There is an old man with a frail figure who lives on my street. I long to know how much he knows about life but with his piercing eyes, I feel he can read even my thoughts. I am scared and will dare not go near him or I will feel more naked.
I see him sit on the same old chair when going to school, when coming back, when going to buy lunch in the stall close to the market-he has his gaze fixed on the dusty road and wears an unflinching long gaze. He seem not to leave the spot.
I was told he knows lots about the slave trade, the second world war, Lord Lugard and the colonial rule. He was a soldier, who fought several wars, this attracted me to him and at the same time made him far from my reach.
I saw him walk to the back of his house, one day. The first time I would see him leave his porch. He was swinging his walking stick, with his other hand spread as if wanting to touch a thing only him can see-how mysterious.
And it happened one afternoon, I was bored sitting at home. The image of the old man crawled into my thought. I picture him sitting on his chair in his porch, wearing the usual unflinching gaze at the dusty road and almost deaf to the noise of vehicles and blare of car horns. I thought about what it would feel like listening to his words.
Then, I stood up, took with me a jotter and pen and walked out of the house towards the old man’s home. Though scared of getting there and wanting to say the right things the right way and not knowing what the right things are.
Scared of his ability to read minds, which I guessed. I warned myself to think only about the right things or nothing. Even though I know not what the right things are.
There he is, staring down the dusty road, his walking stick beside him. I took few more strides and stood few inches away from him but he still has his gaze fixed on the road, on an object not visible to me.
I greeted him and he shifted his head and turned his eyes at me. Then, I saw two eyes with no black spot sitting at the center.
“He is blind.”
He smiled at me and I saw his tiny even teeth. I question if he is really blind because the smile does not look like the blind’s.
Who knows how the blind smile?
“Go in there and take a stool beside the standing fan. Let us see how the afternoon goes.” I walked towards the door left ajar, first peep, then open.
Beside his standing fan is a stool. The room does not look like the blind’s. Furniture arranged neatly, all window curtains drawn half way as if measured, sitting on the shelf are books in orderly slant position, and some on the reading table.
There is something mysterious about this place and I fear if there are no spirits living with him.
Again, he smile broadly revealing his tiny even teeth as I drop the stool to sit.
“You remind me of my youthful years, when life seem untainted.”
Because I don’t understand his words, I smiled, believing even though blind, he will feel my smile and think I am following.
“Yesterday, I marked the day my mother died.” holding tight his walking stick as if to tap from It a mysterious strength. “I was at war fighting, when told. What is expected of soldiers is not to show even the strongest of human feelings. I fought on, with courage.”
He spoke on and on about his family, the colonial rule, his love life, war and his old friends. As if he had been waiting for me to come listen or he knew I came to listen to all these. In between he took gulps of water from his drinking bottle.
“I don’t believe in the word, old friends. Bringing them back feels like welcoming a total stranger. Because people change over the years. Old age makes you a loner, if you don’t make friends as you grow.”
I asked him many questions, though, fearing I might have asked them the wrong way but he answered them all and I pen them down.
His demeanour changed when he started talking about Nigeria and colonization.
“When I think about the country Nigeria and how things would have looked if it does not exist. If these people who make up the country are left in their different worlds to thrive, I believe things would be different.” He paused, wears a brief ugly smile and then continue talking
“It is so unpleasant that we are a product of colonization and are held together by strings of political benefits.” He used words I have never heard: _imperialism, beleaguer, decolonize_ etc and I knew it would be another night of checking and checking the dictionary.
He spoke on and on and nods his head frequently, kill invisible insects between his palms. Sometimes, he speak staring down the road, other times he turns to my direction and smiles.
I wish I could hold the sun from setting, so I can sit and listen to the old man and ask my many questions.
His life story will make a good novel but I need to go home. I will visit again tomorrow.
“It is late, it will be a good time again tomorrow. I know you will come.” smiling and bends to pick his drinking bottle for another gulp of water. I took the stool and returned it.
Does this not confirm his ability to read minds, a thought I had battled with for long that turned me a distant admirer of him
And this desire shot up within me, the desire to know more about him.
To know more about this blind old man and his mysterious world.
To see the world through his blind eyes.
