Akinmoyeje, Timileyin Precious lives in Ile-Oluji, Ondo. This story was slightly edited for grammatical accuracy and to better serve TGF readers. The originality of the story is 100% intact. - TYWA 2020
It was just another Monday morning. Well, maybe it wasn't just another; this one felt different from the usual. I could sense something strange about the atmosphere.
It was 5:00 AM. The bells of the cathedral had started tolling as usual. That day, they were passing a different message; a solemn one, a message that only I was yet to decipher.
Even the wind echoed it slowly, deliberately, as though it were reiterating the solemnity of the bells’ tolls. I stood at the half broken mirror - a Monday morning ritual - to brush my teeth and make out what the morning was about.
I drifted into thoughts; memories of recent years slowly became visible on the mirror: my near death experience when the news of my father's death reached me, how I almost failed an examination, how I had to do menial jobs to pay for an admission exam, and how I failed this same examination.
How unbearable it was to watch my mother during my father's burial, the constant mood swings when I try to figure out my purpose. The troubles, distress...
"Jide, it's time; let's go," Mother's voice cut in.
Her voice seemed to have shattered the images projected on the mirror. I quickly rushed through the morning usuals, stepped out into the morning chill and took my usual seat beside my mum at the front seat of her decade-old Golf car.
Since the holiday started, I had had to follow her to her place of work. She owned a laundry business at the outskirts of the town. I particularly never liked the journey, especially because of the condition of the path that led to her laundry house. It usually is a battle of enduring pain while navigating bumps, avoiding collision with incoming vehicles, and hits from vehicles behind.
I had become so familiar with the road; I knew how and where to watch out for bumps and avoid death traps, especially by looking through side mirrors. Looking through the side mirrors again that day, it struck me; the deadly-looking bumps I saw through the windshield were the ones I now saw in the side mirror - behind me.
My troubles, problems — they are now images, memories to be reflected on. I realized, once, that if I do not stop moving, insurmountable circumstances eventually become things of the past, reflections in the side mirror of life.