ULOG #2: HOMECOMING OF THE PRODIGAL

I am leaving Abuja real soon and i do not know if it is a right decision or not. I am tired of the loneliness, the silence, the repetitiveness, the emptiness.

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_{Photo by Rex Picker on Unsplash.}

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When I came here last year, it was as a result of a job offer from a blog to write fiction series for what I considered a better pay than what I was earning at the time. Before this opportunity came, I was rolling trollies and carrying deep freezers and 79" android TVs for an electronic shop at a mall in my hometown. I hated my job, I hated my life.

I had just ended a relationship with someone who I considered to be not just someone I cared for but my best friend. She had left me for no good reason. I wanted out of that town badly.

Also, here was a graduate of the University system working as a sales boy, watching young men his age and younger spend money as if spending money was going out of fashion. It was a dangerous sight thing for I was at a place where someone less self willed would think of getting his or her hands dirty.

Did I feel ashamed? At first I did. I could not get myself to raise my head up as I walked and worked along the walkway. But with time, I got used to it and became less bothered about how I looked and more concerned about how to get out of that place.

So when that job offer came from Abuja, I grabbed it like a lifeline. I clung to it with all the desperation of a prisoner getting reprive after years in captivity. I wanted out of Warri so bad that I was willing to go to a city I have never been to, work with a man I had never met face to face and live in a house with total strangers.

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Did it turn out as I had hoped, this miracle job of mine? Well in some ways it was a blessing and in some ways, it was a lesson.

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The blessing was that it made me improve on my fiction writing. This was something which I had little ability in before then. I was made to write and post four episodes every day for six days after which someone else took over.

Each episode was meant to have least 1,500 words and a maximum of 2,000 words. This meant that I was churning out an average of 9000 words every other six days. I did this twice a month on the average which makes it 18000 words a month. Calculate that for a year. That would have made a rather good piece of literature if you ask me.

_{Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash.}

I was also reading up on writing. I found this website which had articles on famous writers and their opinions about the writing craft. I downloaded as much of the web page as I could and read a lot of really good writing too.

I also started taking part in poetry contests, as well as submitting my pieces to online literary journals. I would say I got more traction during this period than I have had before, when it came to acceptance of my attempts at poesy.

Finally, I had left my rowdy friends back home, so I was more focused and I was able to do more creatively, spend more time with my thoughts, try to answer some fundamental questions within and about myself and also evolve my craft.

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The job coming to an end, was the least of the negativity that the job carried. You see we had no rights to what we wrote. Those thousands of words you calculated just now were not mine. The moment I posted them on the blog, they became the property of the blog. The owner basically ran a content farm.

The owner of the blog ran an administrative style that was basically divide and conquer. He made sure that his staff didn't trust each other enough to exchange ideas. It took us a while to realise how well each of us were being used and isolated and this led to our anger. Our anger at our treatment led to everyone of us being asked to leave after we had been paid off what we were owed.

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When that job ended, I had nothing once again, or so I thought. Everyone encouraged me to stay back in Abuja and get another job.

Abuja is the capital of Nigeria, my country, so every bigwig politician, businessman, intellectual, etc wants a part of the pie that is being shared all over. For me, I was just tired.

I was tired of working for people. I had never had a good working experience since I left the university. The problem was that I do not do too well with authority especially when I observe greed, selfishness or the willingness to use people without the willingness to pay what is due them for their services.

I was done with the job hunting thing, so I just sat back, thinking of a way to turn my skills into something that would pay me. I was at a cousin's place for two months and I just stared at the wall. The truth was that I was scared to go back to Warri with nothing, yet I was in Abuja counting my toes.

_{Photo by Eva Darron on Unsplash.}

So in December, I grew some balls, packed my bags and went back home to my parents. I stayed just a week before I joined steemit and I have not looked back since then.

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Weirdly, while in Warri, writing and posting on steemit, the fear of missing out started to eat into me. I felt like there was something great in Abuja that I needed to be a part of. So I convinced myself with the help of my parents who did not want me in Warri, to go back to Abuja.

My friends, I have been in Abuja for five months and I am no different from when I came. I still feed off my steemit post payout. I still detest working for people who do not want to pay the value of my labour, I still isolate myself. So why did I come here? Why did I return?

Maybe I wanted to be free of the little matters that crop up now and then back home. Maybe I was tired of hearing my friends moan about how difficult things are. Maybe I was tired of watching my family try to make ends meet. Maybe I just wanted to be left alone. Well myself imposed exile is over.

I am going back to Warri, hopefully a better person, better equipped to deal with the difficulties that would come. I hope that this time, I will be doing something tangible to make my environment more comfortable so i won't see a need to escape.

I don't know what will happen over there. I want to believe that I will achieve my dreams in that abandoned and disillusioned town. I want to believe that the raw materials for greatness are there, hidden underneath the mulch, detritus and oily smoke that bathes her skies.

I am going back home with nothing but hope and steemit. Will it be enough to save my world? I don't know but i have to try, right? I can't keep on running away forever.

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Fin

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Peace,

©warpedpoetic, 2018.