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Mbotnala
Mbotnala
Porridge (2017)
It was just another day of the week. Quite sunny actually, if compared to today’s weather.
I just got home from school. Oh! I’m soooo excited! I can’t wait to show my grandpa the stars that
teacher gave me. She told me to make sure I tell him that I’ve done an excellent job in answering
her questions.
Skidding my way up our front door, I, spied with my own---too adorable---little eyes, a
figure lying on a mat. The mat was sideways with our couch, and the couch was facing our television
set. With our DVD player just below it. The figure was a tall, not so chubby man with a bloated
stomach. An aged one whose skin is very comparable to mine, sleeping peacefully while lying on his
right side, cushioning his right arm as if it was the comfiest pillow he’d ever used.
Beaming, I announced my arrival. Greeting my grandma, sitting on the couch, with a kiss on
the cheek. I looked around. Right beside our bedroom door is a small circular table with a small
vanity mirror. And beside that mirror is a bowl. Feeling suddenly hungry, I, slowly approached it.
With my hands just above my stomach, I tiptoed my way through the sala, hoping to sneak away
Turns out it was a bowl of porridge. A once warm porridge turned cold. Why hasn’t anyone
eaten it? Surely it wasn’t placed there for decoration. Nor was it there to tempt little old me.
I picked it up, for no reason, without any agenda at all. And by agenda, I meant eating it
or whatever that fits your imagination. With my own two little feet, I strode my way to
grandfather. The bowl of porridge slightly shaking, clutched and sandwiched in between my two--
I, tried to wake him up and kept on pulling on his sleeves. After a few defiant grunts, he
opened his eyes. It looked very weary. His eyebrows were perfectly knitted together. For a
moment, he seemed to stare directly right at my soul, my whole being, of course, only from its
windows. As humans call it, the eyes of the beholder. But what do I know really, I am just a kid.
Then he smiled. A fatherly smile alienated from my system through the years of riding the
I handed him the bowl without saying a thing. I just beamed at him like I always do and
Right before I closed the small gap between the door and the doorframe, right before all
sound from the sala got muffled, I think I heard my grandma bitterly mutter something I was
never able to fully understand, ‘When I was…stupid old man…only ate when…little girl’.