Five Minutes Freewrite - Sultry Night

It was a very busy afternoon for Adamu as he spent a greater part of it with his customers explaining the reasons why there was a hike in the food prices.

He told one of them that Yam, for instance, got increased because of the death of the Emir’s grandmother, and as such all farmers were asked to bring three tubers of yam which would be used in entertaining the guests of the Emir.

Some of his customers refused to buy opting for another food seller and then returning when they found the other to be more expensive. The afternoon sun stood in all its glory and the heat made the sands hot and customers made faster bids on the commodities they wished to buy to leave the heat.

“How much is this Potato?” one customer asked, and then started parking went over to the groundnut and asked, “A bag is 300 right?”. Adamu waited for him to finish before reciting the prices for each one of the items and he paid without any argument.

The evening didn’t bring any respite although it wasn’t hotter it wasn’t cold too. The tree that brought a little shade to the market remained still, only the flight of birds from one branch to another helped to shake its leaves.

Image by Wildernessman on Pixabay

“A cold bath in the stream would do,” Adamu thought as he left the market that evening. He found other villagers at the stream plunging in and out of the flowing water. One of them was Sule who told Adamu that he had been at the stream since after midday when he returned from hunting.

Adamu got home late in the evening feeling better. After supper, he went straight to bed, feeling very tired and weak. He had not stayed for long in bed when he felt the trickle of sweat run down his face, he got up and removed his shirt, and checked the windows which were open as usual.

After several restless times on the bed, he took a chair and went outside hoping the night breeze would cool him off and he will be able to sleep again. There in front of his room, the air was still and only moments of air that weren’t as cold as he wanted, greased his face and body.

He had almost started praying for respite from the heat when he heard a rumbling in the sky and then a soft breeze followed making the dried leaves in the compound to crackle. “Alas, the weather will change,” he thought as he went back inside with his chair and his shirt on his shoulders.