Banji's Tales

Akin's Worry

In the days that cars were few, very, very few, young Akin always had a challenge that he found hard to tell anyone, not even his dad that took him to school every morning. As much as he didn't like school, this obvious problem compounded it for him. He wondered why the smiling sun trailed every movement of his to school. He wondered why he wouldn't be left alone by this celestial being or creature. He noticed that everyone else doesn't seem to bother about it, or if they do, they also didn't voice out their fears like his. Particularly disturbing was the fact that his dad never discerned the trailing movement of this big ball and this disturbed him the more. Why is this orange-like ball being trailing every movement of his, even after boarding the taxi to school? He must owe some allegiance to this being that warrant such a movement. On a particular day, he prayed to the Creator to please spare him the torture that this being had inflicted on him. After all, he had been taught in Sunday School that he answers the prayers of little kids and that their angels are continually before him. He would test what Aunty Nkechi had taught them in the Sunday School. He was eager to go get to school the following week, because he had prayed during the weekend. Fortunately for him, it his prayer was answered and he was grateful that he had overcome the terrorising monster. After the heavy downpour that morning, he was happy in school all day. The following day, there stood this monstrous being and his heart sank. He thought to himself that it's perhaps because he hadn't prayed the previous day. Troubled, he prayed before he and his dad set out for school, but lo, God refused to answer his prayer. He was troubled the more. He remembered all the Aunty Nkechi told him about how God answered the prayers of people in their trouble when they cried to him. He remembered Aunty Nkechi saying if anyone sinned, God wouldn't answer such a one prayers. So he confessed his sins and set out to prayer again. To his disappointment, the celestial being he reported to God in his prayers declined to stop unleashing his terror on him. He was in primary two when he began to be troubled about this strange movement of the sun. One day, his teacher mentioned the millions of kilometres that the sun is to the earth and that got young Akin really, really thinking. The knowledge being too much for him to handle, forced him to raise his hands almost immediately. He didn't even know he raised his hands. It wasn't until the teacher acknowledge that he raised his hands by calling his name that he realised his action. It was too late to drop his hand. The teacher encouraged him to ask his question, and when he did, it was then and there that Akin found out for the first time that other children had been bullied by this distant creature. His science teacher, Mr Ige then took time to explain to him the reason it appeared as though the sun always followed Akin and thousands like him.  Though he didn't understand much of the explanation then, much of the explanation became clearer to him when he was introduced to relative motion by his physics teacher some years later.