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LEONARD ONYEBUCHI OPHOKE

Love dies to live again

Kampala, Uganda

Author, Novelist and A Poet. The beauty of my heart is its ability to love everyone just like myself and creating quality writing and reading is the last thing I can stop doing.

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You Again?

Sep 25, 2020 3 years ago

January 2020 just after the New Year celebration, Donald came back from London with a lot of gifts for the community. Some of the packages were clothes, shoes, and smartphones. The wife, Maima, was not at peace with it and she said, "How could you do that? Are you Father Christmas? Even Father Christmas doesn't share gifts in January." In reply, "I am blessed and what I came home with are just a few things. There is no need to be stingy when you are already blessed." In anger, she aired, "I cannot sit down here and watch you share everything without anything left for me and my children." As Maima was still boiling her head over the packages, there came a young man called Damian, who has not received anything but he heard that Donald has just returned from London and he came rushing to receive his share as it's always done by Donald every year he comes back to celebrate the new year in the village. It was unfortunate to hear that everything has been given out. On seeing Damian, Maima started again, "what have you come to do here? You always flood peoples home as if you had given them anything to keep for you. As if that wasn't enough she added, "If you know what is good for you; at the count of five, make sure you would have turned your face towards where your back is facing and go back to wherever you came from." Donald heard her and came out. He found that the wife has been harsh on the young man and said, "it is enough my dear, let him be. Young man, I am sorry for the embarrassment. Kindly come tomorrow he pleaded; I will be going to the city market to get more gifts. I will reserve better ones for you specifically. Damian replied politely, "it is all right sir; I am grateful." The next morning, Donald prepared for the shopping but the wife refused to go with him. "I am not going with you unless you promise me that you are not going to buy anything for anyone in this community again. They are just opportunists and what you have given to them is enough already." "My dear, leave that for me to worry about it." "I cannot leave you alone because they have never participated in anything about your progress most especially when you were toiling to become who you are today. Now, they have come to reap from where they have not planted." Donald eschewed her and after some time said, "why do you hate giving others a second chance to learn from their past and brighten their future? He added on, "What does it profit you to eat alone while others are starving and you throw food to dogs and cats? I am surprised you have forgotten so soon where we came from but nature granted us a second chance. More instances if you don't remember how you were thrown out of the office and later on was called to the office to work again. I can recall vividly how you were moving around doing good deeds and praying for what you did. Fortunately, you got your job back. Afterwards, you quit and turned into something I don't know." Maima went into the bedroom; sat on the bed and wept bitterly. For some time, the husband stood aloof and watched her cry. Finally, he went closer and comforted her. Then, she said; "I was just been carried away by the ego of where I have reached forgetting that I was as well given a second chance to work regardless of the heinous offences that would have taken me into life imprisonment. She furthers, "I shall be the one to get a precious gift for that young man I embarrassed yesterday. He deserves a second chance and besides, it must be something so costlier to make amends with him." After the discussion, they went to the market together. They spent a few hours than expected at the market and they came. Behold, Damian was already in the compound waiting for their arrival. When he noticed that Donald was with his wife, he trembled but Maima came out of the car and told him, "Be calm! I can feel your fear." "Do you mean it?" Damian retorted. "Come on! You have won favour from us," Maima replied. "No, I don't believe this; after all the…" "Calm down, my dear. You deserve a second chance. I remembered a saying that, 'he who feeds others with pebbles should expect rocks in return.' For this reason, we have decided to offer you valuables instead." After handing the gifts to Damian, she asked again, "what do you do for a living?" Damian replied, "I am just an orphan and a primary school dropout. I have nothing doing at a serious moment." For this reason, "I and my wife will take you to stay with us and be part of the household. You will be assisting us as a housekeeper." On hearing this, Damian exclaimed, "this is an unimaginable turn of fate. Let me go and inform my friend whom I'm living with." Donald and Maima continued to look at him as he runs home dancing in elated style. As if the world has become a bed of roses for Damian, on April 17th, 2020, Donald and Maima were swept away by Covid-19 pandemic and that's how Damian's future remained in limbo.

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It ends in me

Sep 01, 2020 3 years ago

Good afternoon. I can see all your ears are waiting eagerly to hear what you've never heard and see whom you've never seen. It's unfortunate to disappoint you to stop expecting another because he's already here speaking to you. Yeah, I am who I am. I hope you listen attentively to today's edition with meditative heart because you will never be the same again. I didn't know what pride can do until I saw true colours of hunger; a situation I was the only actor in the play. No one told me to take a step and seek for the solution. No one knows how painful it is sleeping on empty stomach while I was once having four to five meals daily. Sad as it may, but wait as I give you categories of pain in sequence. I hope you are not in a hurry because the real dance is yet to begin. With due respect ladies and gentlemen, the affluent show off in the supermarket ended just in two weeks of lockdown. A thought came after an afternoon without lunch almost in the web of depression, “Bringing the best out of this situation, lies in your power of creating another you.” Is this possible? I asked myself. How can I create another me? March 20th, 2020 till date has been an interesting moment that will never be effaced in the memory of my existence. Coronavirus lockdown started as if it is a few days issue until I was told to stop working due to the presidential directives. Keeping all things constant, I spent my whole day thinking and anticipating for a better tomorrow which is yet to come. Survival became the option not development anymore. Three square meal turned into two; strategically, between 10 am, breakfast and early supper at 5 pm. Although, it was so, I was hopeful because some do have a meal while others have none through the day and they were hopeful too. Categorically, I shoulder-off my pride; picked my hoe where I had hid it and went to my farm. Recalling the words of my late father, Dad Luke, “when a man forgets his true self and live the other, that man certainly will have no destination.” These knocked off my pride of white-collar job to digging the garden which was the childhood experience I never liked but now the pandemic of Coronavirus have shaped my thinking faculties. What about you? Currently, my farm has fattened my pocket and as well restocked my hope of eating three times a day. This realisation created for me a job that I will never quit doing; seeing my berries flowering, the tomatoes and lettuce in their harvesting stage, I heave a sigh of relief. An applauds for me, please! Calm down for a while please; there is a token for you before the break. Uum!!! What is your take on this today? Do you still consider agriculture as work for failures or a way forward towards keeping our society sustained? Just think about it. Work with me; we shall say goodbye to hunger.

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