The future that never arrived

Tomorrow Will Be Better,
Emeka had mastered the art of postponing happiness.

Not intentionally. Life had simply taught him that survival came first.

At twenty-five after graduation he believed suffering was temporary.

At twenty-eight, he still believed it. By thirty-two, the sentence “Tomorrow will be better” had become less of a hope and more of a survival ritual he whispered to himself every night.

Tomorrow will be better!

He said it when he kept skipping meals so that his younger sister could stay in school. He said it when he lost his first ever job after the company restructured.

He said it while standing under the rain at a crowded bus stop in Lagos. His shoes got soaked, his stomach was empty, his mind heavy with responsibilities that never seemed to end.

Every phase of Emeka's life came with another burden waiting at the door.

When he finally got a better-paying job, his mother fell sick. And immediately his mother recovered, the rent increased.

When the rent bill was stabilized, his best friend moved abroad and immediately every conversation became a reminder that everyone else seemed to be moving forward except him.

Yet, Emeka kept telling himself: “ be patient, endure a little more. Because Tomorrow will be better.”

The dangerous thing about survival mode was that it could quietly consume the whole entity of a person without permission.

Years passed..

He stopped drawing even though he loved art. He stopped playing football on weekends. Stopped resting without guilt. Even laughter started sounding expensive.

One Tuesday evening, after another day of exhaustion at work, Emeka entered a bus home.

Traffic kept him on the road as always l. Horns blared endlessly. Hawkers were moving between vehicles selling gala, plantain chips, bottled drinks and water.

Tired and frustrated, he got down two bus stops before his usual stop so to walk the remaining distance home.
That was when he noticed the woman.

She stood beside a small roadside food stand under a weak yellow bulb, frying akara in hot oil while chatting happily with customers.

Her wrapper was faded. Her stall was tiny. Nothing about her life looked easy.

Yet she laughed deeply. Freely.
Not the forced laughter people used to survive social media. But real laughter.

As Emeka bought akara from her, she noticed the heaviness on his face immediately.

“Young man,” she said, smiling, “why do you look like someone carrying Lagos on his head?”

He forced a weak laugh. “Life.”
“Ahn,” she nodded. “Life will always act like life.”

Something about her response annoyed him.

Easy for her to say.
He almost walked away, but somehow he stayed.

Maybe because nobody had asked if he was okay for a long time.

“I just thought things would be different by now,” he admitted quietly. “I keep working. I keep trying. But life just keeps getting heavier.”

The woman turned the akara carefully before speaking..

“My husband used to say the same thing,” she said. “Every year he waited for life to finally begin. He kept saying tomorrow would be better.”

She paused...

“One day he died while waiting."

The words landed heavily inside him.

Not because they were dramatic. But because they were true.
She handed him the Akara and continued softly.

“You people think happiness is something waiting for you in the future. Bigger house. Better job. More money. But if you don’t learn to breathe inside today’s problems, you may never rest.”

Emeka stared at her silently.
For the first time in years, he realized he had spent his entire life preparing to live instead of actually living.

Every joy had become conditional. Every rest needed to be earned. Every dream was postponed.

He had survived for so long that he forgot he was a human being, not a machine.

That night, he got home and sat in darkness for a while without touching his phone.

Then slowly, he brought out an old sketchbook buried inside his drawer.

Dust covered the edges.

He opened it carefully.

The first drawing inside was from eight years ago.

For the first time in a very long while, Emeka cried.

Not because life suddenly became easier. But because he finally understood how much of himself he had abandoned while chasing a future that never arrived.

The next morning, life remained the same.

The rent was still due. His salary was still small. Traffic still waited outside.

But something inside him had shifted.

On his way home from work that evening, he bought bread, made tea, and sat outside his apartment watching the sunset for the first time in years.

And strangely enough, for a brief moment, life did not feel like something he needed to escape from anymore.

Rather he had learnt his lessons, that it is when you're alive that you can carry the heavy weight that life throws at you.

Image generated using my prompt on AI chatgpt