By Joseph Soboka
Short Story
“I don’t feel well today. I had the worst night. I could not sleep, not even a wink,” complained Simachew.
Tamrat, after attentively listening to his friend, “Perhaps I also had a similar experience last night. As for me, the bad situation I had been through during the day came back at night in my dream. I could not push it away how hard I tried.”
“What could that be?” enquired Nafyad.
Simachew,yawning and stretching himself, “What else do you want him to tell you. He had told us that he was in a similar situation like mine for which I sympathize with him. After all, it is not easy to be in such situation; it saps or rather drains away much of your energy and leaves you powerless.”
“By the way Tamirat, what was it that made you go through such a big emotional disturbance to the extent of having a sleepless night?” asked Nafyad.
“It’s rather bizarre and disheartening. A certain boy strayed into our school just like that. No sooner than he set foot in the schools compound,out of nowhere, I saw a group of students rushing to him. He had no one to turn to; but while in that desperate situation,he saw the unit leader of the school and ran to him. Yet, the unit leader,having known that the boy was seeking his assistance,turned around and walked away as fast as he could to the opposite direction,leaving the boy there helpless. The boy,for that matter, was small and physically not strong enough to defend himself and fight back the ruffians, who were much taller and tougher than him.He attempted to run away but it was too late. They attacked him viciously; he fell prostrate to the ground,lay there unconscious. There were students around, none of them came to his rescue.”
“Couldn’t you do anything to help the boy?” asked Simachew.
“Well, it is not that easy, it would not amount to anything even if I did so. After all, it is easier said than done.”
“What do you mean?” asked Simachew again.
After a brief moment, Tamirat sadly said, “I wish you were in my position. The attackers were many and much stronger than anyone of us here. I couldn’t do anything. If I attempted to assist him, I would easily be victimized let alone rescuing the boy. You would be visiting me in the hospital.”
Nafyad thought, ‘What a coward! At least he could have informed the school director to stop the attack rather than standing there and watch the boy being brutalized.’Simachew, too, was of the same feeling. He cursed Tamrat for his indifference.He has no interest in the safety of his friends, he thought. It seemed Nafyad and Simachew were in the same wavelength.
Imbued with anger, Simachew, yelled at Tamirat for his failure rather cruelty to do something in his power to save the boy.
“You could have incited the on lookers to intervene and compel the ruffians to stop their attack which did not have any rational ground.Why? Tamirat. In that case, you could have done the same if anyone of us was attacked.”
“What’s friend for after all?” enquired Nafyad.
“Well, what do you expect me do in that threatening situation?”
“You know the in and out of your school. We do not need to tell you about that. You should know better,” said Nafyad angrily. His anger was easily visible, his eyes were blood shot. It seemed he would opt for physical assault if things were over stretched at that moment.
The interference of Nafyad eased the situation. “After all the problem has gone. No matter what we do, however we reason out, we cannot revive the situation. We should suppress our emotion and try to learn a lesson for the future,” suggested Nafyad to ease the tension.The situation was difficult to lay blame on anyone. Things of such sort can abruptly happen denying any chance of thoroughly reacting to them. Panic steals the power of proper thinking, emotion takes over. It is known that when the mind fails, emotion triumphs making the subject react irrationally. We either throw ourselves into the situation only to suffer the consequence by aggravating it. On the other hand, we panic and refrain from taking any constructive measure.
“Simachew, what’s your side of the story that denied you the joy of sound sleep?” asked Tamirat after the argument subsided.
It took Simachew quite a while before responding to such unexpected question. He was least prepared to come up with a ready-made answer to the question.
Straightening up and clearing his throat, “Well, it might not be interesting to you both.” He paused for a while trying to find out a way to present his story decently.
Nafyad, who was eager said, “What takes you so long? Blurt it out no matter how you think it might not be pleasing to us; we will understand you. After all it may not be as you think it sounds to us.”
After much contemplation, Simachew said, “It is my friend in my neighborhood who we grew up together,” and abruptly stopped tears welled up in his eyes.
“What about him?” interjected Tamirat.
“The day before the night of my nightmare,” said Simachew with a sigh, “this guy said he would rather have our friendship come to an end.”
“Why in the world would he say that?” asked Nefyad.
Simachew, scratching his head,reluctantly said, “That’s what I wanted to know, too. As I raised the question why he came to that decision, he said it was a long story.”
“I wanted him to clearly tell me everything.”
He said, “You know that our fathers were friends until…” cutting short his sentence.
“Until what my friend, finish the sentence,” I insisted.
“If you insist, my father had given quite a sum of money to your father to be in his custody,”
“What’s wrong in keeping money in someone’s custody? I don’t understand. What do you mean?” I sternly demanded explanation.
“It is not the issue of keeping money in someone’s custody. It is entirely different from what you might be thinking. Obviously,those days, people, out of the genuine trust for one another, would keep their money or whatever with their friends, said my friend confusing me even more.”
Nafyad and Tamrat eager to hear the story, their eyes were fixed on Simachew without uttering a single word.Their heads were fully packed with many questions that needed thorough explanations regarding what Simachew was about to tell them.
Having realized how anxious his friends were, Simachew decided to exhaust everything in his head.
“Therefore,” said Simachew, “my friend, having understood my seriousness, began to break the shell.”
“Simachew, it is over. We can’t be intimate friends as we used to.”
“How in the world do you say like that?” I interjected before he would tell me his grievances.
“You know,” he said, “the root cause of our current situation is your father.”
“How can it be?”
“When my father came to your father seeking the money he had placed in his custody, your father outright denied that he had ever received any money from him at all. My father was strikingly shocked, fainted and fell down. They rushed him to the hospital and when he woke up, he was paralyzed waste down. My father has not walked ever since.”
I asked him what that had to do with our relationship.
“You know Simachew, they say ‘like father like son’. How can I be sure that you will not repeat the same story? What guaranty do I have?”
Tamirat said,“Simachew, if the story is true, your father shouldn’t have committed such a heinous crime that cost the health of your friend’s father.”
“No wonder,” said Nafyad,“it caused you a nightmare. This cannot be the end of your friendship with the boy. We have to find ways to convince the boy that Simachew cannot be responsible for the mistake of his father. Tamirat and I will do whatever it takes to restore your friendship. For that matter, people in the same neighborhood should live in harmony. Isn’t that right,Tamirat?”
The Ethiopian Herald 4 April 2021
