As far as Segun knew it was only the idealists and unredeemable idiots that talked about desperate times like it was a bad joke. The only thing of value he'd learnt from living on the the streets, enduring subhuman conditions and bearing the stench of other people's charity was that " you never see both sides of the coin at the same time".
A flip of God's nonchalant you will and a man died today, another flip could get a man much desired wealth and still another flip could make a man a vegetable doomed to the unpleasantness of being helpless.
Segun tossed the coin again, a keepsake from a past he wished to forget but had no hope of forsaking, his past hung over him life a swarm of flies over dung, a warning and a sure sign of what he was, a no-gooder, scum, jailbird and murderer.
The entirety of his fate was God's fault, he reasoned, what did he do to deserve a father who poisoned himself, a mother who ran away from her three hungry children with a man 6 years her junior, and worse still what did he do to deserve holding the corpses of his two sisters, dead from starvation.
Segun tossed the coin again and rubbed his chin in thought, he'd escaped the fate his family suffered by being a god to himself; theft, rape, murder, he'd taken everything in his stride to become something.
Maybe his story could be used by well-meaning parents to scare children to submission, it would be a good thing, he reasoned, he'd have achieved the height of his dreams, recognition and respect through fear.
Segun tossed the coin one more time, glanced at the watch on his wrist and smiled into the darkness, "what a man dreams he becomes, " he muttered under his breath, "may the heavens forgive your transgressions." He tossed the lighter in the stream of quickly evaporating liquid and watched the flames race towards the hospital.
As far as Segun knew, the greatest sin a man could commit was to be born in circumstances better than he had endured with his siblings and this hospital, affordable by only those with obscene amounts of money was the sinner's birthing center.
"May the heavens forgive your transgressions," he muttered again, urging his feet to lead him back to his home in the gutters, behind him the wails of the terrified and the roar of the flames gave a dramatic backdrop to his exit.
