THE HARD LIFE
I was born in 1982 on March and I grew up with my mother in a small village near the capital. We were eight in the house and dad was forced to leave since he was not the breadwinner of the house. Everyone looked up to my mother for everything. Schooling, clothing, shelter and food. She made little money from her freelance teaching job and at the start of every year; she will take a bank loan to pay our school fees.
When I turned seventeen, I had hoped for things to change but they only got worse. Most of us dropped out of school for lack of one thing or the other but it all boiled down to finance. Mom got ill and she was relieved of her job by the primary school she taught. I started selling ripe mangoes and oranges on the streets and a year after, mom passed away.
The real life began for me. Most of us were dispersed and I had to look after my kid brother at that adolescent age. There were no jobs and there was none to help so I started singing. I was a good writer but no one read what I wrote except my dead mom. One day, when we woke up from a car parked at a gas station, a lady walked up to me with a paper in her hand. “Please I am looking for James Rocky,” she said.
I looked at the paper in her hand and my name was boldly written at the heading. “I am Rocky and this is my brother Ben,” I said. She looked stunned to find that I was young and homeless. She asked several questions, which was nonetheless her mission. When I had answered all her questions, she decided to put me to a test to confirm that I actually could write. I wrote a love story for her and when she published it, she came to me in that same old car and handed me the keys to a house. My brother and I were surprised at what she meant but when she looked down on us; she told me that my talent was genius. “You can become the most famous man on earth with your set of skills,” she said.
From that day onwards, I wrote without miss and every article of mine was bestselling. I brought my family back together and Ben returned to school where he had everything mom would have wished for.
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