In Dayton’s Mind Chapter 2: The Origins

Previously: Dayton inherits a multi-billion shilling company left to him by his father, he still can’t believe at his age he’s the new CEO. He makes a dramatic debut in the top managerial meeting and appoints the receptionist as his personal PA.

 

Now….

 

It is a beautiful and very sunny day and my mother is yelling out for me to wake up and come join my father for breakfast before he leaves for work. We are not rich nor are we broke but very close to the latter; eating bread with Blue band/Margarine is a luxury in my neighbourhood so is meat and most especially chicken. These are things we have on Christmas; soda is for guests and big events.

Life is great, we are happy even if we don’t have much. The small house is full of chaos, I have a baby sister called Cresta she is about a year old but already crawling everywhere and an elder sister called Joan-Marie. So you can imagine how upside down the house always is in the morning and much of the evening. My mother is in her thirties and she still looks very young with her clear light skin, she’s a very loving woman most especially when she cooks me kikoko (chicken).

The house is small with three bedrooms, a bathroom almost fused together were the kitchen and dining room. It isn’t big enough to brag about but small enough to be cozy. Cream coloured walls with a shiny cement floor and plywood ceiling lit by 100 watts golden yellow hot Philips bulbs.

The exterior is more beautiful despite the vintage khaki plaster rough walls and the blue paint on some of the front walls plus rusty old brown iron sheets. The unfenced compound, on the other hand, is huge with lots of trees, meadow and the scent of beautiful flowers.

Papa and I are very close friends; we talk about almost everything in our lives. Of course, the most eventful parts of my life are school and he are mostly work and the drama with his wife. We sometimes even just have walked together, go for ice cream or shop together to kill the boredom and avoid the complexities of life altogether.

That was the case anyway until when he started changing, he was always mad at me, quarrelled at everyone and was offset by the smallest of things. He was always punishing me and at times my sister to instil discipline; I started to think he hated me with all his heart.

This, however, was a common occurrence among the family setting of our country usually known as the “kiboko (beatings) squad tactics”. “Spare the rod, and spoil the child“, they said. With limited access to globalization, kids like myself don’t have many role models so we often looked up to successful people in the family or our fathers.

I looked up to mine and wished to be like him, I did all I could to make him proud, to notice me and at least say something but it seemed like I was an invisible element or a silver foil bouncing off all visual rays.

I had a heart to heart with my mother and told her, “I miss Mzee (old man), he was my favorite best friend, and we did everything together. He was fun and cool, we would go shopping together, swimming, walking, it was us against the world but now he is a monster and he sees me as scum.

I hate him, how would he feel if this is how his parents had treated him?” These were the questions that continuously raged through the mind of a young boy, who felt like his father had abandoned him for the wolves.

Mama (Mother) had a talk with father about all this, his facial expression was very hard to read so she couldn’t tell what emotion he was feeling in response to this. None could tell whether he was sad or even bothered by this but currently, he seemed unphased. “Did he not care about how I felt? Was I nothing to him anymore?” Dayton asked himself these questions as his rage and sorrow grew deeper.

A few years later, Mzee, unlike other fathers, did not return from work. He disappeared without a trace. No one knew what happened to him and neither could his workmates or family find an explanation for his mysterious disappearance. Was he dead or had he just abandoned us? But that was not in his nature. Sometimes I’d try to humour myself and think, probably he was abducted by Aliens”.

I had never thought for a second that I’d miss him if he left, but not having a father-figure dealt a real number on me. I spent the nights looking at the ceiling wondering what had happened and wishing he could come back. The nights were long and the days were sombre and pretending to keep it together for mama’s sake didn’t make it any easier.

Days become weeks, weeks become months and months turned to years… a decade of guilt, hurt and during this time I pretended not to care or miss my dad and yet I only drenched my heart further into sadness.

I was in class in my second year of study when a lawyer approached me.

“Are you Dayton?”

“Y-e-…..Yes”, I answered skeptical.

“I am your father’s lawyer, he left you this will. After reading through, if you accept your inheritance please sign here and here on these first documents and we start processing.”

I got a pen, signed the documents and he instructed me to head over to the company head office the next day for briefing. What I didn’t know was that I was now the new owner and CEO for a multi-billion shilling company. Now I’m confused, scared, and happy or as one would put it, a concoction of several strange feelings that can easily get me into night bar trouble.

 

The Lawyer then gave me an envelope with a short letter:

“Dear son,

I’m so sorry if I ever let you down, this company is now yours. Make it the best and treat it like it is part of your body.

Take care of it, and you’ll always be my favourite.

Yours,

H.N”

 

It’s been two weeks now since I became a CEO for a company I barely had knowledge about. With my dad’s right hand man on my side, my transition into the new business environment has been quite a smooth but edgy ride. I have made a few friends and of course, lots of foes beefing at the office since mostly they ain’t pleased with my father’s decision to make me CEO, but what did they think? It ain’t a democracy, it was my father’s company and now it’s mine and they were either going to go with the program or the wind.

Vivid memoirs of my dad’s sudden disappearance and what may have been his reason to jump ship still puzzled me. Did it have something to do with his company that he had no choice but to bail or was there a deeper story that laid in wait for me at the company?

These mystery questions continued to graze my mind from time to time but I wasn’t going to let it bother me much. I am a CEO now, loaded and its time around I had a plan to put some of these privileges to good use.

A beautiful Friday it was, full of life and gleaming of potential. I had finally told a few of my friends about the big event of my life and how we were going to act like spoiled kids and go Rambo across the bars of Kampala city drinking ourselves silly to the point of no return.

Here I am at the back seat of a luxury company car pondering about the wonders of pubescent tween life. Making plans for the big night out with friends and also not forgetting the cute red-lipped receptionist I made my personal assistant that very day I set foot into the big and marvellous office lobby.

What will happen when Dayton goes out with his friends and his thoughts about the secretary? – Don’t miss In Dayton’s Mind Chapter 3: The Night That Was!

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*Disclaimer: Any names or familiar situations in the following fictional story are highly coincidental and thus we shall not be held liable for any similarities found. The following content is Rated R, reader discretion is advised and if you proceed you agree that you’re above 18 years of age and that you’ve read and accepted the terms above.

Credits: The story is created and edited by Lawrence Kisuuki and Allan Bangirana. Special thanks to Derrick Ogwal for his significant contributions to this week’s episode. It’s published and tracked by Newslibre.