WASTED LIFE!

If Only…

If only he could turn back the hands of time, he wouldn’t have lived a wasted life.

… but who was he to blame?

As he sat down with tears rolling down his cheeks, he reminisced the kind of life he had led. Like a flashback scene in a movie, all those wasted years begun to playback in his mind.

He had lived a wasted life and couldn’t apportion blames to anyone in particular.

Now the only things that were important to him were such questions as: If only I was content with what I had;

If only I stayed focused and did not let poverty discourage me;

If only I didn’t let my friends influence me;

He knew he could have become a better person.

And if only we could choose the families we wanted to be part of before joining mother earth, each one of us would surely have loved to be members of any family better that the one he was born into. But no – this was a divinely impossible thing that can only get as much attention as the imaginations of our heads give it.  

Growing up, he knew only two people in his life; his mum and his visually-impaired grandma.  His mum tried to provide him with everything he needed; as much she could. But as hard as she tried, their daily lives got more and more challenging.

And unfortunately for him, he didn’t have any noticeable father-figure in his home: his mum was his everything! 

In school too, when everyone else talked about their dads, he could only manage fumbling when it got to his turn to say something about his.

He had never actually asked about his dad from his mum until a particular day when his mum told him the story about how his dad had abandoned them, eloping with their neighbor who had gotten pregnant for him.

So for this young man, life got tougher and tougher for him with each passing day. And when he entered the boarding house in his secondary school, things were even worse: boarding fees, school uniforms and money for feeding never came in handy.  

He automatically fell within the ranks of the poorest students in the school; without any tests. He was one of the ones who wore tarred clothes, one who wasn’t allowed into the dining hall most of the times in a term because he hadn’t finished paying his fees and one who couldn’t afford a two-square meal in a day because his chop box was almost always empty.

This life had become too tough for him obviously.

At a point however, he could no longer stand it.  And for his mum, she had begun giving up too, thinking he was gradually becoming a burden on her so she begun avoiding him; avoiding her own son because of how disappointed she was in herself that she could not take care of him.

The struggle for survival had now actually begun for the young man.

Meanwhile, right there in his classroom, the young man had noticed how some of his other mates were living the life of Kings, the very type he had always dream t of, because, as he thought, they came from wealthy homes.

And then one day, one of these guys decided to let him on the actual truth behind their extravagant lifestyles after a few of them noticed how hard life was dealing with him – they were into internet fraud.

And to them, that was the gateway to living a good life.

Uncertain about his own future and what the future held for him, and considering how young and full of life he was, it was not long before he joined the fray, practicing internet fraud. 

And before long, his fortunes changed and his financial situation just sky-rocketed so much that he had too much to take care of only himself. He didn’t have to bother his mum any longer as already, she hardly could provide him what he needed.

His life begun journeying took a new turnaround and he begun to be happy more and more now.

Starting so early in his secondary school, this new lifestyle followed through with him until in his third year when his chances with the internet fraud was no longer getting as fruitful as before.

There was the need to step up the game a notch higher.

So his friends advised that he moved on to what they called the advanced stage of internet fraud; ‘sakawa’.  He didn’t need to think twice about it because he was always looking for a quick way to get out of all the suffering and hardship that came with coming from a poor home. 

Besides, he wanted to provide his mum with a better life so that she could stop being a street hawker.

Also, his visually-impaired grand-mum’s high medical bills needed to be taken care of and he felt obliged to be the one to take care of them.

Most importantly, he needed the money to be able to take care of his materialistic girlfriend Serwaa.

Even though he knew his decision to go into ‘sakawa’ was going to somehow create problems for him in future, his urge to succeed early superseded that and he didn’t want his girlfriend to leave him for another man as a result of not being able to cater for her needs.

So, one afternoon, his friends took him to see a spiritualist who asked that as a way of passing the test, he would have to forgo the use of his manhood for the rest of his life. That meant that he was not supposed to have sex with any woman as long as he lived too.

Even though he knew his decision to go into ‘sakawa’ was going to somehow create problems for him in future, his urge to succeed early superseded that and he didn’t want his girlfriend to leave him for another man as a result of not being able to cater for her needs.

So, one afternoon, his friends took him to see a spiritualist who asked that as a way of passing the test, he would have to forgo the use of his manhood for the rest of his life. That meant that he was not supposed to have sex with any woman as long as he lived too.

 

How was he supposed to do that when he had Serwaa with him and wasn’t ready to let go of her? How was he supposed to do that when he and Serwaa were already practicing pre- marital sex?

Having considered the real threats these realities could pose to him, he still decided to go ahead. And it was all because of the money. 

In addition, as directed by the spiritualist, he was asked to sleep in a coffin in the shrine for 15 nights.

Fear had gripped all his nerves but this did not deter him and he went ahead with the instructions of the spiritualist.

Months later, he became even richer. So rich he could afford what a banker after working for a month couldn’t afford.  He could afford more than what the headmaster of his school took home as salary at the end of the month.

The money he was receiving could pay all the teachers in his school for a whole year with a fat interest without him even feeling the pinch in his pocket.

So it was not surprising when he started driving plush vehicles while employing many people to work with some of his vehicles on commercial basis.

His mother eventually stopped hawking and retired to managing a well-stocked clothing boutique shop he purchased for her.

He then built houses, bought cars which he hardly used because he didn’t know how to drive and he employed a young nurse to take care of his grand-mum while his mum was away.

Society begun to raise eyebrows at him. Some asked questions about how a young child like him got rich over-night; questions which never got answered.

Some also followed the ‘DWFA [DI WO FIE ASEM] principle’ because after all, it wasn’t their business to know.

In all of this however, his mum never bothered to ask where he was getting the money from when he was still in school and wasn’t working. 

Anybody who questioned his mum on how her son had gotten all the wealth, received insults. After all, it was her son who was now taking care of them. By the way, who would even prefer poverty to good living? She had the latter after going through hell with the former and she would not allow anything to deny her of that joy.

With time, he started paying little or no attention to his books and not long from that too, his final exams, WASSCE, was getting closer.

Apart from the fact that he ignored and gave Serwaa an excuse anytime she asked that they have sex, she loved him more each passing day - he gave her everything she needed and even promised to take her abroad when they completed school.

Soon, the WASSCE exams were over and he started living really good. He enrolled himself and Serwaa in a driving school and soon, they were able to drive all the numerous cars he had bought.

He set up more shops for his mum to do business where she also employed lots of people to work for her. No Friday went by without he and Serwaa spending the night at a club. They spent so much money anytime they went out because money wasn’t a problem. (Of course, it was sweet to foolishly spend money you didn’t work hard for.)

It would not be long before he thought the end of all his woes had come. He thought that was the end of his poverty. And he thought it was going to continue like that forever.

Results of WASSCE exams were released and as expected, he failed woefully but he wasn’t the least bothered. 

To him the essence of going to school is to get good grades to get a better job and earn good money; he already had money and was living good so why bother?

Little did he know that all would soon come to a painful and regrettable end.

One Friday, when he and Serwaa had gone out on their usual night-clubbing, she insisted she wanted to have sex which he obviously turned down.

As to why her boyfriend would deny her of sex for months was something she couldn’t understand but she already had her plans to succeed this time lined out perfectly.

Still at the club, she served him a glass of liquor and the next thing he knew was him lying naked beside her on a bed, in a hotel close to the club the following morning.

She had dazed his drink and coerced him into having sex with her while he was still heavily tipsy.

Quickly, he dashed out of the room and headed home.

That night when he went to bath, he saw changes in his manhood. It had begun swelling, was growing longer and had started developing a stagnating bad smell.

In the next 48hours, the swelling had worsened and the length, almost as long as an electric pole. There was no way he couldn’t go out of the house. 

But he managed to call Serwaa to come and see the state he was in but upon seeing the sad transformation that had taken place in his life, she fled.

His mum did same when she also came and saw the state in which he was. Soon, his whole body begun to smell. And it worsened anytime he took a bath.

He managed to go and see the spiritualist and he was told that he had gone against the rules and soon, he was going to die. He came back home full of tears.

While he awaited death, he sat down to playback his entire life and what led him into internet fraud and eventually ending up doing ‘sakawa’.

If only he didn’t end up in a poor home, he wouldn’t have gone into ‘sakawa’.

But was that really an excuse to make him go into money rituals? Certainly not! He could have managed the little his mum was giving him, taken his studies seriously and worked hard to become successful and earn good money.

He thought again: if only his girlfriend Serwaa was not so materialistic, he wouldn’t have gone into ‘sakawa’.

Many of his friends ended up doing money rituals because they didn’t want their girlfriends to leave them as a result of their materialistic and demanding lifestyles. And he was no exception. 

He didn’t want Serwaa to leave him because he loved her so much. Hence he had to do everything possible to keep her.

If only his mum at some point didn’t get fed up with him, he wouldn’t have thought about it.

Even though he knew it was difficult for his mum, she at some point getting fed up with him - she left him to his fate. What was he supposed to do?

If only he hadn’t let peer pressure take over him, he wouldn’t have listened to his friends and go into ‘sakawa’.

If his mum didn’t get blinded by the money he was giving her and the comfortable life she was enjoying as a result of his actions, she would have insisted that he told her where he was getting all the money from. But no! He guessed she was enjoying the good life and didn’t really care where all the money came from.

he couldn’t turn back the hands of time. He had lived a wasted life! Who was he to blame?

.....................................................Who!!!!