Trouble
Listen to the author read “Trouble” at the launch party of the print edition of The Blackstick Review in May 2017. Story begins at 0:55-
Trouble awoke that morning looking for someone to bother. The small town of Kaduna had suddenly become boring. He had harassed the market women enough, filled people’s eyes with harmattan several times, and even made traders miscount their money and begin grave arguments with their business partners and spouses. Trouble hadn’t always been like this, bothering people so much that his very name meant everything negative and nothing positive. It wasn’t a name like Challenge, for instance, which indicated a situation through which one could become resilient. It also wasn’t a name like Stress, which could spur adrenaline and creativity and innovation. His name was Trouble. Trouble. It held nothing good for anyone, it was uninspiring and just purely, well, Trouble.
Time and again, he sought to redeem himself and his name, but it always seemed to him like these lousy humans were bent on keeping his identity stuck just as it was. In the news the other day, it was reported that one government minister had hidden millions of dollars in his homes in Osborne Estate in Ikoyi, Lagos. That was the fanciest part of entire country, yet, when the minister was caught, he said that he was having Trouble with his health and had to steal for treatment in Germany. Trouble had no recollections of any incident with this minister; judging by his very effective memory, this Minister was lying. Everyone blamed Trouble, even the devils in human form.
Trouble had since decided to bother someone younger. Perhaps a child at the cusp of teenagehood would be interesting, that age when children had lost their gullibility and saw themselves as sages compared to the adults around them. When they believed that the world revolved around them and that they had to impress everyone at all times. Or perhaps, Trouble thought, he could make his way to church. Those noisy, boisterous gatherings where people did as they were told and asked no questions of so-called Men of God. Another interesting place to visit would have been the hospital, although those always made his eyes water because of the pungent smell of disinfectant and bodily fluids.
Trouble wasn’t worried, though. There was always fun to be had with these little antics, and although no one knew exactly what he was, or how he functioned, they ascribed all sorts of mishaps to him. He had happily grown into his reputation.
This morning, he gathered himself from his bed and summoned the dry harmattan wind to lift him off. He surveyed the red rusty roofs, covered in dust and grime, and settled on the borehole, where he was sure to find a few people bickering about one thing or another. His work was cut out for him, since he decided that he would now do just as his name: he would trouble people and even if they blamed him, he would rejoice in his perverse pleasure watching them suffer for a few moments, before he was off to the next victim.
At the borehole, there were two women pushing and pulling. As they pushed the lever up and down together, water hissed from its metal pipe and sighed into their buckets. The chubbier woman, Uju, filled her metal bucket and placed it on the side, while she helped the tall, lanky woman, Amara fill hers. Amara’s bucket was soon filled with clean water, but the effort from the push had left her out of breath. She flapped her hands over her head and sighed deeply. She bent over, removed her iron bucket from the tap, and placed a cloth on her head.
“Nne, help me lift this to my head,” Amara said to Uju. The bright smile on her face belied her growing frustration. “The water was slow this morning,” Amara continued, her smile fading.
“The waterbed has gone farther down. The harmattan this year has been the most horrible one I’ve witnessed in all my years of living here,” said Uju as she removed the cloth on her head, and wrapped it around her wrist until it made a donut shape. She placed the donut shaped cloth on the center of her head. It would spread the weight of the bucket evenly and prevent the mud from its metal base from seeping into her nearly plaited hair.
Uju lifted the bucket from the elevated platform of the borehole and placed it on her own head. Amara was so tall, she had to squat to Uju’s height, and carefully the two women placed their hands around the metal bucket as they transferred its weight from to Amara’s head. Because she had been squatting a long time, Amara arose hastily, and the bucket toppled and fell. The water snaked down Amara’s nightgown, and it clung to her body, and outlined her form. On the other end of her tall body, her eyes filled with tears that fell without warning.
“Uju, you have to be a witch. This water is for my husband and children to bathe this morning before going to work and school; how could you spill it so casually?” Amara placed her hands on her head and wailed loudly.
“I didn’t mean to do that, and to call me a witch over a simple bucket of water? That’s too much, Amara,” Uju retorted. Her eyes opened widely, as she stepped backwards, afraid that Amara’s flailing hands would hit her face.
“Uju, you’re acting just like the wicked witches in my village. They pretend to help you, then they destroy your life and just when you need the most help, they turn around to leave you.”
This was said with so much conviction that Uju turned around briefly, and hands akimbo, watched Amara for a short moment. Amara’s wet blouse outlined the bones on her neck and sagged over the loose pouch of fat on her belly. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, bent down to pick up her bucket, and hurled insults at Uju for ruining her early morning endeavors.
Amara unfolded the donut-shaped cloth that had now dropped to the ground and wrapped it around her chest. It was no use standing by the borehole. To get any liquid from the receded water bed, she would have to push the borehole with both of her hands. Doing so would leave her unable to hold her bucket in place at the same time. Moreover, the cold aggressive harmattan wind was sending cold shivers through her body as it dried up her shirt.
She stared at the borehole for a few brief moments, and becoming increasingly frustrated about her inability to get any more water, tried to salvage the little liquid left in her bucket. She tilted the bucket to its side and scooped its contents into her palms. She stared sorrowfully at the now empty bucket of water, evidence of her steadfast devotion to her family. She had insisted on coming to the borehole to get the bucket of water herself. Back at home, her husband warmed the leftover vegetable soup and pounded yam they had for dinner the night prior. By the time she got the water to the house, the children would be fed and ready to prepare for school. This was more than a bucket of water; it was proof that she was the pillar of her family. Water was life, and it was a mother’s responsibility to nurture her family and water them every day. She insisted on fetching the water herself in the mornings, so that her children wouldn’t partake in any strenuous activities before heading to school. Her husband would bathe and head to his stall at the market, where he sold second-hand clothes from Western countries.
Blinded by the tears that flooded her eyes, Amara turned towards the borehole, and back at Uju, who was already a stone’s throw away, her own bucket of water in her hand. Uju was strutting towards the small bush part that connected the borehole with the one major street in their small village. She would fulfil her role to her children today, and this annoyed Amara. Just like her, Uju had promised to get a bucket of water for the children to bathe and prepare for school. Uju had succeeded, and she had failed.
Amara decided that if she couldn’t fulfill this simple duty to her family, Uju shouldn’t either. She kicked her bucket aside and ran behind Uju quietly. She splashed the cold water in her hands on Uju’s shirt. Uju jumped, dropped her filled-to-the-brim bucket of water, and turned around sharply. She lifted her eyes slowly from Amara’s chest until her gaze settled on Amara’s face.
“Amara, you’ve just behaved like an overgrown teenager. Was it my fault that your bucket of water fell? Weren’t we working together?” Uju stammered.
“Haha! Tufiakwa, God forbid,” Amara laughed, “You think you can pour sand into my food and then eat yours in peace? If I cannot have my bucket of water, why should you?”
Uju turned around sharply, refusing to entertain any of Amara’s petty shenanigans. She picked her bucket up and continued walking. Her steely resolve was evident in her brisk footsteps, but Uju wasn’t quick enough. Amara ran up from behind her and tickled her. Uju jumped, and her own bucket toppled, much in the same fashion as Amara’s. It landed on a small stone and splashed heavily before it fell lazily to one side.
Amara laughed loudly, then she turned around and walked back to the borehole. Uju stood rooted to the ground for a few moments, until suddenly, she ran behind Amara and took hold of the wrap around Amara’s waist. Then she turned around and fled like an animal in hot pursuit of prey. By the time Amara turned around to notice that her wrap was gone, Uju was already far along on the major path towards the other houses in the village. There was no use chasing the woman now, people would see her under-skirt and guess that she had provoked someone who pulled a fast prank on her.
Amara shouted towards Uju, her voice floating in the aggressive wind.
“Come back, come back and fight me. You spilled my bucket of water, and now you’re running away, you’re looking for Trouble” Amara screamed.
“I have no time for your Trouble, go back to your children and husband, go and disappoint them,” Uju retorted.
Both women continued exchanging insults as Uju walked back to the street, and Amara paced back and forth around the bore-hole.
From the corner of the road, Trouble had watched the women closely, as he thought about the nature of man: a little provocation, a little discomfort, and their true color was revealed. As the self-appointed provocateur, he sowed seeds of discord among family members and strangers alike, and then made mockery of them when they fell prey to his antics.
This morning’s event wasn’t his fault, but once the women called his name and involved him in their debacle, something snapped inside him. He had come to pity these women, to like them. They were devoted mothers, but just like the other humans, they blamed forces like him for every single bad thing that happened to them. What did he have to do with this? It was understandable that he sometimes meddled in people’s affairs and caused things to go awry, but a little fun never killed anyone. Why did the blame always fall on him, even on the very rare occasions such as this one, when he tried to be kind and courteous, to observe, rather than provoke?
His work for the morning was done. Now he was off to the market square where there would be more interesting things to watch than two housewives bicker over a bucket of water in the harmattan. Perhaps today he would steal a piece of meat from Adamu and Bayero and watch them argue with their customers. Or perhaps he would settle around Mama Emeka’s shed and hide a note or two from her money purse. It was always fun to watch her blame her husband and her children when the accounts did not balance.
Either way, this wonderful day could only get better. He turned around, lifted off with the fierce harmattan wind, and compelled it to blow more aggressively. Many villagers would slurp their cups of water and find sand settled at the bottom, others would rub their eyes viciously, while cursing the harmattan wind that blew from the Sahara during the dry season.
Alheri Egor-Egbe was born and raised in Kaduna, Nigeria. She is a graduating senior in English and International Relations, and has been writing short stories and poems since secondary school in Nigeria. Her favorite book is Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, closely contested with Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Alheri enjoys reading, writing, and taking random naps during the day, whenever she can. She hopes to write in some form in the future.