Immediately I woke up, I knew something was strange.
Perhaps it was the way the sun shone through my window at an odd angle, or the order at which I put on my slippers and began to shuffle to the bathroom, or maybe it was how I had managed to wake up before the whole house when normally I was the last to wake.
I turned on my phone and scrolled through whatever new messages flew in. So many unread chats; idle chatter, unreasonable requests, chat forgotten by kere chance and chats intentionally ignored. The list was endless.
One chat however had precedence and urgency more than most especially now that a new message just popped in.
ENG 312 class by 8am, attendance is compulsory. Lecturer known to be quite wicked and strict.
A message that was both informative and depressing. I had woken up just after 6pm, an ungodly hour by my standards. Still I couldn't afford to miss the class and so I started getting ready. By seven, I was on the road.
The drive to school today was quick, no traffic or hold up caused by the new flyover bridge being built at the junction.
The lack of the traffic changed my views and made me really look at the surroundings, noting how so much had changed in this junction that now had such a towering structure of architecture growing above it.
I tried remembering how it was without the bridge, before when driving to and fro from school where ten till fifteen minutes instead of the forty minutes till 1 hour journeys I and so many others were forced to partake in.
Seems I wasn't the only one nostalgic as the driver who had been talkative since when I entered his vehicle commented on the free road.
"E don tey since I pass here without cursing every five minutes." I and a few others smiled at that comment, the truth of it clear to regular travelers of the route.
"Was it that bad?" A passenger asked, seemingly someone who doesn't regularly follow here.
"’That bad?’ Be like you no dey normally follow here?" The driver asked and she nodded in the affirmative.
"Hmmm. It's that bad oo. In fact it's even worse." The driver complained.
"The traffic jam, on a good day, could leave you sleeping on your wheel for 30 minutes without moving. Then those who do move, do so in erratic ways." Another passenger joined
I found myself being more drawn to the conversation.
Being reminded of instances when I had to cut my journey in half, then walk quite a distance, passing the traffic straight to the junction and then entering another car there to continue my journey.
I remember then when walking that I was nearly hit by a car which was driving in no way a car filled with passengers -or even without the passengers- should be driving at all.
"Car go dey climb sidewalks, leave road and driving between gutters, trying to get a shortcut through filling stations." Another passenger continued disapprovingly.
The driver laughed and explained. "No be our fault na. Everybody dey try find way to beat the traffic. No be everybody fit drive around am. Na why accidents they happen."
"Accidents happen because you guys drive like that."
We crossed under the uncompleted bridge, from the outside it looked rather complete.
It was a brief drive, the sun blocked out for nearly a second.
"So why is there usually such a large traffic jam and why is there none now?" The passenger who initially prompted the argument asked.
She had a point, I looked back at the bridge and saw that the workers were still working.
Nobody had an answer to her questions or at least no one answered till it was time for me to alight.
With a sigh, I rushed into the taxi for a drive back home. I was the last person and as I entered the driver pulled out and started the journey.
It was a tiring day, draining emotionally and mentally as for hours in school I struggled with a project which was hell bent in giving me everything but the required result.
The clouds were dark in direct contrast to the sunshine in the morning. Still in this country, the past always seems brighter than the future.
The rain started in earnest, windows had to be rolled up and the car soon became stuffy with a mixture of everyone's stench of a long day.
It was a horrible smell, under horrible weather in a horrible situation, as the Rumuosi traffic jam had started and we had just entered it, almost two kilometers before the bridge.
At first inside the car was quiet, everyone minding their business and hoping -praying even- that the traffic would move on fast and the rain even faster. Those prayers were unanswered.
The first person to break the silence was the passenger who I shared the front seat with.
"What's even the use for this bridge sef? Like what does it even contribute more than hold up and headache."
"I don't even know ooo" Another passenger interjected.
"Day in, day out, causing traffic jams akd go slow as long as people's full journey.
Wasting fuel and time."
"Government own is just planting bridges everywhere as though their seeds or we're in a game. All roads blocked, every car in one road." All passengers in the were in on the lamentations now.
I, being the youngest and not particularly interested in government talks, decided to just listen.
"I remember back when times were easier." The driver began.
"Fuel prices were low, roads were good, food wasn't scarce. When the common man could actually survive."
"You're talking of a long time ago." Another passenger said laughing drily.
"I remember then too. When the governor actually cares for the well being of this state. Back then when we had foreign musicians come for state festivals and each festival held for a few days. Free for everybody to come and rewind."
"My brother took me to one of those back then." Yet another passenger said.
"I remember vividly, I was still in secondary school then. Port Harcourt was fun then."
The man who said his brother carried him to the festival looked to be in his late twenties, back when he was in secondary school, which means I was probably still in nursery school.
There was no way I'd have been chanced to go to or even remember a festival.
I felt a twinge of jealousy about that, it meant that all I remember about this city was hardship and suffering.
We had moved a great distance since the nostalgic thinking of the old days by the different passengers.
The rain seemed to have begun to let up too and some passengers wound down their windows a bit to let in some fresh air.
"Those festival times were fun. To be honest, even five to six years ago was better than now."
The driver continued the conversation as he tried maneuvering off the road and entering another point in the traffic farther ahead than we once were.
"At least back then, things were still working. They were broken, yes, but gears were moving."
The traffic moved a bit and he was able to fully enter the road once again.
"If TIMARIV, that Road Police was still active, this traffic wouldn't be possible now."
Everybody nodded their heads, including me, who was old enough to remember the vigilante road police.
Known for their ruthlessness and effectiveness, almost never on uniform but always stood on business.
A year after they came onto the roads, plenty of cars were stopped, seized and battered because of various road crimes spanning in intensity from disobeying traffic rules to fake documents.
Bribing them was fruitless and appealing to their better nature did nothing more than amusing them. They were heartless, but they worked.
"Sometimes that kind of wicked serious people is what this country needs to survive." The driver said again as we finally reached the bridge.
On getting there, as always, there was no visible cause for the traffic.
No accidents, no spoiled cars, no problem at all.
"This traffic is just a problem of no leadership. Nobody is in power to make cars move orderly." The driver explained.
"The roads grew small because of the diversions, meaning at most only two cars can pass at a time. So every car is trying to rush in, and the traffic jam is caused."
It was a stupid, childish reason for such a long traffic jam, but as I watched on, I understood how it was true.
We passed the bridge to clear the roads ahead.
All windows were down now as the rain had stopped, most passengers had dropped and it seemed I was the last of the initial group to drop at my junction.
As I came out from the car, the smell of the ground freshly doused from the rain brought back memories of the good old days.
Days in my primary school when I always ran out into the rain, not a worry more than when the next episode of my TV show would air and how I would solve my addition assignment.
I smiled at such nostalgia just from the smell of the rain, the good old days were long gone though.
Such foolish worries are now replaced with much real threatening ones as I'm much older, yet I can still smile at how serious they felt to me back then.
Hopefully thinking of the past worries and how I conquered them, would help reduce the gravity of the present ones.
At least, with the cool breeze blowing at me, that's what I chose to believe.
Links to all images used are embed on them. Click the images, to go to the source.
This was meant to be an entry and usage of @theinkwell past fiction weekly prompt The Good Old Days.
Yet during writing, I found out that instead of fiction, I was depicting a scene that did happen one time ago thus making this a creative non-fiction.
It's my first time being even slightly moved to create a creative non-fiction story and such I was curious to how far I could depict these scenes and how I can forge them into something. And so here we have it, my Roadside Nostalgia.
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