They got punished

So today, they got punished. The wet hands of the rain beat them to tears.

It's hard to tell a blessing apart from punishment in their part of the world. Every blessing was like a curse. Their fertility would impoverish them just as the rain wetting their crops would uproot the roofs they had over their head.

Rain fell today and the traffic, as usual, was snarled up. There were so many empty seats in the private vehicles locked down in the tightly gnashed teeth of the Lagos traffic. A lot of the buses were caught in the gridlock too, so it was extremely hard to make the turns to pick up more passengers. The drivers burnt more fuel and wasted a lot of time on each trip.

The private vehicles could have filled its empty seats with the poor commuters for which it felt enormous pity but for the fear of ending up without a car or an arm. The fuel in the buses would not replenish itself and the time lost on the traffic could not be recovered, so the buses would charge up to 650 percent of the actual fare. The ones with kinder landlords accepted a generous increase of 450 percent.

People would outrun, push, pull, and trample on one another to pay the extortionate fare. Everyone just want to go home. Except for the ones who run, push , pull, and trample for the sole purpose of stealing. That was their office. They have no home in mind.

Rumpled foreheads, long faces, and sweaty noses even after the showers of rain. It's usually a tough day in Lagos when it rains. A rough day for everyone.

But really, nobody does anything. Just vituperation unaccompanied by actions. Then comes a blithering silence, - when the sky wipes its face clean and shines its sunny teeth at Lagos.

It's almost like, "Let's save the remaining tears for another day".

Bonnuit.