Every morning before sunrise, old Mzee Mutua sat beneath the ancient Mugumo tree at the edge of Makunu Village. In one hand he held a worn wooden walking stick and in the other, an old brass compass his father had left him decades earlier.
"Whatever road you travel," he often told the village children, "never lose your compass."
The children laughed, for they thought the old man was talking only about directions.
Among them was seventeen-year-old Muendo, one of the brightest students at Mwangaza Senior School. His mathematics teacher believed he would one day become an engineer. But everything changed when a cousin of his from the city bought him a smartphone.
At first, it was harmless since he watched educational videos, searched for science experiments, and practised English online. Led by the curiosity that killed the cat, he went on to watch short videos, then trends, challenges........and in a couple of weeks, it was endless scrolling. Since too much of everything is dangerous, homework became "later." Reading became "tomorrow." Sleep became "after one more video."
His best friend, Kalunde, noticed the change.
"You've stopped chasing your dreams," she said one afternoon.
Muendo laughed. "I'm not chasing dreams anymore," he replied, waving his phone. "Dreams now chase followers."
Within months, his dance videos had gone so viral in social media that his nickname "Tiki Boy" spread in distant towns like bush fire! All in all, his teachers barely recognized the student he had become. His grades slipped. He arrived late for class. At home, he no longer joined his grandfather around the evening fire to listen to folktales. He even struggled to speak his mother tongue without mixing every sentence with borrowed internet slang.
One Saturday, Mzee Mutua invited Muendo to help him herd his goats and sheep. As they walked through the fields, the old man quietly handed him the brass compass.
"What does it do?" asked Muendo.
"It never tells you where excitement is," Mzee Mutua replied. "It only tells you where North is."
Muendo frowned.
The old man smiled. "Your phone is clever. It can show you every road in the world. But it cannot tell you which road is worth walking."
These words lingered.
A week later, Muendo failed his end-of-term examinations. That same evening, the social media platform he depended on suspended his account after a misunderstanding over one of his videos. Overnight, thousands of followers disappeared. For the first time in months, the screen went silent.
Without being called or pushed, he walked alone to the Mugumo tree where the old Mzee Mutua was waiting. Without speaking, the old man placed the brass compass in Muendo's palm once again. This time, Muendo understood and he remorsefuly opened up to the old man that, he had unknowingly strayed. "Every short cut in life is a wrong cut," Mzee Mutua told the young boy while pointing at the old compass. "This is the short cut that almost strayed you into total decay. Am happy you now know how wrong and not short the cut is!"
"Am grateful that everything has happened in a very short while so that I can steer my focus back to the right track before it's too late," Muendo responded in a low but firm voice.
Since then, Muendo returned to school with renewed discipline and kept with him the old brass compass.
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