Poor Purr by Jones Ayuwo

If you’re walking down the road and you see a cow, and you cower because of the cow, do not think yourself a coward because you cowered… because of the cow. Because the cow that made you cower is a heifer that is only getting fatter for the slaughter and that’s something that should make you shudder. Thank God I cower at fat cows, thank God I’m too poor to be a fat cow, thank God I’m too poor to be slaughtered at Christmas or New Year, or weddings or naming ceremonies or Jaja Hall week.
I listened to the preacher preach as preachers are wont to preach and as the preacher preached he preached about Joseph and how Potiphar’s wife reached out to him but the preacher preached that Joseph refused to breach his master’s trust. But as I turned this over in my mind I thought to myself, Potiphar, Potiphar, the man who only became famous because his wife wanted to cheat on him, the man whose name is etched in the anals of religious history because he could not wholly satisfy his wife. Potiphar, the fat cow to the slaughter of feminine wile.
A rich man reached a point where he needed a manager of his affairs and he appointed a Hebrew boy and trusted the Hebrew with everything except his wife, except his wife, because he loved his wife. His wife was his life. This quasi-universal Hebrew agent handled his affairs soundly and the wife he loved dearly loved the Hebrew. I said to myself thank God I’m too poor to have a Hebrew servant manage my affairs, too poor for my wife to be idle, idle enough to seize Hebrew cloaks, too poor to send the innocent to jail. If I were in the bible, Joseph would have found a less painful path to the palace because if I were in the bible, my name would have been Poor-tiphar.
The other day, I was moved to see a movie, and the movie moved me for in fact a movie is not worthy of the name movie if it doesn’t move me. This movie moved me, not to tears or any other such embarrassing emotional outbursts, but to calm satisfaction, almost like a cat purring. The movie highlighted how a certain rich bloke was starved of sleep as all his thoughts where on how to get richer, how to protect his money, how not to get robbed, or duped or mesmerised by deceitful batting eye lashes that promise soft heavens but only deliver alimony and a waste of a beautiful diamond ring. I chuckle to myself, my mind is only ever arrested by thoughts of my next meal, which could be ground cassava (garri) with salt and water, nothing too complicated, I am a free spirit, free from cares or worries, free from the pain of losing my property to robbers, what property I own any robber would likely return, others would more likely lose their property to me, for I am too poor to be robbed, too poor to be duped, to poor for all these evil women to toy with my emotions, my sexual satisfactions three hundred naira and kampala can provide, I am too poor to be expected to help the poor for to whom nought is given, nought is expected.
I am a happy mouse scurrying about my business, getting fat on crumbs, left overs and sometimes aromas, I am a mouse without the slightest worry in the world. Purr of satisfaction.
Purr of satisfaction…a purr, like a cat. A cat! Oh no, not cats! I’m dead! I wish I had money to buy a freaking bell for the freaking cat!