THE MARK.

He has always seen this man.

In his dreams.

This face looks like an advanced aged face of himself.

He will find himself sitting on his laps while the man rubs on the under of his feet with the flat of his palm, looking worried and concerned.

Other times, he will look at his face with a prideful smile.

More times, he will touch both sides of his face with deep worries etched all over his cute elderly forehead, checking for something.

Chinua has been here before.

Being here, it feels like forever, actually, that dark place that makes you feel the entire world is against you.

A civil engineer with a straight expectation of how life and it rewards should be.

Haven graduated and served the country as expected.

Chinua had painstakingly prepared and submitted tenders upon tenders for contracts.

Carefully crafted proposals to secure jobs to execute housing projects, anywhere, everywhere, yet nothing.

Absolutely nothing for over 5 years and running.

He had thought that by now, he would be living the life, and be the one to care for his parents, yet he is being beaten down by life severally, holed up in his parents house still, waiting on the daily meals they feed him.

It is so abnormal, and he wants out. He wants so much to change the tides.

Chinua was told that he hailed from a small and quiet village called Umudialu in Imo State.

He was, however, born and raised in Lagos.

His parents said they hardly want to go back home as they have some reseservations for their village and the mandatory cultures.

Somehow, they also forgot to teach him the dialect of their place, so he can not speak in the dialect of his village, and he can not understand it either.

The dad and mum only communicated in English, and so did almost everyone in all the schools he attended to his university.

So, it wasn't just parents' failure, unconscious, albeit. For him, it was a societal mishap.

He can speak the mainstream Yoruba language that predominates in Lagos State fluently, yet he can not speak any dialect of any Igbo village.

Umudialu is a village that 80% only identifies with their own. When they see some representation of their place and culture in people, they immediately warm up to them and relaxes around them.

When they reach great heights, most of...