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when i was younger, i never asked who happy people are. i knew them. there was a tycoon who lived on our crescent. who threw parties that fed our entire town to stupor thrice every year. there was my old classmate… A-costumed academic reports from elementary school through college. i never had to ask. i knew what happy people are like. but. few years later, i read in a local paper, that the valedictorian of a prestigious university had – two days after his graduation ceremony – prepared poison like beverage and mailed it to his intestines. i heard that before cockcrow one day, a powerful monarch had gone to seek solace at seabed… to rinse the burden of breath off his lungs. and that a popular comedian had suspended his own body on a wire tethered to a cashew tree in his courtyard. leaving his brand, his edifice, and a piece of paper… "i hope i find happiness outside this world… away from this place." who are happy people? what makes happiness? every night, when i drive past the slums, i see a family of emaciated orphans. who have their bedrooms on tarpaulins and cartons under the old bridge. i see them. everyday. always smiling… tossing their alms-bowls with relish. what makes happiness? who are happy people?
Enobong Ernest Enobong is a Nigerian Poet, Haikuist and Essayist.
Very well, Enobong!