The Road to Damascus -page 14

The semester was over. Naturally, I should go home. But I feel at my age, I should be doing something productive with my life instead of going home to sit and stare at the empty walls of my parents’ house.

Besides, I have very few friends there. By friends, I don’t mean very close friends. Many of them are just “Hi!“ and “Hello” from a distance friends. I didn’t grow up there and my life has been a mobile one, where I hardly allowed my self to germinate at any one place. Always on the move. From school to school, church, then brief visit to my parents when surviving on my own becomes unbearable.

Many of what I call close friends are in reality coursemates.

I constantly think about my joblessness, and wonder when my life will begin. When will I save, get my own apartment and move out of school hostels? When will I find a good work, save and marry?

All these thoughts sometimes drive me nuts. Sometimes, I think I haven’t been a good enough friend to others, that’s why I feel lonely now that it seems everyone has abandoned me.

On the other hand, I tell myself that I am still young. And that everything that happened in the past was just the right lessons I needed to build a solid, different life, the kind I have always dreamt of. What mattered are the lessons. No need to stew in regrets, though it isn’t as easy as it sounds.

I feel a bit a shamed that I had to share a room with students much younger than I was, who weren’t in the same level as I was. But I tell myself that it’s temporary.

Four in a room means no privacy at all. It’s the kind of place, you wouldn’t want to bring a lady to see where you lived.

It’s temporary. I keep reminding myself.

Now, against my will, I have to go home. The hostel manager, who was also its owner, was needlessly difficult.

One of my roommates brought a fifth person to live with us in the already congested room. He lied to us that it was  just for a weekend, and that weekend turned to five months.

And I’m wondering which letters in ‘five months’ when flipped over could be used to spell ‘weekend’.

Of course I told the landlord about it when I was tired of preaching threats.

“Joe has brought another person to our room. We told him it was a nuisance to us but he kept cooking up one excuse after the other, not ready to let the guy move out.” I sent the WhatsApp message one late night.

At dawn the landlord’s response was in:

“Sorry about the incident. I will deal with him.”

And to my shock, he reminded me of some paltry amount I owed him. After declaring the hostel fees for the semester and I was done paying, he announced increments that he expected everyone to pay. Why hadn’t the increment been announced long time, or at the time I was paying to him?

I never paid.

Was that his way of thanking me for letting him know someone was using his facility without paying?

I noticed ever since I told him about my roommate letting someone stay in our room, he’s become more difficult and unreasonable in his demands. For instance, we could stay in the hostel during short inter-semester breaks without paying since there were very few of us that actually stayed back.

Now he demanded that we pay some exhobitant price for those short stays.

He used to provide free gas in the kitchen for use. We were now to contribute and buy that gas. And many other things that make life in the hostel comfortable now ceased.

He now seemed mean to me. And I keep wondering if it’s his small way of saying “Thank you” to me for letting me know what goes on in my hostel behind my back.