Your Birth Day

BIRTH DAY

You returned to Enugu on the 23^rd of October 2009 after your father’s burial.  You didn’t want to talk to anybody in your neighbourhood yet because you were tired. Your eyes were still heavy with the many tears you shaded for the eight days you stayed in the village. You left your mother and younger sisters at the village to escape the evil hand of the bad people over there as you were the only son of your father. Besides, you wanted to get to Enugu and prepare for your birthday that was to come on the 30^th day of October. You wouldn’t allow your father’s death and subsequent burial spoil your birth day. It was a very important day for you - your 27th birthday. 27 was a significant year in your Zodiac and you were determined to make it remarkable. You had drawn a red and black scorpion tattoo on your left biceps. You had planned to unveil the beautiful tattoo on that day. You also planned to adopt the nick name – Jupiter – for yourself in consonance with your zodiac planet. Joan your girl friend promised to bake you a grey cake shaped in your zodiac symbol. It was to be your biggest birthday ever.

 You walked straight into your room and slumped on the bed facing the window like a tree chopped down from the roots. Then you noticed that your window had not been properly closed for the eight days you had been away. Cobwebs now hung loosely on the frame of the window and dangled like a badly fixed PHCN wires as the breeze from outside moved them. The room stunk dusty. You didn’t border to clean your room because you knew Joan will soon come and help you with the arrangement as soon as you called her. You couldn’t bear the choking dusty smell so you decided to get busy with cleaning the room that was formerly your father’s as you were now the man of the house. As you opened the door to the room, something inside of you was expecting to hear your father’s voice from behind say; “James what are you looking for in there?” but the whole house was calm. The voice didn’t come. The door cricked and swung open. The entire room was in disarray. You meant to start with the cloth strewn bed. Then your eye went over the rust eaten black box that stuck out from under the bed. It was that kind of metallic box you used in primary school. It was not locked. It was the box you were never allowed to fiddle with while Daddy was alive. You sat on the bed and drew the box out from under the bed.  As you opened it, a community of cockroaches scampered for safety. One cockroach crept out of the box and you crushed it with your left foot. The box was full of papers that now looked brownish as if they were heat with fire. There were deposits of black rat shits that looked the shape and size of rice seedling scattered everywhere in the box. The papers were receipts and invoices and school fees receipts and repot cards. The first one on top was the receipt of the old Philips television that was in your sitting room before. The receipt said the TV was bought N25. It had some holes here and there on it and some cockroach larvas clung to it. You emptied the box upside down and more insects dispersed for safety. Right on top now was your Primary school report card with your name boldly written on it in a sprawling handwriting of a learner. You smiled at what your hand writing looked like then. No wonder your then primary school teacher aunty Chichi called it the struggling of a hen for food. You flapped the report card on your left wrist and screwed up your face against the dust it emitted. In the first page of the report card you saw an assignment you did with the teacher’s mark of good that stood like the NIKE sign across the paper. You smiled and whispered that you always took the first position in the class. Then you saw your birth certificate. It was brown now and some parts of it had been chopped off by the cockroaches, maybe. It now had jagged edges like a rat eaten rag. Then you dusted it and cleaned the surface with your palms. The date read 22nd February and the year had been chopped off. Your head felt swollen as you saw the date. You looked up at the name; it was still James Chineme David. That was your name. it was only your father that called you Chineme. It was like a dream. You had always celebrated October 30th as my birthday.

“Oh! God what do I do with this tattoo” you screamed and fell backward into the bed. You didn’t hear your phone ringing; you wouldn’t have picked it if you had heard it. Your head felt heavy and tears ran down the two sides of your eyes like a leaking tab. As you felt the scorpion tattoo engraved on your left biceps you sighed and thought about Oluwole. “There they can change the dates and even bring my age down.” You thought. You lay there thinking till you slept off.

Wet Hair by Eghosa Imasuen

Wet Hair by Eghosa Imasuen

Posted on November 15, 2012 | 5 Comments

“That is not dead, which can eternal lie.
Yet with strange eons, even death may die”
HP Lovecraft.

Why do you turn away from me, Papa?

Why do you ignore me? This is not like before. This is not my melancholia, not more evidence of my unhappiness.

Listen to me, Papa. Let me tell you what happened.

I ran through the bush. I ran till I felt my heart burst inside my chest. And I ran some more. My torn wrapper felt wet beneath the white shirt. Branches – canes and flogging sticks not yet plucked from the mangrove saplings – left bright wheals on my face and my arms, slapping me as I ran away from him. My blood formed a dark stain that spread from between my legs, through the wrapper and unto the outside of the shirt. This shirt, a gift from my new husband. My prince, Rafayel. The one you chose for me, Papa.

“Tonye!”

Pietro called after me as he pursued me through the soggy footholds of our swamps. He told me to stop; that he meant no harm; that he loved me and that everything would be alright.

Why had I been so foolish? When Pietro met me at the farm, why had I followed him? Why had I believed Rafayel had sent for me? Why had I believed anything Pietro said? When Pietro smiled at me with his brown broken teeth dancing around his tongue, like restless bats in the afternoon, why did I not remember the last time, the many times, I had seen him smile that smile? That smile of teeth stained brown by the smoke from the death-leaf that Rafayel told me his people burn and inhale. That smile that always left my stomach feeling like the devil had defecated in it.

“Tonye!”

Run, princess, run. He will not catch you. You are of the Ijaw. You are the daughter of warriors. 

Pietro attacked me. I followed him away from the path to where he said my Rafayel waited for me. Where he said his white hairy smelly brothers needed more of my medicine for the green fever that ate away at their faces; the green fever that left solid masses in their sides.

And I believed him. And he raped me.

Ah, but I fought him. I bit. I scratched. And then I ran. The village was not far. My father’s hamlet was not far. It was early evening yet, the full moon still fighting from behind pregnant clouds for supremacy with the red, dimming sun. I would meet the men gathered around the Amananaowei’s hut; your house, Papa, huddled and arguing loudly in the inner glow of gin-filled happiness about how to share the latest trinkets from the strangers from across the sea. Trinkets and shiny things exchanged for slaves from deeper in the bush; exchanged for nuts from the father of all trees, the palm. Yes, I would make it home. I would escape the snapping branches and the loud curses from this pale animal behind me. I would tell you what had happened. I would say what this friend of your friend had done to your daughter. I would smile when you swung your cutlass and lopped his head off. There was just the river to cross. Just the stream by whose bank my canoe lay.

But my canoe was not at the spot I had left it. I screamed. For help, for someone, for you, Papa, for Rafayel, for my brother, Dienye. But the only ones who answered back were frogs and owls and bush-babies. Pietro caught me halfway across the creek.

*

Why the screaming, Papa? Why do the women wail? I have not even told of everything? Turn away from the river and look at me, Papa.

I remember Pietro’s hands on my head pushing me into the water, deeper and deeper. I begged him. I shouted, “Please, don’t do this.” I remembered to say these words in the little I knew of his language, Portuguese. I held my breath. I tasted the mud of the creeks.

My wrapper loosened, my breasts now brushing against the white shiny shirt Rafayel gave me as a gift. The shirt now brown with water stained by the stilted roots of the mangrove. Fight him. Pull him in too. But why am I so weak.

“Please die,” he said. Through quivering lips the urgent pleading for me to depart this life. Through the miasma of dancing images – the water above my eyes, the lilies, my hair, strands stretched out by the hot comb and carried in eddies, and the mud-speckled waves of my floating white shirt – I saw his eyes. I thought I saw them smile.

*

Can you not hear me? What is this you drag out of the water? Another suicide? Is that why the women cry? Is this why you tear at your clothes, Papa? Where is Rafayel, Papa?

Pietro’s teeth were the last things I remember. And then the knives. A thousand blades of hot steel slammed into the back of my head as the water entered me and then I sank. Falling away from Pietro’s Hands, falling away from the floating roots of the hyacinth and the lilies. Then nothing.

*

I sank in darkness, seeing nothing, hearing only the rush of whispers as the water beat against the river bank, transmitted to me in waves.

Shafts of straight silver. The moon had risen. Like stripes from a horsewhip, they contorted me, arching my back, piercing pain and glorious pleasure. And I rose, not looking down, hypnotized in wonder by the moon-play on the underside of the river’s surface.

I heard voices? Indistinct, Papa, but who could mistake your voice? I came to you. I saw you with the men gathered not around your hut but at the river bank. I saw my canoe at your feet. I saw the question in your eyes. And I heard you call, I heard you all call.

“Tonye! Tonye . . .”

I heard you call, Papa. Why do you not hear me? The body you and Dienye pull out of the water distracts you. Why does Dienye cry? Who is the bloated, naked person wearing the stained-brown cloth of the foreigners?

Papa, I notice something new. Are you listening, Papa? I can swim without moving. I am waist-high in the water. My arms, slick like the oil from palm nuts, do not do any work, yet I swim. Below the surface I see nothing but the reflection of my naked breasts, and my hair, damp and strangely straight like that of the woman whose image hangs on the wall of the big room in Rafayel’s iron war-canoe. It is as though I end where the water begins.

Rafayel comes. Rafayel, thank the gods you are safe! Papa does not hear me. I come to tell you of your captain, your Pietro; of what he has stolen from me. My honour, Rafayel, my honour. Look, Rafayel, Pietro is behind you. See how he tries to hide his right hand. I choked on the chunk of flesh I bit off him.

Rafayel!

Rafayel!!

Rafayel!!!

Ah, Pietro turns. He hears me. The rapist hears me. See how the hairs on the back of his sun-burned, red neck stand like bristles on a porcupine. Oh, you are distracted too, Rafayel. By the body my people pull out of the water? Another drowning? Those have become common because of the fire-water you visitors sell. Turn the body over quickly and be done with your fascination with death. Turn the corpse over and I will give you good reason for a killing; Pietro’s death. Pietro who smiled at my pain. Pietro who thinks he has killed –

*

Is this me? Still wearing the foreigner’s shirt and cradled in the roots of the mangrove surrounded by my brother; my father, the Amananaowei; and my lover, the father of my unborn child, Rafayel? Did I die by Pietro’s hand; did I drown in the deep?

I see my white husband, tears in his eyes; I see him push my father and brother away. I see Rafayel take my face in his hands. Those hands. I see him breath into my lips, but I cannot feel him from here in the water. I rush at them all, stopping when I notice I have passed them already, drifted through them, no substance. No, it cannot be.

I stop and I see my father’s eyes. I hear what my father says, what my brother interprets for the Portuguese to understand. “It is a curse. A dark omen that one so young would take her own life. But she had always been sad, not content with what her people could give.”

That is not true. That is not true.

I see my father look at the white foreign dogs with new eyes, trusting eyes. I see that he has new sons already, to replace the daughter he has just lost. The daughter he lost when he handed me as a gift to the leader of the visitors from across the sea. There will be no Igbadai for me, no inquiry into the cause of this tragedy. I am lost.

*

Time passes.

I drift with it. What is time to my kind but the now, the present? My kind. I am joined by others. Floating spirits, some green-eyed, blazing little pots of fire behind half-closed eyelids, seductresses; others pale, tall giantesses with golden hair and golden-scaled fish tails below the waist; and the dark and lithe phantoms like me and with straightened hair like mine. They tell me stories, these women, these spectres, these undead. They tell me of the names the living call us, us wronged women. They tell me of the Rusalka of the cold north; the fish-women of Rafayel’s land; the Yemoja, goddesses of the slaves that my people sell; the Jengu from across the mountains to the east, progeny of Mojele and Moto. My sisters, my Onwuamapu, tell me of what we are meant to do. Stories of young lost men drawn into our embrace and our kisses. Stories of cold revenge and liquid fulfilment under moonlit nights. I do not want this existence so I drift, forever.

Weeks, years, decades, an age I spend on the shoreline singing my song. And I am worshipped with sacrifices and masqueraded festivals in the weeks before the full moon. Sacrifices given before the time when the silver shafts fill my veins with glorious light; when the children, receptive all, tell tales of me and my sisters. When the sensitive claim that they hear my songs. I see my people farm on dark putrid brown loam. I see the men fish. I see some of the new breed, offspring of Rafayel and his ilk. Like my unborn child would have been.

My people stand on the riverbank, a wonder-filled mixture of skin hues. Strange ashen men in white gowns, with bars of wood crossed topsy-turvy, chant inanities in my water; they bathe my people in short episodes, still speaking in their strange dead tongue. My people adopt a corruption of this high tongue. And soon I am given a new name. Mammy-Water. 

They start to forget me.

Strange new iron canoes inhabit my waters, with round sharp circular paddles churning up the surf, leaving in their wake a spray I find pleasant. I dance with these new ones. New bronze rods pierce my depths, shiny but soon scarred with barnacles from my teeth. They leak dark oil that stains my water. Kills the fish; drives away most of my sisters. But I do not care; I live only for the moonlight and I sit on the mangrove roots watching my people change. They do not farm anymore. I see no war canoes with cargo of captured slaves for the pale Potokri. I see no dark loam, only sterile white sand. I sing my songs alone. My people forget me. They forget that I am the river who feeds them. I start to dwindle into shadow, the full moon weaker and weaker in its power to revivify me. My songs dim, becoming wind blown strings dismissively interpreted by the new priests and shamans as the whistling of sussurating pines. My sisters pass me by, urging that I become what I am meant to be; but they know not to take from those I protect. I keep my promise: there shall be no vengeance for his girl. Until –

*

Rafayel, I see him alone, breathing fire and smoke from a thin reed that he kisses. How long has it been? Under the full moon he is still dark, still pale, still handsome, and still horrid. I am drawn to him. He sits alone on top of one of the platforms that the new stilts suspend, forlorn, his foot treading the water. I ignore the loud drums and strings and horns I hear from elsewhere, from where the rest of his people rejoice in revelry. I rise up with the water and he sees me.

No not Rafayel, he says, when I call his name.

No, not Rafayel. Not Pietro either. This one is paler, thicker, and with golden, almost white, hair. His eyes fascinate me, grey like the northern tribe of sisters, the Rusalka. Grey and sad. He speaks like a frog and lacks the syrupy skill of Rafayel’s tongue.

“What are you?” he asks. “What do you want?”

“You,” I say. I sing my song.

He is enthralled and reaches out to me, pulling me out of the water. His touch gives substance to my incorporeal nightmare, my fingertips form in contact with his, an effect like the moon-rise. My long wavy hair, my breasts, my heat. He wants me, this lovelorn white boy; homesick for one he calls Inga.

And I kiss him. Desire is a fever in me. I do not want him dead. No, my sisters. No soul for a soul. I want some of his heat, his essence that I see pulsing within him. He gasps and I feel it leeching into me. I laugh, trashing his face with my hair. I cannot stop, my eyes closed, my long hair caressing his shoulders as I slip down with him unto the cold metal floor.

I hear the voices.

“Hey, Köln. Where’s Dirk?”

“Not at your side? Then probably with one of the local girls in a private room on the platform.”

“Private room? That one. He is too shy. Says he’s got a lovely thing in Amsterdam.”

“Then check by the pressure pumps. The edge, where he hangs out with a ciggy, now and then.”

I turn to go but he grasps my hand. I look at him now. He is grey, now. His lips a shadow of white still wet with my water. “Who are you?” he asks.

Tell them Mammy-Water. Tell them Yemoja. Tell them LaSiren.

I look back as I slip into the water, dissolving once more into liquid death. I see his brothers rush to him, this Dirk. I see him breathe his last. And I smile. ♥

*Eghosa Imasuen was born on 19 May 1976, and grew up in Warri. He is a Medical Doctor, Bank Executive, Husband of Eniye Osawe-Imasuen and Father of twin boys. Fine Boys is available for purchase from the iBookstore, Kindle (US), Kindle (UK), Smashwords, Farafina (orders@kachifo.com, or visit our store at 253 Herbert Macaulay Way, Alagomeji, Yaba, or call 08077364217) and all major bookstores.

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Adam'spen: ADMISSION WAHALA 2

Adam'spen: ADMISSION WAHALA 2

ADMISSION WAHALA 2

The E-block buildings were the face-me-I-face-you kind of houses like the type found in the slummy Ama-nmong areas of Aba. It was a community of eight rows of houses facing each other in twos with a row of four toilets and four bathrooms in-between each pair as if they were separating the houses from ramming against each other. A block in E-blocks had six rooms accommodating two students in each. The original plan for the building was for accommodation for married students and nursing mothers. Now the rooms were randomly allocated to single students crammed four in a room like every other undergraduate hostels in UNN as a result of accommodation scarcity. Mrs. Nwodo’s was Block E4 room 404, the fourth room in the fourth row that now looked quiet and deserted except for the cry of a baby coming from first room. Melvin walked gingerly down the lawn looking at the top of the doors for room 404. Sounds of dropping waters in the bath room followed him and he felt it must be from a water tap left uncorked. He thought something about going into the bath room to stop the running water but the sound was not steady. Water from the bath room splashed on the opposite pavement as Melvin got close and he jumped backwards. He heard what sounded like laughter from the bathroom and paused. 
“Maybe someone is washing the bathroom”, he said and moved on. As he meant to cross the bathroom, he caught sight of a girls buttocks shining glassy with soapy water. He flinched and looked away immediately like a solder on eyes-right command. They were two girls taking their bath with the doors widely open. Melvin looked again furtively to be sure of what he saw and increased his pace without looking back and the girls laughed. 
“Jambito!” one of them called out laud. 
He could hear their croaking laughter re-echoing in the other empty bathrooms as if the houses also mocked his timidity. He felt ashamed. 
Room 404 was locked. He still didn’t want to look back. He stood facing the door with hands akimbo, disappointed. He could not turn back to face the lucid pornography behind him though his eyes wanted to see more of the curves, to see more of the V and the balls. He stood there growing confusion and more weight between his thighs. There was nobody around with whom he could drop a massage but the naked girls behind him. Now he could still hear them laughing louder and the empty rooms mocking him from behind. Some ravens flew across the top of the building making their croaky sounds like they were part of the laughter. He thought something about walking up to the naked girls to ask them the whereabouts of Mrs Nwodo but his legs refused to move. He wouldn’t want the girls to see the mound that had formed in the front of his trousers. He pushed his too hands into his pocket to keep his crotch region even. He tapped his fingers inside the pocket as he thought of what to do next. He was trapped like a bird in a bird catcher’s net. Suddenly a sonorous feminine voice barked angrily behind him and he turned his neck. It was Mrs. Nwodo.
“What sort of non-sense is this supposed to mean? Who and who are there in those bathrooms?” she did not hear any response as the doors closed slowly and quietly. 
"How many times do I have to warn you shameless pigs to always close the doors when you are taking your bath? Don’t you know people pass through here? I imagine what kind of families you came from. If you want to show off your korokoro infested buttocks why not go up to freedom square and walk naked. Stupid girls” she smacked. 
She didn’t seem to have seen Melvin. Melvin hissed a long sigh of relief and turned around. Mrs. Nwodo raised her face and cowered a weak smile. 
“Good day Aunty” Melvin greeted shyly still with his two hands bulging up his pockets.
“Oh K.C you are here? Nna don’t mind these shameless girls without home training that want to spoil my day. How are you today?”
“I’m fine” Melvin replied.
“Cry cry baby” she teased Melvin as she placed her left hand on Melvin’s shoulder. She moved round him inspecting him like a cloth hung on a mannequin. She placed her left hand on Melvin’s head and ran it down his back.
“You are looking better today; no swollen eyes, no red eye balls, and no need for my handkerchief.” she laughed. Melvin looked up shyly with a smile and said nothing but savoured the aroma of cologne that followed Mrs. Nwodo as she crossed over to unlock the door. She slumped into the bed opposite the door and motioned Melvin in. Immediately, the bathroom doors opened simultaneously. The two girls emerged, grinned at each other like the mischievous Tom and Jerry in cartoon movies and ran into the opposite room. Mrs. Nwodo pushed out her head to know who came out of the bathrooms. She only saw the figures in white pants and white brassieres zoom past. 
“Idiots” she muttered.
“Tomi I already knew it would be nobody but you and Kemi. Let this be the last time I would see such non-sense repeated, else I will ensure you people are suspended from this school.” She warned the open air and went back into her room. Melvin was still standing at the foot mat looking round the room. His eyes were on the book shelves. He wondered more about how he could afford such quantity of voluminous books before graduation than how he could read them.

Two six spring beds lay opposite the two sides of the door. At the foot of the beds were reading tables with a chair close to each. On the wall above the tables were reading lights attached to the wall and faced downwards like street lights. Mrs. Nwodo’s corner was the right wing with her pictures on the wall beside the bed. In the first picture she sat on a sofa, smiling and holding hands with a white bearded man and a baby on her laps. In the second one she carried the baby with a sucker in its mouth. High above the pictures was a bookshelf, in which were German language text books and some phonetics and grammar books and dictionaries. Directly opposite the door to the wall were two gigantic wardrobes, on top of which were boxes of different sizes. 
“Women and loads” Melvin marvelled. Though there was a ceiling fan at the centre of the room, Mrs. Nwodo had a small table fan placed on a stool by the window beside the door. Beside the door to the right, was a very big mirror not less than six feet long attached to the wall. Up above the mirror was something like a wine bar, packed full with all kinds of women’s make-ups. On the floor was red chequered linoleum spread from wall to wall.
Melvin made to remove his foot wears as he entered the room but Mrs. Nwodo bade him “never mind” and showed him to the seat by the reading table. Melvin felt something about saying; “what a nice place!” but his lips couldn’t form the words. Mrs. Nwodo dropped her bag limply on the table and went back to the bed. She sat on the bed and crossed her legs carefully as if she was preparing to offer Muslim prayers. She picked a pillow, placed it on top of her crossed laps and leaned back on the wall. She was tired. The skin of her legs looked like ripe pawpaw; so smooth that Melvin thought he saw the blood running through the greenish veins inside them. Melvin didn’t want to look at those legs again. He buried his face on the ground peeling some invincible things from his finger nail. There was a little silence as he waited to hear something about his admission from Mrs. Nwodo. To break the ice, she suddenly teased Melvin:
“I know you won’t cry again” Melvin chuckled and buried his face on the table before him, moving his right foot on the floor. He was shy.
“Are you the last born in your family?” Mrs. Nwodo asked trying to relax the tension in the air.
“No”
“The first?”
“No”.
“The only son?”
“No, I’m the second son” Melvin answered hesitantly, he had wanted to claim the first.
“Ah! Why is it you look so feeble like Ajebor” she continued with curves of mischievous smiles on her face.
“Your mother; what does she do?”
“She is a trader”
“And what about your father?”
“He died some years ago”. Melvin lied. He didn’t want to think about his father as alive.
“Ah! I’m sorry for reminding you. It’s a pity. Ndo nnu”. Mrs. Nwodo said and placed her hands on her chest. Her Igbo sounded so soft and anglicized, devoid of tones. The thought of Melvin’s father brought back the tension which was almost dissipating. The thought of Melvin’s father, always reminded him the need not to be like him; the need to struggle out of the depth of poverty that his drunken habit had dragged the family into. He had written his father off as dead because of his drunken habit. “He is as inactive as a dead man”, Melvin had said to himself one of the days he got home and saw his father drunk. He sighed bitterly whenever he saw his mates ride in their father’s cars. He too wanted that, but his father could not give him the comfort he wanted in life; his father would hardly provide for his family and he had promised himself that he would get everything that he wanted in life by himself. 
Melvin was still bent drawing shapeless images with his left foot. His face now looked stiff with hatred mingled with pity for his father. He didn’t hate his father rather he couldn’t decipher what the feeling was - A mixture of love, hate, pity and anxiety: Confusion. He was not sure what the feelings were. He winked and tears trickled down his cheeks from his eyes. 
“Ok, guess what; I have good news for you, would you like English Department?” Mrs. Nwodo dropped as if to console him and send the tears back into his skull. Melvin jerked his face immediately and wiped off the tears on his lashes. The only thing he had wanted to hear was finally up. He couldn’t fathom why the tears were coming out of his eyes. 
“I don’t mind what Department any longer, what I need is just admission Aunty,” he answered, looking straight into Mrs. Nwodo’s face. There was a mixture of frustration and desperation in his quaky voice. He wasn’t able to hide any feelings now. His glossy, watery eyeballs would show it. His pouted mouth would scream it. His ashen face would dramatize it. Desperation! Mrs. Nwodo chuckled mutely looking into Melvin’s misty eyes with pity. 
“Well, your admission issue is settled then. All you need do now is: go home, and come back in a fortnight when the list shall be pasted to start registration in English and Literary Studies Department,” she managed to say after a little silence. 
Melvin was stunned. It was like a dream. He wanted to move over and give Mrs. Nwodo a very warm embrace but his guts failed him. He wanted to cross over and give her a peck on the cheek as he used to see people do on TV and say things like:
“Aunty you rock!”
“Aunty I love you!”
“Aunty you are the best” but it was as if his legs were glued to the floor and his buttocks to the seat and his lips sealed. He meant to jump up and rejoice on his own but streams of tears flowing profusely from his eyes could not let him do that. He could not control the tears. They were tears of joy now. He couldn’t make a move. 
“Aunty, words cannot be enough to show appreciation for what you have done for me”, he managed to murmur amid tears. 
“It’s okay”, Mrs. Nwodo responded giving him a pat on the shoulder. She uncurled her legs and came down from the bed and hugged Melvin. Melvin felt as if never to let go in her warm soft body with his head on her breast and her sonorous voice sizzling into his ears. There was pin-drop silence in the room, except for the sound of Melvin’s sniffing to draw back his running nose and inhale more of the cologne aroma emanating from Mrs. Nwodo’s cloths. As Mrs. Nwodo left him, He wiped out the tears from his face with his palms and stood up to leave.
“K.C bear with me, I’ve not got cola to offer you”.
“Don’t mind” Melvin responded in a very low voice. She watched Melvin as he left the room. She shook her head in pity and leaned back on the wall and closed her eyes. She did not notice when her roommate entered the room. She had slept off. She was dead tired after the activities of the day in the skin searing Nsukka sun; the kind of sun shine that came with the rain.

**************

my butterfly

MY BUTTERFLY

Gently hovering around it

Carefully negotiating the best entry point

The colours are irresistible

You approached

Thrust your proboscis into its juicy pool

Like a dragnet it kept holding you fast

Your wings radiate so brilliantly in the sun

It’s like a nuptial flight of the termites

So passionately involved

So obsessed

My day is gone

As I kept beholding your radiance and delicateness

Above all

Your immeasurable beauty is unequalled

You are my butterfly

i am searching

I AM SEARCHING

I know she is somewhere out there

While I grope for her in the darkness of my heart

Where her first leg took a leap on a prong

Where we have been playing all along

Like twine kernels separated in an uncracked shell

So we have not seen each other

Yet every day I see her there

A tangible mirage in a concrete apparition

In that darkness of the enclave of my mine

Yes every day I touch her

A sky close-by seeming impossible to reach

And we play together in there

Like a drop of oil on a cold stream

She has always been here

Playing in my timid heart

Where I fantasized, since I was young

Where I have locked her all along

To nurse her to a full-fledged woman

My mouth I have zipped to keep her locked

And my anus is blocked to imprison her

Now she is gone out there

Having slipped away from the grip of my fingers

Like water from a rickety basket

Now I have got to keep searching all over

I am searching

The Convention

                                                          CONVENTION THINGS 
Hi pals, I come again to disturb the peace. 
We just came back from the Safeguard Your Heart District Convention of Circuit EE17. I so enjoyed it! The three days felt like thirty years outside this trouble filled world. So let me tell you a little about it. I won’t te

ll you everything that happened there shaa.

On the Thursday night before the convention, Bro Ejike called me on the phone and said the “Ntachi” group will be sleeping over in my house for the night. I said it would be a grand privilege to host them. He laughed and said they were coming to cook in my house that they wanted to carry some food to the assembly ground. I laughed and wondered how their food would taste. They say people that like food a lot don’t know how to cook and I believe that. 

*bend down let me whisper to your ears*

Ejike is the District Overseer of Ntachi Omeprazol congregation. Have you hear about them before? These guys are so funny to be with. They are UNEC students of Campus congregation. They have a sharp network that detects where there is free food; sumptuous ones at that. These guys can eat and eat and eat until you wonder where the foods enter. Notwithstanding, they all maintained athletic figures with flat six stones trunk that I envy so much. I love to have them around.
*don’t tell anybody I said that*

I was driving home from Zik Avenue when I saw Ejike and Awa carrying a cooler and a big nylon back. I called them and they said they were heading for my house and hopped into the car. Their presence in my house made us feel like the convention had already started. We all sat on the floor discussing many things ranging from how the young sisters in UNEC refused to help them do the cooking to how tired they were to cook now. They were so fortunate to have my younger brother Chidi at home. Chidi entered the kitchen and prepared the stew with Wisdom and Ejike rendering some little helps. I chattered with Awa all through the night till I slept off. 
It was Wisdom that woke me up in the morning and we did the morning text while two pots of rice were boiling in the kitchen. 

It was the first time I drove myself to an assembly. We went late though. It’s a pity I had to; I had some of my customers that I was supposed to see in the morning. One of them took the whole time bragging and telling me about all his dreams in life. They say the customer is a king you know. I had to wait for him to finish though I wasn’t listening. After all he was not ready to open an account at the moment. *Mtchewww* I just nodded like a red neck and made some throaty and nasal sounds like “mmhm”, “uhu” to make him feel I was listening. Soon my younger brother called and said time was “Agnes”. Then I had to cut the customer short. “A sogide Eze anya ekpuru nkata n’ihu gwa ya okwu”. I ran downstairs and jumped behind the wheels and called my brother and his friends. We joined the traffic at 9:25pm. Very late. I matched the throttle down and my red L sign dangled like a nursery school bell at the bumper and Venter of the car as we sped through Nike Road. “I send? That L has one year tenor to stay on the car. Whoever doesn’t like it should go and block a moving train. 

We arrived late at the assembly ground. As we stepped in, I heard the rasping voice of brother Nwakire(jnr). I thought it was his father. He and his father sounded alike. We met his wife on the walk way near the urinary where she was standing with a baby. Maybe their kid was disturbing. One attendant was standing at the entrance. He gave us the program and shook me firmly. He was my friend’s younger brother. We sought a seat near the right flank, where we could get fresh air. That was my favourite position – near the work way to the urinary. Then I realized we had missed two talks already. Too bad. 

I liked the symposium: Beware of Dangerous Heart Conditions! 
Brother Abel handled “cunning of heart”. After reading Proverb 7:10, 13 and 14, he defined cunning heart as a treacherous one, a tricky one, a deceptive one. When he asked “How can we guard against developing cunning heart? He introduced a “solilokwi”. Maybe it was soliloquy he wanted to say. But what I saw was not even a dramatic monologue they were two people on the demonstration. On the first part the sister was working in an office and her boss asked her out for lunch and she accepted. Maybe the “solilokwi” was when she said no brother has ever called her “angel” nor “sunshine” as her boss did. 
The speaker said that was the wrong thing to do for a true Christian. After all, the boss was not a witness. Now he introduced the right one. The boss came again and asked the girl out for a lunch, calling her different sweet names (u know the kind of names girls like na *winks*). She didn’t even allow the boss to finish before she shouted back; “no stop it!” with her left hand raised bitchily like “talk to the hands” and said “don’t you know I use my lunch hour for bible study”. 
I thought that too harsh and counterproductive for any witness. If I was the boss, I would have given her a query on insubordination and unprofessional behaviour  I thought she would have said “thank you, but I use my lunch time for bible study. Why not join me?” that would have been productive for informal witnessing. 

Bro Silvanus handled “Double heart”. He defined it as a heart that says improper things. When he asked; how can one acquire a double heart? He introduced a demonstration. A man was prepared for field service. While he was about leaving the house, his boss called him on the phone and he abandoned the field service and rushed to the office ignoring the complaints of his wife and children. I felt guilty when the speaker said that was the bad example. Then the right one came. The same man was prepared for field service and his boss called. He picked the phone amid his wife and children’s complaints and laughed into the mouth piece first and then told the boss bluntly “I am not just available now” and added that he wanted to stay with his family. 
I couldn’t help but wondered if the demonstration was ever rehearsed because it was impracticable. If I were the boss, I would sack the man, so that he could have ample time for his family. Why could he have said such a thing? “I am not just available now”; a show of gross insubordination, flippancy and lackadaisical attitude to work. If I don’t sack him, I would give him a strong query on gross insubordination, lackadaisical and negative attitude to work, and abscondment from duty. They needed to get civil servants to do that kind of demonstration and not a brother that has a small shop in Ogboete. It was so impracticable. 

The speaker now urged us to unify our hearts to serve Jehovah. When he quoted Matthew 6:24, I felt guilty again. I had wanted to skip the second day of the convention so as to be able to attend one of my customer’s functions. There and then I made a rethink though the customer threatened to close his account with me if I didn’t attend. 
*he can go to the nearest hell with his account*
Bro Joseph handled “half hearted”. He said almost the same thing that Bro Silvanus said on “double heart”. I couldn’t help but wonder the difference. He now introduced a demonstration of brothers that discussed football in field service. That was the bad example. Then in the next demonstration the partner to the brother that discussed football corrected him and they focused on the field service. I learnt from that too because I love to gist. 
*gossip is my number one hobby*
Brother Chigozie Njoku handled “In Want of Heart”. He likened it to the need for a heart transplant. He referred to ‘in want to heart” as foolishness, inexperienced or lacking of knowledge and cited Proverbs 7:7 and Proverbs 10:21. When he asked “what happens when we do not pay attention to our internal development?” he introduces a demonstration. He called it “solilokwi”. I wondered why they all abused that word. ‘Monologue” would have been a better expression since they are related. Some pronounced “solilikwo” and I wandered if they talked about palm wine because holy water remains ayaya. 
The demonstration was a dramatic monologue. A Christian sister had some chykers sending her some erotic and amorous text massages. In the first part she responded positively to the text. In the second one she detested the text and deleted it. 
When the keynote address started I was fast asleep. Don’t mind me; it was hunger that caused it. 
Immediately after the song for brake time, I saw Ejike calling me to give him the key to my car so that they could have access to the food in the booth. I called Chidi and handed him the key. I went to Sister Ike’s stand at the car park and ate free food. I just finished eating when Joy Atuadi, Kindy and other members of their crew came around. I called Joy “Mummy” in the usual manner drawing the last syllable like the mew of a cat. I shook Mary firmly and accused her of dodging me. She smiled shyly and said it was a lie. I then said I was joking and laughed. I liked to see her smile like that. I also liked her twitting voice. I was holding her hand when kindy came. I always feel tempted to call her “Kindness”. That “keendy” pronunciation never formed well in my lips but I call her that anyway. She handed me her red bag while she ate. I hung the bag on my crooked elbow and kept my arm bitchily like I was posing snake in the monkey shadow and walked round for everybody to see and have a good laugh. Some of them took pictures of me. Oluchi threatened to post the picture on facebook and I said “I no send, I no dey owe anybody” and swaggered to where Ude’s family shared food to more of the members of our congregation. Soon the soft tune melody started. Kindy came and snatched her bag from me and said bye. While walking through the auditorium alleyway, I met Gift. I called her. She was the girl I liked from afar. I had always looked at her from afar and waved. This time I called her. We shook hands and I smiled into her face. She smiled back and said I looked younger. My head got swollen with pride and appreciation. If I was a white man I would have blushed. I couldn't leave her hand though I didn’t like the freckles that were now taking full possession of her chins. I was still looking into her eyes without words when she wriggled out from my grip and said, “See you late”. 

The afternoon session was so interesting too. I will tell you more about it in our next issue. People na-eche m ooooooooo!