02/08/2023
I pushed my friend, Ola, down from the balcony.
It wasn't a mistake; it was intentionally done by me.
We were playing with my ball, and he was winning.
His wins made me angry, so when the ball he mistakenly threw hit my stomach hard, I got vexed and retaliated by dashing towards him and then pushing him backwards, causing him to fall from the balcony.
Ola landed on the wet ground with a soft thud!
And for minutes, he didn't get up.
It was then that I became aware of what I had done, of the consequences of my actions.
I ran down the stairs, swung the door open and rushed outside to check up on him.
"I'm so sorry," I said, my eyes dancing around his body, subtly checking for injuries.
Ola didn't respond.
"Ola, I'm sorry," I repeated, then I tried to help him up from the ground, but he snatched his hand away.
"You always do that," Ola said. "You always do something bad to me whenever we play, especially when I'm winning."
And that was true. I didn't have the spirit of sportsmanship. I'd laugh, jeer and mock Ola whenever I win in a game, but he if win, I'd seethe in jealousy which would eventually lead to a fight between us.
"I'm sorry," I confessed. "I won't do it again."
"I know you won't because I'm never coming back to play with you again. I know that even after apologizing, you'd still do that again," Ola said as he heaved himself from the ground.
After dusting the mud and sand from his clothes, he turned and left through the small gate in our backyard.
Sad and guilt stricken, I sat on our stairs to reflect on my actions. I knew that day would probably be my last day of seeing Ola, but I still hoped that he would return again after that, but the look of indignation and resignation in his eyes said he was done with me.
I think I might have overdone it this time, and Ola would never forgive me, and he would not come to play with me again.
I was still sitting on the stairs when my mother returned in the evening.
Immediately she saw my face, she knew that something must have happened while she was away.
"What is it, Korede?" my mother asked.
"Nothing," I lied, though tears were starting to well up in my eyes.
"Tell me, my son. What is it?" my mother asked again?"
"It's about my friend, Ola," I confessed.
"I've told you to stop playing," my mother said. "I told you to stop saying that."
"No, mother," I cried. "Ola was just here a few minutes before you arrived. And I pushed him down from the balcony."
Hearing this, my mother's face became distorted in anger. It was the angriest I've ever seen her.
"Go to to your room, Korede!" my mother yelled. "And don't come down till I tell you to. I've told you to stop this kind play of yours."
I went up to my room, and I slinked under the blanket on my bed. I closed my eyes as tears began to roll down my face.
For hours, I cried my heart out in the room. And even when my mother came to tell me to come down to eat, I refused. I just wanted to be alone. Eventually, I dozed off to sleep.
The next day, after I got back from school, I waited for Ola to come, but he didn't. The next day, I waited for him to come again, but I didn't see him.
I would have gone to his house to apologize and play with him if only I knew where he lived. He had given me directions before, but I've never bothered to check as he often came to see me.
That week and the next, I waited for Ola, but he never came. A month and two passed, but Ola never came to see me again. I eventually gave up waiting for him. I knew he would never come back. The thing I did to him that day was enough to end any friendship. I imagined his mother telling him not to see me as I was a bad friend.
Eventually, we moved out of that neighborhood to a better neighborhood in the city.
I got into a new school, and I met many people, and made new friends. And as I grew, I gradually forgot about my best friend, Ola.
All of these happened many years ago, maybe twelve years or more. And by now, I am seventeen.
Just last month, my mother forced me to rearrange my dirty room. She asked me to clean, wash, sweep and dust everything since we would be expecting visitors the next day.
I was still cleaning things when I stumbled upon an unopened box of mine. It was from our former house, and it contained a lot of my stuff from my other school. I never opened the box since I changed school and didn't need them. But seeing the box again made me nostalgic, so I slowly opened it.
The inside of the box was filled with books, novels, report cards, playthings and uniforms from my other school.
I grabbed some of the books and began to go though them.
Ten minutes standing there, I picked another book, and as I flipped through it, I saw an essay I had written about my best friend years ago while I was in nursery school.
We were asked to write about our best friends, and in the essay, I wrote about Ola.
As I read through the text, the fond memories I shared with Ola came back.
I remembered how Ola and I played hide and seek in the backyard though he was five years older than me. I remembered us playing soccer and dancing in the rain.
But most importantly, I remembered the fight that we had the last time I saw him, and how I pushed him down. The fight that broke our friendship.
I wished, as I browsed through the book, that I would see Ola again, to know how far he has grown and who he has become.
I took the book downstairs to meet my mother. I wanted to share this memory with her. I wanted to talk and reminisce about my old friend with her.
My mother was frying some chicken in the kitchen in preparation for our guests.
"Mom," I said as I entered the kitchen.
"Yes," my mother answered, smiling at me.
I stretched out my hand to show the book to her, "Do you remember my friend, Ola? I wonder where he is now."
My mother's face paled, going white completely. Slowly, she turned off the gas, then she walked towards me.
"Sit," she said, and I sat in the stool in the kitchen.
"You never had a friend called Ola," my mother said.
I laughed because clearly she must be joking.
"Mom, I had a friend called Ola. I'm sure," I commented.
"No, you didn't," my mother said, and when she saw I was going to argue again, she said, "wait, let me explain"
And that she did.
Apparently, I never had a friend called Ola.
My mother said before I was born, I had a five-year-old brother called 'Ola'. She said that Ola dièd barely a year before I was born and he was buried in the cemetery at the back of our former backyard.
My mother said the first time I told her about my friend, Ola, and then went on to describe him, it got her scared, but she thought it was just a coincidence. She thought I just made up a friend in my mind, and the name given to that friend matched with my late brother's name.
It was then that it dawned on me that though Ola had told me many times that he was five years older than I was, the two of us where of the same height and stature since I was about five myself then. Since he was five years older, he should had been taller and more grown, but because he dîed at that age, his spirit remained that size. I never thought about all of these then. I was too young to.
It was then that I also remembered that Ola and I looked alike, almost similar.
I understood then why he never stayed long enough to meet my mother.
I understood why he never took me to his own house.
I realized why he came and left through the gate in our backyard for the gate led to the cemetery behind our house; the same cemetery he was buried in. And he came from there and returned there.
And the next words that came from my mother's mouth made me understand why Ola was so angry that day that he never returned to play with me again.
"Your late brother, Ola, died because he slipped from the balcony and broke his neck when he landed on the hard ground below," my mother said.
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©️ Desmond Ben
