When I was given Crop Science to study in the university, the only reason I accepted the admission—though it was never my dream course—was because my parents were farmers. And they had wanted me to gain a good education before coming back to improve the family business. I had groaned and complained that time, murmuring that I wanted to be a sketch artist.

But when you have people who had sacrificed everything they had to see you become somebody in the future, studying their course of choice would be the least way you can say “Thank you.” And that was exactly the reason I accepted the admission, they were my world.

Some critics might say that you shouldn’t sacrifice your dreams for your parents’, but without them, where would I be? I remember when I got out of secondary school, many of my fathers friends in the village had advised him not to allow me go to the university.

“Let him work on the farms like his father and forefathers,” one had said, during a meeting I attended with my father.

“Onyemaechi,” another called to my father, “the state of the economy of this country is bad as it is, not to talk of sending a fully grown man away to study.”

“Doesn’t this their education ever end?” That was my uncle. He had given birth to six girls, and despite pleas from all and sundry, was adamant in sending them to school.

“Since my wife deemed it fit to give me only female children, I’ll just wait for them to be ripe, then I’ll marry them off. The money would be useful in acquiring more farmlands,” he would say. He was a misogynist of the highest order. Though I am a boy, I usually get pissed off whenever he makes such annoying comments.

But in all these opinions about my future, my father would always say, “Afamefuna my son will go to the university. That is what I want for him.” It always warmed my heart to hear such words coming from him. It filled me with inexplicable confidence, and hope.

So you see, there was no way I could have refused to study Crop Science. At least I could make some improvements in the farms. Who knows, maybe I could even find a way to integrate my dreams with theirs.

All these thoughts coursed through my mind as I collected my NYSC certificate, I was finally done with school and serving the fatherland. I flagged down a bike, and gave him directions to the place where I was to have drinks with my friends; it was a joyous occasion for us, also a period to see one another for, perhaps, the final time.

As I dropped at the restaurant, the boisterous faces of my guys immediately lifted my spirits, and thoughts of what I would do with my life were relegated to the back of my mind. I shook hands with them, and we got talking. As we talked, one of us, Bassey, kept us laughing with anecdotes about his experiences at the school where he was posted.

Around 4pm, the normal NTA evening broadcast commenced. I would not have given a second glance to the news, had it not been for the second headline. There was another one of the now-rampant attacks of the Fulani herdsmen; this one occurred at Ebonyi State, and that was what got me worried. The attacks happened in my home state.

Read more ➡️ https://www.thezenpens.com/2019/01/25/petals-in-blood-a-flash-fiction-by-somtoochukwu-benedict-ezioha/

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