Book Reviews

---

When Life Knocks
As the violent waves roars in hope to break free from its coast line, so does the larva struggles in freedom from its cocoon. The dripping sweat from this young coconut seller explains it all, life is indeed a struggle, as he quietly ponders on how to endure the burning heat under the fierce Saharan sun.
This day, he sets out with tons of optimism but after several hours of unrewarding saunter across the length and breadth of this small village, pessimism and frustration takes hold of his heart. When he finally approaches his usual place of rest under this big Baobab tree, he crouches down and throws himself to the ground buried in his perspiration. It is at this moment that he begins to deliberate on how his life has turned out, but before he clears his mind to even think through the paradoxical turn of events in his life, something strange happens.
To his utmost surprise, he suddenly finds himself face to face with the man he has long considered to hold the answer to all his troubles. He has a long list of unanswered questions; beginning from the moment he lost both parents in a car accident few weeks back, through to his subsequent deportation from South Korea for a crime he never committed. Upon his return to his motherland, his dejected family dumped him in this godforsaken village and abandoned him. He had to now get used to living from hand to mouth.
At the age of 18, he was of the strong conviction that this misfortune that had befallen him in the space of six weeks was completely unjust and unreasonable. In the days leading up to this encounter, he received a letter from the local post office which informed him that his grandmother had succumbed to cancer dashing his only hope of ever returning to South Korea and his dream of becoming a legal practitioner. Overwhelmed with sadness and helplessness, he tore this awful note into pieces and wondered how the destiny of a man could change in a matter of weeks.
Not long ago, he celebrated his 18th birthday in what he mistakenly assumed to be one of his father’s plush apartments in Seoul. His future undoubtedly looked bright as he waited for the season of fall to enroll in one of South Korea’s Ivy League institutions with the hope of becoming a corporate lawyer following in the footsteps of his father. Even at such a young age, he had a sense of what success really tasted like by witnessing at first hand the invincible power of wealth. He had made a vow to himself to exceed the achievements of his father who had inspired him all his life. For him, success meant money, power and fame and nothing was ever going to stop him until his Korean dream was a reality. But on this day, by a sharp contrast he found himself in a remote village thousands of miles away from where he had known all his life to be his home. This day, his only prospect of enjoying a decent meal was pushing this 50 kg truck of coconut fruits across the dusty streets of the village, under very distressing climatic conditions in anticipation of a single sale, the hope of which had died a long while ago. Realities of life now stared him in the face, for the third night in a row; he was going to sleep on coconut juice.
He had never read about the plight of Job in the Bible but his newly found friend had by some means nicknamed him Kwaku Job, a name he never understood anyways. Finally, the man who had allowed so much misery in his life sat across him under this Baobab tree. As all the emotions of hatred, anger and confusion began to surge; he frenziedly poured out his heart demanding in a very loud voice, “why, why did you bring me here to suffer like that, what have I done to deserve all this, why are you punishing me for something I never did, I want to be happy and successful in life, is it too much to ask!!!?” [Kwaku Job breaks down in tears]. The long bearded man only gives a warm gentle smile as he patiently waits for Kwaku to finish sobbing.
After some few minutes he pulls himself together to hear what this strange looking man had to say. As the man begins to speak, Kwaku Job suddenly feels a sharp knock on his left shoulder. To his utter amazement, his eyes pop open as he gradually makes sense of the words, “how much does one coconut go for?” Without realizing, he had briefly fallen asleep under this big Baobab tree and as he drags himself from the ground, he couldn’t believe but mutter to himself, “ was it all a dream, was it all a dream” and sadly braces himself to face the harsh realities of his new world.“Life!” He whispers as he shakes his head in exasperation.

Coming Soon Building Success

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE