BELIEVER'S INHERITANCE (PART ONE)

Efe whistled his way to work inspite of the harmattan cold. He believed that was the only way to keep himself warm and active despite the biting cold and an empty stomach. He was looking forward to a better day.

Efe was a happy-go young man in his mid-twenties with no formal education but had good command of English language by sheer providence. This gave him an edge over his fellows in his trade of motor mechanic. His fluency seemed to be the attracting force in drawing clients to his workshop which as expected, drew lots of envy from other people in the trade.

Business had been dwindling for Efe in the past few months. The numbers of clients have drastically reduced to his utmost surprise. He failed to fathom the dearth of clients. His inability to get clients expectedly translated into a near- empty pocket for him.

Despite all these, Efe was optimistic things would get better. This did not deter him from being his usual self from greeting and acknowledging greetings from the young and old that cold morning.

Lunch time came, but he could dare not step outside his workshop; he was financially handicapped. The day showed no sign of any goodies; he had no single client in the morning compared to the previous day when a client showed up. He looked at his inactive overall that was hung and he shook his end in pity.

Efe’s stomach began to rumble in protest. The hunger was not helping matters. He had an ego for borrowing; he hated the idea with a very strong passion, but as things stood, he had no option than to go and borrow money which was a big shame for him. He reasoned he must swallow his pride if he wanted to satisfy the hunger that seemed to be eaten his intestines

He approached a woman whose shop was adjacent to his workshop for a ‘soft loan’, but the woman came up with the excuse of having a hard time in her business too. Efe felt dejected. Not totally down in his spirit, he went to two other people who gave him varieties of excuses. The only thing left for him to do was to borrow money from his jealous competitors.

Efe braced himself up to meet his competitors. Initially, he developed cold feet, but the pangs of hunger quickened his steps. He told them about his predicaments, but none bulged. They told him point blank they had no money to borrow ‘an educated motor mechanic’. At the mention of the statement, he felt as if a sharp sword pierced through his heart. As he walked away slowly with head bow, he could feel their soft jeers sticking to the helm of his cloth.

The dejected man was about to enter his workshop, when somebody who had seen what he was subjected to by his competitors called him and gave him money that was enough to take care of his lunch.

Later in the evening, Efe recounted in his mind what transpired during the day. He was angry with himself and cursed the day. He angrily pulled down his overall where it was hung. Out of his   overall’s pocket flew some notes of money. He was extremely shocked! With trembling hands, he picked them and counted the money. Efe could not believe the amount of the money found which could actually feed him three times a day for a whole week.

Yet to recover from his discovery, Efe sat down and began to figure out how the money came about. Slowly and painfully, he recalled a client had given him the money some days back for a job he did for him. He was so angry at himself. If he had known he had such money in his overall pocket, he wouldn’t have been going around begging for peanut.  More angrier was Efe when he remembered the insults and ridicule he was subjected to. Hot tears started cascading down his face.