Friends

It’s funny how random things can jog up random memories of our past and then those random memories ends up metamorphosing into some really deep thoughts.

Earlier today I decided to go visit a friend at his place and while I was on my way there, my hand mistakenly hit a parked vehicle, leaving a tiny little dent on the car and immediately I had a flashback about something that happened to me some many years ago.

It was during one evening, my mom had asked me to go buy some kerosene for her at the filling station and I had taken a friends bicycle with me. The journey wasn’t a far one but the bike was available and there was no way I was going to go on foot when it was just laying there, doing nothing.

On getting to the filling station, I got the kerosene and got on my bike to drive back home and that was when I scratched a car with it. The place was a car showroom and I had tried to maneuver my bike in other to pass through but unfortunately I wasn’t skilled enough.

The scratch was a tiny one but the man in charge decided to make it a big deal or at least, that was how he made me feel. He seized my bike and said my dad would have to come repaint the car before he would let me go, that was when I allowed all the rivers I had in me to pour out my eyes. I pleaded with this man in English, pidgin English and every other language I could remember yet he refused.

It was during that time that I saw a friend of mine who I had later discovered had come to look for me at the filling station after my mom told him that she sent me to go get some kerosene. He was walking towards me when he noticed I was kneeling and begging someone and that was when he immediately diverted and started heading towards another direction. But you see, it was already too late for him. The man already saw him and called him before asking if he was my friend.

We both answered at the same time and our answers which I thought would be the same were two different things. I had said yes and he had said no. The man must have known that he was lying because he asked him to join me in my kneeling position and beg. After sometime, he finally gave me my bike and asked us to leave (he obviously was using us to entertain himself and his friends).

Now that I think of the whole thing, that dude actually looked me in the eyes and denied me. Imagine how I would have felt if that was some important real life situation, I would have been heart broken. I thought he was a good friend but one tiny situation revealed that he would dumb me at the slightest sight of trouble.

_{Photo by Chang Duong}