10 A Bad Turnaround

My friend Ugo, was born as a southpaw. From the first day we met, I noticed that he didn't like the fact that he was a southpaw. I always tried to encourage him but as it was, it didn't help much.

Ugo was an intelligent boy but he always fell short of his full potential. He never seemed to think he was smart enough and all these was as a result of his low self-esteem. He thought being a southpaw made him less of a person. I think all these feelings resulted from the fact that no one in his family was left-handed and they looked down on him because of that. I thought that was a very wrong thing to do and told him as much. In all the ways I could, I always tried to encourage him but it didn't do much to help.

After we graduated from secondary school, Ugo and I went to different higher institutions and therefore, our communication dwindled to little or none at all.

After my first year, I came back and my mother told me that just the day before, Ugo had come to the house to ask of me. I quickly freshened up after the long journey and headed to Ugo's family house that he lived in with his extended family. I greeted a middle aged woman I met outside whom I recognized as Ugo's aunt. She sent her daughter sitting beside her to go and call Ugo for me.

After a while, he came outside and the first thing I noticed was that Ugo had changed so much. He was sporting a different haircut from his usual style and he dressed a bit too flashy for an average student. We exchanged pleasantries and his cousin who had gone to call him went inside to get stools for us to sit.

We sat down and made small talk and started exchanging stories about our various universities. Ugo then told he that he had a secret to tell me and I said he could trust me with anything. What Ugo told me sent shock waves round my body.

Good, kind Ugo told me that he had joined a brotherhood in school that consisted of left-handed people. He said they had chased after him for a while before finally accepted to be recruited into their group. That this wonderful brotherhood called themselves "The Lefters" and had helped him to overcome his lack of self worth and had given him a boost of self confidence he had never hoped to achieve. All these didn't really faze me but for the fact that they usually carried out a little operation in which they used laptops to hack into the bank accounts of the rich students and diverted the money into their own personal accounts. What shocked me more was that they even carried out small-scale roberries late at night where they lurked around deserted walkways.

I tried to warn Ugo about the wrong in his actions and the consequences he could face if they were caught but all my words fell on deaf ears.

He said that the brotherhood had erased and helped him to overcome the worthlessness he had felt all these years as a result of the way his family always made him to feel inferior. He then proceeded to tell me the final fact. He enjoyed staying in "The Lefters" and all the brothers there were good to him and they had an easy way of making fast money with little or no stress. He ended the conversation by saying that he hoped his secret was safe with me and that he and I couldn't be friends anymore because of the disparity in our lifestyles. He then stood up and walked into their family home.

Ugo, my friend had been lost to the ways of the world.