Civilization, as powerful and progressive it may seem, affects our individual dreams in different ways we may not care to admit. For one, it takes away jobs that are noble in nature with the excuse of it being outdated or drains much human energy and instead runs a set of programs for machines to take it over.
If it was 1800AD, instead of sitting at my room table, holding my iPhone in my hands and typing my thoughts away on a set of glass called a phone, I would have been seated at a set of table-chair, with my typewriter, typing. Civilization happened
The sound of the typewriter gives me extra motivation and joy as I click on letters to make sentences and give a sheet of paper a long form of my thoughts inked, but Alas!
Jobs that feel small in nature, but are noble and joyous to those that find it purposeful, Civilization with its bandwagon has crushed away those jobs far into the talk of history and deep that we can’t imagine them coming back into existence. They are long gone.
If the year was 1900 AD, my dream job would have been to write letters, more for the illiterate, who can’t express themselves in words, to listen to love stories over a cup of tea in a pub and then write letters to their lovers, expressing how they feel with possible words.
I would also devise means to deliver it myself. Maybe ride on my bicycle to the next town and hand-deliver it just to see how their face lit up when they know it’s from their long lost lover.
If the year was 1940 AD, during the world war ll, I would have cycled to a military base, to attend to an injured soldier and listen to his deathbed story. With my pen and paper, I would jot down, while listening to his love story of how he postponed his wedding because of his obligations to his country.
He will share with me how he left his 19 year old lover in the city of West Virginia and had to go face the ruin of war. But now he is left to await his imminent death. He now has to rely on my promise to deliver such a letter to his lover 1600 miles away.
It’s a noble job when you think about it.
For me, I would write a letter to my primary school girlfriend, who was my first lover.Eniola Eyimofe.
A beautiful girl, both inward and out.
She was the assistant class captain, while I was the class captain, primary 2 it was, young and innocent we were.
We both, academically, were far above our other classmates, which was glaringly.
We sync since we were partners in position and then I didn’t know what was going on until she wrote me a letter in 2008 AD.
A full scalp sheet of higher education paper filled with words of love professing from a girl of about 8 years old.
Beautiful handwriting.
When she was going to approach me, she said; Ayo, I want to share something with you.
I was clueless, because we rarely exchange conversation that way.
I asked her what it is, she replied; it’s a piece of her heart. She further said during break time, she will give it to me.
She got me distracted during the whole class.
I remembered the previous week, we have had this weird energy between us which I can’t explain due to my innocence.
But on Friday, I asked for an extra pen from her which she gave me but I couldn’t return it to her before she dived out of school.
Chatting with my friend on that day, I told him my wife forgot her biro with me.
Thinking about it now, I was really brave to have said that to a friend about her. What if I had been reported to the teacher or school management? I wonder where I learnt all that from, certainly not from home.
During break time, I stayed back in class, my friends asked me to go for lunch and I weirdly turned it down.
She scrolled down to my seat and handed over to me a sheet of paper.
I asked what is this?
She responded that it was something she wrote over the weekend.
I opened it and started to read, she ran out of the class. I assumed it must have been out of shyness.
When I first read, it bloated my brain and I didn’t know how to feel. At my second, I could understand what meant, she was supposedly in love with me.
She portrayed me as a powerful governor who has a wealth of power and command respect. She illustrated how she will stand by me as my lovely wife and help me to govern very well.
As I read, one thing amazes me, it was her level of expression. Her words tickle my soul.
The fact that I didn’t intentionally make her like me and still she fell for me, makes it feel like, for that moment I went to heaven and back.
When I was done, I folded it back and kept it in my bag. In my mind, there was a gap in my thoughts, I didn’t know how to respond to it.
After the break, she came back into the class, we smiled at each other and it clicked. We mutually became lovers.
Tragedy set in after that term and she left our school.
In primary 3, I was a shadow of myself. My lover was gone, I didn’t know how to look for her, not where she was living, not a phone number or anything to trace her. But yet I couldn’t forget her name, it stuck.
Wherever she is now, she must be attracted to men of power or maybe she has wine and dined with many more in the past. Now she will be a young lady In her early 20s and a whole work of art, to the delight of men.
A pleasurable dream it seems.
If I write a letter to her now, I will remind her of her dream and how impossible it seems to be now. A lot of time has passed and a lot of dust has covered the ground of our intended love life, dried leaves also.
I would share with her a bit of my life and what I had going on for the moment. Since I perceive her to be drawn to powerful men, I’d let her know I’m not that powerful now. I’m nothing in the grand scheme of things And I have also become a confused young man, who seems to be lost in this little world and also lost the ability to want to be found.
I will make her know she was the first girl to approach me with love, and I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything about it then because I didn’t know much better, but now I do. Because my heart is lonely.
