The Withdrawal

NAME OF THE STORY: THE WITHDRAWAL

NUMBER OF WORDS: 2,327 words

THE WITHDRAWAL

“There are many ways of breaking a heart, stories were full of hearts being broken by love, but what really broke the heart was taking away the dream – whatever that dream might be.” – Pearl Sydenstricker Buck.

“Surely better a stone in the manure than gold in the mountain stream among the tundra temperate regions during the winter,” this were the words that were silently playing in the mind of Caractacus.

“Don’t worry,” came the graduate’s voice,” who knows, I may go through.”

Caractacus had attained and secured a degree in civil engineering technology from one of the most recognized and let me say competent universities. He hoped after his graduation which to speak truthfully, was well attended by friend and relatives from near, far and beyond. They all believed that it shall be OK with their lad who had just been flown into the world of the elites.

The initials are that the lad was from a poor background, no, allow me to use the word humble background for etiquette roles. Let’s go ahead. Caractacus had just posted an application letter to one of the mushrooming Huduma Centers in the country, now the former are centers for electronic citizenry services that the prevailing governments had employed in the control of the populace in the previous Postal centers. The onset conversation was with an attendant at the Huduma Centre.

“Let’s hope so, it’s prayers,” exclaimed the attendant, then she walked away in well measured steps throwing her well touched curl kit sideways. To the lad this was a sign of discouragement.

“This woman thinks that she is better than me, a whole engineer, I object,” Caractacus murmured in his coagulating thoughts. “I will disapprove this unlearned fellow one day; I won’t stoop too low.”

Caractacus had a second class upper and missed the most desired First Class Honor with a mere two points. This might have made him the topic of the day; Newspapers and Journals could arch his names, I beg your pardon, allow me pluralize the name. one could read, “KING CARACTACUS CONQUERS AGAIN” and another would enunciate “BOADICEA IS ON THE HEEL.” Now the author thinks like a historian because of self-vivid memory on the victory of Briton King Caractacus and Boadicea Queen of the Iceni tribe on the Hadrian’s Wall. The television interviews; oh! The local radio stations and then maybe British Broadcasting Cooperation (BBC) or the Cable News Network or Aljazeera umpiring and predisposing him to the actual face of the globe.

The heart pain lasted just for a day since even the peers that had achieved the level were equally wallowing in deep, deep poverty. Their applications were dismissed. In those days, the Civil Engineers who graduated from the local universities suffered due to foreign employment, let me say, foreign expatriates. Am not saying that nowadays are safe. They are still endangered, undergoing employment crises.

He was not shortlisted again. He said be it; he had to purge poverty from his home in the North Eastern Part of the country. North Eastern from the cognate words, means the depraved parts of the rain, arid and semi-arid lands, the region receives the North East monsoon trade winds which were called dry winds. The similarity between the origin and the preponderating cascades of the scenario accrued to the graduate was not only evident but also axiomatic.

Finally, the irresolute and frivolous mind dropped from the air. “I will apply for tenders in my constituency – am their own – their own tribe, same language, circumcision and longtime inherited dressing code, the peculiar regalia of the ancient lore,” the young elite brainstormed. His mind highly boggled, faltered and vacillated with KA Stroud Engineering Mathematics’ masterpieces, Rock-Soil Mechanics, Computer Aided Designs- AUTO CAD, ArchiCAD, Auto desk and much Programming and Coding.

The people from the Alpha State, a neighboring country, thronged his native country and were immediately furnished and given employment by the Mafungoan government as if it was doing charity to the alienated individuals. But does the author say, this was thanks to their well-furnished towns with well arrayed lighting systems that made even the lowland inland not only towns but also the municipalities and cities appear as Cities on a hill, which as well-known cannot be hidden. They, am talking of the local natives, received the tenders too…the only ones they (the natives of Mafungo State) managed to secure were to deflate their ego, as the state officials, called degrees. Ego was the unaccustomed or do I say the reinvigorated nomenclature for degrees whether the first Bachelors, Masters or Doctor of Philosophy or Divinity.

These, tenders the Mafungoan residents received compromised construction of box culverts-this was indeed too low for a fully qualified engineer, brains highly throttled with the Lagrange-Poison findings. He declined it.

He wondered why. But why! He wept silently, in his community it was forbidden for a man to weep even death to all your brothers and sisters with children, it was considered nature. A man could only weep on three occasions. First, if a man lost one of his kidneys in a war, second if a fellow man is killed in a war clash. Thirdly, which made the whole community moan, that one could be beaten by his wife to pulp, this made men weep to tears and cut themselves with blades to bleeding.

He made the decision. “Am going to check the Alpha-Techno’s curriculum,” he concluded. Now Techno is another country that is at per with the Alpha in terms of technological sophistications and infrastructural aggrandizement.

Shock and great stun struck him to the shirt, the curriculum was too shallow-here the author speak the truth-he understood everything within two weeks. Still, the question emerged – why did the government give them all tenders – I refused to say award them tenders. Am also angry. No, yes, I am. Focus on the text now.

The poverty back in the village was a disheartening eyesore. He decided to join an Alphan who had been awarded, no given, a tender to design a road worth five hundred 500 million pakwacha by the Mafungoan currency.

To his sufficient cranial cavity brouhaha, the alien did not employ any of the fundamental Canon of Engineering ethics. Instead, the plant manager brought his stuff and things were moving. No design. No cost measures. The man could sit back consummately munching down the ‘mahindi choma’, roasted maize and smoke cigarette distinguishingly.

Caractacus had lost again, the man gave him the duty of building bumps. When he presented his design, the alien interrogated scathingly. Here, he was to handle spade, fork-jembe and related farm tools, machinery and equipment and strike to and fro till everything was done. Mind the pilgrim’s phonology. “Hey broman, ati nyinyi ndio the learned friends, ahaa! Zii manze, life is this much tight and tough, out here is difficult, but let’s just strive, Nature knows,” said the peculiar man who was fundi in the construction site in his pidgin English. Caractacus shrugged his shoulders and moved nonchalantly towards the young man, even the fundi himself. “Look here, brother, these men, we will have to withdraw them from our nation or not it’s not going be easy to be easy with us as the graduates from the tertiary institutions.” “That is very true but, remember that people like us don’t get employed by you graduates from the so called universities.”

“Why do you think that we graduate individuals don’t employ you people,” said the elite

with a voice that showed defeat and cares. “That is the fact chopper!” boomed the fundi. “How did you just call me!”. “You guy is a chopper, I mean, you are the brains of this country, the golden elite prototypes…”.

“Stop! I see sir, you are speaking some truth, the truth itself that sets people free as some of the believers once taught me, but tell me how comes and elite is given the jobs of the fundi, forgive me my friend for that...”. the unlearned fellow, moves close now all formalities dropped approach the selected brain owner.

“I am Orome Jakobo, from Sigorikomos province, I have worked with different companies in my position area fundi, recently I was promoted to the position of an air conditioning craftsman and a foreman in the Mijengo company, but hard I settled for the job, when the retrenchment letter flew rapidly into my email, WhatsApp page and the office desk.” “Sorry my friend, and what could be the cause of all these?”

“What can be the cause if not the nepotism and the corruption that has completely marooned and tyrannized this generation.” The fundi continue, noticing that the elite ally is now getting the better part of the conversation, “And imagine these top notch officials just dismissed me like that, no notice, no protocols observed, just the retrenchment letter and here I am again an ardent expert I call myself to preserve my calm.”

They both start humming the Just As I am song by the Billy Graham and his duet George Beverly Shea and Cliff Barrows. They sing in unison as is a choirmaster of the ancient maskil is on the lead, “Just as I am without one plea, thou bidst…ooh my soul, Lord I come, I come.” Now in the state the statement soul meant different things and the fiercest meaning was death.

“Well, pardon me the negligence, I am Caractacus Kawa, a senior grandaunt of Civil Engineering from the Bard Avon University of Engineering, am from Kalande.” The two get the better part of each other, the fundi in his brown overall, the helmet broken on one side, and tied with a string on the other looks confident of himself, respecting the fellow lad. On the other hand, the engineer in his flowered shirt coated with a new overall affixed with an orange reflector and a tinge of pale green trousers looked dissatisfied. Here are two lads standing close to each other the unqualified looking satisfied and the qualified looking discontented.

* * * * * *

He was agitated. he was a divided house. He thought of summoning the government in a one-man-army methodology. No, this was an unviable and infertile thought that couldn’t hatch a valid consequence, his own mother survived on a pension which was a premise the government gave her. The father worked in the government as a permanent sweeper of a public toilet and secured employment in that falling of events. He himself survived on a loan that the government gave to the students faithfully. The government must not be sued at all, but why are all ways clogged and blocked; it’s all about the government.

Recently, media whose news were now even more manipulated and considered gutter press, once announced that the head of state of Mafungo and the counterpart from Alpha State had struck a deal of a gigantic loan. This loan could only be paid if the Alpha State is given the Mafungo Mountain and River Odisa which were the source of livelihood for the residents. The mountain was responsible for great agricultural works while the river was for navigation and fishing. And remember that these physical features were to be given to Alpha State for a period not less than three hundred and forty-seven years. What a loss if a person cannot survive for about three months without food, what of the sadistic period of leasehold of the features.

The young man was torn in the mind like a paper subjected to the concentrated sulphuric acid. Who was bad? He blamed from curriculum, government, poverty-ancestral one; but found all comparisons equivalently neutralizing each other like an acid and an alkali in chemical reaction.

Back at village, in Kalande, money was needed and they fiercely asked for it. They wanted him as an engineer to have money, buy a Mercedes Benz S600 Vogue or Land Cruiser V8 and if possible NISSAN PATROL T62 v8 nothing less. Then that a descent wedding he was a Christian, stronghold of Christian outreach fellowships previously.

In the capital, the loan defaulters were in threat of being arrested and detained till upon loan completion. But please, tell me, how can you source money to pay loan when you are in the jail and detained. Incalcitrant phenomena crisscrossed the mind of the students. This loan was the loan for education and they had until one and a half a year to pay it completely. Global economic crisis had hit and the Intercontinental Monetary Financial was also running out of stock. The fuel prices were fluctuating and swinging like a pendulum bob tossed to and fro and this meant that much fare was charged sometimes tripled or better still doubled. Time cut me short to speak of the rent, water and power supply deficiency.

He was divided and no point appeared successful at the end of all. He pitied the uprising in his career course. Now it was done, poverty had increased in the village and in town, it is a hide-and-seek game. No love, no pity, no charity.

As the days went by, Caractacus went back to the village empty handed.

His burial was in a family land as the mother sang, “They have taken my son wasted before his time, I know it is true, but send rain Lord to overtake the tears of the lonely mother, min ji, as my son called me.” Then a note was read that Caractacus had left before his long departure, it was in capital, FOR YOU TO CONTINUE WITH THE STRUGGLE AND ME TO DIE AND WITHDRAW MYSELF, WHOEVER GOES TO THE BEST PLACE ONLY GOD KNOWS. NOW, I KISS THE GRAVE NOW. When this was read, all the students broke into tears and melancholic sobs, they knew they are moving in that direction if things were not restituted. And as the mourners departed there was a mound of fresh black soil with the elite lying there away from the defeats and cares of life.

He withdrew himself from the of the face of the globe – hoping things would get better - as the dark skin of his body touched the black cotton soil as coffin couldn’t be afforded to wrap up the body. The withdrawal had occurred.

The mother of Caractacus agreed that she would launch a campaign to help students forget the kind of trauma and depression they underwent. She had an argument that ‘BETTER A LIVING DOG THAN A DEAD LION’. This she meant that the living grandaunts were far more important than if they overstretched and died.