Tom worked for a tycoon as a house helper for more than half a decade. He was appreciated and equally trusted. One fine day, going about his chores, he bumped into a temptation which was hard to resist. Putting his boss’ Rolex of nine years in one of the bedside drawers, he saw a fat bundle of pounds! His heart pounded like a bass drum! Sweat started dripping down his face! With trembling hands he lifted the bundle like it was more precious than life! His sight became blurry! He slowly laid it back like he was afraid it may crack and went back to his quarters. He paced up and down pondering what to do next, he was supposed to go on a three days leave that day, and his boss had paid him, had even given him a bonus. To cut a long story short, Tom took the 37.000 Pounds and boarded straight to his village, but he wasn’t lucky for long! From the bus he went straight to his aunt’s restaurant which was just before his parents’ house. He hurriedly greeted her. As he was getting out of the shanty resto, he saw his boss’ car pulling up in front of the eatery. He a took a step back, got the envelop from his backpack and gave it to the nearest person, who happened to be Yona, a semi retarded guy whose job at the resto was to fetch water and to take out garbage. “Please, keep this for me,” he requested in a shaky voice handing him the envelope. Slugging the bag on his back, he went out to meet his hunters. He acted like he was surprised to see them. He was immediately thrown into the jeep and it sped off! He denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of the green bucks. Together with his colleagues, he was taken to the police for interrogation. Two days later, for lack of evidence, they were released. His master took him back and he resumed his work, the rest were fired! After that narrow escape, he vowed never to look at anything that is not his. Back at the village, Yona threw the envelope under his mat which was a substitute for a mattress without bothering to know its content. Two months after the Tom tale, having hustled in town for years without a penny on my account, I decided to go back to my village. I didn’t see any point in staying in town when even getting lunch was proving to be harder than climbing the Everest. After hours of begging for lifts (free ride) I arrived at the trading centre in unholy hours of the night. I went to a restaurant, the only open place in the centre. After narrating my chronicle to the restaurant owner, I was given a dish of cold leftovers which I wolfed down like a hungry sailor and washed down with a mug of the swamp water! Yona was summoned to show me where I was going to spend the remaining half of the night; he led me to a dim lit store where he was to be my room mate for the night. Adding to the reek of the unventilated store, Tom’s high pitched snore, grumbling stomach and his nasty smell mixed with his stale sweat, made sleeping not only hard for me but impossible! I tried to close my eyes and drift away, but something beneath the mat was also on my case hurting my ribs making the uncomfortable state worse, I thrust my hand under the mat and grabbed the ‘thing’, a thing that happened to be an old envelop housing a bundle of 37.000 Pounds! I pocketed the cash, stormed from the house like a sleepwalker and practically went mad! Thousands of Pounds deep in the village under a mad man’s bed?Something wasn’t adding up here! I starved for weeks, lost weight, got dirty, now five years past, I’m a millionaire at the age of twenty three, but I never truly enjoyed my riches, I wanted to know its source, so came back where it all started and this is my story. martin.bishop18@yahoo.com
