Chance?

The driver revved the engine. Once. Twice. Then, pretended as if he was about moving off. It was all bluff. Drivers did it to prevent passengers already in the bus from getting too impatient and to make passengers yet to board to hurry up. The “conductor” screamed out stops on the route calling out to passengers to board. “Enter with your ‘change’ oo!!!” was a constant refrain in his calling out chorus. Passengers trickled in.

It was not rush hour this Saturday evening and driver and conductor were in concerted agreement that they’d only move forward when the bus filled up. Two passengers had noted that they had already spent too much time at one spot with the second one advising the driver to move as the bus stood a better chance getting filled up in the junctions up the road. It fell on deaf ears. Yet, all these passed unnoticed to the man seated directly behind the driver.

He was perfectly oblivious of the revving, the conductor’s screaming, the slow-filling up of the bus, nor did he even hear the other passengers’ complaints.

When he’d entered the bus as the first passenger in the “next turn”, the driver was not on seat. He’d picked his most preferred spot next to the window and had proceeded to savour the delicacy of bolle1 with peppered “stew” he’d bought just before he got to the boarding junction. He’d just spent the Saturday at his grandma’s shop downtown as he often did every Sanitation Day. He’d made it his duty, regardless of the countless times she’d prevailed on him not to bother, to keep the area around the small soft-drinks-shop clean. The rainy season had encouraged stubborn weeds to bloom about the area and some neighbouring residents had almost converted a spot on the end of the close to a dumpster.

It’d been gruelling but he always felt rewarded with the sight of how clean the place looked every time he was done. The phone call of gratitude on Mondays when his grannie got to the shop always lifted his spirits. He never was able to keep count of all the “Amens” he said during these calls in response to her prayers. He felt himself smile. Yes, it always felt good to do this. He’d silently prayed over his lunch (at a few minutes to 4pm) and taken a bite off his first bolle when the first passengers after him began to board the bus. He always enjoyed bolle and the pepper added something extra to this one. He knew it’d be until Sunday afternoon before he’d cook again. With this, there’d be no need to enter the kitchen when he got home. He finished the first one and at his first bite of the second one, he noticed the driver enter the bus.

How long he’d switched off from his environment, he couldn’t tell. The conductor’s calling out the penultimate bus stop to his jerked him from his reverie. He could only thank his stars. It was better imagined his reaction if he’d gone past his stop with his eyes wide shut. When he alighted, he felt his steps drag as he walked slowly towards his humble abode. At a point, he stopped. From the moment when he finished his bolle, he’d confronted fully his unemployed status. Enough was enough. He literally had to put his foot down. He’d take up his grandma’s offer and go manage that shop. It’d give him something to do until a job offer was available. If at all. But, more than anything, it’d mean he’d begin to earn something, however little.

As be began to conjure plans he could apply to turn around the shop into something more profitable, he began to feel his spirits lift. For the first time since his eyes fell on something familiar on the paper used to wrap the two small bolle he’d bought, he smiled. Life wasn’t all that bad, after all, he said to himself. Looking at the paper one more time to be sure he’d seen what he’d seen, he squeezed it into a ball and flung it right-handed into the bushy area on the left-hand side of the road to his house.

It was a copy of his CV.

1. 

bolle refers to a locally roasted ripe plantain