Zaki

 Sipping lukewarm water in a coffee-brown rubber cup, I calmly stood by our obsolete electric cooker amd listened intently. My father was roaring loudly and my mother's voice, inferior to the greater noise incessantly chipped in too. 

 From my view, I could see the old dining table, marked with different designs and letters, etched deep into its grains by me and my siblings over the years. To the left stood my younger brother, head down, hands smugly fit into his pockets. 

 I couldn't see my father. My mother stood behind Zaki, my brother, glaring hard at his back. 

 'You want to disgrace us, is that it?'

I knew how this would play out. He was caught smoking again, his red eyes couldn't hide it. Father would rant, and sometimes, when his mood was worse, he'd include a dozen strokes on Zaki's back with his leather belt. 

 Zaki would take it all in, wordlessly, clearly lacking remorse. 

Mother would be bickering all the while but noone pays her any mind. 

 Finally, father's voice will boom my name: 'Jidah!'

 By then, Zaki has bounced off to his room, slamming the door shut and turning up loud music moments later. 

 Mother would be in tears, wondering what she'd done wrong in raising us up. You see, whenever any one of us kids did something bad, it was a burden we all shared. 

 'You don't talk to your brother, look at what he has become. You are the first child, the younger ones look up to you.'

 'Ai, she doesn't like church. I have to drag her to church every Sunday, and during the week she doesn't even attend Bible Study. Why won't Zaki copy her ungodly behaviour... '

 I shut my mother out. 

I shut them all out. 

 It was always the same, and they somehow wanted to make me feel involved in Zaki's behaviours. 

 Although I was the first child, Zaki was considered head and heir to my father, being the first male child. 

 Yet, when father unexpectedly lost his job at the company, I worked in his poultry farm. I cleared the piece of land behind our house to plant vegetables, enduring mother's disapproving comments. 

 'That kind of tedious work is for men.'

 Who worked all through Christmas to pay her school fees? It most certainly was me. 

 All these and on the day his will was read, father gave me nothing. All the property, the farms I toiled on, were placed in Zaki's hands. 

 I love my brother, but I won't be tossed aside. You know it, plain as day, that I am the Zaki. 

 *Zaki is Hausa for lion.