Ache

Last week, in Abuja, I followed a friend to a ghetto side to get his haircut. While he was getting his haircut in the barbershop, I had to step out. The music was too loud for me, and the air inside was too stuffy. So I sat outside, soaked in the raw, chaotic rhythm of the ghetto. And then... I saw something sitting in a small corner, just few steps away from me. It was a hen.

This hen was dirty and frail . It didn’t flinch or run when it saw me, it infact rushed toward me.

I thought it was hungry, so I went to beg a handful of raw maize from the Hausa food seller beside the shop. I tossed the maize toward the hen, expecting it to dig in. But it only tapped at the grains with its beak without eating, then rushed back toward me.

I threw my hand to chase it away. I couldn’t let it get close cuz it was too filthy. So it returned to its lonely corner, and I just sat there… watching it quietly.

After a while, a mother hen and her chicks walked by. The sad little hen flared up from its corner and instantly tried to join them, but the mother hen chased her off. She staggered back to her corner. Rejected again. Then another group passed. She tried again. Same result. You could see the ache in her body, the need to belong.

Then a big red cock came by. He made his usual advances. You know the kind where the hen would typically run, and the cock would chase until he could climb her. But this one didn’t run. She stayed still. He climbed her, used her, and walked away. She tried to follow him… but he chased her off too.

Then finally, a flock of ducks came by. She joined them. They didn’t seem to mind. For a moment, it looked like she found her place. They waddled together until they reached a small river. The ducks dived in with no hesitation. And the hen desperate not to be left behind jumped in after them. And She drowned in the river and died.

The sat little hen didn't die from drowning. She died from loneliness. From a longing to belong. From trying to fit in where she didn’t belong because she was rejected where she actually belonged.