I had just clocked sixteen and all my enthusiasm was coming alive. One of those enthusiasms was my wanting, desperately, to ride a bike. I wanted to be able to do it, because I felt it could be a way to prove I was not just becoming older but also mature and brave, reason being that it seemed a measure and marker of the big boys in vogue then. My craving thus intensified when almost every boy of my age around me had learnt how to ride a motorcycle except me, because I hadn’t had any clear opportunity, and much more my father was afraid. With a personal bike in my father’s possession, I was terribly disappointed when he wouldn’t let learn- so, I could only guess that he was afraid. Therefore, to learn I had to take the bull by the horn and learn by myself and on my own- with his bike though, and definitely in his absence. About a week of planning and expectation of an hour opportunity, the day came. My father had travelled early that morning and had left his bike. I pushed the bike to the house compound, which was without a fencing. By location and construction, the house faced a nearby bush, separated from the compound by an untarred and dusty road, which served as the only linking route of the new community with the major road around.
I started the machine and I felt my heartbeat pick up pace. My hand on the clutch but not pulling on it, I raised the throttle and a ready noise roared from the engine. This time, my temperature was beginning to regulate, while I was also feeling proud with confidence that I could have a successful first attempt after all. I had no need to worry about balance because riding a bicycle for a couple of times already took care of that. I raised the throttle again and put the bike on the second gear, unaware of the implication. And it seemed my hand was now glued to the raised throttle. As in the movement of lightning, the bike sped across the dusty road and charged into the thicket where different black nylons hung like victims of rope hanging. The hanging nylons had human defeacation neatly packaged in them and they decorated my head that day. As I struggled out of the forbidden land I had been thrown into by my father’s unforgiving bike, I felt like crying but my tears were braver than I was. Double trouble it was for me- I not only had hopeless maggots wriggle on my head, I also bashed my father’s bike.
A beginner’s luck? No, it doesn’t work for everybody and I am a living example.
Later that day in the evening, as my youngest sibling (the last born) rushed to welcome father, I heard the little urchin tell him what I did already, and I knew immediately that my time had come.
What do you think the lesson of the story is?
Should we allow the possibility of luck blind our eyes to what skill will achieve?
