My Friend, Hakuri.

This is a short story about the unscripted life of my friend Hakuri.

The best word I could describe my friend Hakuri was as an artist. She looked like an artistic model and was in her own way a born artist, right from when she was age two, Hakuri became so familiar with colors through painting, at first we thought she was going to be a famous painter, she painted all sort of things, from her toys to the natural world around her, but as Hakuri grew older, she took deep interest in drawing, and Hakuri's drawings were like reality.

Baba Hakuri, her father encouraged it, but her mother saw it as un-girly and a lazy form of escaping house duties. This pained Hakuri because she thought her mother being a woman would understand her better, Hakuri saw Art as a form of expression, expressing her freedom and womanhood, to her, and it gave her an opportunity to play God by creating with her hands.

But a day came, when Hakuri went into the city, and while walking and observing she saw a very big bill board of an advert with graphic designs and animations, Hakuri became standstill, for over an hour, she suddenly knew this was her dream to build images up like this and not to remain on the mediocre stage. She wanted to know the magic behind this, she wanted to know how the cartoon creatures were created, how they could combine it all, but she remained baffled at the end.

Hakuri rushed back home with joy, describing to her family and neighbors what she saw, explaining how she wanted to build her life through that, and how that is what can give her fulfillment and add color to her own life. She told her parents she wanted to learn ICT and that was the only way to start. Baba Hakuri said he would have love to send her to an ICT school but the economic situation is so bad that she has to stop schooling so her brothers could have a better life. Mama Hakuri said she should focus on being a wife and not all this childhood dream. 

Hakuri became depressed, and since then I have never seen her smile or draw. 

Olatubosun Chinwe-Taiwo.