Retracting her shoulder while removing a small neat towel from it, she picked up the ice pack, wrapped it with the towel, and gently placed it on my afflicted knuckles, bringing me to do the pressuring myself,
“I’ve got to go prepare dinner before it’s too late.” She said.
I nodded approvingly.
She made to leave but then, stopped by the door, looked back, and called my name,
“Ryker.”
“Mom?” I jerked up my head to meet her gaze.
“Know that Mom always loves you.” She consoled with a big assuring smile.
I nodded with a strong sense of reassurance, as the door reunited with its jambs. Never did I stop brooding over the biggest problem at hand awhile, I was ruminating on the best tactic to getting Jude off my block. Now back to my thoughts, back to my plight. These past years I have grown to squarely face my problems, even though most of it I further messed up but I never bought the idea of tendering supplications to anyone, not until Jude lumbered in.
I have to show Jude, though I certainly am not faster; but smarter than his bullets.
Just as an electronic vibration pulsated through my thigh, I remembered owning an outdated, well-cracked screen smartphone, meant for the pocket.
Always on DND, never a freak of social media nor am I fond of the internet real much. I do not want to think of my incapability to afford the ‘moolah’ consuming subscription as the deterrent; rather, too preoccupied with being some melancholic hector in the streets and striving for an independent means of making ends meet.
“Needn’t no reminder, stupid Jude won’t rest, I already knew…” I contemplated pulling out the phone to get the message, agitated.
I lost it again as the device refreshed the imagery of my problem like a ticking bomb. Interpreting the time of the day for me in exact number, I was blown, realizing it was now 5:45 pm. For I was yet to come through with an accomplishable plan (only suitable plans that can work in a world of dummies are what I kept strategizing in my head, which makes me feel helpless and stupid the more).
But to my sheer surprise, Jane Maureen, the only childhood friend and my dad’s best friend, Mr (Sergeant) Fred Maureen, one and only child, with which I have no grudges, perhaps because she had not even the chance to tap my beast, was the sender.
Jane had been my best friend back in those days, two pickneys of the opposite gender have formed an enviable phenomenal bond of friendship, conspicuously stronger and more remarkable than that of their fathers. (Though it only grew that stronger after the tragic demise of my father).
But then, when my father’s horrible extinction had shattered the gentle but lively and lovable Ryker everyone was quite acquainted with, and no amount of words, commiseration, and attempted condolences really worked the magic of bringing back the mirthful boy.
He was left in his misery, totally disengaged.
And he taught himself a new way to live, rules to follow, a tactic to disguise the sadness, the despair, and the irretrievably lost gem of hope…