Ludo Power

He sat on the sofa staring at the kid as he toyed with putting in the VHS celluloid cassette he fished out and dusted from his storeroom. The girl is used to fighting for remote control anything they gather after dinner for network news. Her older brother the VHS is brought out from the storeroom for, sits observing the dad and the girl while eyeing the big cassette. Chidi is not the type that jumps into melee. He has left that aspect to his nine-month-old sister. He is interested in what is on the screen not who or how it is conjured.

Mr. Amos Okolo sits observing the girl after connecting what he hopes still works. Decades he was packing those bygone technologies away for good after replacing them with modern ones, he had gone to the repairer and repaired even others that didn't work before packing all under the seal of waterproof bags and packing all into their various cartons and taped every thing. He never threw after buying anything. Even his Tube TV received the same treatment from him. Repairing well before packing away is his policy. Not as if he had any plan if using them again evermore, but you never know.

Now, almost thirty-something years later, his son is almost four and it occurred to him that his part in training him needed something he bought long time ago before marriage might help his son in his development.

He played Ludo as past pastime activity, there in his tribe, the commonest game everyone played in his tribe. It's known and referred to as chess by many. One funny thing about it is that many claimed then that you can know early through Ludo how lucky you or your kid is by following his casting of dice and recording it. Years back when that theory started spreading and many started buying up Ludo boards in the market and the film of how it is played, he bought too. When old technology was finding its way into his storeroom sealed, the cassette went into there sealed too.

He had been recording his boy's luck each evening they played the ludo and from what he saw in the last year plus, his luck in casting of dye have been so-so. Not good, not bad. But a weak pass is not what he wishes for the boy. He had spent months trying to push over to the other side, the luck side through prayers but it seems not to be working. Then it occurred to him that there was a cassette like that in existence in his house and VHS was there too. He had gone into his storeroom for it and now, his baby girl had colonized both the cassette and video remote and refused to surrender. "let me teach you how to go about that" the girl pretended not to hear and kept pressing all the button that caught her fancy in the remote while holding the instruction cassette in one hand. He knew better not to force her. For two hours, her crying will remain at the same high pitch it started. The last time that happened, it was followed by a hospital visit for three days, and thousands of naira gone into it.

He decided to focus on the theory of what to expect in the video as he recalled it to his son while hoping the baby would lose interest before he was through. True to his guess, before he was through, he heard a scratching noise and saw his girl busy picking up quarrel with the player's image on the cassette pack with the remote and the cassette lying on the floor. He picked them up and slotted it in. He was surprised at how bright the whole thing was. He smiled to himself as memories came flooding back.

He was secretly observing the boy watch the instructor and the players do what they do in their house. When a smile came to his face, he knew he was following each move. What was that he wanted him truly to see? Nothing in particular maybe the video will be the kick in the ass the boy needed from strangers on TV. His eyes flew to the screen trying to see and figure out what brought that smile on the face of the boy. Nothing special, that is good news for him. Better he see what he is not seeing. The number of six coming up from him each time he cast the dice had not been encouraging. Prayers had not solved it it seems to have even dipped from the day he started adding it to prayer requests. He is not trying to turn the boy into a gambler or something, he is trying to determine what eighty percent of the families and fathers were doing that very moment like him. It's the part fathers play in the formation of their kids he is doing. Why is Heaven behaving as if he is committing deadly sin?

But he noticed something he did not like about the boy. He was an extrovert from birth, recently, he broods a lot while focusing on the board. Seems to have become introverted in his estimation. He googled "Did knowledge of playing any particular board game turn kids from extrovert to introvert?" there was nothing like it. What is the cause? The mother two days ago had cut the number of practicing days by two and added it into play time. It was okay to the father. Despite that concern, he believed he read wrongly and still does, the boy seems to have jumped from four years old to six inward. That aspect is encouraging.

He checked his diary when he noticed the boy jotting down things from the tutorial. How many three-year-olds do that without being told? He smiled to himself and when the film ended, he intentionally asked questions to see what was going on inside that young skull.

" Did it help?"

" Yes, Dad. I like it. That woman is good."

" Do you capture any move from them?"

" Many, you want to play?" he asked with an eager smirk appearing on his face.

" Sure"

After two rounds which surprisingly ended in 1-1 with the previous ones deliberately playing to lose, he was serious this time around and he lost seriously. He concluded in his mind that in three days, they would repeat the game.

No need to recite Bible verses anymore in connection to this.