Shattered Dreams
Posted by Edward Karani , Monday, April 26, 2010 6:47 AM
He had said. “We will call you.”
“ We loved your idea, it’s brilliant,”
“Use our email address to contact us,”
That was good news, she should have been smiling all the way back to her room. But she could feel that she had hit another dead end. They had lied in her face. She did not feel as confident as she had been that morning. Why couldn’t they just tell her the truth?
“Don’t cry! Don’t cry!” she whispered to herself.
But it was too late; she could feel tears filling up in her eyes. “You can cry all you want when you get back to your room.” She tried to comfort herself. “It’s not the end, there are many other media houses.”
Up to that point, the success stories of various people such as Richard Branson, Bill Gates, they were all so inspirational and if they could do it, so could she. No one had prepared her for the difficulties that lay ahead.
She headed towards the gate to pick up her ID and return the visitor’s pass.
“It’s okay, Anne, this is not the end.” But it was all in vain, the disappointment was too much to bear, she turned suddenly and headed for a corner behind the building, she pressed her back gently against the wall and let it all out. She did not want to be employed, if she ever wanted to go to University it was not because she believed in the lie of a guaranteed good job, but because she believed that it would open her eyes to the opportunities the world had to offer. Also she thought it would bring her closer to her dreams.
And it had, she had been called to pursue something that she did not understand or choose herself, like most high schoolers, she had filled her application with Medicine as her first choice, followed by Nursing, BCOM, and Law, but the joint admissions board, had other plans for her. Presently she loved it, as a Literature student she could not imagine doing something else other than this which was now the love of her life. She wanted to pursue it wholly. As a second year, that first semester she had discovered her dream and purpose and now that was the only thing that clouded her mind and heart, at times she would miss class working on her dream.
She had big dreams, she wanted to be a producer and director, and she also wanted to own a production company. She thought her name was going to a very big one in Kenya, no, Africa. She had figured a way that they could easily beat Nollywood, now all she needed was one small chance, an opportunity, a window, a small opening and the world would be in for a big surprise. Apart from that she harbored dreams of Pan-African films, but the mainly included a couple of cute men she had seen as a result of watching too many Nigerian movies.
She would write a TV series where Ramsey Noah, Van Vicker and Emeka Ike would have starring roles, the film would be shot on location in Nigeria and Kenya, it would tell the story of a young 15 year old Kenyan woman whose story is told some 17 years later, when she is 32 years. Bitter because in 1992, on a once in a lifetime trip to Nigeria accompanied by her parents who were big men in the country, as delegates for an African Union planned conference on ‘A Unified African Empire,’ whose aim was to encourage the growth of African Multinationals, met a young Nigerian boy, who impregnated her. It’s not until when they got back home that she realized that she was pregnant, this changed her life forever, she was throw out by her wealthy parents. 17 years later she is bitter 32-year-old woman with a seventeen-year-old daughter whom she hates and mistreats for destroying her life. They later would later move to Nigeria where an accidental reunion for the 17-year-old girl, with her father takes place.
Amidst her tears, Anne managed to smile.
“Good story.” She told herself.
Even though the story was not yet written in paper, in her mind she was already done with the script, she had even reread it, the actors were all there and now it was playing in her head like a continuous DVD, she had to write it down, if she didn’t it would keep playing in her head.
This only made her smile as she wiped away her tears. At times she thought she had a disorder of somewhat, which could not be easily identified in Kenya, but in America, she was sure they had a term for it. She could see someone approaching from the opposite direction and realized it was her cue to leave; she turned and headed for the reception to pick up her ID.
That night she decided to go for a walk around town, maybe it would help, she could not help but feel very disillusioned. Life was playing bad tricks on her. She walked towards Serena Hotel, it looked very beautiful, she thought, she wanted to stand and gaze, or if she had a camera take pictures of it.
“What a tourist thing to do,” she said to herself.
She kept on walking. Her fascination with lights was back.
“Don’t give up.” A voice inside her kept on telling her. She heaved in frustration, how could she not give up? It was pointless fighting for her dreams, every time she kept on hitting a dead wall.
‘Looking for a reason
Roaming through the night
To find my place in this world
Not a lot to lean on
I need your help to help me find
My place in this world,’
Michael W. Smith, her favorite musician had found his place in this world. She was still trying to find hers, yet the winds were moving, but she was standing still, a life of blank pages, waiting to be filled. A heart that was very hopeful and full of dreams, but it was harder than she thought. She prayed for God to send someone her way to encourage her, in the afternoon she had cried herself to sleep. She wanted to go for the ladies campus ministry: B.E.A.U.T.Y. But the way they had treated her when she had told them about her dreams was quite disheartening. Their leader, Nicole had said.“ At times we chase dreams that are not ours.” Adding insult to injury, “these are self made dreams that we have made for our selves and not the dreams God has placed in our hearts. You need to seek him, and find out if you are in the right place, because if this is wrong, you will never accomplish it.”
The others had nodded, self made dreams, that sounded real in a scary sense, what if she was a self made dreamer, what if she was chasing after a dream that would only remain a dream. What if 50 years later, she would still be in the same place she was today? There was a big possibility that she might never accomplish her dream, because it was a wrong one.
She could feel the tears cloud her eyes again, “ I have never been as passionate about something as I am about this aspiration. I don’t understand”
She could feel her heart cry out. It was the dream that made her heart beat; it was the fire that kept her heart warm, the thing that defined her. How could it be wrong? How could God allow her to feel like this for a dream that He had put in her heart. She could not have been the author of this dream. No way!
“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” She remembered the verse that her pastor had told her a Sunday before she joined campus. “The desires of my heart not God’s.” she wiped a tear at the back of her eye. But it all felt like an illusion. She wiped her tears away; she had to accomplish her dream, no matter what. She looked at the passersby, who looked at her with pity. She was crying in the middle of town, and she did not care.
There are so many ways of killing a bird, she knew that in her heart, she had tried at going about it the only way she could with all honesty and integrity, and she had failed terribly. All others had surpassed her with her simple ambitions. Maybe it was time to try some other means, after all way there was a will there was a way. No one said it had to be right and prefect, she thought of a way that she could easily get a computer that she needed desperately. She took out her phone and began scrolling down her phone book; she landed on one number,
“Hooked.”
She had made it a habit of saving people that she did not like, or whose intentions she questioned using pseudonyms, and this one was one of them. She pressed the call button and looked at it for a while unsure of what she was doing, before placing it on her ear.
“Hallo…”
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