CRIMSON by Uche Osita

CRIMSON by Uche Osita

CRIMSON by Uche Osita

October 2008

Adaeze,

Do you remember the way I used to hold your hand? Do you recall how I kissed you the day you told me that your father had finally left your mother? How tender our lips; rubbing off the loss that you knew could only be stayed for so long. Do you remember how we used to hug and hold on for eternity, not wanting, not needing anything else in the world? Do you remember the faint scent of chocolate that filled the room each time you visited? Adaeze, the rhythm of fate’s music has played far too loud and now I am scared. I fear that I am holding on too much, to these things, these feelings, and these memories. Maybe I am unfortunate. Or maybe Mama’s admonitions finally made manifest.

Do you remember the time when you said you would never leave me, was it all a lie?

It is true all I see now is darkness, it is also true I may never be able to live out all the dreams I talked about when there was light but Adaeze, the only darkness I truly see is the one that I know your absence has caused.

****

Adaeze, I love you.
****

I believed in God when I was little. When all Mama could talk about day and night was how wonderful God was, how grateful we were to have a father that stayed home and how kind God had been. Papa stayed home alright, but only because he was jobless. He also had a ferocious temper that hit Mama hard, all the time.

When I finally got a scholarship to study at the University, I felt a deep relief that I could not express in words. I promised Mama I would never let her down. She saw in me, hope, a reaffirmation that her belief in God was not unfounded. She, however, warned me against girls, no girls she insisted, not until you are done. I had agreed. It was so easy agreeing to something I had yet to give serious thought.

I kept her promise until the day I met you. When I first saw you I knew I would never keep her promise. You were so happy and carefree and I was burdened with my background and expected responsibilities. But you accepted me for me. You did not mind that I had quaffed kai kai with the boys in the slum. The fact that my father was jobless, that I had eleven siblings and a breadwinner mother whose only source of livelihood was selling matchboxes, cheap biscuits and sweets.

****

Adaeze, did you know that I have been waiting for 2 years to reach you? You blocked me from calling and you have not been in town all these while. I have been learning to deal with this new condition our love has bought me. Quite frankly it is not half as bad as I imagined. I do not speak as much since I can’t always tell whether I am being spoken to, but I also think a lot. I now take slow measured steps, and I am vaguely aware of time from the heat intensity of the sun and Mama hasn’t completely forgiven me since then.

I started learning to write with an old typewriter papa used to work with in his early days as a typist. It was a very trying experience, having to feel and guess and feel again. I have persevered mostly because I wanted to one day write you this letter. I am sure that you are reading and partly because I suspect that this curse may well not be the end. Adaeze, I am going to become a writer. Ever since I learnt how to type, I have been practicing, day, noon and night. I have written and rewritten ever since and I have strong thoughts to take some of my products for appraisal. Even though for me, there would always remain a vague memory of light -past, this new hope brews a thick fire in my heart and I am determined to guard its flames.

How have you been? I sincerely hope that life has served you a better dish than it did me. But perhaps you suspect my motives. But I assure you, 2 years is a very long time. And writing you is my way of moving on, of trying to forget. I woke up this morning feeling mildly grateful, Mama just got better, she has been down with a fever since last week and the doctor just called. I have in consequence come around to thinking about how much I have undervalued the little things that I have had; life, peace, family. Though, I wish I could have more, still I suppose I should be grateful for the little I have.

The world has changed a lot and me with it. And I have chosen not to allow our past to dictate whatever happens next.

****

How can I blame you? All you did was love me. And sometimes when I remember the times before; the times when there was light; I grope around in the darkness searching for hope, for you…

****

Still, when I sleep at night my dreams are crimson. There is an indistinguishable shadow that I suspect to be you, it reaches out and I come forward. Then I am forced back by another shadow, this one I know to be Musa. It reaches for me, I raise a hand and try to stop it, but it is quicker. It reaches for my eyes and then there is darkness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Uche Osita is a creative writer. His works have been published in Kalahari Review, African writers, Mu-Afrika journal of African literature, The crater library, Nwokike literary journal, and Pulse.ng.

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Imole by Olakunle Ologunro (1st Position – Flash Fiction Category)

Imole by Olakunle Ologunro (1st Position – Flash Fiction Category)

Imole by Olakunle Ologunro (1st Position – Flash Fiction Category)

Flash Fiction Category

1st Position –  Imole by Olakunle Ologunro

1.
Here you are, on a mat in your mother’s small, dark living room, wet with your own sweat, burning with an interminable fever. But it doesn’t begin here. Not really. So how does it—this dampness in your soul, this fading of your memories, this pain—begin?
1a.
Let’s say it begins your mother. Your mother, belle of the ball, wanter of things your father cannot provide. If it begins with her, then it must include your father, too. Your father, acquirer of things beyond him, husband of an exotic woman whose maintenance tag his clerk salary cannot settle.
Your parents said that it was love at first sight, that they met each other at the lobby of a banking hall in the nineties and had simply fallen in love with each other and married months later, but you learned later that this was not totally true. “It was your father that fell in love with me first,” your mother told you when you turned fourteen, when she flung a bowl of soup at your father because he could not buy her the imported Carossi shoes that was the new craze among Lagos socialite women.
She held you as she wept for the things she could have had, things your father could of course never afford, your father who answered Yessah! to boys he could have given birth to if he’d married early, your father who owns three shirts, two trousers and one tie, clothes he wears with the pious devotion of a Jehovah Witness persistently knocking on doors that were slammed shut in his face.
1b.
“You are the light of my life.” Your father’s first words when he held you the day you came into the world. But you did not know this, little baby that you were. You did not know that you were, to your father, everything your mother never was.
You, named Imole seven days after your birth, were an avenue for your mother to need more, to stretch your father thin, like elastic. Baby clothes from Macy’s or Kingsway, or nothing. Thirty thousand naira to buy diapers and wipes, or nothing. All these your father provided, sinking steadily into debts.
And then your father, neck-deep in debt, could not afford Carossi shoes to make your mother stay, your mother who was already one leg out the door. So she left, with a bag full of the things she’d bled your father to buy. With you.
End of your father’s chapter. Now, your mother’s.
2.
To leave a man because of a pair of shoes was silly, yes, but your mother didn’t care. She’d always wanted to be set free, to fly, like a bird. So she flew, with you in tow; mother hawk teaching her daughter to walk. She flew straight into the bed of Alhaji Owoseni, pot-bellied, with rings of fat for a neck. And you followed her choicelessly, like a lady-in-waiting for the queen.
Alhaji was, as they say, rich as sekere, and this he clothed your mother in: Yards and yards of expensive lace. Imported hair so soft, so out-of-this-world. Jewelry enough to tempt a robber. Brassieres and panties so flimsy it seemed cut out of mosquito nets. And all these your mother soaked herself in, while your father pined for you, his happiness. And for her, the love he never stopped loving.
And then, Alhaji died while in bed with your mother. They had been going at it that afternoon, your mother yes-yess-yesssing, Alhaji ah-oh-ahhing. All of a sudden, Alhaji began to shiver violently, foaming at the mouth, white froth of saliva and things unknown. Your mother’s scream called you in, to see Alhaji’s penis, short and fat, standing up, like David on a fallen Goliath, to see her too, naked, her vagina fenced with wisps of curly black hair, her breasts already taking the downward slope home.
Your mother picked the nearest dress she could find: her boubou, and fled. The rest of the news you heard in bits: Alhaji was epileptic. Alhaji almost died. Alhaji’s wives would rip your mother apart if they ever set eyes on her. Your mother with her vagina like burial food. Ashewo olobo saara.
2a.
One question: How do you come crawling back into dirt after months of affluence?
2b.
Your mother swore she would not return. Never. So she became a street light, heavily bright by night, and sleepily unadorned by day. Your mother became a woman who pleasured other women’s men. With the money in her account from her time with Alhaji, she got herself a small apartment in town. This you stayed in and waited while she slept by day. And at night when she morphed into a streetlight, you began your own dreams.
3.
Now, you.
You, sweet sixteen, with breasts as round as sweet oranges. You, flower-pretty, a carbon copy of your mother. You swore you would not be her, but would go out and, like your name Imole, be a light unto the world. You would be an actress or a singer or a writer. You would have fame and money so much that even a wave of your hand will rain money. You would bring your father back, make him become the man he had always wanted to be. You would fix your mother too, seal up the hunger in her belly with enough money and she would have all the things she wanted. You would be a light.
4.
Until Sir.
That was what your mother called him the day she brought him home. This is Sir, she said simply. You thought she meant Sa as in Samuel but she said no, Sir as in Yes Sir.
4a.
Sir had legs as thick as tubers of yam. On his chest and up his neck was hair so dense, you could make wigs out of it. Sir enrolled you in college, paid your school fees and bought you underwear and earrings that brought out the glow in your eyes. Sir called you Delight and when you complained, he said that Light, which was the English form of your name was still there. You liked Sir. At least you thought you did, until the day your mother told you while Sir was out that Erm, she needed a car and Sir had promised to buy it for her, but … but he wanted something else in exchange.
What?
You.
4b.
Of course, you would not do it, you said to her and walked away, angry. But your mother, wanter of things beyond her capacity, never take no for answer. You ought to know this.
4c.
It happened while you slept. Your mother herself ground the tablets and poured them in your soup. And when you woke up to the sharp pain between your legs, dried semen on your thighs, you felt your light begin to dim, to fade.
5.
Your mother got the car and you, a pregnancy. All of a sudden, the car didn’t seem to matter anymore. Your mother wept and tore at her braids and said, “Yeh! Temi baje.”
You wanted to stab her with a kitchen knife until your fingers were sticky with her blood.
Afterwards, Sir came and said he was sorry, that perhaps the condom tore or something. Your mother screamed, a scream that died when Sir wrote her a cheque. Minutes of whispered discussion passed, and then, Sir said he would be back. Your mother cuddled the cheque. You waited. One hour later, Sir returned with another man.
He smelled like stale bread, this man. He pulled down your eyelids and gave you a multicolored selection of drugs that looked like sweets. You swallowed, and while you were resting, lumpy blood ran down your legs. Pain shot up your belly and you screamed. Your mother herself drove you to the hospital, where it was said that Sir’s man gave you an overdose of the wrong drugs and these drugs would begin to corrode your womb. They would try their best, they said, but if only you’d not taken those drugs, perhaps things might not be complicated.
A medical way to say: begin to make funeral arrangements.
6.
You lie on a mat in your mother’s house now, your belly too sore to hold anything down. Your dreams are slipping away. You are your own light, but in the harshness of your pains, the world is too dark to see anything. Beside you is your mother, you know that. Your mother, belle of the ball, root of your calamity. “You will be fine, my baby,” she says. You know you won’t. She has called your father, the same man she once swore she would never go back to. Your father will come rushing in thirty-eight minutes from now, eleven minutes and two seconds after you are dead. Your father will not meet any light. He will, instead, meet nothing but darkness.
END

Racing Stars by Okhuosami Umar (2nd Position – Flash Fiction Category)

Racing Stars by Okhuosami Umar (2nd Position – Flash Fiction Category)

Racing Stars by Okhuosami Umar (2nd Position – Flash Fiction Category)

2nd Position –  Racing Stars by Okhuosami Umar

For as long as I can remember, my mother had two wishes; to hold my hand on my wedding day and marry me off well- preferably to Abubakar; our Imam’s first son. Humble, handsome Abu who always had on giant specs and stood so tall, most people had to raise their heads to make eye contact.
By all definitions Mama was extra; her happiness as infectious as her anger, terrifying. She and Papa were on first name terms and spoke to each other only when necessary. She complained about everything; money, food, clothes, even his family. In times of anger, the veins in her neck popped up and her facial wrinkles deepened. Papa knew then to be quiet. As I got older and understood biology, I often wondered how they managed to make me; this frigid mismatched couple.
That Abu and I end up together was desired and ordered. As often as she could, Mama admonished me to pay greater attention to make-up and house-hold chores. “Bend properly and hold that broom. Your waist is not made of iron is it?” Other times, she’d look me over and take off my wrapper, retying it to the left: “It goes to the left. Nobody can say I did not teach you.” My complaints against this odd betrothal got weaker with time until I was wholeheartedly enthralled. Every Friday with a fast-beating heart, I wore one of my favorite jellabas and stayed behind for Muslim Students’ meetings. With all my heart, I wished someday, Abu would notice me even with as little as a nod but repeated stolen glances confirmed my suspicions. He did not fancy me.
***
Papa died in his sleep on a cold September morning two days before my fourteenth birthday. A vicious sandstorm caused formalities to be postponed till the next day. I don’t quite remember which was worse; the whirling, blinding haze or Mama’s insufferable theatrics. We had to show a proper level of grief. “Bring my scissors and mirror Hafsa” she ordered. I sat on the tiled floor between her corpulent legs, eyes shut and careful not to enrage her by any form of disobedience. Masses of rich black curly hair caressed my face as they fell enveloping me in an aura of what I considered naked ugliness. Quivering with sobs, I took off my pink flowery gown and covered the thin frame underneath in an oversize wrapper. Waves of hot harmattan air blew into our dimly lit room provoking a cough spasm and leaving brown dust on Mama’s favorite blue coverlet.
“Allah, be quiet. Your hair will grow back.” she hissed with disgust. Dry weather always put her in a rage. “You should be angry with your father, not me. What did I ever do to make him treat me this way?”
The words hung on my lips. Did she really expect him to defeat rabies? If she had not demanded pap at all costs that night, Papa would not have jumped our new neighbor’s fence and bang repeatedly on the deaf trader’s door only to get bitten by her mad dog. She should have insisted on taking him to the hospital even when family and friends said native herbs worked best. Dying is better than ceaseless barking anyway.
***
“Your classmate, Amina is getting married this weekend” Mama said shifting her stool so she could face me square, her face enclosed in a frown. I was home on holiday from university. She continued the speech, apparently reassured by my silence while I chastised myself for not making my visit shorter.
“Her mother invited me last week. I have sewn my aso-ebi and told my union people to prepare, that you and Abu are next.”
I grunted okay but my mother will never back down.
“Everybody is already talking about it. I keep showing up for people. When will they show up for me too?”
“Mummy I will not marry Abubakar.” I stared hard at her, eyes narrowed to slits.
If my warning was perceived, it had no effect as she simply ignored it. “And why won’t you? What is wrong with him? He has graduated, is working and Muslim.”
“Why? Perhaps, you can force him to marry me” I shouted, angry in spite of myself.
“Who do you want then? It is not as if you tell me anything. I have not heard you on the phone with a man since you came back despite my careful watch. Nor has one come calling. Do you think it is your books you will marry?”
This was my cue. I returned to school and cannabis. I was no addict. Only a little now and then to keep body and soul together.
Mama was ecstatic when she learnt I had graduated with my mates. She hugged me, crying and laughing at the same time. Her old, puffy cheeks against my youthful skin felt made a dream of heaven. For a moment, I imagined what it would feel like to stay this way forever; this old woman happy because of me. “You get your brains from me” she repeated over a dozen times. We invited friends, hired a caterer and bought souvenirs for the induction party. A night to my big day, Mama threw herself into hysteria.
“It’s nothing my dear” she said wheezing while I pleaded with her to confide in me.
“Your father should be here. First your brother- Ismail was stillborn and Mama had never mentioned him, now him. I cannot do this.”
“You can’t what ma?” I could hear my heartbeats and the unsolicited excuses I’d be making to friends on her behalf with a fake smile the next day.
“Sorry Hafsa but I am too tired. I must be ill. Oh, I am so unlucky” she wailed.
Nobody whistled loudly or clapped too long when the Head of Students called out: “Yakubu Hafsa.” That day marked a turning point in my relationship with Mama. We wouldn’t talk for years.
***
Time flew by and in June 2000, she texted me her diagnosis. We had a cold, formal relationship in place by then. I journeyed back to meet a withered lady in dirty, tattered clothes. When she smiled, the mouth sores were painful to see. The stench from her diabetic foot ulcer gave me goose bumps. Massive cobwebs dangled from the ceiling everywhere in the house. Rodents lived amongst her unsold wares.
I cleaned, burned the stock, washed Mama’s clothes, cooked her a healthy meal, dressed the wounds and drove to see a specialist. The town’s general hospital offered me a post which I accepted. At first, I missed the hustle of the big city terribly but soon came to appreciate the ordered, predictable nature of my work. Mama stayed on admission for four months. Following her discharge, we sat on the porch every evening and gossiped; about Abubakar and his three wives, the new set of stalls being built for which she will be named: “market Chairlady,” my promotion to Chief Laboratory Scientist and my future husband- our Imam offered his hand and I said yes although, Mama thinks he is too old.
The wedding held two days before eid. My friends from the city attended. I asked for the Qur’an as dowry. Mama wore a flowing brown jellaba and matching silver shoes. Her grey hair rolled in a knot, uncovered. I wore a maroon-purple jellaba and veil encrusted with tiny, shiny stones. My unruly hair was carefully oiled and combed into a bun. Black medium heels completed the ensemble. We did our make-up, she designed shapes with red henna on my fairish skin and held my hand as we trekked to the nearby mosque in a small group of family and friends. I became a married woman within minutes.
***
At the outskirts of our village far away from areas inhabited by men and crops, accessible only through a narrow path lined on both sides by frightful shoulder-high weeds, lies a patch of land ever so slightly undulating. There are no visible markers of any kind but my cousin swears he can point at both spots blindfolded. It often worries me that I will never know where Mama and Papa rest in their final sleep. I supplicate to The Merciful One on their behalf as I hope somebody would for me, when my turn comes. The moon will be a silvery orb tonight, glimmering from its fortress in the sky. Who knows, I might see those two chase each other again; the twinkling stars I can’t help but think, are Mama and Papa.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Okhuosami Umar Faruq is a biochemist who has a passion for writing fiction and essays in his spare time. He sometimes writes for microcosms fic and has works under consideration across several journals/magazines.

Let the Day Break by Chukwuebuka Ibeh (3rd Position – Flash Fiction Category)

Let the Day Break by Chukwuebuka Ibeh (3rd Position – Flash Fiction Category)

Let the Day Break by Chukwuebuka Ibeh (3rd Position – Flash Fiction Category) 

3rd Position –  Let the Day Break by Chukwuebuka Ibeh

    Today, your wife would kiss you at the doorway, a firm press of her lips against yours, lingering and unsure, and then her tongue sliding into your mouth, not the usual breezy kisses hurriedly planted on your cheek often. She would lead you into the sitting room and tell you she had made something special for you herself. Would you like the Onugbu soup or Oha or Jollof rice? When you say, still unsure what exactly she was up to, that you didn’t want to have anything, she would pause to stare at you briefly, and then she would ask in a small, defeated voice, ‘Would you like to have a bath straightaway then?’
   She would watch you closely while you undressed to use the bathroom. There was something about her stare that unnerved you.  When she asked you if it was okay to join you in the bathroom, you would say, a bit too quickly, avoiding her curious stare, that today had been particularly uneventful and you’d rather be alone in the bathroom. She would touch your arm gently and kiss your cheek. Take it easy baby, she would say as you shut the door tentatively against her.
   These days, you avoided her. Ever since the doctor, a pleasant gentleman who seemed too young and too handsome to be a doctor, had held out an envelope to you and had told you in measured, solemn tones that this was not the end of the world, that you could still live a healthy life and enjoy a lovely marriage, you had begun to spend less and less time with your wife, conjuring imaginary business trips so you could lodge yourself in a hotel in GRA and drink yourself to stupor, bringing up tales of being too tired or sick or not really in the mood when she reached out for your flaccid penis beneath the sheets. And she was sweet, this wife of yours. She would caress your cheek and call you her poor baby. You work too hard sweetheart, she would say before she rolled over to ponder over one more night of disappointment, of implausible excuses that a child would doubt seriously. She was too much of a believer, this woman. Her optimism had always unnerved, even irritated you. But now, with your status hanging over you like a scepter, you were grateful for this optimism that surrounded her, this lack of questioning on her part.
  You would sit on the bed and watch her comb her hair in front of her dresser, swinging this way and that to get rid of the water in her hair. You would look at her legs, the smooth fairness that you ached to run your tongue over. But then, how could you possibly explain to your wife why you needed to use a condom in having sex when she was on pills and you had never needed an additional contraceptive in the past?
Babe, you would say, finally, barely louder than a murmur. But she would hear you and she would turn and walk up to you, smiling in that seductive way of hers that made your heart skip, already slipping the white towel off her body.
Babe, wait. You would say, fighting the urge to break down. So ignorant was she, so blithely unaware.
Is something wrong, sweetheart? She would say, standing directly in front of you now, cupping your chin in her palms.
 No.., you would begin. I mean.. yes. I went to see the doctor yesterday, you would say slowly, staring at the tiled floor below you because you could not bear to hold her gaze, the bewildered confusion in her hazel eyes. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.
I know she would say and for moments, the air in the room would float above you, too far from your reach. You would sit there, numb and unmoving while she slipped a pack of condom out from the drawer and dangle it before you. I got them yesterday, she would say, finally slipping the towel off her body.
   Later, after you came into the condom, you would prop yourself up on one elbow to watch her calm face, and you would ask her how she knew.
I saw the results of the test in your shirt pocket. She would say. Let’s not talk about it now, sweetheart. It’s better to have this discussion in the morning. Let the day break.
     Your relief would creep up slowly, gradually taking up the space of unbelief. You would look at her eyes and see your weakness in them. You would think of those times you came home late to find her asleep on the sofa in the sitting room while waiting for you. You would think of her persistent silence, her clam looks when you rambled about late meetings and traffic.  You would think of how undeserving you were of her goodness. You would think of the future, try to imagine what it would feel like now that she knew your status.
You would reach out to her as though to hug and kiss her at the same time, but you would bring her palms to your face instead and you would weep your gratitude into them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chukwuebuka Ibeh studies History and International relations at the Federal University in Otuoke. He has had pieces published in New African Writing Anthology, Dwartsonline, Jotters United and elsewhere. He is a regular contributor with Bella Naija, Woke Africa and the New England Review of Books.

WHISPERING TREES AT THE CEMETERY by Chinweokwu Ukwueze

WHISPERING TREES AT THE CEMETERY by Chinweokwu Ukwueze

WHISPERING TREES AT THE CEMETERY

by Chinweokwu Ukwueze

It was mid-year in Nsukka when the clouds merged with the earth to become one. The brown soil of Nsukka had become muddy and clumpy, sticking to the shoes. During this period of the year, the skies were always pregnant with rain. Women carried umbrellas in their bags and the men’s eyes followed the clouds in search for signs of rain. The leaves dripped with water constantly and dampness thickened the air like cocoyam thickened onugbu soup. The cold was the sort that possessed the body making people shake like there was an evil spirit within them.
The mourners in the Public Cemetery, Nsukka, didn’t allow this to deter them on that third Friday of June. The large cemetery was partly filled up. Middle-aged men shook their heads as they stood in groups, conversing. Women wailed, sobbed and sighed as they looked up to the sky. The young men shook their heads, beat their chest and bit their fingers. The whistling pine trees that surrounded the cemetery, standing beside its unpainted walls were silent. Except for occassional wails of ‘eewoo’, ‘chai’, ‘Chineke’ here and there by male and female alike, the cemetery was quiet and cool.

 

Ebuka stood close to the unpainted walls of the cemetery and whistling pines trees. He was a young man in his early twenties. He was in a white T-shirt, black trousers, and black sandals.  He watched the water drip from the leaves. He didn’t want it to give him the feeling it always had. He’d have taken a deep breath, and the scent of the new rain on the ground and leaves would have excited him. He did not want to stop the intake of a deep breath. He did not want the sweet liquid that would fill his heart. He didn’t want to feel all these on this Friday in June. He felt as though two strong men were pulling his heart apart, shredding and then setting it on fire.
“Why?” Ebuka cried. “Why does this have to happen to us?” He closed his eyes and he felt two streams of coldness running down his cheeks. He sniffled. He opened his eyes and stared at the whistling pine trees. When he was in primary school, he’d branch off by the cemetery and as he waited, he hoped that the breeze would blow and make the whistling pines whistle. On a rainy day, the trees whistled louder than a hundred coaches. As he stood now, he wished they’d whistle and fill up the hollow space in him a little. He also wanted them to whisper to him that all was well. He cried softly then laughed at himself. He knew that he was a man, and men did not cry like women. He wiped his eyes with the back of his palms. He heard the loud murmur and he turned to look.

 

A tall, slim young man walked into the cemetery through the rusting metal gates of the cemetery. He was draped in black clothes and black boots. He walked like the male models Ebuka had seen on TV. His eyes always seemed to be looking at something just ahead, his shoulders were raised, and he often adjusted his dark eyeglasses. The eyeglasses were supposed to be sun shades, but Ebuka guessed he wore it because he didn’t want his tear filled eyes to be seen. The people at the cemetery looked at him and murmured as he walked through the cemetery to where the white plastic seats were arranged for the funeral mass. When he sat down, people looked at him for a short time before they looked away.
Ebuka looked at him longer than the others. The young man looked rich and he was the only one in the cemetery in the complete attire of mourning. Ebuka had graver issues to worry about, although they seemed a million miles away as he stared at the young man. Ebuka squatted and watched some earthworms moving on the surface of the ground. They’d be part of the things that would devour his brother. He closed his eyes, and his mind moved to a thousand places at the same time. His family was very religious, and never forgot to keep any commandment of God, he was sure of that. But trouble and calamity had taken some rooms in their house. He inhaled and exhaled.
“Good morning,” a voice said behind him. He turned. The young man was standing there without his shades. “I am Diddy. I was your brother’s close friend.” He spoke with a forced accent. Although he tried well to sound as British as possible, he still mispronounced some words. Ebuka stood up. “It’s a pity that you lost your brother at such an early age. I offer my condolence. Take heart, my dear.”
“Thank you,” Ebuka said. “My name is Ebuka.” He offered his hand to Diddy for a handshake. Diddy didn’t take the hand. Ebuka dropped his hands, slowly. “How do you know me?”
“As I said, your brother was my very close friend. We knew each other to our wardrobes and cupboards in our different homes.” He laughed lightly. “He was the best person I’ve ever met. You were lucky to have had such a nice brother. It’s a big loss.” He took out a white handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his eyes.
“I also offer my condolence to you since you were so close to him like that,” Ebuka said.
“Thank you, bro. You should take it easy with your grieving. I’ll only be around for a short time because I cannot stay until the end of the funeral mass. I sincerely offer my condolence” Diddy said. Ebuka nodded but said nothing. Diddy picked his eyeglasses from his pocket and wore it. He bowed again and walked away. Ebuka watched his model-like strut until he sat on one of the white plastic seats.
When Ebuka turned to look at the whistling pine trees, he smiled. He never knew anyone could say such good things about his brother. His brother was a good man, but he was often quiet and alone, and because of this, he lacked friends. Ebuka remembered that Chidera gave him his toy for Christmas when Ebuka was five. Their parents had bought a toy for Chidera only, because he took the first position in his class. Chidera was seven then. He’d given Ebuka the toy airplane controlled with remote, smiling. Since then until his death, Chidera was always nice to him and everyone else. His quiet nature made other the children of the neighborhood (and later youths) loathe him. Ebuka smiled. He had respected his brother very well, but after the talk with Diddy, he respected him even more. The whistling pine trees whispered to him in their calmness that his brother was already in heaven, at the right hand side of the almighty, and he heaved a sigh of relief.
There was a caravan of cars led by the ambulance that stopped in front of the cemetery’s gates. The crying in the cemetery had increased. Ebuka saw his mother wailing and collapsing on the ambulance. The other women around held her back and consoled her, but she persisted in it. He saw his father remove his traditional cap and hold it to his stomach. He was a man; he didn’t need any serious consolation, he could bear the loss of his favorite son alone. In the caravan of cars that stopped in front of the cemetery, there was the officiating priest’s jeep and a bus filled with young men who worked with Chidera when he was alive. These young men held bright green leaves and sang mourning songs.
The tortuous noise that took over the cemetery stopped totally when the priest began the burial mass. The mourners sat on the plastic seats. They heard the priest’s voice as it moved around calmly. Ebuka looked around for Diddy, but he couldn’t see him again. He focused and listened to the priest’s sermon that was pineapple in the midst of lime. The priest, who was the parish priest at the nearby Catholic parish, spoke about the good kingdom after earth. A kingdom where there is no sorrow and suffering. Chidera was a good young man in all his ways, so he’ll be in heaven, and at the right hand of God. This kingdom is what mattered most, and not the short time on earth. If he is in heaven, we’ve to cry no more and rejoice for his reunion with the father. Ebuka nodded solemnly to the priest’s sermon.
While the priest was consecrating the sacrament, a loud scream pierced through the somber occasion. On investigation the scream was that of a little girl. The priest stopped the consecration. Some men moved to the direction of the little girl’s scream. Ebuka moved with them.
Ebuka got to the girl first. She wasn’t more than six. She was sitting alone, surrounded by empty plastic seats, and Ebuka wondered who she had come with. Ebuka looked at her, seeking what might be wrong with her. The other men gathered around Ebuka. Ebuka looked at the men before he fixed his eyes on little girl. “What is wrong? Did you see a snake?” Ebuka asked. The girl shook her head. He looked at her carefully and noticed her eyes opened widely like someone who’d experienced a murder scene or seen a ghost. “Did you fall?” She shook her head again.
“She must have been frightened by the casket and the entire funeral,” a middle-aged man in a brown tunic said. “Who brought a little girl to a funeral? This must have been a horror to her.”
“She’s fine. She was playing around when I saw her,” a young man in jeans and a green T-shirt said. Ebuka looked at him longer than he’d looked at the middle-aged man. The young man had a scar near his dark lips. “I think she played from where she was sitting with her mother to this place.”
“Then, what is wrong with her?” the middle-age man asked again, fixing a frightening quizzing look at the girl. The look would frighten the girl more than the funeral he claimed frightened her.
Ebuka walked closer to the girl and squatted. He held her small arm. “Omalicha, what is wrong?” he asked.
The girl turned her face slowly to the left and pointed to what looked like some white papers on the ground. Ebuka stood, walked to where the papers were and stared at them. “Omalicha, I think these are pictures. Did they make you scream?” he asked. She nodded. He picked the pictures. He walked towards the men. He smiled. “Pictures made the girl scream.”
When he got to the men, he opened the pictures for all to see. A man snapped his fingers and shouted, “Tufiakwa! Evil!”
Ebuka finally looked at the pictures; the horror in them shook him and crippled his breath. He shook his head, and he willed it to be false. He wanted it to be that his brother was not naked in the picture with Diddy, allowing Diddy to suck him up like a mother sucking the runny nose of a child. He wanted the other to be false, too. Diddy bent down, his palms on his elbows as Chidera drilled him. Many things ran through him mind and had serious commotion that weighed him down. He tore the pictures. He tore them into tiny pieces.
The funeral mass never remained the same again. People murmured as the priest tried to finish the mass. Ebuka sat down, shocked. Diddy was evil, the whispering trees had lied, and his brother had deceived them all. After the mass, the priest rushed out. Other mourners left the cemetery, silently, until the family was left alone with the casket. His father spat on the casket and left with his mother. Ebuka stared at the casket for a long time before he dragged it and buried it in the already dug grave, cursing that third Friday of June.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chinweokwu Ukwueze is a Nigerian writer born in Nsukka, Nigeria. He lives in Lagos. He studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he is studying for a degree in English and Literature. He is serving as the editor of The Muse Journal, 46. He believes art is human and free.

 

BROKEN TEARS by Akinsanya Damilola

BROKEN TEARS by Akinsanya Damilola

BROKEN TEARS

by Akinsanya Damilola

“Broda please, please find me something, my belle dey crack, broda please, please abeg you.”
He said this line in the same precise version over and again as though he spent an entire day memorizing that part. I looked straight into his green eyes searching for a shred of lie in them but all I felt pity for the poor boy. The kind of pity I had for the boy who had lost his right arm to the whim of a drunken policeman wielding a gun. The kind of pity I nursed toward my first crush when she lost her father violently during the Boko Haram winter strike. The kind of pity I could not describe when my next-door neighbour was diagnosed of the Ebola Virus. The fair-skinned boy could not be more than ten. I could tell by looking at his unlined face that bore a sea of endless uncertainties. He was a Fulani boy on the busy Iwo Road with crinkly hair the colour of a coconut husk.
Owo yin da? The driver shouted, etching out his impatience with meaningful glances. His calloused manner must have disgusted a woman in the back row and a rowdy barrage of words ensued. It was at that point I realized the bus was full.

 

“Ki ni e wan ro?” He added. Maybe the bus conductor knew I had been thinking of Oyinda before the Fulani boy came. Maybe he knew I had been picturing Oyinda’s beautiful figure in my mind. Maybe he knew Oyinda and I had, earlier that day, being in the same lecture room and I had not learned anything from the whole sixty-eight-minute class. “Is that your sister? The man sitting beside me asked when he saw me staring at Oyinda’s picture on my phone- the one with her mum. Yes, I replied sharply to avoid further questioning. Unfortunately, the man was not one to give easily.
“She is very beautiful,” he added.
“Thank you, sir!” I said as I looked away- the universal signal of disinterest. The man still didn’t get the hint.

 

“She looks just like my daughter, with her wide smile on a naughty face. I lost her last month to meningitis,” he added sadly. I became febrile as a cold current ran down my spine. I tried to blot out the reality of his words but the statement had blindsided me. Meningitis! That was the same disease that the state health workers had come to my hostel to administer vaccines for. At first, I had snubbed the whole exercise writing it off as unhygienic because of the limited number of needles and syringes available. And there was a man who had lost his daughter to what could have been my killer.
“I’m so sorry sir,” as words managed to make their way out of my mouth. “She must have been an angel to you.” The man did not utter a word. He was looking in the opposite direction, fixing his deep-set eyes on the verdant hedges along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. His eyes were filled with tears that trickled down like raindrops from a roof in September. The atmosphere between us was thick with sorrow.
“God will rest her soul in His bosom,” I said breaking the silence. The man looked at me, the wealth of sadness in his eyes piercing me like a knife as he said to me, “I hope she will be safe there.”

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Akinsanya Damilola(Akindavies), a final year student of the Faculty of Law at the premier University of Ibadan. He discovered his writing aptitude after an encounter with Richard Wright’s Black Boy a couple of years ago and has ever since written a considerable number of poems works and short stories. He is the recipient of the Lagos State (Alimosho Local Government) Essay Contest 2009 and was among the ten finalists of the Unesco Goi Peace Essay, 2015, among others. Away from writing, he has a fondness for trees and wildlife conservation.

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