Regrets

By Ralph Nyadzi

A quiet rural community in the tropical forest region of Ghana wakes up to the news of a lifeless body hanging from the branches of a solitary tree. The question on everyone's mind is what could have made a total stranger do the unthinkable to himself at a place where nobody appears to know his identity? It is only when Mariama, the undisputed town gossips championship title holder arrives on the scene that the shocked townfolks begin to recollect events many years before. Could an abandoned suicide note a retired elementary school teacher found at his doorstep provide more clues to the mystery? Maybe yes - just.

Length: 18,000 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RN Digital Media Ent.
• Release date: Nov 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386215226

Ralph Nyadzi

Ralph Nyadzi is one writer who loves to entertain, educate and inspire his readers all at the same time. He writes as much fiction as he produces non-fiction. His reputation for exploring the human condition, for interrogating the motives behind the actions of everyday people and for inspiring the disadvantaged to reach out for the prize has been well established in his books and on his blog. He is the founder and site editor at CegastAcademy.com and also his indie publishing platform, RN Digital Media Ent. On a typical day, he is either online, busy writing, reading and researching or busier cooking or gardening. Ralph Nyadzi lives with four cats and a partridge couple in the Central Region of his native country, Ghana.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

My name is Liko.

Your name is whaaat?

He raised his head sharply, making his eyes turn away from those first few words on the white sheets still in his hands, reaching for the misty dawn sky as if he’d just heard a voice coming out from up the dark rain clouds gathering there.

Teacher Arkorful had opened the window to allow some fresh air into his rather hot bedroom. The room shouldn’t have been too hot for him to sleep soundly had it not been serving too many purposes. It was, as he jokingly told his sister, Ama Ghana, the last time, the most versatile self-contained single room house in the entire locality and even beyond.

The size of the room was average by local standards. It was the typical twelve-by-twelve single-room apartment - a popular way of describing the dimensions of such rooms not only in Bobikuma but in many parts of the country.

In the far corner, at the foot of his student-sized bed, was the kitchen. An old kerosene stove he purchased in the mid 1980s could be seen standing beside a small table on which lay a medium-sized gas cooker. A couple of aluminum cooking utensils and a few plastic bowls, a half-full bag of charcoal, a rather cheap rickety coal pot completed the set.

As you moved away from this corner toward the door, you might bump into a rather large couch for such a tiny room with a centre table next to it.

Many of his colleague teachers had once sat in this couch. He could remember vividly the day his bosom friend, Kofi Liko, walked in with his girlfriend – another teacher at the primary department. Asantewa refused to sit in the couch because, according to her, she could no longer bear the itch at her bottom.

You must throw away this ancient couch and replace it with something more presentable, she told him. So she stood by the door.

Teacher Arkorful could not understand why that girl had a knack for embarrassing anybody she came into contact with. He ignored her. As for her boyfriend, he behaved as if nothing was going on. Maybe he had seen enough of his saucy girlfriend’s ways to be bothered anymore.

Only God knows why he abandoned that little sister of Madam Comfort’s for this girl without manners, he wondered.

That was years ago and for him, his couch had remained strong. No need to change it even now.

On the centre table was a TV set. Toshiba. There was a tired-looking standing fan now bent over in its mid-section or thereabout. It bent over as if it had an eternal stomach problem. This fan apparently stood erect on its singular leg once before. But its present awkward positioning could point to only one fact – it had seen better days.

Fans sometimes can give you scorching heat instead of the cool air you’ve come to love coming from them. It’s as if having been overused, they feel aggrieved and so decide to show their owner some lessons in betrayal of trust. This was exactly the hell through which this fan was now putting Teacher Arkorful. Hot air. Any day, any time.

Now, if you stood by the door and looked across the room toward the other wall facing the student-sized bed, you would see Teacher Arkorful’s study. It was a simple affair made up of what could only pass for an ancient colonial-era table and no chair. One of the legs of the table was missing so it had to rest its shoulder precariously against the wall lest it collapsed onto the pot-holed floor beneath it.

There was not enough space for a chair even if he could afford one. The only limited space in front of the table was taken over by a rusty metal box, popularly called trunk. It contained all of Teacher Arkorful’s valuable earthly possessions.

He bought it on credit from Maame Alata, the woman from Swedru who came to sell all kinds of goods to the teachers. Her prices were more than double the price you would find on the regular market. But the teachers never complained because they were buying on credit.

It was Mr Koomson, the class four teacher who persuaded him to acquire this trunk and he had remained grateful to him ever since.

Where would I have put all my things if Kofi Koomson had not pursuaded me to buy this trunk? He would sometimes ask himself, a look of concern on his face. There were times he felt that he had acquired too many things he didn’t actually need.

That’s what Kofi Liko would always tell him. He was one person who wouldn’t have  acquired the trunk that day, but for that queen of vanity he was housing for a girlfriend. So Kofi Liko bought the trunk just like all the other staff members. But he resisted the extra pressure coming from them and refused to take any one of the ceramic bowls.

That day, Maame Alata was all smiles. She even gave each teacher a sleek-looking handkerchief.

I could have done without this ceramic bowl here. Look at the way it’s sitting in there as if it is still waiting for me to hold it and give it a nice bath. I hate the look of the dust and that stain on its rim. Just look at it.

Sitting on top of the trunk were the sad-looking, dusty, rusty remains of an old bicycle which he bought