What happens at dawn?
Do you not wonder?
When sleep shifts from 5th to 3rd.
Ignore the 4th
For forth comes the lazy 2nd.
Till you land on the 1st – gear of sleep
The 1st person to wake.
Mama Akos.
The sound and strength of her short broom against the hard concrete floor.
Like that of GTV at the end of its transmission.
Its effect to awaken.
The prospect of a sad next.
Programming like clockwork.
Robotic, if you may.
Yet her Joyous singing
“Da n’ase, Da naaaaaa-se, Da Onyame n’ase! Afri s3! Oye!…”
Eases the pain of light.
A cue to stay awake.
Kwabena.
The swish swash sound of water eagerly making runs around his face.
His tooth brush begins to bleed, continuously being abused through the constant slap it receives from his teeth.
There he goes, sauntering towards the main road
The life of a trotro mate, similar to that of an Okpo bird.
Very early, its call – a shriek of 5am.
“Circ, Circ, Circ, Kaneish!..”
A call onto prayer.
He calls on all commuters to come board his metallic coffin
If indeed they wish to make it to their destination on time.
Fully awake now.
Abena.
Running in her heels.
Definitely cleansed of her Morning Zombie Syndrome.
Cussing under her breath.
“Why Lord? Heels against the bare dusty ground? Who made heels the standard for women anyway? I am sure an Adam somewhere, who wanted to further the suffering of women. As if childbirth wasn’t enough! Where are my fellow Feminists when you need them?”
She barely makes it.
The front seat of the moving trotro becomes her portion.
Piercing eyes are her weakness
“Madam you look nice oo”, a frustration!
Another rant maybe?
“Not today” she whispers under her breathe.
She is late
Her Temper Definitely awake.
What happens at dawn?
Koko, Waakye, and Chibom fill the air.
A sign it is time again to begin another hustle – a new day.
I once heard from a wise man
If you wake up every morning angry at the thought of going to work, or have a serious urge to call in sick but for the fact that common courtesy stops your fingers, then you are in the wrong job! We can’t always have what we want, we sometimes find ourselves taking bendy roads in our lives that don’t seem direct or make you feel lost. It’s ok to take long bendy roads. They are filled with lessons and mistakes. They make you stronger! But you need to understand that there will come a time when you will need to jump! Take a leap of faith! Fear leads to failure and fear is what will get you stuck in that job or position you despise. As soon as you take that leap, you will fall hard and bruise yourself but note – you will not die! After all, no one was promised a cushion and bed of roses in life. I repeat again, you will bruise yourself but you will not die! Do you know why? Because you were once on a long bendy road full of lessons and mistakes. And it’s those lessons and mistakes which will guide you on your new found courage to jump. Your lessons will cushion you when you fall! That is why you will not die. People recover from bruises all the time. Success is not easily garnered. It takes bruises, blood and pain for success to come. But if you remain at that job you hate so much, you will certainly die. And no one recovers from death.
And that my brothers and sisters, is how you will come to find true happiness and fulfillment.
What happens at dawn then?
A new day. A new opportunity to Jump!
Jump little bird! Jump! For if you don’t jump out of your nest, you will never learn to fly.
You won’t get to sing the joyous songs of Mama Akos.
Or watch from a distance as Kwabena calls unto them that refuse to jump – stuck in a gyre, just like Abena – forever a Zombie.
Jump!
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