NGO

"You don't know who your friends are." I remembered this line out of all the things that Aunt Amaka had said to me before she left. I remember that I bristled when she said it, but she had forged ahead, unmindful of my discomfort.

"You have never had friends. Yet you think that you have. That you have gathered lifelong friends because you all share similar interests. Ngo, you have no friends." She had said, swiping at the flies with the end of her wrapper. At this point, I was livid but tradition forbade me from saying anything to her, plus she was my favorite cousin. And so, I sat and listened to her.

"Life is like the ocean. Everyone knows what it is, some have swum in it, some have breathed in too much of its salt, some have spent too much time on it, while some still have no idea what it feels like to feel the water crashing against the shore. Those who have never heard the ocean in its fury rely on the experiences of others, they are the ones that are glued to the television, imagining themselves in the wet. You, Ngo, are one of these people." She had paused. I had breathed, once, twice, and then the third time. She continued.

"You have had it easy most of your life. Of course, I played a huge part in ensuring that you had it easy. But now, I wonder if I may have done too much. I'm sending you out to a world where only the smartest and strongest survive, and I fear that you are neither"

She quieted my protest with her raised hand. "Yes, you were the best graduating student in your school and class valedictorian, but that kind of smart needs a different kind of smart if it will do things differently. If it will be able to stare down the naysayers confidently. And you have none of that. And these people that you call your friends have no idea what life is like without unlimited funds. They do not know what it is like to weather the storm or how to drive through obstacles or how to simply be there for you."

I blinked back the tears, because aunt Amaka had in her blistering fashion, hit the nail on the head. 

I swallowed and swallowed again. Aunt Amaka's voice was fading into the background and I blinked again, but this time the tears fell unhindered, my soul's only response to its ultimate betrayal.

The End.

Who writes sad stories when they're going to eat a plate of jollof rice?

Me, that's whom.

Anyways, I'm learning new stuff about themes and short stories, so y'all are going to have to deduce what the theme in this story is.

Hint: most of the time, the theme of a short story is an abstraction - Molara Wood.

P.S. The photo belongs to Craig Adderley on Pexels.