomi’s household. No, I carried everybody’s house on me!’

He stood up and paced about.

‘So, like I carried people’s load on my head every time, it is happening with my house now.

‘But then what can I do?!’

Now the elder went silent as those thoughts weighed on him.

He’d felt the burden of company, some relatives he considered family.

Yet the load of being alone weighed heavier.

He faced a wall. And cried.

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