'There comes a moment' by Fuad Lawal

There comes a moment when you reminisce, you know, look back at where the dream started.

He graduates from high school. Many dreams and expectations. He wants to change the world. No, he knows he’ll change the world. He’s so convinced that you’d think he has been to the future and has felt the fulfilment from all that he has achieved.

University is different. Not exactly how he has dreamed it. Not like school is hard, but half the time he’s thinking about how many theories he has to memorise.

The other half, he’s thinking about how the theories might never be useful in real life. He begins to conform, get used to it, as school prepares him for the world, the labour market. Labour. Market. Go figure.

He graduates, dreams still in the head, business plans in his memo.

He begins the dream chase, but every time, reality is waiting in a corner, leg stretched for him to trip. Slowly, the darkness of reality begins to eclipse him. The dreams begin to fade so fast he would dust his pillow, that perhaps, it holds some. The plans become useless, at slow and excruciating speed.

The world is changing, without him.

Damn.

He’ll deny the reality, and deny, until one moment, this moment, he’ll realise that he is life’s whore.

“I’ll take the job sir,” he says, forcing a smile.

“Welcome to our team,” his new boss shakes him.

Dreams are claustrophoibic. They never fit into a box or cubicle.And so they leave. He doesn’t fight to keep them. He’s exhausted. Like everyone else. Or almost everyone else.

But one day, he’ll get up from all fours, pull up his pants, and say, “Life, you have had enough. My turn.”Hopefully.

Fuad Lawal is a poet and copy writer. He blogs at rebelliousflash300.wordpress.com

Flash Fiction: Nostalgia