To see, according to your late mother, was to sense, learn, and move on. To you, it was to see and talk. You did not accept the wasted seconds and minutes that followed seeing, either comment about something or not. You acted according to your mood swings. Bad opinions? You blamed on a mood swing because you were afraid of the consequences that patently waited on the other side. Bad results? Mood swing. Poor fashion sense? Mood swing. The universe was not friendly, nor were its constituents that looked like you. How on earth would a "mood swing" be the factor after every unreasonable word that tumbled out of your lips? Mood swing, the blame taker. Mood swing, the oscillation that your fellow ball-bearing organisms would rather look away from.

​

Almost everything changed on the heated afternoon when Aunty Toyin stitched the lacerated medial sole of your right leg at her pharmaceutical store, after you had downed two plates of vegetable soup and eba, which lay balmy in your stomach. The body stretch, the masterminded sigh after the last gulp of water, came from satisfaction and not mood swing. Your right foot was caked in your blood. Aunty Toyin finished the stitching, telephoned your brother, Kayode. A few minutes later, Kayode arrived at the store, saluted Aunty Toyin, and looked at your face.

​

“How did this happen?” Kayode asked, looking at you. The question had no recipient; it was defensively bland and blank. Aunty Toyin gestured with her left hand to your plastered and bandaged leg. You began to stammer because surely, mood swing was an utterly helpless excuse at that point.

 

“I don’t know how it happened,” you said, with trepidation bouncing on your lips, lurking around your eyeballs, and behind the goosebumps that you left unattended. “I was playing with Dorcas, Bolu, and Joy at the abandoned canoe, walking on the left edge. I slipped out and felt that my leg was struck on landing on the ground. I saw blood and ran home to show Sister.”

​

“Did you eat anything before you went to play?” Kayode asked maliciously, as if trapping a prescriptive politician during his campaign and then using his unintended comment against the political party, perhaps losing the election.

​

“Yes,” you answered, consistently blinking and avoiding his eyes. “Eba and efo elegusi.”

​

“I knew it,” Kayode said, exasperated. “Eating and eating and eating. Too much food is the same as too much alcohol.”

​

“I agree,” Aunty Toyin said, her voice echoing from the inner chamber of the store. “I one thousand percent agree with you.”

​

“Please stop,” you said.

​

“If I slap your face,” Kayode retorted. “Must you play in the canoe? Is there no other place to play?”

​

“You are shouting na,” you said, whisperingly. “Bring your voice down. Do you want the whole of Nigeria to know what happened?”

​

“I should bring my voice down,” Kayode said, almost like a question. “We are going to the Fiber Market tomorrow to get some shoes for the new session. Didn’t you think about that before getting yourself into this ugly mess?”

​

“It is well,” you said, sheepishly. “God will help us.”

​

“Aunty T,” Kayode said, stepping closer. “Thank you so much, ma. How much is our bill?”

​

“The wound dressing, Tetanus injection, and the antibiotics,” Aunty said, moving her left index finger in a descriptive zig-zag. “Everything is four thousand naira.”

​

“Alright,” Kayode said, dipped his left hand into his left trouser pocket, counted five-hundred-naira notes, and stretched them to Aunty Toyin. “Thank you, ma.”

 

*****

​

Your mood swing dissolved the following day, not just the twenty-four hours. It dissolved for the rest of your teenage years. This was life, unsolicited permanence over a judicious temporality. The Fiber Market was noisy, hawkers’ voices were indistinct and clattered, incomprehensible brand names, and unwelcoming stillness in the air. Perhaps from unrefreshed, sweaty, and hairy armpits or the open gutters closest to the adjacent T-junction. Kayode led from one store to another, gently and observant, too focused to be distracted. Finally, he stopped and exchanged wild pleasantries with the store owner, Ejike. A tall Igbo man with bulged biceps and overly arched eyebrows. He looked at Kayode as if he wanted to swallow him up, happy and overzealous.

​

“Meet my brother Nwannem,” Kayode asked Ejike.

​

“Chairman!” Ejike blurted. “See as you fine.”

​

“Hold on,” you said in your head, reacting to the extreme familiarity on Ejike’s face, the smile, and the sensitive effeminacy displayed. “Hold on! Wait a minute.” Ejike was a man, an Igbo man, a capitalist perhaps, most sensibly and humanely, but his familiarity was questionable. This was the moment your mood swing was needed, but emotional blackmail from Kayode had dissolved it.

​

“I am fine, sir,” you answered Ejike. “Dalu.”

​

“We are here for shoes,” Kayode said. “Boarding school preparation as usual.”

​

“I know, of course,” Ejike said. “You have never failed me na. Customer dada. After you na you.”

​

“Of course,” Kayode said. “You are my blood. A brother from another mother.”

​

“What size?” Ejike asked, gazing at you.

​

“Size thirty-five.”

​

“Alright. Come up and select the one you want,” Ejike said. “This is bend-down-select.”

​

“Bend what?” you asked with a quizzical expression. Ejike smiled, the kind of smile that drove passengers’ emotions, including ignorance, naivety, confusion, and expressionlessness.

​

“Bend-down-select!” Ejike said, affirming his source of earning a living. This was a bend-down-select, the headquarters of secondary clothes and other fashion accessories. “You bend and choose your choice. We buy and refine them for your consumption.”

​

“Ejike,” Kayode yelped. “Why are you answering him? Are we here to ask questions or to get some shoes?” He turned to you with furrowed eyebrows. “Ejike is the one who has the time in the world answering you. Choose five shoes, test them, and let us go.”

​

“Are the shoes new?” you asked, smiling.

​

“No, they are expired,” Kayode answered, his face stern. “Keep asking  JAMB questions.”

​

Later, you chose five shoes: three black and two brown. Ejike nodded his head and said that you have picked the right thing that suits you. He arranged the ones you had scattered while searching, packed them in a big shopping bag, and sent his account details to Kayode.

 

“Thank you so much, Kay,” Ejike said. They both hugged. You kept imagining the kind of man that Ejike was, the kind of Igbo man that he was, hugging Kayode so intimately because of friendship or perhaps because of five shoes. After all, this was bend-down-select and not what you thought it was. The next day, you found out that the shoes were beautiful, but you were not the first user. Perhaps not the second or third, or fourth user. Others have touched and worn them before it rotated to Ejike’s store and finally to you. Bend-down-select was secondary; it was secondary, tested, trusted, borrowed, and resold. You quietly admired the shoes, looked into the green-framed mirror in your mother’s room, and began to appraise yourself. Fine Boy! Sexy pie on a sexy shoe! I am their boss! Look at my shoes and tell me you haven’t seen a treasure!

 

After the class orientation for the new session, a classmate pointed at one of the black shoes on the classroom walkway. You were flattered but still wanted to flirt, to show more and more, according to your quiet self-admiration, that shoes are not equal to shoes, that shoes are in levels, shoes are ranked.

 

“I like your type of shoe,” the classmate said. “What’s the name?”

 

“All-Stars.”

 

“Nice one.”

 

“Thank you,” you said.

 

“Is it Shasha or Okrika?” the classmate asked.

 

“What is that?” you asked, elliptically confused.

 

“I mean, are your shoes new or bend-down-select?” the classmate asked.

 

“I have heard this bend-down-select over and over again,” you said, lit up as if you were overdue for a long-time gossip. “Bend-down-select is what my brother said is the new way now. What is that?”

 

“Bend-down-selects are cheaper items,” the classmate said, intuitively scanning through your naivety. “Very cheap.”

 

“No wonder my brother got me five shoes,” you said.

 

“Five shoes!”

 

“Yes,” you answered. “At the market.”

 

“Bend-down-select, I guess.”

 

“Yes,” you said. “Bend-down-select.”

 

“The shoes are new, but you are not the first person to wear them,” the classmate said. “Others have worn them before you. Likely two or three pairs of legs have worn it before you.”

 

“These shoes?” you asked and pointed both index fingers downwards to the shoes. “My shoes?”

 

“Yes, your shoes. Bend-down-select or Okrika,” the classmate began to sermonise. “Shoes, computer, clothes, kitchen items, whatsoever. Anything that has been used over and over again by someone else is bend-down-select in Africa. It’s secondary, it’s Okrika.”

 

“Is that what people call fairly used?” you asked.

 

“Yes,” the classmate answered affirmatively. “Some won’t fairly use it. They will suck out the life and strength of the materials and then sell it again, again, then sell it again and again and again.”

 

“The thing will not be efficient,” you said.

 

“That’s where your imagination stops,” the classmate said. “When it comes to refining materials, trust Igbo people.” As his last word tumbled out, you remembered Ejike and his familiarity. He wasn’t familiar because of familiarity; he wanted to sell as many shoes as possible, as many bend-down-select as possible. You looked at your shoes again and saw no traces of being used by some people. It was black, neat, and pleasant to your eyes and on your legs. At night, your inquisitiveness denounced tranquility. You brought the five pairs of shoes out from the wooden rack and began to inspect one after the other. Maybe the classmate was wrong, but he may be right because at Ejike’s store, you saw how the shoes were packed and how challenging it was for him to search for the second leg of any selected shoe. If the shoes were new, maybe he would not have packed them like that. Bend-down-select shoes were never respected and refined because the real deal of respect had been snatched by their first user or the second. Once it lands in the Fiber Market, it’s gone. They are jammed into a single long sack. Others were hung and always rotated to the direction of the breeze. You brought the shoes close to your nostrils; they did not smell like another person’s legs. They smelled of your legs. Only your legs.

 

Years later, as a university student, you asked Kayode’s wife, a British woman he bonded with after his PhD in the United Kingdom. She was pleasantly surprised and, without any form of ado, said, “Of course, Africa is secondary. Everything about Africa is secondary. We know that they cannot produce because of mental laziness to spend time on how to develop themselves.”

 

“But your husband is African,” you asked, laughing.

 

“Yes,” she answered. “He has the kind of brain I don’t have, and he is not mentally lazy.”

 

“You married an African.”

 

“An African by blood and not by thinking.”

 

“And me?”

 

“The sweetest and most curious youngster I have met. You need to have your masters in the UK,” she said. “We need brains like yours there.”

 

“I’d love to.”

 

“My husband and I are working on something big for Africa,” she said. “After your Master's, you may also come on board.”

 

This was university-level, no more bend-down-select, no more wearing secondary materials. Nevertheless, you remembered the words of your mother that even if you kill yourself for some people, they will still complain that you didn’t die well.