HAPPINESS COMES FROM SMALL THINGS LIKE THIS

(*flash fiction inspired by J.D Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”*)

I know you would like to read about how my day started, and how it went, and what I ate, and if I’m fine, and what I did, and all that boyfriend-girlfriend kind of crap. I feel pretty lazy for all that now. Just fill in the gap yourself.

Today is Sunday. I am not going to tell you Sunday is the day most people remember there is God or anything. You already know that. Even a baby that whines and bedwets and eats all day knows Sunday is the day people show off their best clothes, take pictures like it’s their wedding, go late to church and jot punchlines and Bible verses — things they would die before they ever try to check again (makes you wonder why they write in church in the first place) — from sermons they have to endure. God forbid that I should bore you with all that in the very first paragraphs of this award-winning story.

Instead, I just want to tell you how greatly agitated and uncomfortable I was at a point today, before some friends came to my rescue and I got my comfort and happiness back. Indeed, happiness comes from small things.

It all started around 5.00 P.M or something. I was alone in my room, trying to read some dumb article someone had written on some dumb topic I can’t even remember. Because of the Internet, people write all sorts of dumb things that kill me these days, you know. Like this dumb story of mine you’re reading, you know. I had been eating Golden Morn and milk and bread and biscuits and all those junks with which youths harm themselves all day. As a matter of fact, sometimes I can be lazy like a cow. It takes a lot of discipline to move your lazy ass, enter the kitchenette, light the stove and cook some helluva dish like beans and potato, yes?

About that time, well, I began to feel this heaviness around my waist, and my stomach was rumbling like a bastard, and I felt as though I wanted to pee, and I started sweating like hell. Now, that shouldn’t be a big deal. I mean, it’s normal for people to want to defecate and all. Forget that rubbish about ladies that behave as though they’ve never been to a toilet.

But there was a problem: no water. Every idiot in Nigeria knows University of Ibadan has been on a break for almost a month now, and that ASUU has recently declared a nationwide strike or something. Students in my school have been instructed to vacate the halls of residence and all, but, God, I don’t like people just commanding me anyhow from anywhere, so I have refused to go home. And because of crazy students like me, the school has shut down all restaurants within the halls of residence and refused to pump water. But I don’t care! I always find my way around getting my food and water somehow. I like to think I’m clever, you know.

Unfortunately, I had used the last bucket of water I had to bathe earlier. And those toilets are not places you would go without at least a bucket of water. They smell, and are dirty, and the whatchamacallits need to be flushed before you can cover your nose to even use them. I don’t know, but universities admit animals these days. People will be excreting around, wiping their black goddamn asses without flushing! Who does that?!

So the toilets were a no-no. But my stomach was still rumbling like a bastard, and I was sweating like hell, and my waist was heavy like Thor’s hammer. All toilets elsewhere on the premises were locked. I was fast losing my cool. Dammit, I couldn’t even walk with a swagger anymore. My face was contorted as though I had seen the devil, and I would die if any of those ladies I had been eyeing set her eyes on me at that moment.

In times of trouble, you remember your friends — or what crappy adage do people say again? Well, I remembered I had some folks in Agbowo, so off I went. Agbowo is not some awe-inspiring Beverly Hills kinda place or anything. In fact, if I should tell you the truth, a good portion of it is like some ghetto or suburb in Oju Elegba or Bariga. But all that didn’t matter. Who thinks of splendour when they are about to pooh in their trousers?

I was in my folks’ place before one could say Crusoe, nay, Robinson. They wanted to greet me and all, but I had no time for pleasantries when a matter of utmost consequence was at stake. Point-blank, I told them I had come to shit. Yes, ‘shit’ was the word I used. Vocabularies like ‘defecate’ and ‘pass excreta’ had eluded me. I got me some water and dashed into the toilet. Prah! Prah! Pra-ra-rah! The building reverberated with sonorous evidence of gas pressure, now let out with force and grunts. The air was permeated with substances that, well, only the nose could describe. Poor folks, they didn’t know what hit them in that house.

And I was done. No more heavy waist, no more stomach rumblings, no more sweating and all that madman stuff. My comfort was back, and that inner peace saturated my soul again. I came out of the loo smiling like a conceited fool. My dear, I have experienced it: happiness comes from small things like shitting.

~~~Omoya Yinka Simult

P.S: Been long I did this kinda crap. Wanted to see if I still got the touch. Written in less than two hours or something stupid like that. Wait, am I still speaking like an idiot? Lol. Being a teenager is fun, I swear! But, geez, I’m bowing out soon.