Futile Endeavour

"Life as a couturier can be so full of experiences: Painful and exhilarating ones", this was the statement that left my tired throat as I struggled to pass thickly folded threads through the grand of sand-like eyes of almost bending needles. I had been battling with the thought of passing the thickly folded thread into the needles that it turned to a nightmare. A nightmare that featured a house full of human-looking threads. Indeed, it is difficult for a camel to pass through a needle's eye.

Oh dear! That morning was selected for that arduous task. My hands worked in connection with my mouth, I kept gaping and ahems kept leaving my almost drooling mouth. As much as passing the thread was hectic, guiding the thread from turning to knots by being extra careful was super hectic. I burnt all my calories that morning – more than I would have burnt on visiting the gym. Despite the fact that it was a hazy morning, I sweated and perspired as I struggled with the thread and needle as if it were an A-level examination.

As a Christian who doesn't skip Sunday school, I had been taught the precepts of perseverance over and over again. That morning, my faith in the precept was tested – as I would like it to the part of the Holy Bible that mentioned that our works would be tested by fire –To be emphatic, I was at the brink of that heat-causing fire. I was about flinging the needle, thread, and fabric overboard when the still voice came and said, "Preserve" and I shut the whimpering voice which complained of tiredness up and I continued the struggle.

If it were to be that it was just a needle I would be passing the thread through, yes, that would have been a relief but nay, I had fifteen more to go. The exercise was a typical example of being caught in between the anvil and the hammer or should I put, being caught between the blue sea and the daredevil.

Yuck! To think that the thread slipped out again." Hell no!", I cried out of frustration. Still, the chorus "you don't own the fabric" won't stop playing in my fuzzy head. Like a frustrated O-level candidate would chant "we die here" in thickly accented pidgin after attempting the WAEC past question for the umpteenth time without a shift in his marks (to the plus or minus side) and loyally, the ground on which his candle melts bears him witness to the night spent in the hollows and the shadow of books, I joined in the earthly chorus and I chanted, "we die here". I can be dogged when I am frustrated, you know. With the help of the dogged solidarity in my almost spittle- lacking a mouth, I kept canoodling the thread with showers of raining saliva. At last, Victoria asserta, I passed the thread into the sixteen needles.

But, what was I passing the double-folded threads for? My intention was to pass sand beads like pupils on the assembly through the tip of the needle so they could rest restively on the knotted end of the thread passed through it. What would you call my job for that morning? Taxing right? Well, I chose to be like that proverbial lizard that jumps down from an Iroko tree, If no man would praise it, it would praise itself – I praised myself that morning. The work on that fabric wrenched my back.

I spent eight hours approximately passing the sand beads through the tip of the needle to rest horizontally against the thirty inches long thread – I didn't rest myself. Huff! I got tired but I didn't relent. I sang hippie yah like a retired soldier just to cajole my feebly aching back into finishing the work that devoured that day – Delivery was in a few hours.

I finished setting the sand beads into the threads with a shout of joy and they shone alluringly like waist beads. Nay, I didn't go through that much stress to get waist beads – I was to tack them on the already sewn fabric to make it look Fringe-like. My customer demanded it and like they say, customers are always right. 

I treated myself to a plate of peppered ponmo and drank a chilled bottle of Coke to wash it down. I pleaded with my kid sister to do the chores and we all hit the hay. That night's dream wasn't a nightmare but I chanted "Tomorrow is another day" till I forgot.

Tomorrow was indeed another day, the day I had carefully marked for cloth delivery. I was delayed, the unexpected happened.

The beads were dancing on the floor and the threads also sang to match the beat. Rats had invaded my self made an office, they left me three strands for comfort.