Mother had traveled. And upon returning, she brought me a toy phone and a wrist watch. Gifts from Uncle T.

Normally, uncle would be called on the phone for me to say ‘thank you’ to him. But phones were not common those days, and my parents didn’t have one.

Imagine my joy having a phone of my own. Of course, a toy one. But it looked so real that it brought me as much joy as if it were a proper phone.

I still remember its colour: red, and cute. Each number dialed produced strange music that was delicious to listen to, while lights blinked on the screen. The keypad light was an amazing soft blue that, together with the cocktail of sounds produced by the phone, made my young mind sizzle with delight. At night, the colours stood beautifully out.

One day, I attended an evening church service. Those days, our church services were held in the open, on benches, beside a tree on a school compound. During praises, I feared that my wrist watch might break off my hand and crush on the floor while I clapped and sang. So, I took it off and placed it on the bench on which I sat.

There was this boy who sat behind me. I didn’t know his name, but I knew he was a troublesome child in our local church. When we sat down after the singing, my new wrist watch was gone!

It was a black casio wrist watch, digital, the kind that had the date written neatly above the time, beeping briefly to indicate the passing of each hour of the day.

Nobody had left the service. So where could my watch had flown to?

I checked on the thick sand serving as carpet for our meeting. No trace of my watch. Something told me that it was with that little devil right behind me. He never attended evening services. Didn’t know what brought him there that day.

“Have you seen my watch?“ I asked.

“No!” the little devil answered angrily.

Ideally, I was simply supposed to search him -pockets, armpits, socks, even the space between his pair of butts if need be.

Till date I cannot tell what made me reluctant to search him. Maybe it might look like I didn’t trust him. Maybe fear about how he might react. Maybe….

And that was how I lost my brand new wrist watch uncle bought for me.

If only I could rewind time, I would go back to this very incident, lift that little thief of a devil and shake him violently like a rat till he coughs my casio wrist watch that brought me so much delight…