The merciless Ivorian sun crushed tarred road into simmering waves. Illusion beckoned Kanté to keep looking into the distance for evidence. And whiles looking, past memories gently crept into his mind as he trudged through the enervating heat towards his favorite restaurant for his lunch break.

Food. Food. Food. All that had been on his mind for years. Any time he received money, his first thought was food. His preoccupation was : “would this money be enough for my feeding this month?” He reasoned that he had loads of daily work at home and at his workplace. Without food, his daily activities would ground to a halt.

He noticed how this obsession with ‘what would I eat tomorrow?’ prevented him from buying new clothes and new shoes for himself. His room had hardly seen any change since the day he entered it with his travelling bag, small fan, little mattress and gas stove.

If he ever bought anything ever since, it was either a toothpaste or soap or some other item like a shaving kit that he could not do without.

Recently, he got fed up and decided to use all he had to feed on for the month to buy a new phone. The purchase was suicidal and he thought it was the most stupid thing he ever did.

Somehow, after that purchase, he managed to survive the month. Some way, some how, he got money to eat for the month. Looking back, he realized how little such a huge risk back then looked now. It minimized his fears and gave him confidence to repeat the act a couple of times by buying new pair of clothes and shoes.

He felt so good wearing the nice, expensive set of clothes and shoes that, he promised to never go back to wearing his old clothes and shoes ever again. It boosted his self-confidence and made him feel good and happy about himself. It seemed to have changed his perspective on life, made him more hopeful and made him want to work harder to make more money and live better. He started saving to relocate.

Usually, whenever he felt lonely, the thought of going out to town for window shopping or just for a stroll looked boring. But now, with his pair of new clothes and shoes, he had become impatient to seize the next opportunity to go to town. No words can describe the secret joy in his heart whenever he bumped into an old acquaintance while showcasing his new wear.

The act of taking risks to dress decently and smell good and saving in order to relocate to a better neighborhood made him feel like his enemies had been tied to a pole and he was delivering deadly punches at their most sensitive parts.

The feeling was great.

It suddenly dawned on him how he had been living in a world of illusions. Illusions of fear. Illusions of what others thought about him.

Looking back, he realized many girls had expressed interests in him, but he turned them down – chances he could have taken to get to know the opposite sex better. He was so busy chasing other girls that saw him as out of their league. And he felt sorry for himself whenever he got rejected. He saw himself as so intelligent that he deserved a prettier, smarter, wealthier girl.

And for every girl that expressed interest in him, he found reason to refuse her: she had a scar on her forehead…she was too short….she was too dark…her teeth were too big…she had a long nose…

One particular girl was almost his ideal but…

And chances after chances slipped by.

Later, he found out the friends he was careful not to offend with his choice of a date, didn’t really care much about him or whatever happened in his life. The discouraging discovery led him to make a terrible choice by dating a girl much younger than he was, a girl that could hardly express herself in English and was nothing close to the word ambition that he was.

She would hurt him with her careless remarks and ingratitude for the sacrifices he was making for her and yet he couldn’t leave her. The wolf of loneliness clothed in sheepish love stood in his way, preventing him from seeing the wreck she was bringing to a life he had toiled so hard to build for himself.

Now he was growing. He now took risks and cared less about tomorrow or about what others thought. He boldly turned down love proposals he knew would do him no good and tried relationships he thought were worthwhile.

He was improving on his looks, paying much attention to his smell and he had a haircut every two weeks.

He was switching up. He was getting better at his job too and was no longer the timid Kanté that he used to be.