It was very cold as the harmattan wrapped the morning in a pale veil. A thick fog covered everything as dust hung in the air like powdered chalk, settling on roofs, leaves, and even the ground. I don't care about the weather, though. It has been like this since the beginning of the month, but the morning felt different, full of promises and excitement.
I was walking beside my father who was escorting me to the nearest bus stop. Getting there, we sat on the bench, which was cold enough to sting our buttocks. I shifted, rubbing my palms together, watching as the fog turned a faint shade of grey.
“Today is the day you will finally meet my coach,” I said to my father, who breathed out heavily, and white mist swirled from his lips, which disappeared almost as soon as they appeared.
“ It will be an honor,” he replied, rubbing my shoulder.
“ The bus will come soon,” he concluded.
I nodded my head in acceptance though my teeth chattered lightly as the wind whistled through the empty street, carrying with it the smell of dry leaves and distant firewood smoke. Everything felt quiet, the kind of quietness only a harmattan knows how to create, when even birds hesitated to leave their nests.
I placed my hand on the bag I carried, which kept my boots. I had polished them three times before nightfall, the boots I slept beside like a treasure that I didn't want to lose. Father also noticed my excitement and woke up before dawn to prepare me, although he was tired from the week's work, my joy pushed him forward.
As we sat together at the bus stop.
“Father, do you think Coach and others will like my new dribbling skills?” I asked, bulging my eyes to get a vivid view of him.
Father smiled warmly, “They will like everything about you. You have worked hard, and you deserve this chance,” he concluded as I grinned as the cold morning breeze brushed dust across the empty road. It didn't bother me, my mind was full of imagination about how the stadium looked, the crowds that would be cheering, and the future wearing green and white, although that would be in the future, as this was my first football screening to be held in the city stadium.
A motorcycle’s faint hum echoed somewhere far away, swallowed by the fog before it reached us. I leaned closer to my father, seeking warmth as he put his arm around me, steady and reassuring.
Minutes passed an hour, then another hour. The excitement I felt slowly softened into confusion.
“ Father, maybe the coach is stuck in traffic?” I asked, though hope trembled in my voice.
“ Maybe” Father replied, but his eyes kept searching the empty road.
More buses came and left. People arrived and disappeared as the sun climbed higher.
I kept looking down the road and looking and looking but the coach never came.
Finally, when the shadows grew long and the morning had given up becoming afternoon.
I whispered, “Father, he is not coming, is he?”
Father sighed deeply, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe something happened. Maybe he forgot, but listen”. He knelt so he could look me in the eye. “ A true dream doesn't end because someone else failed you. Today may be lost, but you are not lost”. He concluded with a frown.
I swallowed hard. I tried to smile but it cracked. Tears gathered, shining like small beads in the sunlight, and rolled down my cheek.
Father lifted my bag and held my hand firmly.
“Come”, he said softly. “ Let's go home. Tomorrow, we plan again. If the coach won't help you, we will find another way.”
I nodded slowly as we walked away from the bus stop and left the disappointment behind me like a long shadow.
Father said, “ Now you know that most times, too many expectations usually turn into disappointment.”
“ I kept that on my left hand so I wouldn't eat with it,” I soliloquized, a famous statement used in my local area, illustrating what to be kept for life.
I never asked my coach why he stood my father and me up, although I heard that he and a few players left for the screening that day. Maybe, truly, he forgot. How come he asked me to wait but left his captain on such an occasion? I concluded maybe I had offended him, and maybe not, but all I know is that from that day henceforth I will hope for things to come and will never expect that it will cause me pain again.
