Short Story

OLD RUSTY BALCONY

There is something about the sound of Keke (tricycle), I can’t explain.

My favorite spot to write is right here, on this old rusty balcony of the rented apartment we live in. It’s a two-storey building in Onitsha and we stay on the first floor.

I love to look down and watch the tricycles go back and forth, I know it’s weird, but I love the view.

Every writer is said to have their spot, where they write and inspiration and words flow, here in this open place is mine. I can smell the rusty air and the fumes from vehicles, yet I love it.

The trees dancing unnoticed, the sounds almost a cacophony to a normal human, yet its discordance is mellifluous to my ears and an igniter of my creativity.

The best part is the people that move around. My street is busiest I know. I love to watch them go about their businesses, while I ask what-ifs about their lives in my head.

I am like the silent and unseen stalker of their lives, I create the stories I wish with their picture in mind.

That’s my typical life, I read, observe and write. I consider creating stories as playing puzzles of drama and it’s my hobby.

I love to write, that’s all I know how to do, but no one ever saw what I wrote. No one.

In 2017, I was admitted to the university to study microbiology. I don’t love anything about biology or science, but my parents said studying science guaranteed me a bright future. It’s the biggest lie in Nigeria.

My roommate Charissa, isn’t anything like me. She’s daring and a go-getter, while I am the scared, petite Martha. I just go around life unnoticed, while she is always celebrated, your ideal bold girl.

I always felt intimidated by her.

Charissa is an excellent writer, she gets the gigs, has the perfect boyfriend and has thousands of followers online. My dream life.

Unlocking myself from my shell of fear has been my number one resolution every year yet it only remained written down on that list.

People always told me that I lock myself in a shell, I have always wondered what they saw so identical that made them all use the word, shell.

But one day, I suddenly went viral.

It all began the day I forgot my journal on the reading table.

I never carelessly kept it that way, it’s always hidden beneath other books on the shelf.  That journal contained my life- my stories, my expressions, the puzzles of drama I play as a hobby. The journal contained the only meaningful thing in my life, my art.

Crafted from my imagination with words.

I hurriedly left for lectures that day. Charissa had no lectures so she stayed back. She’s always busy with uncountable deadlines to meet, so days of no lectures are a dream come true for her.

On my way back from school, I was so pressed, that it felt like my bladder would burst if I delayed a minute more. I walked stylishly, clasping my thighs together, trying my best to move as quick as I could.

I scurried into the room, trusting Charissa to always leave the door unlocked. We always talk about this, she barely closes the door behind her. Well, today it graciously played in my favour.

All my focus was on getting to the bathroom as quick as possible because my pants were already wet.

On stepping out, Charissa was sitting in a yogic position engrossed in a book, my journal.

I was shocked, I felt ashamed for some reason, I wondered how terrible they were… I thought about every single negative thought I could conceive at that moment.

All I could think of doing was taking the journal away from her, but for some reason, I wanted to hear her say something about it, anything. Because I trust her.

We are two opposite individuals, but we’re best of friends, the kind of friendship that is inevitable when you somehow understand yourselves as roommates. The kind that is birthed from communal living, accommodation and a fragile yet solid trust. That kind of best of friends.

She slowly lifted her eyes to me, I stood there waiting for something, I don’t know, but there was this look on her face, she seemed somewhat flabbergasted or stunned or maybe it was a deadpan look, time somehow stood still or this happened in seconds but it was slow and deep.

“You are amazing!”, those were her words, she sounded like she couldn’t believe them herself, I wasn’t sure of their meaning at this point.

I am amazing?, really? Was she just saying that to make me feel good?

“You can’t be going through my journal”, I said, not sure why, but I went for the book.

Maybe she got it.

She let the book go.

I held on to it, it felt so awkward. She seemed to understand.

“You know magazines would pay for those stories, and how in the world do you know how to write a screenplay?”, she uttered with amusement in her eyes and I could see it.

“Oh please Rissa, this is just something I do to pass time, it’s no biggie,” I spurted out.

No, I didn’t mean that. I would love that life, the life of a writer, a young writer who wrote for top magazines, who is paid to keep writing. Her life.

“We should collaborate you know”, she watched me intently as she speaks, “ so I have this particular job that’s been giving me a hard time”, she opens a chat on her phone and gives to me, they want me to write a piece that creatively addresses drug abuse especially, among teenage boys”.

She never showed me her gigs. We rarely talk about them, when we do it’s the big clients that she got or the big magazine that finally gave her story a chance or the big campaigners she wrote creative social media posts for… those kinds of stories. Nothing like this one.

I can see the chats, the negotiation…and she wants me to write as a collaborator with her. The first thought  I had was, I will mess this up.

My subconscious mind does that all the time.

“What do you see when you hear teenage boys abusing drugs”, her question abruptly shuts my subconscious mind up.

What do I see?

“My street”, I began, “ it’s 10 pm, it’s now dark and the shops are closed, the street light is dim, I see cliques of young boys hang around in shops, at gates, windows, some walk around in a swaggering way, but just at my gate, I find four boys between the ages of 13 and 16, they have got a liquid in transparent nylon, one sips a mouthful and passes to the other, they get louder and laugh incessantly, one pulls down his nicker to his knee and walks around half-naked”.

Transparent nylon?, she opens a notebook, “ So the focus is on what kind of area?, the Ghetto? she asks attentively as she scribbles down something.

I simply nodded.

 I had seen that the day I couldn’t sleep, I stepped out to have some fresh air and I saw them.

Weeks went by, she kept asking me for ideas. She would get foodstuffs whenever she gets paid for the two of us.  We always celebrated together but she never really asked me to write.

On a Sunday morning, as we walked back to our lodge, having to greet friends abruptly, more like Rissa had to greet at least one friend after every five steps we took. She just happens to know everybody.

She mentioned a gig she would love me to write, a screenplay.

She said, a short screenplay on any topic on the trend table and she was to sell it to the producer. From the time I spent working with her, I discovered she isn’t a fan of screenplays but I love to read and write scripts, she knows.

She repeatedly told me to write my best. That didn’t help because I was scared of messing it up, it was easier when I simply suggested ideas.

This was my chance to live my secret dream of being a writer.

I went on Twitter and searched for the trending hashtags, #breakthebias resonated with me most, so I tried to craft a story out of it.

I had one week to write it. I wrote and rewrote and rewrote again, yet I felt something was lacking.

I asked her but she had nothing to say except,” I will forward it to the producer, if he likes it I will let you know”.

Fingers crossed. A real producer will read a script I wrote.

Two weeks passed and I heard nothing from her, every time I asked, she said he hasn’t gotten back to her.

One month has gone I forgot about it and move on with working with her.

Everything was still the same, except that she made I feel like a real writer.

I remember the day I registered on Linkedin and Upwork, she recommended I start with the two, I felt so lost and out of place. The people who shared their works there were so exceptional.

I have read lots of screenplays and novels to pass time and write my ideas when I felt like it, but here these guys were living the dream.

I saw so many successful writers. I wanted to be them.

Somehow I started to believe that I could be them. Maybe, as Rissa says, I am amazing.

When two months were gone, Rissa reached out to the producer, he said the screenplay was too basic.

I get it.

She said she had to refund the forty-five per cent of the amount for the script that he had paid.

I never knew a payment was made until then.

She said it was fine and there is always a first time and rejections were almost inevitable.

 She told me stories of when she had just begun, I listened to her, I heard her, but I felt like a failure- I messed it up for her, that was my fear.

 She kept telling me how she did free work yet nobody celebrated her efforts, she told me how she had to worship the floors influencers walked on just so she could be featured on their page…There were many tough stories of her beginning.

All I could think of at that moment was how I messed up her job. Yet, she understood.

The stories of her beginning were truly a tough journey that I didn’t want to go through, or my imagination made them appear worse.

But she said something, “You were born with the ink, you will get to the top before you know it”.

I am not sure, “born with the ink” is a thing.

There is something about the way she believes in me, yes, she said I am talented but I wondered how much I saw in myself.

Rissa and I aren’t roommates anymore. After our first year, I moved to a different campus. We stayed in touch, but distance weakens relations.

Remember the pandemic?, 2020 was truly a scary year, I think fear probably overcomes fear.

During that period all I had was my old rusty balcony. It was the only place where I felt still. The only place I truly belong.

Everyone was always at home, I never really interact much, not even with family.

I would always run out to the balcony. I read a lot during the pandemic and I wrote a lot too.

The fear that I could die of the covid-19 virus- we all had that fear at a point even though many wouldn’t agree- without even showing the world my gift, my art or as Rissa puts it “my ink”, blurred my fears.

What was the worse thing that could happen? Rejection? At least I gave my dream a chance.

I watched many  videos on how to build an online presence, participated in many free and paid WhatsApp classes people offered to teach newbies and with that I started intentionally writing.

It felt different. I was intentional. I was working to make it happen now.

I became death conscious. Covid did that.

Time became so valuable to me, it felt like It would be gone anytime. I consistently posted my works on all the platforms and people were loving it. I was getting endorsed and many supports was coming in.

I started resonating with people. Before I knew it, my script won the award for best short film in 2021 and I wrote and publish five short stories on top teens magazine.

Every single one of was written in my old rusty balcony and typed in my phone so it was all too good to be true. But here, I am getting gigs and emails I can barely reply all.

Rissa said I happened like a Tornado.

Maybe I did, I was desperate to happen at a point, it felt like if I didn’t do it then, I would never.

In the midst of all the wave, I was now making hundreds of thousand, I was now living the dream and I had thousands of followers online, I found something about the first script I wrote for Rissa.

The script was produced. I found the short film online- I stumbled on it on YouTube.

Everything was the same. Same plot,same dialogue, but the credit for the screenplay was given to Rissa.

I didn’t understand many things. I thought the producer said it was too basic?

Did she refine it and not mention it? But the movie is exactly as I wrote it.

The truth is that it doesn’t even matter anymore. She was the first to believe in me, I thought to myself.

I feel proud that my first script was produced, even though without my name, she got the gig after all.

Who would have believed I would overcome my baseless fear, who would have believed I would unlock the shell, tell me who would have believe it when I tell them it all began in my old rusty balcony.