In the gentle streams of Agbon village, where the water whispered through reeds and frogs sang soft lullabies to the moon, there lived a shrimp named Temi.
Temi wasn’t large or strong. He didn’t have the sharp claws of the crabs or the smooth dance of the tilapia. But he had something else memory.
Temi remembered everything.
He remembered the way the current felt when he was just a baby, tucked in the shadows of warm rocks. He remembered his mother’s soft hums as she shielded him from fish above. He remembered the songs the elders used to sing during the changing of the river.
But most of all, he remembered home.
Not just the place, but the feeling.
And he missed it.
Even though the river had moved on shifting, winding, stretching its arms toward places it had never been Temi longed for the shallow pool where he was born.
That pool had dried up long ago.
But Temi couldn’t let go.
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Every day, he swam against the current.
Not just upstream but upstream through memories.
He passed rocks that had changed shape.
Trees that no longer leaned the same way.
Animals that had grown old or gone missing.
He waved at the otters who no longer recognized him.
And each night, he told himself, “Just a little farther. I’ll find it.”
But the river kept flowing the other way.
And the harder he swam, the more exhausted he became.
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One day, Temi met an old turtle sunbathing on a stone.
The turtle opened one eye and said, “You’re swimming the wrong way, little one.”
“I’m going home,” Temi replied.
The turtle didn’t laugh.
He just blinked.
“And what will you do when you find it?”
“I’ll feel whole again,” Temi said quietly.
The turtle turned slowly. “Sometimes the past isn’t home. It’s just a room we once visited.”
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Temi didn’t answer.
He swam on.
His body grew weaker.
His shell dulled.
But still, he searched.
Then one evening, he found it.
The spot where the water once curled into a warm pool.
But now… it was dry earth.
Cracked.
Silent.
Not a ripple in sight.
Just a single leaf caught in the wind.
Temi rested there, still.
Not crying.
Just quiet.
Like he had let go of something he didn’t know he was holding.
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He didn’t return right away.
He sat through the night.
Listened to the silence.
Then finally, he turned.
And swam downstream.
Not because he had forgotten.
But because he finally knew:
You don’t live by chasing what was.
You live by flowing with what is.
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He found a new pool.
Shallower than his first.
But warmer than he expected.
He made it home not because it looked the same, but because he let it feel the same.
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Moral Lessons:
1. Clinging to the past can keep you from living in the present.
2. Home is not always a place it’s where your heart chooses to rest.
3. Healing begins when you stop swimming backward and start embracing what’s ahead.
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