Photo By Sue Carroll on Unsplash
Life and time, for me, are the two things that wait for no one even themselves. Although, one could say one is a subset of the other. In these two things, much water has gone under the bridge. Many things we never told her parents as kids even while we have grown up. One of such is the real-life story I am about to narrate here.
As a child, we were always prone to be disobedient, going exactly to a place we have been vehemently warned not to visit. Some years ago, it was during the rainy season and most times my parents always warned me not to play in the rain, if you outside find a place to hide till it stops, and so on. During that time, I think we were on vacation from school activities so all the kids in my area were home. And most of us were not ajebotas. We would always come out to play till hunger holds us tight, we go in to get some food and then come back to resume the play.
The ajebotas were the typical kids with rich parents.
On this fateful day, the rain had chased us all in as the clouds were changing to the “darkness looms” kind of thing. Our parents or guardians as the case may be had done their part in getting their wards in and seemingly safe. The same applies to me too. The rain came heavily as if it were going to break the grounds open, and hit the roofing sheets as if they had had an issue before. You know, this time is when you would rush to the bed and just find maybe a pillow to cling to - not like the one nowadays.😉
No sooner had the downpour stopped than we the kid gathered outside again but fully included in our cardigans – this was what we called it then – and resumed our play. Some were gathering the wet soil to build mud houses, some constructed paper boats to set sail in the running waters in the gutters, etc. And of course, I was part of the boat group😎. The gutters here were the main thing. Our area was not some kind of low land but the speed of the water was obviously higher due to the heavy downpour.
The thing is we have been doing it for years. Well, maybe not as long as I may sound but still years. So it is safe to say we have been accustomed to the modus operandi. But somehow things got sour when one of us in charge of placing the paper boat in the running water miscalculated his steps and fell into the high-speed running water. Suddenly, I remember, we all looked at one another, unaware of what was going on as the guy was already been transported to God-knows-where by the water. And also because it had never happened before.
We looked and saw a young man who was a passer-by and had seen the scenario shouting at us to move away from the water. He then ran alongside the water too, I guess, where the water was going to pass before the boy got there. I said "I guess' because I could no longer see the boy, only this man running like something bit him. At this point, I ran inside and muttered some things to my brothers because I could not even move near my mum. Somehow, my brothers understood and followed me to the site of our play. By the time we go there a little crowd had pulled up and I was seeing some fingers being pointed at some of us as if we were some sort of criminals.
Well, good news! The boy was rescued by that young man. Then, it didn’t sound like something much until I grew older when I got to know that the gutter led to a big river that leads to a big canal. And that canal was like serving the whole city!
The young man was someone I became close with as I grew older because he lived for quite a long time before he got married and had to settle somewhere else. Once in a while, when I see the boy - a grown man now - that was rescued, I do taunt him that if not for Uncle Lifesaver you won’t be here! 🤣
This is my entry for the Hive Learners week 14 edition 1 which you can check out here.