By: The Observer
All his life, he had lived in the shadow of his friends and relatives, and over time he became a nuisance to them. People saw him coming and found reasons to be busy. They were sure he had come to ask for help, and most times they were right. Now and then he worked in their gardens or scrubbed their compounds until everything shone, hoping that would count for something.
Then one day he’d had enough. He thought about the friends he had grown up with, the ones who had struggled beside him until National Service, when something changed. Their wardrobes got better. They started showing up in places only rich people went. He decided to find out how.
At first, they brushed him off. But when they saw how badly he wanted it and how eager he was to learn to fish rather than be fed, they caved and told him everything: what they did and how much a single trip cost. They worked as escorts and did other things they would never have agreed to before. He swallowed his pride and said yes.
They introduced him to the clique, and his first assignment came quickly. He was to accompany a business mogul on a trip and pose as her son. The money was too big to refuse. After three trips, he had gotten the hang of it, and he wanted more.
Within a few years, he was rich. He smiled easily in those days, but it did not last. He fell ill, and the diagnosis was an incurable virus already in its final stage. He went to his friends, shaking with anger. He wished he had been more careful. He wished he had let life unfold at its own pace instead of running ahead of his own shadow.
But the illness was not even the worst part. The worst part was learning that everything he owned had only ever been on loan, given to him so that his clients could rise. The day he stopped serving, it would all be taken back, and no one would warn him. It worked like a cult: you gained as long as you stayed and kept your clients happy. Now nobody would hire him. The wealthy members knew his condition, and none of them would take the risk. Slowly, everything slipped away.
He had lost his youth, and all that life might have held for him. He regretted ever renting out his love for money that could not buy him life.
Hmm life is a great struggle