chrisk.art.blog

I do not know what felony we had committed against the sun. It seemed it had conspired with hunger against us on that fateful afternoon. Amidst the wailing of the intestines in our bellies, we were caught up in the strong shine of the sun. We were so famished so much that we needed anything edible to survive. It looked liked our very end was come. We looked every where hoping to chance on crumbs to keep alive. Home was still far away, we needed something to survive the moments. However, everywhere we turned ended in hopelessness.

Can I even say we were fortunate? We discovered, from afar, a mango tree which had fruits on it, ripe and raw alike but that was not our preoccupation; we just needed something to survive.

We ran to the place. And indeed there was enough mango fruits up there that could quench the raw hunger that was wringing us out.

 The tree was so tall that stone throw up to plug any mango was an exercise that was fruitless and so, it did not count as an option to consider. We attempted to climb but there were no branches that we could hold on to facilitate us to climb. It was just herculean. None of us were able to go up there upon several attempts.

We saw mango peels falling from the trees; someone had arrived there earlier and had been able to climb. But how did he do that? Never did we ask ourselves. What however came to mind was to ask him to drop down some mangoes. He did it but sparingly, one drop at a time.

It so happened that one of us tried again climbing but midway into the process, the rest of us gathered and pulled him down. Then tried ourselves to climb. This repeated itself for a long time and no one was able to climb successfully. It was very chaotic.

 From time to time, the man up there would try and drop one and we all rushed and pounced it until it got smashed. Empty we would be left standing yet would not allow one of us that opportunity or even assisted the person to climb. We scuttled every attempt yet insisted the man must keep dropping the mangoes and when he delayed, we pelted personal invectives at him, cursed him for his reluctance to get us out of the predicament that we were cocooned in.

The man became tired. He could not satisfy himself too. And then he decided to give up, he came  down and left us there. We stood there, quarrelled and pointed fingers at each other for being the cause of our precarious situation. We did not spare the man of our blames. For us, he refused to feed us when he swam in the pool food.

As illustrated in the foregoing, this is a norm,  though worrying, in our lives. This is the character and attitudes of many of us. We thirst for light but are apprehensive of the shine of the sun in the day and when it is night, we pray the moon do not show.

We are all keen, struggling, striving and fighting hard to fend off poverty and deprivation, and to achieve something for us. Every time we wake we wrestle against adversities: lack and destitution. And yet we become peeved and envious at anyone who makes a move that has a significant positive change in their lives, even ours.

While we host so much bitterness and ill-feeling about those who have achieved in life and sometimes go to the extent of scuttling them, as seen in the scenario thus portrayed, we still go to those people, whose success does not excite anyway, for help when we are in critical situations. We do not get enthused on the success of others yet we expect to succeed at what we do. We so much adore light but detest the shine of the sun.

Imagine we those under the mango tree assisted each by pushing one after the other to climb! We would have had enough to eat.

But such is the paradox of life.