The window cleaner

A Reflection

The piercing  screams of crows , basking in their merriment was fast turning to music to the ears of Siin. He had earlier complained to Gamblesense about the horrid noises produced by the black birds and Gamblesense had given him a psychological remedy to it .

" The screams of the crows are horrid aren't they .? " Gamblesense asked, as they both walked slowly on the deserted road.

" Yes they are . I can hardly concentrate on anything with all the noises they keep churning out." Said Siin as he picked a marble Stone and glided it towards the direction of a crow that perched on the helmet of a fallen soldier .

" Is there anyway you could make them stop." Gamblesense asked as he walked with the help of his over sized walking stick , that doubled him in height.

" I think the only way to stop the noises , is to kill them all or chase them out of the city." Said Siin in a non challant attitude. He had only met Gamblesense for less than a day and had developed a great bond of familiarity with the strange creature. He felt so at ease with Gamblesense as would a child with it's mother.

" Do you the know the number of the crows and ravens in Sharja?" Gamblesense asked with a meek smile.

" I don't know the exact number.  Nothing less than a hundred thousand." Said Siin as he hawked his vision across the horizon  to get a head count of the several dozens of crows he could lay sight on.

" So how will you kill all thousands ? Better still how do you plan on chasing them out of Sharja?." Asked Gamblesense with an air of seriousness in his tone.

" Well to be honest i don't think I can chase them out. It's impossible . They are just too many for me to handle." Siin said as he raised his shoulders and flattened his palms in gesture of accepting defeat.

" So what would you do?, Since it's now clear that you can't get rid of the noisy birds ." Asked Gamblesense as he nodded softly in comprehension to All of Siins answers.

" I will have to ignore them and if that doesn't work I will have to tolerate them. Either way. These are  the only choice I have before I leave this town." Said Siin who was beginning to get the lesson in the series of questions.

"Marvellous! Just marvellous. So why didn't you think of your realistic options before concluding on the unrealistic ones. It's going to take lots of years and dedication to kill and chase away all the crows and ravens in Sharja. You may have grown old by then, and would  have still achieved nothing from your primary goal of coming here . However you can ignore the noises of the crows by pretending they do not exist and if that fails to work. You can simply adapt to your new environment. " Said Gamblesense , who paused for a while and he continued.

" You see young lad. The present is called a present for a reason . It's a gift of being able to behold a moment as a moment gone is gone forever. Time is precious. You must always evaluate your decisions before making them and be quick to adapt to your situation when adaptation is eminent. Is that clear? " Gamblesense asked as he met the gaze of Siin for the first time since they had been on the road.

"Yes sir. " Said Siin, as he marvelled at the height of intelligence of a creature who wasn't bigger than an African pigmy.

" I will like to know the essence of me,  coming to this place. Why I'm I not dead or alive? " Said Siin who had wanted to ask this question since at the hospital ward.

" Because you were choosen by Kaltumis ghost to seek vengeance for her. " Said Gamblesense , in explicit manner that was blank of emotions

" Me ? But why me . There are thousands of young men. Many of them with great infuence and wealth, who could help her with  ease. I struggle to put food on my table. Why did she have to add to my burden? " Siin asked as he looked towards his companion for answers.

" Cause you carry  a an extra ordinary presence that is as old as your birth it self. " Said Gamblesense and nodded slowly.

" An extra ordinary presence, you say?. I do not understand. Please Gamblesense. Tell me what  you mean by that . " Said Siin with great curiosity.

Gamblesence was silent for short while before sighing deeply and began to speak .

" A hard earned shilling, a school boy , a talisman with dreadlocks and crowd of people . What does these terms  remind you off ?. Think young lad.  think." Gamblesense asked with an air of confidence, as both entities commuted the lonely road.

" My childhood. They remind me of an event from my childhood." Said Siin as his eyes widened in surprise. He was rather baffled that Gamblesence knew events from his past.

"Oh well , then tell me about that event." Said Gamblesense and nodded with the Majesty of a Sultan. 

"Okay." Said Siin , who paused 

Siin paused for while , took a deep breath and began to speak.

" Many years ago. When I was much younger, about the ages of six and seven . I had been obsessed by getting a pig bladder football so I could attract friends to play with me.i was very much lonely as all the kids avoided me not because they hated me but because their parents would often flog them anytime they had caught them playing with . They had said i was an evil child who had killed my mother in childbirth and thus carried an evil curse around with me. Those where the worst days of my life . I was always sad because I had no one talk to and play with. Even my step Brothers and sisters were scared to play with me for fear of getting severely beaten by their parents. My dad was the nearest thing I had to a friend. He had raised me up not out of love but rather out of tolerance. He never maltreated me or showed me any form of anger . But never for once had my innocent smiles towards him been met with a smile. Even though he catred for my needs to the best of his abiilities. Not for once had he expressed any emotion of love to me as a child. I remember running to welcome him severally from his outings and the gesture on his face was too frightening for me to proceed. I realized he didn't love at all. For a fact I knew my father hated me but he realized that he was the nearest thing I hard to true family and decided to tolerate me.

I concluded that buying a ball would make other boys play with me . But I had no means of getting money. I had to treck many kilometers to attend school each day . And neither me nor my siblings were given a dime to buy snacks at school. I was bent on buying a ball which cost about twelve shillings as at then. I had no hope of getting money from anywhere but I knew I had to get a football so badly if I wanted to befriend the boys.

After days of thinking about how to get the money. I came up with an idea to work as a lobourer in one of the construction sites that was close to my school. At first the engineer in charge of recruitment , had said I was too young to work but I insisted that I needed the money badly to pay my school fees as I was an orphan. At the end, he handed a pan to me and directed other labourers to fill it with mortar so I could convey it to the masons for appropriate usage . Every day after school, I had to sneak to the construction site so that none of my siblings would see me and report to my dad. But on the sixth day of enduring the tidious work and the constant headache which carrying the mortar filled pan had caused me, One of my step brother who had been suspecting my movements, finally decided to sneak on me and uncovered my secret. All my plea to him not to tell my dad fell on deaf ears as he reported me to my Father who gave me the beating of my life and warned me never to go back there again. All the money I had saved was just two  shillings short of getting me my dream toy and I was sure that my bergaining skills would make up for shortage. 

 The next day, I headed straight to the market to buy the football which was already in sight, but then came a strange looking man with thick dreadlocks that were almost covered in cowries. He must have been in his late forties or whereabout. His attires where strange and it was obvious he was a soothsayer. He soon let out a cobra from a bag he had hung on his shoulder and began performing tricks with it to attract the attention of the crowd. Soon a small crowd had gathered around him and I had to struggle my way through the crowd to keep on enjoying the show he had been putting on with his cobra. Then all of a sudden he paused as if struck by lightning and began staring at the crowd till his gaze met mine. I felt scared and made to recede into the crowd but he called me out in an accomodating voice , urging me to come to the center of the show. He realised I was scared of the cobra that meandered around his foot and he walked calmly to me and spoke  this words :

" Oh poor child. I see pain , suffering and loneliness in your eyes . " He said as he gazed straight into my eyes."  You carry a great presence with you."  he said and sniffed the air in an intoxicated manner. 

" indeed! .A mothers love is undying. The spirit of the white one has always been with you. Why are you lonely my child?."  He asked me in the most kind manner by which anyone had ever spoken to me. I told him I had no friends and my mother had left me alone in this world. He walked closer to me amidst the whole crowd and told me not to feel lonely as my mother loved me so much. He told me that even in death , her presence loched in my  path. He said the only reason I felt lonely was because I couldn't connect to her. I was shocked when he mentioned to me that even I had all the footballs in the world. I will still be hated by my  siblings." 

Said Siin who had became emotional from the sober reflections from the past . His eyes were teary and he wiped them with his fingers and continued.

" The talisman  then brought out this totem ,which i have worn as a necklace since the day I got it. He said it was a priceless work of art from the greatest of great witches . And only  in it's possession could I ever get rid of loneliness as it would bestow on me the connection I needed to feel my mothers love and presence. He had bearly finished talking when I stretched my two hands to get it, as if being hypnotized by it's charm and glamour. But then, he drew it backwards and continued to speak. He said the totem was the last of it's kind in the whole of Congo thus it was very expensive. He added that the bearer of such a totem would enjoy enormous wealth, love and protection from evil harm. At that point, I realised I wasn't going to have the totem for free if at all I was going to have it all.  "  Do you have a hundred shilling. ? The talisman had asked me. " For a hundred shlling I will give this priceless item to you ,he said and swirled totem necklace arousingly to my sight. I  told him I had only fifty eight shilling and he said it was too small for the priceless artifact. He made to put it back into his bag and It was at that moment I burst out in tears begging him to collect the fifty nine shillings and give me the totem. Well.  my pleas didn't fall on deaf ears. He collected my money and gave me the totem. The he went ahead to sell several necklaces and rings to other people in the crowd. I do not know for sure if the totem had worked or not. But ever since I hung it around my neck. I have had little regards for the affection of others . It didn't bother me much that my siblings didn't like me anymore. I felt and still feel the loving presence of my mother thanks to this totem. But  all that seemed to dissapear when I saw kaltumi. I felt helpless and longed for her affection. when I realised she was a ghost  . It sent me back to my sad days of pain and sadness . I still feel that way till this moment."

" Marvellous. What an impeccable memory you have . " Said Gamblesense who had been mute all the time Siin had been speaking.

" But I can't still fathom ,why Kaltumi choose me. " Siin said in anticipation of Gamblesense part of the story.

" It's not a lie, that you carry a ghostly presence along with you. The spirit of your mother is so attached to you and the strength of that bond has created a realm of Ghostly energy which emanates from your soul. Wandering Ghost can pick up the signals of your very rare kind of energy and connect to you visually. However, only when the bond between the two parties become strong would you be able to communicate to each other like normal humans . Kaltumis Ghost is a wandering one, she probably picked your signal when you were out working in high altitude and chose you to avenge her death. To be honest , she was just lucky to wander across such a rare gift and you are also in luck to be choosen by her . The benefits will always outweigh the cost. But some days you will be on your own and the decisions you make will be the ultimate deciding factor. I am just a medium contracted by Kaltumi to prepare you for the inevitable battles at hand. Pay great attention to details and arm yourself with all the knowledge you can get ."  Said Gamblesence as he looked towards a  murder of crows as if to say hello to them.

" I see . Contracted you say. How do you get paid. " Siin asked with curiosity.

" Wandering ghost are strong. They are very few to. We owe them a single wish, but the issue of life and death is not in our hands so we can't fulfil such a wish. Kaltumis wish is for me to create a bond between you and her so she could have an access to you and inherently, guide you to avenge her death . A wish which is only possible when you are nourished with wisdom and knowledge that could take you to heights of both spiritual and financial resources . " Said Gamblesense and nodded slowly.