Because he spent a lot of time with us...I had known every other thing about him that nobody seemed to notice...
I knew he didn't have a wife or kids. The rest of the family tried and got tired of asking him to bring a lady home, he had always told them he was not ready. When I asked Uncle Deolu why he refused to have his own family he said
"Because I want to stay true to myself"
"What does that mean Uncle?" I asked.
He said he would tell me when I grew older.
Although I was the ten-year-old who was very quiet for a boy and was basically still a kid, I was also a good observer and I wanted to know the reason why Uncle Deolu never got married.
Because he spent a lot of time with us, I was his favourite nephew. I had known every other thing about him that nobody seemed to notice. I was the only one who knew he was a struggling Alcoholic.
ALSO READ: "Don't tell- episode 1" by Suzan Ajiboye
Uncle Deolu was always good at hiding not just the bottles but also his truth. He didn't know that I knew he was an alcoholic. How could he? Who would suspect a little boy spying on his Uncle every day before dawn, watching him staring at the walls in his room and taking many gulps of alcohol? He thought he had the rest of the world under the control of his disguise, he did not worry about little Remi watching him through the door hole. There were days I wished I could ask him why he drank alone in his room, instead of sitting with my father and his friends at the balcony in the evening drinking beer in the open and eating pepper soup that my mother made.
He was sort of an open book but with torn chapters, no one had access to but him. He showed the world just enough and slowly crept back into his comfort zone when the rest of the world looked away.
When I realised Uncle Deolu was a drinker, I was almost eleven years old. I had always wondered why he kept it a secret until the very day I saw the numbers of bottles he hoarded in his travelling bag; bottles void of their dark foamy contents waiting to be replaced with new ones.
I placed my hands over the bottles and had the urge to say something to Uncle Deolu. Yet, I knew I couldn't. Even at eleven years of age, I knew I possibly couldn't tell him about what I saw. So I zipped up the bag and buried his secret in my mind.
Still, there is a thing about secret, they refuse to stay hidden forever.
Suzan Ajiboye of Suzanwriters.Wordpress.com with the pseudonym BLACKPROWRITER, is a writer from Nigeria deeply interested in African literature, Cultural storytelling, freelance writing, poetry and critical essays constantly proving that writing is definitely limitless.
from pulse.ng - Nigeria's entertainment & lifestyle platform online http://ift.tt/2mIKCJk
via IFTTT
