Jack of All Trades — A short story

“Jack didn’t start out to be a master of no trade. Some said it was his genetic make-up, others argued he was only trying to keep up with work trend.”

I stood by the kitchen door and listened to Mr Akpan argue intently with Victoria, his child’s English Language tutor. I had come to return Mrs Akpan’s electric grinder because ours blew up last night due to the high current of power supplied.

Mr Akpan always knew something about every topic discussed beside him. He is the type of know-it-all that would never accept that something is new to him. Victoria had been teaching Ebere, the Akpan’s 15-year-old daughter on the importance of specialization and had mentioned ‘Jack of all trades’ when Mr Akpan jumped in and said, “What is wrong with knowing everything?” Then he began to mention a long list of things he’d learnt as a student and how he’d used them from secondary school till date. No one can withstand Mr Akpan’s electric argument, if you get yourself engaged in it, you’d need to be rescued by someone else.

Well, the truth is Mr Akpan knows a lot of things, he just doesn’t know enough to know that some of what he knows is wrong. I and Emeka, Ebere’s last tutor had discussed this last week. So I knew better than to get into this conversation and slipped out through the kitchen door as quietly as I’d come in. As I walked past the wooden fence into our compound, I knew that was the last day I’d see Victoria.

The end.

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