The sky looked as if it was going to fall today as fear lingered in all my companions' minds and they believed me to pull the stunt I did while we were together earlier and the crowd that followed us was in much quantity as if there were colonies of ants aiming after a bag of sugar.
The king, my father, Alalamu the first, walked majestically as we all greeted him. “ Kaa biyesi oo” .
He adjusted his richly woven Aso-Oke ( handwoven traditional cloth) layered with flowing robes and his facial expressions are as if he drank a cupful of lime water categorized as stoic. He looked at me deeply in administration before sitting on his forefathers' throne.
The drummers beat their drums loudly to tame the noise all around us before the king raised his ceremonial horsetail whisk and everywhere went silent like a graveyard.
I was sitting on the exclusive chair as the crowned prince among five other people who represent sections of the tribe..
Never knew about yours but the rulers in my land followed their forefathers who had a saying that they repeated like a blessing affirmation, “ Walk the path that has been walked and you will arrive”.
This statement is carved into the minds of everyone like a belief and used as a motto in schools and spoken at every ceremony where children step into the long, predictable road of life.
So I was among the children who walked the walk as a kid.
The walk we walk evolves around protecting self-image and how to act when people are around.
In our kingdom that glittered more than it breathed, my father who believed that power was not inherited but was engineered taught me not how to be good, but how to be accepted.
“Listen,” he would say as he seated himself beneath a ceiling painted with victories that were never questioned.
“People do not reward truth. They reward performance. Learn to move as they move, speak as they speak, and you will never fall.”
As a royal prince, I played the role neatly like calligraphic handwriting that loops perfectly and elegantly in strokes that earned nods of approval and my protected self-image is the notebook that was beautifully written and the ways of answering questions were precise which made my future transparent.
I was taught to smile when insulted, but not to forget.
To praise loudly, even when I doubt,
to choose alliances over honesty and was taught how to appear strong, even when I am wrong so in the palace, these were not called lies, they were called wisdom and so I grew into a man who knew how to win rooms but not how to face himself.
As I matured, I became admired. The nobles praised my charm and the people admired my composure.
I knew when to bow with pride, when to speak, and when to remain silent.
I had mastered the busy road and the one filled with applause and imitation but something in me remained unsettled.
It began as a quiet discomfort and I noticed how laughter often followed cruelty.
How respect was given to wealth and not character.
How silence protected wrong more than it preserved peace and this made me fail to be human.
That afternoon, I am to test to confirm if I will continue my father's legacy so the old woman accused of defying the crown is a scapegoat.
Her offense was simple, she had refused to give up her last harvest to the royal storehouse and the law demanded punishment.
As the crowd watched, waiting for me to act as they expected in a cold, decisive, unquestioning way.
The old woman looked at me, not with fear, but with something unfamiliar.
Disappointment.
“You wear a crown,” she said softly, “but you have forgotten how to be a man.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd and the words struck me not as an insult, but as a crack.
“For what is a ruler,” she continued, “who cannot feel the hunger of his people?
What is strength without mercy? What is power without a soul?”
I felt something stir and something buried beneath years of discipline but as everyone was watching and as always, I chose the role I had been trained to play.
I hesitated but knew I had to man up.
Then finally I replied on that day having it to the top of my neck swallowing the humpy pie.
“Carry out the punishment,” I ordered.
My father answered,
The royal Prince was taught correctly,
He followed the journey everyone takes” he commented pleasurably and the gathering continues.
That night, I could not silence the voice within me as it was no longer a whisper but a question.
What have I become?
For the first time, I saw myself not as the kingdom saw me but as I truly was.
Not strong and hollow, not wise and conditioned, not powerful and detached from what made me human and the realization was unbearable.
Days later, I stood before my father and said,
“You taught me to rule father, but not to be human.”
Father's expression hardened.
“Humanity is overrated. It weakens kings,” he answered.
“No,” I replied in a steady voice and uttered not with crisp confidence but with uncertainty,
“I thought the ways mattered, but didn't realize it wasn't my journey,” I said.
Silence filled the room as father exchanged glances with mother and turned away.
“Then you have learned nothing.”
He uttered.
I shook my head and replied.
“No. I have just begun to learn.”
“ You took the same road we all took,” Father said defensively.
“ And the road has always led somewhere,” he concluded.
Yes, I replied softly “ but maybe not somewhere new”
I said at first and clutched my perfectly protected self-image that looked like artifacts from a world that no longer made sense.
“Then you will fail ?” Mother snapped before leaving.
That same night, I left the palace with no guards, no titles, and no identity but only as a man, stepping away from everything I had been taught to become.
I walked beyond the roads of power and expectation, onto paths that were uncertain, quiet, and unforgiving.
The road less travelled while on that road, I relearned what had been stripped from me and listened, not to control, but to understand.
I gave without expecting loyalty in return and admitted wrong and in doing so, found strength I had never known.
It felt at first that it was painful and regret came like a flood.
Faces of those I had wronged returned to me and decisions I could not undo weighed heavily on my heart but I did not run from them.
For the first time in my life, I chose not to escape discomfort but to grow through it.
It was then that I realized that nothing is proper or improper but our perspective is what distinguishes it.
Years passed.
Stories spread of a man who moved from place to place, helping quietly, speaking honestly, and living simply spread like wildfire.
Some said he had the bearing of royalty and others said he had the heart of a servant.
None knew he had once been both and neither.
But back in my kingdom, it remained as it had always been, orderly, powerful, and quietly broken.
My father was aged,and surrounded by loyalty that was obedient but not genuine.
He had built a system that worked but not one that lived.
Sometimes, in his solitude, he wondered about the son who chose to walk away, but he never followed.
And somewhere far from the throne, I continued my journey not as a prince, not as a ruler but as a man who had finally reclaimed what he once lost.
For I had discovered a truth the kingdom refused to see, that to abandon humanity in the pursuit of power is the greatest failure of all, and that the road less travelled though lonely, difficult, and unseen is the only path that leads a person back to being truly human.
