There is a specie of bears that comes from the stars. The big bears form the Ursa Major constellation, while the small bears form the constellation Ursa Minor. The star bears migrate from world to world throughout the universe, searching for food and shelter. Let us allow our human friend Rukie to narrate his experience...

Great Work,more Grace In Ur Elbow

J.Ruk proudly presents...
A Slacker And His Dog


#1

  "I have a feeling that something great is going to happen soon" the boy next to me said.
    "Hmm ...yes" his mother responded in an unconcerned tone.
It was a long time I heard that quote. I could understand the woman's cynicism. She had lived long enough to experience disappointment, and believed that good fortune was not something that came like a Sunday visitor, she was the adult, he was the child. From the uniform, the boy who sat on his mother's lap was a junior secondary student from a not too cheap, not too expensive private secondary school. His mother was probably an office worker, in a nine to five white collar job, maybe a secretary. She looked tired and wouldn't take shit from anyone who dared to disturb her brief moment of peace. Unlike her bright eyed son, she looked worn out by time but she was not that old (maybe forty). Everything she did now was for her son, and she expected the boy to do exceptionally well in his class. She probably lived by the principle that it was possibly impossible for money to grow on trees, and could cane the boy if she discovered that he wasted his lunch money on a plastic toy gun.
    "Association junction dey!?" He conductor announced
       "I dey o!" That was me. I got out of the danfo bus, which sped off immediately with the conductor hanging to its door. I took the journey home by foot.
  Tinubu Estate was quiet this evening, parents didn't allow their children to play outside these days. The street lights illuminated my path, the only sounds outside were the generators each compound possessed. I reached Number 15 Tinubu Estate, my father's house.
     "Oga, welcome" it was Ibrahim, the security man of the house opposite ours. He was listening to the evening news in Hausa on Radio Maiduguri.
   "Thank you o, good evening"
   He waved back.
   I knocked on the gate, soon I heard hurried footsteps. Someone opened the gate for me.
    "Welcome!" Kathleen said in smiles. Her body had the scent of Curry, she must have been cooking.
     "Good evening, ma" I greeted
       "So, how was your day?" She asked with a sort of eagerness that anyone who saw us would think she was my wife, while in truth I was her step son.
       "It was good. They said they will call me back for a test"
       "That's something" she said airily "may God grant you a good job"
       "Amen!" I answered as if I had submitted my CV to an office in heaven.
     "Well, you are just in time. I made jollof rice for dinner." My stomach rumbled with joy, at that moment, Kathleen's hourglass figure became visible to my eyes again. I began to wonder whether she had made the jollof rice just for me, she did that every time I went job hunting.
  "Just have your bath and change into something nice, I will put your food on the table." My step mother chorused from the kitchen.
    
     I met my father at the sitting room. He was watching the seven o clock news on CNN. My father never trusted the Nigerian news media, he believed that they were pawns to the government to hide the truth.
      "Daddy, good evening" I greeted as humbly as a child.
      "Oh. Welcome" he mumbled swiftly without looking at me.

      We sat around the dinning table, Kathleen was still in the kitchen doing one or two things.
     The jollof rice was orange with life, garnished with pepper and green beans, a deep fried chicken lap was laying on top. I dived my spoon into the rice and the first shovel entered my mouth.
    "Rukie, have you prayed before eating?"
I almost choked, never knew my father had been watching me. He hadn't touched his own food yet.
     "He doesn't pray, no wonder God doesn't follow him" he concluded.
     "Daddy I blessed the food...I blessed the food in my mind" I said before gulping a glass of water, he was still looking at me with the attention he gave while reading a legal document.
     "In your mind. As if..."
      "Sam! Are you picking on your son again?" my step mother jumped in.
     My father looked at his wife.
  "No! I'm talking to him like a man. His brother is in the force, risking his life. Should Melchizedek be treated like an egg?"
   She stifled and left for the kitchen again. My father redirected his attention on me again.
"Boy. You are a man,one day you will be here, on a dining table, talking to your own son if the Lord tarries. By thirty, I was already a respectable man of the society, being married to your mother, living in a three bedroom apartment, working as a sales officer at leventis, I even had the reigning Toyota camarro of those days and I sent money to my parents. All these I had because I worked hard, I pushed, I fought. Now, you children of nowadays are so entitled, you think success is like indomie, where you just put it in water, sit in your rooms ,browsing Facebook and waiting for it to get done in five minutes. Na lie! Rukie, you will be twenty six by August, still living under his father's house. If is was in my time, our parents would have chased us away with a stick so that we will go out and get working"
     "Daddy, but I've gone around, there are no jobs anywhere"
     "No jobs anywhere" he mimicked me in a falsetto voice  "did all the witches and evil powers of our forefathers hide all the jobs in Nigeria?"
  "No"
"Did Buhari go to Daura to dig a hole and put all the jobs inside, so that no one could find them"
   I thought hard before answering
   "...maybe o...no"
"I know  that not everyone wants to pursue a career in the corporate or business world, but look at my friend's sister's neighbour's classmate's husband, he is a retired Admiral in the Navy and he's well to do. I'm not saying every youth should go into the armed forces and get their leg shot, but your brother has already graduated from the Defense Academy and is now making his father and country proud.... "
    "Are you talking, instead of eating?" Kathleen called
My father began to eat, he didn't pray over his dinner. As I wolfed the jollof rice which was warm now, I heard him mutter audibly.
"...if only he took his studies as serious as food"
That was just the cure to my hunger. I dropped the spoon and stared at my dinner, it didn't look tantalizing to me anymore. I left the dining room, not before catching a glimpse of my father adding my chicken lap to his dinner.

I laid in my room. I remembered today's events, how I had gone to a juice factory with my CV. The Human Resource personnel said they needed someone with a thirty year experience,
..."If only he took his studies as serious as sleeping... " my father sighed audibly enough for me to hear.

Wow!! Shining Ma Teeth Lyk Kolide

Hello. Please, are you ending it here?