THE THING WITHIN A CIRCLE BY JOSEPH-SAM SARAH. (EPISODE 2)

THE THING WITHIN A CIRCLE. ( A short story).
  EPISODE TWO
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 The drizzling music from the rain brought a comforting happiness as you sat watching the flat screened television hung on the blue coloured wall. You were buoyed by your own resolve.

It was Saturday, a day you rest after a long tiresome week days anticipating the usual dinner visitor, the neighbour's spoilt eighteen years old son, Tobun. A mate of your sister, she taught at a primary school adjacent the house, the four bedroom duplexes. His singled mother was a nurse in the private model clinic, her duty calls occupies the whole day of Saturdays.



 Not minding the husky hum from the kitchen, you focused at the screen with an uninteresting interest of boredom, your weight pressing down the soft cushion.
Your mother was stout and fleshy, her round face so smooth like an egg and her natural hair kinky and thick as the root of a pine. Her appearance controls the attitude of salivating views of men and shuns the beauty of fine women. The neighbour was no exceptional, longing to have that rare smooth ebony skin. Your sister was said to look like your father, a slim man with an oval face and a perfect nose of a female model, he was nicknamed "miss oche" by his friends.  His mother was modelling for a small company's magazine at Ikeja when he was a teenager until he became the breadwinner of himself. His civil ambition had brought him to the small town of Epe where he had met your mother, the principal of the community grammar school and your father, a clinical practitioner, the physiotherapist. Your dad was an Idoma while your mother, a Yoruba.

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It had been six years since he passed away, his picture stood glued to the sitting room wall and you always felt he had just travelled indefinitely and would one day voice out loudly, echoing through the half furnished parlour, ' I am home Ene' or 'Who does the magic today?'. But you were obviously lying to the truth. Your dad had been buried at the private cemetery where you stood eating the egg sauce and bread patted on the head by uncle Biodun, your mother's brother. He had simply said; 'Your dad went home', and you knew it was not the duplex home at odo-mola. You had scarily witnessed his death, he was shot the day the house was robbed.

 A knock at the door invaded your thoughts. Your legs felt heavy but you walked anyway.........

*****************To Be Continued.