WHY I WAS LATE

I read Femke’s article on mediocrity in Nigeria this morning http://saharareporters.com/article/femke-becomes-funke-celebrating-mediocrity-nigeria-femke-van-zeijl?page=3&nocache=1 and it reminded me many experiences where I have come face to face with flagrant display of mediocrity with impunity. We have much of it in the work places. A colleague that doesn’t know the job is being promoted because he or she licks the boss’ ass. People get jobs into MDAs because of their relationship with one numb skulled politician while the good brains lavish in abject unemployment (Sorry not unemployment but underemployment). I have always argued that there is no unemployment in Nigeria but under employment. Okay, let’s leave that for my next article. What was I even talking about? MEDIOCRITY!

I was in one of the MDAs in Enugu state sometime last month. I was surprised at how the entire place has changed; flashy cars everywhere. I couldn’t help but wonder: “so these people are paid so much that they can afford this kind of luxury?” Right then I switched on to marketing mode. If I can get them to open savings account with my bank that would be a big plus for my performance. At least somebody that drives and Infinity Jeep should have nothing less than N1,000,000 in savings and there were many of them there. I entered one of the offices that looked like a passage way. I was first greeted by the cold air wafting from the air conditioners. Tables lined the left and right flanks up to the wall at the extreme. There were over twenty people in the office (or should I call it a hall). Some of them were sleeping. A few faced themselves gossiping. One was peeling melon seeds on the table and another beside her was knitting something with beads .Only the table at the extreme had a computer on it and the first table near the door had a file with papers on top of it. I greeted them and they jerked. The one sleeping near the door brought up his head and some mucilage of saliva lolled up from his lips to the table. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sighed, looked up at me disgustedly with red eyes and bent back to his table. I introduced myself and my bank’s products. They just looked at me like I spoke Spanish to an Efik tribe. The ones gossiping turned back to their gossips. Then the one operating a system at the extreme called me.  After some chit chats he collected an account opening pack from me and told me things about every other person in the hall in a very low town. “They don’t work and nobody can say anything about that unless you are tired of this job. They are all families and cronies of highly placed politicians”. It was only then that I understood how the cars came about. But frankly speaking, I would like to get an appointment in such a place so that I can have enough time for more studies and to polish my writing skills. Who no like awuf? (Laughs)

Talking about mediocrity; I wonder if they do train these Road Safety guys at all. I love their uniform no doubt. They look smart. But let me tell you an experience. Frankly speaking, I am always late for field service so I made a resolution last week to always attend meetings for field service. Last Saturday I was late again, so I had to rush (at least, let me not miss the prayer). Though I was rushing, I didn’t drive rough; I only cut off some roads that are usually prone to traffic congestion. At the one way bypass of collage road that led to Kenyatta by Robinson Street Uwani, I met some men in brown and red uniform; a blue road safety van with the white stripes like zebra crossing was packed by the right side of the road. One of them matched into the middle of the road and raised his right hand with opened palm stopping me. His left hand waved me to pullover.

“Clear well” he said.

I drove very close to him like I was not going to stop. Then I stopped.

“off your ignition” he said with face stone frowned.

“Who taught you that you have such right? To order me to switch of the ignition of my own car?” I asked and giggled in sheer ridicule.

“Come; if you don’t say what you want I will drive off” I added and frowned too.

“Where is your driver’s license?”

“Here.” I showed him the fake license one of them did for me a year ago.

“Give it to me” he said and trusted out his crooked hand to collect my license. I laughed out very laud and said:

“Why? Are you looking for your own? Guy you can’t be serious; why should I give you my license? What makes you think you can just order me to give you my license! My own license! You must be stupid! Do they even train you people at all? You just jump into the middle of the road and stop a moving vehicle that didn’t commit any crime; that didn’t go against any traffic laws! Do you just stop vehicles or are you mad! Okay I am driving out of here and if you dear block me, I promise you are gonna wake on an orthopedic bed.” I barked and pulled the gear stick to drive. One other Road Safety guy made to enter the passenger side of my car and I turned swiftly at him:

“If you dear come inside my car…” the words hung and my jaw dropped as I remembered I was going out to preach and also recalled what Chinenye said sometime about having the mind of Christ; then I asked myself “what would Christ do in this situation?’ I pushed the gear stick back to Pack and came down from the car.

“ehen? What do you want?” I asked looking him straight in the eyes.

“Let me see your fire extinguisher”

I opened the boot without words and showed him the small fire extinguisher I bought second hand from a friend that wanted to sell his car last year. He grabbed it and checked something at the top; maybe the expiry date and gave it back to me.

“Let me see your caution triangle”

I showed him. He opened the spare tyre under the rug in the boot. He didn’t notice that it is not even the same rim size with the other tyres on the car and he closed it back. He touched the wheel spanner and the Jack and the side mirrors. I just stood aside and watched him display his inefficiency.

“Match the break”

I did and my break lights flashed.

“The horn”

I did.

Then I stuck out my head from the window and said; “are you satisfied?” He didn’t say a word but waved me off like a disgusting house fly and I turned to the one sitting on my passenger side;

“Now get off my car.” I said and he smiled. I could see the shame on his face. His eye brows that curled down said he felt humiliated. He sighed and opened the door slowly.

“Come you people should learn to do this your job well. You don’t just stop people to check their cars and waste their time when they didn’t commit any traffic error.” I said gentle to none of them and sped off.  When I got to the field service meeting point, they had already started pairing. I just tip-toed into the house and sat quietly.

 

 

 

 

Pleaseoooo this is a mixture of fiction and true life story. In short it is fact-tion! http://saharareporters.com/article/femke-becomes-funke-celebrating-mediocrity-nigeria-femke-van-zeijl?page=3&nocache=1

Femke Becomes Funke: Celebrating Mediocrity In Nigeria By Femke van Zeijl

Femke Becomes Funke: Celebrating Mediocrity In Nigeria By Femke van Zeijl

Posted: March 21, 2013 - 06:02

Femke Van Zeijl

By Femke Van Zeijl

I used to think corruption was Nigeria’s biggest problem, but I’m starting to doubt that. Every time I probe into one of the many issues this country is encountering, at the core I find the same phenomenon: the widespread celebration of mediocrity. Unrebuked underachievement seems to be the rule in all facets of society. A governor building a single road during his entire tenure is revered like the next Messiah; an averagely talented author who writes a colourless book gets sponsored to represent Nigerian literature overseas; and a young woman with no secretarial skills to speak of gets promoted to the oga’s office faster than any of her properly trained colleagues.
Needless to say the politician is probably hailed by those awaiting part of the loot he is stealing; the writer might have got his sponsorship from buddies he has been sucking up to in hagiographies paid for by the subjects; and the young woman’s promotion is likely to be an exchange for sex or the expectancy of it. So some form of corruption plays a role in all of these examples.
But corruption per se does not necessarily stand in the way of development. Otherwise a country like Indonesia—number 118 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, not that far removed from Nigeria’s 139—would never have made it to the G-20 group of major economies. An even more serious obstacle to development is the lack of repercussions for underachievement. Who in Nigeria is ever held accountable for substandard performance?
Since I came here, I have been on a futile search for a stable internet connection that does what it promises. I started with an MTN FastLink modem (I consider the name a cruel joke), and then I moved on to an Etisalat MiFi connection (I regularly had to keep myself from throwing the bloody thing against the wall), and now I am trying out Cobranet’s U-Go. I shouldn’t have bothered: equally crap. And everyone knows this. They groan and mutter and tweet about it. But still, to my surprise, no one calls for a class-action suit against those deceitful providers.
A one-day conference I attended last year left me equally puzzled. Organisation, attendance and outcome left a lot to be desired, if you ask me. But over cocktails, after the closing ceremony, everyone congratulated each other over the wonderful conference—that started two hours late, of which the most animated part was undeniably lunch, and in which not a single tangible decision had been made. This left me wondering whether we had attended the same event.
I thought these issues to be unrelated at first, but gradually I came to see the connection. Nigeria is the opposite of a meritocracy: you do not earn by achieving. You get to be who and where you are by knowing the right people. Whether you work in an office, for an enterprise or an NGO, at a construction site or in government, your abilities hardly ever are the reason you got there. Performing well, let alone with excellence, is not a requirement, in fact, it is discouraged. It would be too threatening: showing you’re more intelligent, capable or competent than the ‘oga at the top’ (who, as a rule, is not an overachiever either) is career suicide.
It is an attitude that trickles down from the very top, its symptoms eventually showing up in all of society, from bad governance to bad service to bad craftsmanship.
Where excellence meets no gratification, what remains to be celebrated is underachievement. That is why it is not uncommon to find Nigerians congratulating each other with substandard results. It is safer to cuddle up comfortably in shared mediocrity than to question it, since the latter might also expose your own less than exceptional performance. Add to this the taboo of criticising anyone senior or higher up and it explains why so many join in the admiration of the emperor’s new clothes.
I have been writing this column for the last year, and after ten months I realised my angles were getting more predictable and my pieces less edgy. I figured newcomers do not remain newcomers forever and therefore decided to round up the ‘Femke Becomes Funke’ series this month, a year after it started. Ever since I announced the ending, tweeps have been asking me to change my mind and in comments on the columns and through my website I get songs of praise that make me feel my analyses of Nigerian society are indispensable. If I had no sense of self-criticism, I might be tempted to reconsider my decision to discontinue the series and start producing second-rate articles. Who would point this out to me if I did?
The hardest thing to do in Nigeria is to continue to realise there is honour in achievement and pride in perfection. I imagine the frustration of the many Nigerians who do care for their work, who take pride in their outcomes and who feel the award is in a job well done. When you know beforehand that excellence will not be rewarded, you are bound to do the economically sane thing and limit your investments to accomplishing the bare minimum. This makes Nigeria a pretty cumbersome place for anyone striving for perfection.
Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl

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why do you want to marry me?

Why do you want to marry me?

Is it for the public cheers

For ever moving age inducing fears

Hope it’s not for those calls without

For the calls within will soon die

Like recalcitrant ogbanje they come and go

Why do you want to marry me

Hope it’s not to be like John

Note my name is not Jean

And life is not a tag team match

Is it ‘cos they hug and kiss and love

Mind you they also fight

And tear selves like venomous foes

The bed is not what it shows

Why do you want to marry me

B’cos your friends have rushed into it

As if whipped by diarrhoea on the butt

Into a dirty public loo

Mind you they are rushing out

B’cos the loo will always ooz

Why do you want to marry me

Hope it’s not for my pretty face

‘Cos beauty is everywhere

But when the sun will come

The face will wither and lose its milk

And shrink with a million freckles

Like a baboon’s hairless butt

Why do you want to marry me

Hope it’s not for my outward frame

My shape of an hour glass

Will just in an hour sag

Like empty raffia sac relieved of stones

It will droop like hibiscus in a hot sun

Why do you want to marry me

Is it for my smooth oily skin

That glows and radiates warmth

Soon it will wrench and shrivel

Like sandpaper it will roughen

And harden like palm kernel shells

Why do you want to marry me

It’s not for my firm fluffy breasts

That dangle like mango fruits

They too will soon flab

Like punctured balloon tubes

And sag like scrotum in intense heat

They will lay dried and flaccid

Like rubber slippers they will sleep

Never to wake again

Why do you want to marry me

So you can wear the black suit

And say “I do” before the church

For what you have always done

A fragile unsteady vow

Broken in every home

Why do you want to marry me

Not for what we did last night

When we moan and cuddle like cats

Hiding away from Mum and Dad

Do you just need a bed certificate

To sleep bare in guiltless bed

I guess you should ask the dead

They are tired of eating sleep

If you want me in a gown

Mind you my colour is pink

Why do you want to marry me

You need a fruit of the womb

An heir to wear your shoes

Is your mother pushing you

I guess she too has a womb

What if my womb is dried

And dead like kilinshi suya

Why do you want to marry me

Why?

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.

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