New Man

By

George O. Obikoya

After five years of trying he tells his friends that he wants to give up. None of them appear surprised at his decision, which he says validates his judgement. Yet, he is awake most of the time most nights apparently unable to sleep. Even at work his colleagues ask him what is going on. A typically friendly, even jovial spirit, his changing mien is seemingly easy to see.

When his boss tells him he has to work outside town for a few weeks to replace a co-worker that is on maternity leave, his world it seems falls apart. For the first time in his tenure at the office he breaks down openly as his boss plainly embarrassed comforts him. It does not take long before others hear about the incident it seems. By the close of day, word reaches him that management is about to refer him for psychological evaluation.

Within days, he is heading towards the clinic nearby, not so much on the insistence of his boss, but also as he puts it, because of that of his soul, to which everyone around simply nods, rather quixotically. As he later finds out, his friends in the office tell the boss all that they notice about him that suggests he may be losing his mind. At first, he brushes the matter aside, and even says he does not believe the story.

Things soon start to happen though that appears to change his mind. He continues to conceal the real reason he wants to give up but is clearly shocked to discover that his most intimate affair is now the subject of office gossip. He must have been shocked knowing none other knows than one that would unlikely tell perhaps because the stakes are simply too high.

Someone even knows why the new assignment seems to petrify him so. This is when it seems he thinks that he needs to change his style going by the subsequent series of events. That he still has difficulty sleeping must only make matters worse as he often comes to work as if doped, something some at work appear to be speculating upon as he once mentioned jokingly that he toys with cannabis from time to time.

After several therapy sessions which he tells his therapist he really does not need, he completes the program and to his patent relief is told that he does not have to see a psychiatrist. Just before he leaves the clinic, he tells his therapist the reason he does not want to see one, to the obvious consternation of the therapist. He knows he is saying what he should have said all along during the therapy not when it is now over.

He admits to the therapist that he is ashamed to say what he just said but that he has been under pressure from within to let it all out, particularly as he is leaving for his new post in just a few days. As the therapist listens in apparent wonder, he continues. It is soon clear that his problems situate where he heads. The therapist tells him the risks involved in going there given what he just said. He reassures the therapist that he would cope and that he would seek help if necessary and not harm himself or anyone else at that.

As with his friends, he tells himself albeit hardly audibly that the therapist is respectable and would not behave irresponsibly, even as what his friends do is anything but what he assumes that they would not. Perhaps he thinks that being outside his work environment, and being a professional encounter make all the difference.

If that were the case, he soon finds that he is wrong again. That he does not have to see the therapist again must have eased his clear distress at hearing from his boss essentially all about his therapy sessions. Now that everyone seems to know what his real problems are, he tells his boss that he is ready to go on his new assignment.

Nobody would query his credentials for the job. What they seem not to be sure of is how he would cope with the hostility he would likely face in the new office. He must know why they worry, if indeed that is the case. After all that has happened back in his old office, neither would anyone question his reason for being paranoid about his erstwhile friends.

His very first day at his new office seems to go well. He is unlikely fully relaxed and assured given his somewhat tense demeanour all day, not to mention that it is not the boss that receives him. A burly abrasive individual with a receding hairline and a croaky voice, which he appears to exaggerate when piqued as his new worker must have quickly found out the next day when his boss returns to work. Their first handshake apparently almost crushing the hands of the new man with whom word is out there the boss may have some serious issues to trash out, he seems to literally pull this clearly boggled new man into his office.

As the discussion got underway, he says the conference at which they met was uneventful, while insisting that all else is woolly. His new boss does not seem to think so insisting that he would believe what he sees and not what he hears. It must have been awkward to all present that day that the new worker is spending that long in the boss’ office, where anyone hardly goes.

He emerges from there beads of sweat tracking his face, the air conditioner apparently not cool enough, his boss following close behind. They leave the office in the boss’ car, the other workers peeping through temporary pin holes made in window curtains, visibly terrified.

When they arrive at their destination, he knows immediately why the boss was not at work the previous day. She is lying there, propped up in bed, still apparently weak and pale, her baby boy his cherubic face in peaceful slumber, rested in her arms. She says nothing. The two men look intensely at the baby and at each other, the boss a wry smile on his face, his new worker it seems now also a new father.