By Andy Akhigbe
Dear Storried Fans,
Ours have been a most splendid journey and we must make a confession – we parade some of the finest storytellers in Nigeria today and we are just settling down into our journey.
There are a lot of storytellers who have been writing to us for about 2 years and have never won, or been honourably mentioned. Not winning does not mean you are not good. Far from it, you are indeed a great storyteller each time you make our shortlist, or have been honourably mentioned. The problem we have identified is that we are having difficulties rewarding all the great works we read. We simply cannot give everyone the prize we feel they deserve and this as far as we are concerned is a very good problem. We would need to do more than just have people write for a game that is simply a zero sum game – a game in which only one winner emerges and every other player is a loser. What we mean to say is that if you have not won on Storried, but you have made our shortlist, or been honourably mentioned, then consider yourself a great storyteller and continue to horn your craft and skill. One day, you will get the ultimate prize or recognition with Storried, or with any established competition out there. Storried may also cater to your skill in amazing ways that would blow your mind in future. We want to explore deeper grounds of engagement with every great storyteller this platform has exposed. So, be prepared!
This background information is necessary given our experience this month with the SMC. Each story in the October SMC shortlist of 20 stories touched us deeply and we want to acknowledge every single storyteller that made the shortlist. Whatsoever the eventual outcome will be should not deter you from seeing yourself any less a great storyteller. We are most appreciative of your work on this platform. Don’t ever give up!
Read these 20 stories and enjoy them and offer us your comments if any of the stories touches you the way we felt when we read each one of them.
Andy is the Chief Storyteller @ Storried
By Andy Akhigbe
THESE 20 ENTRIES HELD US SPELLBOUND
1.) Eric Arthur – STRANGLED
I just got my sack letter.
I walked out of Mr Greg’s office browbeaten, speechless and weak. I was dispirited, yet angry.
Gregory Atkinson had handed me the printed letter with ‘his deepest regrets’ and apologies, but I knew better. In this business, it’s kill or be killed. The competition is excruciatingly neck tugging.
I felt cheated, manipulated and played on. Not after all I had done for this firm. Needless to say, there was a raspish outburst… a loud exchange of words before I stormed out of his office.
But I was soon disgruntled at my childish behaviour. Gregory only did what every other shark would have done. Albeit my anger, I knew that I had to apologise to Greg for my inappropriate language and temper.
A few seconds later, I was back at Gregory’s door. I knocked twice before pushing the door open and wheezed in. I stopped abruptly, catching my breath as I froze.
What I saw left my senses in disarray. Gregory was dead… strangled on his chair, his eyes were still open and white. Who did this? I only left this office a few seconds ago. Oh my! I sauntered forward, unsure of what I was seeing. A copy of my sack letter was placed on his table, right in front of him!
Just then, I turned back and saw his Secretary, Suzy, standing by the door. Before I could say anything, she screamed.
***
The lawyers seemed confused… Both of them. It was the final day in court, and I was surely going to jail for the murder of Gregory Bill Atkinson.
The evidences were so damning, my friends were starting to believe I actually did it. The forensics even found traces of my powder on Gregory’s neck. I began to doubt my own innocence. Was I forgetting what I did? Was my brain covering up my own actions to save me from grief? I had heard of that sort of thing happening to people. Sand filling memories to prevent agony… depression.
Was I suffering from advanced somnambulism? Maybe I was oblivious of my own deeds. Did I kill Gregory out of anger and vengeance? I was unsure of this myself now. Only my wife thought I was innocent. She had hope, but I knew it was only a matter of time. I just prayed she visited me in prison, at least.
***
”For the last time,” the judge asked. ”do you plead guilty or not guilty?”
I was stuttering… my senses were in shambles. I stammered even my own name. Then I fainted.
***
I awoke in a hospital. I could hardly recognise the face of my wife. She sat beside me, and immediately sparked to life when she saw my eyes. I looked around to be sure it was not a prison hospital.
It did not seem like one.
”What happened?” I asked.
”Tom… Oh Tom. Thank God you are okay.” She said.
I stared at her blankly. Maybe I should just have died. Death… Why hath thou forsaken me? I thought.
”Gregory was on a call that day. He only dropped his phone in his shirt pocket when someone walked in. The person he spoke with on phone was in court today. He heard everything that happened. He heard the real killer’s name right before he cut the call. You were framed, Tommy.”
I listened intently… patiently, yet anxiously. Oh my God!
2.) Chidi Young Jr. – HOPE REDEFINED
I lay on the hospital bed, a quadriplegic, staring at nothing, listening to the drone of hospital sounds of nurses and orderlies padding softly down the corridor. And somewhere there is a clock ticking endlessly.
The thought that I will always need someone’s help, even with my underwear, was choking.
“No,” I said to myself. “No! No tears… not now.” But they come anyway. Welling up my eyes and streaking across my face with my nose running.
“It’s going to be alright, Honey,” my wife said, dabbing my face.
Her words sound drab, melting quickly like butter in a hot pan and did little to soothe the rippling anguish of my mind.
“I am now a vegetable,” I said in a mournful whine.
“No, you’re not, Honey,” my wife quickly countered, gently stroking my brow. “Please don’t say that again, my husband is not a vegetable.”
Every night I cried myself to sleep; I woke up at the crack of dawn, crying.
My wife invented ways to bring me out of my gloomy retreat, but I held on to despair.
Occasionally, she would breakdown.
“You can’t continue like this, Honey,” she would say. “We can’t continue like this.”
I hate to see her cry; it breaks my heart. I recognize that she needs my attitude to strengthen her, but I can’t help.
Wrapped in self-pity, I cursed the day I was born, and anything about God. I was sure that if there was God, he was sadistic, loving to see people suffer.
“Death, where are you?” I asked endlessly.
Once, when my wife wasn’t in the room, I pleaded with the doctor to inject me with a lethal poison so I would sleep and never wake up.
He stiffened. “I was trained to care for the sick and wounded,” he replied. “God decides who lives or dies.”
I snickered at his mention of God.
Friends, neighbors, church members poured in with flowers, cards, and prayers. I hated prayers.
“Keep your sadistic God and prayers outside!” I almost screamed to anyone who prayed.
I wished to be left alone, but it was not granted.
“Be careful with the balloon,” Mrs. Gilbert, a neighbour who visited, said to her four-year-old daughter, Jane, who held a large blue balloon on a stick. “Hold it upright, and away from the floor,” she advised before turning back to continue her discussion with my wife.
The loud bang from the exploding balloon startled me from my journey back into self-pity.
The poor girl, recovering from the momentary fright at the noise, burst into tears.
“I told you this would happen,” her mother said in a hoarse voice, sounding close to tears.
Staring at the shattered pieces of balloon for a moment, the little girl spoke with a shrug,
“Oh well, Mum, I still have the stick.”
The room went silent for a moment, and of the three adults in the room, there was none without a teary eyes.
Those words were both a rebuke and a magnetic pull towards hope for me. I wondered how a four-year-old girl could understand the secret of living through disappointments while a forty-five year-old-man couldn’t. She counted the blessings she still had while I counted my disappointments.
Today, I lay in the hospital bed, a quadriplegic, listening to the drone of hospital sounds of nurses and orderlies padding softly down the corridor. And somewhere there is a clock ticking endlessly. I wave away the thought of shattered balloons that crept into my mind. Instead, I begin to count my sticks, choosing hope over despair.
3.) Richard Henry – DEATH PENALTY
As the gavel hit the sounding block, I knew my fate was sealed.
“…to be hanged by the neck until dead.”
Judge Anthony’s words signaled the passing of my Judgment.
What kind of god allows such injustice to happen to the innocent? I pondered.
I could not cry. I could only halt my actions in shock and if not for the chains around my arms, I would have slapped myself to see if I wasn’t hallucinating.
The judge’s words haunted me….
His words still haunts me, and with the haunting comes a full realization of my present circumstance. Today is my last day in this drab prison cell, it is only death that awaits me at the end of this night, not freedom. Tomorrow is my execution day, the day I leave this world with shame. The shadow of death, almost inevitable in its actions, looms over my cell door. I can feel the angel of death taunting me in the darkness.
My mind has not been quite right since the trials began. I have been insane for most parts of it. How could I not be? The prosecutor painted me, sweet unassuming Kolade, as a beastly serial killer who killed helpless females. The killer had been on the loose for some time so when they found Beatrice, my girlfriend, with her throat slashed, they thought that I must be the killer they were looking for.
My useless lawyer couldn’t prove otherwise.
The cops just wanted a scapegoat so that they wouldn’t be described as inefficient. I was that unlucky goat, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong girl.
“There’s really nothing I can do about this, Mr. Kolade.” Barrister Andrew, my lawyer, had said yesterday, trying to look as concerned as he could. “The judge will not rescind his verdict except new evidence comes to light.”
I remember my soul breaking apart when he said that.
Another mosquito bite brings me back to the future.
Relatively diminutive pains, compared to the ultimate pain that awaits me at the break of dawn. An inescapable thought crosses my mind, the words of my mother.
Let the morning bring me
Word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
show me the way I should go,
for to you,
I entrust my life.
My mother used to say this psalm, she told me to memorize it and that in my time of trouble, those words will save me. Mother, I hope you were right.
I hope I don’t die for the crimes of another.
A cock crows in the distance.
I still hope…….
It most likely was a gentle tap, but in my sleep-inebriated state, what the warden did was an unforgivable act of intrusion. I stand up drowsily to give him a piece of my mind (also wondering how I dozed off in the first place), why should he….
“Mr. Kolade, get your things ready, you are free to go.” He says, with a wide smile on his face.
“What?” I stuttered.
“Some new evidence has been brought to light by your lawyer, he has successfully proven that you can’t be the killer.”
“You are a free man”
I guess my attorney wasn’t useless after all, better late than never right? This might sound crazy to you (I already told you I have become insane) but I think Barrister Andrew didn’t save me on his own, I think that to some extent, my mother’s psalm helped.
I think prayer, with a little hope, was the key that unlocked my cell doors.
4. )B. B. Utukwa – BLACK LIGHT
Watery blackness like a waterfall of shadows envelops him. He hears sounds—indecipherable like the hissing of melting foam. A whirlwind of darkness begins to lift him, he tries to resist, but slowly the black wind lifts him into oblivion; a place of dark and silent nothingness.
When he resurfaces he feels stiff; rigid like a body wrapped taut in bandages. The hissing returns, but this time it has melted into whispers. A bright light explodes in his brain and memories like ampoules—small and potent begin to rain down on him. He finds himself driving fast on a dark and wet highway. The headlights of the car in the pelting rain look like sunrays through a keyhole and he can barely make out the road ahead. Suddenly there is a screech and the smell of burning rubber permeates the atmosphere. Everything goes blank.
He comes awake to the sound of voices.
“…If he continues like this we will have to move him,” a voice is saying. It is cold, flat, and masculine.
“Whatever you have to do Doctor,” a feminine voice says. It is velvety and musical.
The flashes come back and he sees himself walking towards a brown brick house. Then it hits him, this is Judith’s apartment. She isn’t expecting him. He is holding a small red box wrapped with a black ribbon in his hands. He wants to surprise her. He lifts his hand to knock on the steel door when he sees them through the open curtain on the window—their lips locked in a passionate kiss; one his lover, the other his sister.
Suddenly he finds himself back on the dark and wet highway. He feels the rain begin to flow from his eyes.
Voices waft slowly into his ears.
“Tears!” The velvety voice says excitedly.
“Memories are coming to him! He is coming around!” the cold, flat voice is now impassioned. There is a quick shuffling of feet.
Slowly the dark fog lifts. He blinks. A face comes into focus; an avuncular looking face.
“Whe…where am I?” He mutters through half-closed eyelids. His voice is croaky and dry.
“You are at Emmanuel Specialist hospital,” the avuncular looking man says. The cold, flat voice belongs to him. Standing beside the man is a plump, light skinned lady with an oval face. Her sharp facial features are further accentuated by a neat afro. Her deep brown eyes stare down at him with a mixture of relief and affection. She comes to sit beside him and attempts to hold his hand—he withdraws his hand sharply. A flicker of pain registers briefly on her soft features.
“What happened?” he asks.
“You had an accident. She found you unconscious in your car in a ditch along Gboko road,” the man said, pointing to the lady sitting beside him.
She reminds him of cotton candy.
“How long have I been unconscious?” he asks.
“Six weeks,” she says.
An intravenous bag hangs on a steel pole beside his bed and his eyes trace the IV line as it runs through the drip chamber to the needle in his hand. He tries to get up and winces. His right leg is encased in white plaster and is held in the air by a strip of white bandage attached to a metal hook in the ceiling. Instinctively he takes his hand to his head. There is a white bandage round his head.
“I am glad you are back,” she says. He smiles and reaches for her hand. She smiles back and takes his hand. Suddenly, life is bright and fair.
5.) Ayodeji Oluwaseyi Isaac – DEATH’S MISTAKE
Like warts on a toad’s coat, the world—our combustible home, is stained with foolish statements. The Einsteins say God’s not real, they say hard work— especially when it involves lots of sleepless nights— is a surety for a fulfilled life; rational statements they seem, but it’s all nonsense. As I stare at the flask of poison seated in my trembling hand, I confidently add to the chronicle of foolish statements: Death is inevitable.
Do you know it’s possible for a promising life to twist into one of despair so quickly you wonder if fate had the trick up his sleeve all along?
Having finished my Masters program, I hoped to get a lucrative job in an oil company, but it remained a golden pipe dream. My cleaner called it a mistake; he thought he was burning my bag of stale movies, but the fool set my box of credentials and life documents on fire. Tears deserted me as I gawped at the ashes of my life dancing to the music of the wind. To recover them required lots of money and connections — I had neither.
Do you know it’s possible for a supposed love one to allegorically knee you in the groin and almost rob you of your senses?
She was supposed to be my wife and anchor. With tears leaking from the quick eyes I fell for several years ago, she claimed an herbalist told her to make love to a mad man in our bedroom to correct my doomed fortune. It was a terrible sight I must admit; the grubby stocky arm of the heavily bearded man fondling the same breasts I had greeted the night before. I laughed hard as she tried to rationalize her actions before walking out onto the street to laugh some more. Nosy neighbors shook their head thinking I had finally given in to my frustrations.
Do you know it’s possible for fate to rob you and in response you raise your hands and surrender like a thief?
The wife and kids were out; they had mentioned something about visiting grandpa’s house or grandmas’, I wasn’t really listening; I was still mad at the whore I called a wife. Four hours, five hours and then it turned to twelve hours; I knew something was wrong and just as I was about to pick up my phone to spit fire, a call came in. The ghastly news flew into my ears and settled in my head before trickling to my heart; they were crushed by a fuel tanker and as if that wasn’t messy enough, they were soon charred by the ensuing fire.
I blamed God for days, I cursed fate for weeks. I made the madman that polluted my wife a role model with my unkempt beards in full glow like well fertilized plants. An unseen someone whispered to me, “It’s time to rest dear”. I rushed to the drawer where I kept the flask of poison I purchased when my wife cheated on me and gulped. Relieved, I went to bed expecting to wake up on the other side, dressed in white and free from pain.
It then came as a shock that I was still in my room the next time I opened my eyes. I rushed to the drawer and checked the label of what was supposed to be poison—it was a cough syrup. Erected beside the empty bottle was the flask of poison staring at me.
I took it as a sign. Death made a mistake for a reason. Perhaps something good or less unfortunate was around the corner.
6.) Ayodeji Oluwaseyi Isaac – STICKING WITH THE SAD GIRL
My soul has a round face; thick tight curls crowning her head, a spellbinding smile, the dream curvy figure and a voice that is sex itself.
When she is happy, she calls me Superman and I soar like an eagle unto heights birds can’t aspire to. My fingers turn to wands and when they grab a pen, Swoosh! Magic is made.
When she’s moody, I become Iceberg; frosty, stiff, forlorn and even worse, a pathetic writer. Her heartbreaking frown, the droop of those enthralling eyes, the paleness of her skin, her terrifying weight loss, the field of wrinkles on the forehead, the sagging of those kissable lips and the ugly grey tinge at the base of her hair; they’re all appendages of this distressing demeanor, but I am used to it; the sad wave comes and goes like the weather.
I wasn’t always so relaxed; there was a time I was ready to end things and move on to someone with a relatively uniform panorama of emotions. The doctor called it Major Depressive Disorder.
“It could take weeks, months or even more. The time frame varies,” he said.
She refused to eat, sleep or bathe. Sex wasn’t even in the question; flames ignited in her eyes each time I neared her with my shivering probing hands. My jokes were useless and newly purchased cartoon of CDs were broken. She rejected physical exercises, she slapped two women at a counseling session, she cursed the Indian cognitive therapist, the antidepressants and countless “noic” acids and tablets meant to improve things somehow turned to placebos, and I couldn’t afford the electroconvulsive therapy and the transcranial magnetic stimulation which the psychologist called permanent solutions.
In my end, I was struggling as a writer: my publisher verbally fired me after realizing my novel was still on the second line of the prologue; I was rolling fast down a tunnel into a muck of frustration and despondency. Alcohol was a solace and as the burning fluid massaged my esophagus, doubts kindled in my head: when will she go back to normal? Should I move on? If I do, would I find another as wonderful?
6th week of depression
I was at the neighborhood bar and I met Favour. Favour wasn’t your typical hooker; she was intelligent, clean and didn’t blow gum bubbles every second; what really made her special was that she was the only female since my baby that made me look twice.
The bathroom was hidden and dim enough. She attacked my lips and grabbed at my belt, the jingle of my buckle a symphony to the steamy aura. Then time froze; images flashed before my eyes and my baby was in all of them, innocent and beautiful like Monalisa. I pushed Favour aside, pulled my pants up and rushed out.
Pushing aside the curtain veiling the parlour, expecting to meet my baby on the couch frowning at nothing as usual, I was welcomed with a gust of apple fragrance, dishes of amala and egusi erected on the dining table and a jazz tune titivating the atmosphere. She ambled out in a short gown and rushed towards me, giggling like a child. We kissed and as our lips negotiated, I made the big decision to stick around. I had finally seen a flicker of light at the end of the sinewy tunnel.
Knowing there was an end to her depression wasn’t enough, but finally witnessing the end; witnessing that her normal self was only veiled and not torn away was something to hold on to.
7.) Isaac Melchizedek – FROM BEING AN ORPHAN TO A SON
Tears crawled to the small cheek of the fair-skinned boy. A feeling of dejection bowed his kinky hair. His tiny feet quivered as if they were about to break. Two big hawks on a guava tree close by were staring at him, their eyes were laced with darts of lamentations. You touched the boy, but he pulled away. You know how it is with mourning people. But you had no idea how to console a kid who just lost his family in a car accident.
You pulled closer, he pulled away again. Sobbing.
Bodies lay on the hot tarred road amidst a spring of blood. The road leads to a remote village deprived of modern hospital. You had no idea of what to do. The boy, however, lay beside the dead bodies, calling names of people long gone to the netherworld. His voice echoed in the quiet road. Breaking.
You felt like holding him closely, tightly, but you are afraid he would push you away again. So you sat beside him. Crying. His father’s head was holed. He must have smashed his head on the steering wheel. The mother looked happy the most, even in death a smile sat on her dead eyes. You think she was very proud of her living son.
You feared for the little boy called Badmus, according to that psychology research you did while pursing your doctoral degree there is a 97% probability that he would never be someone great in life after what he has experienced at his tender age. Your professors said it, your favourite psychologist said it, one of your course mates once told you that Sigmund Freud too had said it. While sitting on the hot road amidst dead strangers you had hoped. Prayed. That this little boy would live a fulfilled life and, like having a vision you picked him up and made him a son. You showered him love and made him study hard.
You remembered nights you feared your Professors might be right and chuckled.
The TV is still on and a young man is still giving the United Nations’ General Assembly a presentation of the greatest invention of the century. The young man, dressed in a well-tailored blue suit you had picked for his last birthday smiled as the camera focus on his face. You smiled back. You know the story behind the smile. The story of hope on a village street and how it got fulfilled while the whole world is watching.
8.) Kosy Madu – BETTER TOMORROW
Oyoo m, I didn’t seek them. They found me. I was on my own, in my father’s house where you sent me, for the home training you said I lacked. They asked me and I told them everything…well not everything, the ones I could.
You see, they made me start from the beginning. From that doomed day I said ‘I do’. I told them about that night that was supposed to be the beginning of our honeymoon. I told them of how when finding out you were not the first person down there you smashed my head on the bed stand. You said my blood must stain the bed one way or the other and those blow you gave me across the face saw to that. I told them of how you formatted my cell phone, seized my SIM card, and gave me a new one.
You said marriage is a new life and I had to do away with my old life, but you didn’t buy a new SIM card for yourself. I told them of how you would always answer the door before me and tell my friends I was not around whenever they came calling. I also told them of that day the surprise meal I prepared for your birthday was just a bit salty, and how you held me at whip point and made me swallow a whole sachet of salt. Oyoo m did you know that raw salt is not good for the body, I guess you cared less? Do you remember that day I borrowed some money from Iya Tope because our son was really sick and there was no money in the house to buy drugs for him? I told them of how you gave me fifty lashes of the whip on my buttocks and how you refused to give me any money for house-keeping for a whole month. I still don’t understand, you had to deny your own son food? What was his offence? What still surprises me is that for that whole month you never cared to know if he was feeding or not.
But there are some I didn’t tell them, they were too personal to share. Like the day you held me to the ground, tore my underwear and put ground Cameroun pepper down there because I smiled too much at your friend that visited with us. I didn’t as well tell them of that other day you took me to chief’s house to spend the night in settlement of a debt you owed him long before we got married. Also, I did not tell them of the night I had miscarriage and you left me to bleed to death because you said it was my fault. How was it my fault? Did you give me money for ante-natal? Iya Beji offered to give me free herbal medicines and I accepted because half loaf is better than none. If it was not for Iya Tope and her husband, I would have died that night.
After I told them the much I could, they asked me if I had any skill and I said I could really keep a house. They told me to come tomorrow that they would take me to one of their centers to learn a skill I could use to sustain myself and our son. They also said I need not talk to you again that I should only get ready to say these things in front of a judge and jury. Oyoo m they gave me hope, hope you crushed years ago.
9.) Chukwuebuka Ibeh – LIGHT
Dear daughter,
I shouldn’t ask how you are, because, obviously, you are not well. Ha! And don’t, just don’t ask me how I got to know. There are simply
some things you cannot hide.
You are sitting close to the window, on mama’s favorite rocking chair, and you are watching the silver rain drops strike the window panel like mettalic pelletes. There’s something about this discordant rhythm that invades you with blurred memories. You want to lean on
them, to linger for a while, bask in the warmth and familiarity only them could bring, but you do not, because they slip away too easily
when they sensed you were becoming comfortable. Mama would say ‘this’ was very typical of a man. He made you love him, made you need him hopelessly, and then he pulled away just when you are too weak to stand on your own – leaving you deserted, light, your future to be determined by whoever pleased.
It is Friday, late February, and just yesterday, the weather had held a slight indication of light harmattan, with the mild chill clouding you, making you wound a thick blanket round your body, and today, it is raining heavily. You do not understand this conflicting weather changes, but then you do not understand anything, anymore. Your life is a puzzle, yet to be fixed – a mistake made on paper by an impatient child, yet to be discovered by the teacher, and erased as soon as possible.
And that is what you are doing – about to do. Erase it- this life of yours. When you work into that small chemist that smelled of disinfectants and detergents to demand for a rare kind of poison. The pharmacist is taken aback. What could you possibly want it for?
You put up your best smile, and you say it is to kill one stupid rat that does not want to let you breathe. He does not believe you, you know. The time he spent in the inner room getting the drug testified to that, but he got it for you anyway. This was recession after all. He couldn’t miss that amount of money.
You take the drug and you thank him, and you walk home smiling. Sometimes you tried to move away from your skin, so you would examine yourself closely and tell what was wrong with you. Outside your skin, you feel a kind of reluctant admiration for this girl who keeps living despite all, who keeps finding and loosing at the same slow pace, but still nurse this delicate, solid ambition. But things are not working out, you know, and because you love this girl, you want to end it for her. You want her to leave this world, to somewhere else.
Someplace safe, some place refreshingly different. You want her to join her family.
You stare out through your window, one more time, taking in all there was to take in, because that will be your last time. Finally, you turn away, and in one swift gulp, the poison is down your throat.
***
It’s evening. Your head is aching. You must have slept for so long. You are aghast. What happened?
I’ll explain.
My daughter, do you know that the pharmacist, in his intent curiousity had simply given you a mixture of salt and water and another benign drug because he knew your plans?
No. You do not.
My daughter, look outside. You see that small light? It means a new beginning. Follow it. You’ll get there – your future, I mean.
Don’t mention.
Yours,
Anonymous.
10.) Mustapha Enesi – CALL ON JAH
Jah cares, he loves us. He hears and sees us.
Our silent prayers always reached him, though he may withhold his mercies sometimes, but he always keeps us happy.
I call on him everyday and he never failed—not once.
I gave up on the 25th year of my barren life. Wasn’t I faithful to Jah? Didn’t I give alms? Wasn’t I good to the deprived? He delayed my prayers—for why I don’t know.
Alas! I am here with the constant words echoing in my ears.
”Push–push,” the ladies in white screamed the word with crossed faces.
Oh! The crossed faces—why?
They could have relaxed a bit.
Was labour this difficult?.
I know Jah feels my pain, he will heal me. I hope Tony was calling onto him—Jah. There is no better time than now. Tony never believed in Jah though he was a faithful husband. He was a good man and Jah loved good men.
Just then the man with stethoscopes around his neck came, he looked between my thighs and sighed—an anchor of labour.
I heard him say “prepare for the theater”.
Well I have nothing to lose, I have Jah. He sees.
All I ask for is a child only a child.
Shouldn’t I hold a baby yet? Shouldn’t I feel the joy of motherhood like every woman? Shouldn’t I inhale that sweet baby scent? I’m a woman, I’m fragile.
45-minutes later I opened my weary eyes to the hazy image of Tony with his palms between mine.
“Doctor said your fallopian tube is ruptured,” he said amidst tears. Words unclear.
“So no more babies,” yes, he let it out.
I gave up, perhaps I shouldn’t have believed in Jah–jehover. He was a myth.
I had lost my pride, Jah deceived me.
Then the man with the stethoscope walked in.
“Which of them would you like to see first?” he said pointing at the four cute babies in the cradles—quadruple.
“They are all yours,” he added.
Alas! Jah never disappoint. Who needs a fallopian tube anyway, I have four children.
Praise Jah. He hears.
11.) Chimaobi Michael – BRIGHTER SIDE
When I visited our house, I realised that very much had changed since I temporarily relocated to another apartment uptown, very close to Grace Hospital, where Mary had been after a fatal car crash left her in a vegetative state.
The keyhole had gone rusty, and the hinges groaned as I pushed the door open, unwillingly embracing the dust and the cobwebs that had taken over the ambience. How squalid could a house be when skeletons of dead rats and wall geckos – which had probably starved to death – join forces with dust and cobwebs to turn a house into a wretchedly shabby grotto? I guess that is what happens, when the woman of the house is away.
My cup was still on the glass table. The water in it had turned green– and unappealing, too. The clock still ticked, saying 6:15 when it was actually 10:12. Irritated by the filth, I whirled straight to our bedroom, grabbed a few photographs and stormed off.
It was the Doctor’s advice to bring something Mary cherished, something that might trigger her consciousness. I’d taken photographs from our wedding album, including her favourite – which was my worst. I hate that picture because it reminds me of that awkward moment when you have to fake a smile for too long because the cameraman wouldn’t shoot quickly. I remember my cheeks aching and twitching, and when I was about to complain, the camera clicked and flashed, presenting a picture of me resembling a rambling drunk in a brown suit. And as cruel as the world is, Mary said she loves that picture. So, as I took it along, I hoped it would just be enough to wake her.
On reaching the hospital, I found the doctor in Mary’s ward recording observations from the electrocardiograph.
“Any improvement, doctor?” I asked, reeking of anxiety.
“I’m sorry.” He sighed, “nothing’s changed.”
I went close and kissed her forehead. Her eyes were open. But she never spoke.
“Mr Thomas,” Doctor said politely, “I believe you’re aware, that… the longer she stays on ventilators, the higher the expenses goes.”
“Okay?” My eyebrows furrowed. I knew where he was headed.
“I mean,” he cleared his throat, “she’s alive now because of the artificial life support we give her. We’d hoped that all these while, she would’ve come back but obviously, her chances are quite slim. I’m advising–”
“I will pay,” I interrupted, “You can’t give up. Not yet! Please… we’ve been married for barely one year,” I felt my voice quivering.
“I understand.”
He sighed, patted me and left.
Doctor wasn’t wrong. No. Seven months had drifted by, yet nothing had changed about Mary. Prolonged vegetative state is never a good sign, and I was supposed to be bracing myself for the moment when she’d breath her last. The odds stood tall, but I wouldn’t see them. Her chances were slim, but she had a chance, at least. That was the brighter side of our story, and I couldn’t ignore it. Although, she was fragile, like a candle flame in the face of a wind, the flame was still there, life still hung, in her weak breaths. Truly, I despaired. But I hoped, too, above despair.
“Sweetheart,” I whispered, “I went back home, and I brought our wedding pictures. Speaking of home, you really should come and see how rotten our house has become. You have to wake up, ’cause I’m not cleaning that house alone,” I teased. I saw a weak smile erupt at the corners of her lips. And I could hear in her silence… the words that she couldn’t say.
12.) Oluwatosin Omotola Owoeye – BIRTH OF AN ANGEL; STILL
Rachael lay on the operating table in the theatre, partly awake, partly unconscious; caught the foggy images of people wearing white, moving up and down the room with the man among them saying some things to them as a matter of urgency. This was Rachael’s seventh issue but her first time in a hospital.
“What could be wrong?” She dreamingly thought before the anesthetics drifted her completely into unconsciousness.
“We are very sorry Mr. Andrew, it was a stillbirth,” the doctor finally said after the operation.
Mr. Andrew, Rachael’s husband, could not stop the tears from flowing as he made his way out of the doctor’s office. The couple had suffered six stillbirths in times past, now this. It was too much to bear. Andrew didn’t know how to tell his expectant wife that she wasn’t going to be a mother yet. They had treated the pregnancy like their first; nothing was permitted to go wrong. Rachael had stopped going to the local midwifery she constantly visited in the past, she couldn’t take chances. The child was supposed to be perfect that was why they sought modern medicine, but alas, it was not to be.
“You are awake,” he feigned a smile, as she looked up at him while he tossed a strand of hair gently off her face.
“Yes…where is my prince? Or is she a princess?” she asked with bright eyes beaming up at him.
“He is an angel,” he replied her softly, using all the strength he had left to control his tears. She couldn’t handle it. He knew that much.
This was supposed to be her chance to prove to all and most especially her mother-in-law that she doesn’t have an “oven” instead of a womb, as this was her mother-in-law’s usual declaration whenever she got her chance to speak on the matter.
Mrs. Andrew had recovered considerably from the operation when she once again demanded to see her baby. Her husband took her to the doctor’s office since he could not find the courage to tell her. Doctors are trained to display very little sympathy in order to avoid getting emotionally caught up in the particularly unpleasant cases they sometimes encounter in their line of duty. Doctor Benjamin spoke in the coolest professional way he could muster.
“He was a stillborn madam, there is always the possibility of re-occurrences if the root cause is not properly treated,” he said carefully.
“Diagnosis reveals placenta abruption which could have been carefully monitored and controlled if it was detected earlier,” he said.
Mr. Andrew immediately locked his fingers in his wife’s shaking hands away from the doctor’s view beneath the table and managed to keep her still. She finally demanded to see the dead baby’s remains. Luckily the husband had delayed the disposal.
The concealed glass remains of the baby wore a smile on its face. An expression that the theater nurses had marveled at initially. Rachael melted at the sight, rather than break her; it gave her hope in place of despair, the hope of motherhood.
The next two years were tough, but her husband never left her side. They finally gave birth to a bouncing baby boy who is an undeniable replica of the former.
“Thank you for hanging on my little angel,” she said, smiling down at her cutie that lay wrapped up in her arms. As usual her husband was there tossing off another strand of loose hair. He couldn’t hide his joy, he wanted no more than to burst out singing, but his mother – her mother-in-law – fulfilled their heartfelt desires as she danced round the ward displaying carefree joy.
13.) Ejide Temitope – REUNITED
July 7, 1967
Mine was a family of three; myself, my darling wife Adanma and our adorable son, Kelechi. We lived a happy, content life in Port Harcourt. Kelechi had just graduated as a Pharmacist from Essex University, England and returned to the country to establish himself.
This fateful afternoon, Kelechi and I sat in our modest parlour discussing his career plans when loud, sporadic gunshots interrupted us. We heard the raucous sound of stampeding feet. As I hurried out to take a look, a neighbour burst in panting.
‘Nigerian soldiers are attacking. I heard they are responding to the declaration of Biafra’s independence. We have to leave now’.
I would’ve argued but the continuing gunshots and echoes of chaos swallowed all resistance. We packed the little we could and fled, as war tore my birthplace to rubble.
January 6, 1968
It wasn’t easy staying in Ohaji forest. But we had no choice. War had led to the death of many Biafrans and those of us still alive were forced into hiding and starvation.
As there was famine, we subsisted on wild fruits and leaves. Adanma had lost her plumpness, thinning to the width of a bamboo. Kelechi and I joked about it a lot, although we were worse off.
Around 2pm, I was roused from my nap in our makeshift tent to realise we were surrounded by soldiers. At first I was glad, as they were Biafran soldiers, until they forced me to lie flat. They dragged Kelechi towards the undergrowth nearby. I heard them interrogating him.
Minutes later, they returned. They ordered Kelechi into the tent to gather his stuff.
‘Papa, they are taking me with them’ he sobbed.
‘Where are you taking my son?’ I questioned. I received no reply. ‘TELL ME!’ I shouted, unafraid of their guns.
Then, a lieutenant-colonel spoke up. ‘His skills will be of use in our paramilitary operations in Aba’.
Instantly, they began to march away. Adanma sank into my arms, crying heavily, as the sound of their boots receded. I could hear Kelechi’s voice faintly; ‘I’ll return home Papa’.
March 13, 1968
We finally left the forest, finding our way to a temporarily safe town at the outskirts of Owerri.
Four days ago, I located a telegraph and sent a short telegram to the Biafran military base in Aba. I hoped earnestly that Kelechi would get it.
Fortunately, his reply came today; ‘Papa, I am well. I’m at Aba general hospital caring for wounded soldiers’.
Adanma was overjoyed.
July 26, 1968
Two weeks ago, we heard there were bombings in Aba and killings at the general hospital.
‘Isn’t that Kelechi’s duty-post?’ Adanma had shrieked straightaway. We sent telegram upon telegram but there was no response.
Adanma broke into hysteria, certain Kelechi was dead. I remained hopeful still. However, I couldn’t help shedding tears of sorrow.
February 15, 1970
The war finally ended last month. After three years of warfare and bloodshed, Biafra was back with Nigeria. We returned to our Port Harcourt home. Still, we didn’t hear from Kelechi.
Around noontime, Adanma was frying groundnuts in front of our house, singing sorrowful songs. I was listening to the radio in the veranda when I noticed a familiar figure approaching. I squinted.
‘Isn’t that Kelechi?’ I voiced. Adanma looked up.
It was him alright. He looked tattered and sickly, but he was alive. We ran to embrace him.
‘I kept my word Papa’ he muttered weakly, ‘I returned home’.
I and Adanma wrapped him up in an intense hug, tears flowing freely down our faces. Our son was home again.
14.) Oyinloye John – NO BETTER TIME
A NIGHT BEFORE
I have managed to fetch little cassava flakes from the neighborhood for my siblings and myself, but it has only helped to kindle more hunger. We had our uniforms still on, socks worn above ankle and our school bags displaced on the tattered sitting room chairs. We were hopeless of course; we waited in likewise manner for our eldest brother, who has always been on the quest for job since the completion of his NYSC program, we wait aswel for our poor father who usually brings home steepens from his commercial bike driving; tonight was different, there was no audible cracked voice from behind the door, neither any smack of foot on the entrance like every other night. Dad was brought in as if he was a corpse, blood on his shirt and his hands swinging in the air. He had an accident just across the street, and home was the nearest place to bring him to. We all knew we were as good as he was, so we only lured him to sleep and so did everyone else.
THE FOLLOWING DAWN.
It was totally unusual this morning didn’t hear the cock crow, the birds were out of nest very early, I didn’t hear the melody of their morning song, there was more silence than usual and every other thing had experienced stagnancy; I stepped out to the corridor and noticed that, even the flowers had refused to fall to the ground. I was lost in the mystery before I realized something more strange. The drony sound of sobbing and cry from dad’s room. I quickly ran to the room we laid him the previous night; unfortunately he died after all; he had suffered from internal bleeding. I was gripped by a sudden shock that threw me to the ground, I was shivering and can’t help myself screaming on top of my vocal. There was more water running down my chin than i have ever seen my entire life. People had come to comfort our dying soul, every good thing had faded away since a longtime before now, but this shouldn’t have happened just again, I whispered. More voice from every corner consoling our stranded selves. Some even brought both cooked and raw food with steepens in envelopes. We were grateful for the gifts people had brought, but we can’t be more grateful until the second day of the incident.
A DAY AFTER.
There were just few people around. A woman was approaching us towards where we sat outside. Her face was not familiar and her dress seem too sophisticated for such visit; that didn’t matter as we are expecting her to just come and bid solidarity just like every other person. The atmosphere changed as soon as she brought out of her bag, a white envelope, requesting our eldest brother to come and resume work at one of the big oil companies around. “Not now, why have you delayed this until now…” my brother’s voice was louder as he kept crying, throwing himself to the ground like a crawling baby. Even though it wasn’t the best time to receive the letter, it was the best time to get rescued from the longtime suffering that will soon be fading away just like the good we enjoyed once upon a time. It was a wrong time to receive the letter, but the best time we had to move beyond our current state of indigence. Even though it was the wrong time to experience such, it was the best time to have things change for better at least.
15.) Omoboriowo Kareem – THE REVELATION
Dear Amaka, dear Damola,
I write you not for pleasure, but to tell you how things went wrong when you swayed from the path of hope. I remember that the journey started five years ago when we left the village for Lagos. We left in search of the brighter side of life. When we got to the city of Lagos, days reeled by, weeks shadowed, but we all found one or two things to do. It couldn’t take care of much, but at least it was enough to hold our bellies and pay for the room we lay our heads. Months rolled by, years accompanied, things became hard, our dreams vanished through hopeless strives and sighs. Soon, our needs became more than we could cater for.
Dear Amaka, you worked at a roadside canteen and often go to music auditions to let the world know that beauty breathes in your voice. Your songs could give a dying heart the reason to live and the joy to whistle along, but you would always return from those auditions with your face daubed with despondency. Life became unbearable and you decided to give up your dream forgetting that the giant Iroko tree grew through days of rain and sunshine. You deserted hope. The roadside became your work place and the night became your opening hour. The path through your thighs became a treasure land men of sins pay to visit. Dear Amaka, your journey ended on the day we found your lifeless body at a nearby junction. You must have fallen victim to what the evil men do for the creation of fortune.
Dear Damola, It looked like you were heading somewhere, but the story changed after you lost your job and remained without having one. Life started demanding more than you could offer and the death of Amaka did your soul wrong. You deserted hope too. You started with few bottles, gradually. Your love for bottles grew and you began to drown your hope with each gulp of alcohol taken. No matter how hard I tried, you kept drinking like a thirsty camel. Soon, things began to go worse for you. You welcomed despair into your heart, and it began to make you see things that aren’t there. It made you think you needed more exposure to air, so you ripped several parts of your clothe to let more air in. You let despair shove you to the other side of sanity. You have forgotten the words of the elders; that if one falls from the back of a horse, you stand up and climb it again. You ended your journey in a mental asylum.
Dear friends, the rain does not fall on one roof alone, things were tough for me too but I kept fighting. I held onto the tiniest thread of hope left within my reach when the days were dark. As I traveled towards the light of hope, it flickered but still, it cast my burdens behind. Though it was a long journey to the better side of life but I got there, and I found joy.
Dear wind, I beg you to whirl back in time before my friends desert their hope for hopelessness and whisper this tale into their ears. Let them know that the path of despair leads to no good. Whisper into their heart; that the grass could be greener in the future if only they keep with their struggle and with their hope.
Dear Amaka, dear Damola, I hope this message gets to you before you take that wrong turn.
Umaru
(From the future).
21/OCT/2021.
16.) Soul’e Rhyme – FROM GLORY TO GLORY
He said I was good for nothing, he was right, even though we hate to hear hurtful facts about us.
I was 23 year old; yet I couldn’t get admission into the University after several trials. I had also written WAEC more than three times.
My life was in shambles, I remembered my formal principal used to say about m: “as for you, I won’t be surprised if you fail”. Of cause I gave him no reason to be surprised. I failed! I failed even woefully; I had only a credit and failed every other subject, including English, Mathematics and even Yoruba, the simplest subject I took.
I felt my performances could have earned me some As and Bs, but it doesn’t matter any longer, I failed. Everyone was not surprised, but me. There was nothing to surprise them; I was a truant, a troublemaker, a serial late comer, I never tucked in my shirt everything qualified me as a bad student. I was a one-man gang, a bully and also a victim of bully.
After graduating from high school with a very bad result, I crossed to Lagos, again, there was no place for me, it was then Uncle Tunde came to my rescue.
Living with Uncle Tunde was harder, he was known for his uncontrollable anger and smoking, and at a time I needed redemption, he was not the right person for me to stay with, but I had no choice, no one was ready to take me in.
Living with uncle Tunde was hell, we always disagreed. He wouldn’t stop reminding me that I was good for nothing. I had failed WAEC severally, even while I was living with him, I couldn’t cook, I couldn’t wash clothes properly, I didn’t know how hang clothes, because in the village, we didn’t have hangers, we usually fold or squeeze our clothes inside sacks.
I was a liability, truly, I was good for nothing.
He once got me a job of N25, 000 monthly, and I rejected it to settle for a job of N6, 000 monthly. I rejected the work because it took all my time and I needed time to read and write; I was nurturing an ambition to become a writer. I was soon going everywhere with my pen and paper out my meager salary, which was not enough to feed, I was buying books too and with that, I had more books than clothes.
I couldn’t make it to the university and it seemed I had chosen the wrong path again, I started with lyrics but no money to record, I took to poetry, but I was rejected by the elite, who claimed I write “watery poetry”, I switched to scripts and was rejected by several producers, who considered my works insults to them. I was told that without University education I couldn’t make it as a writer, but I believed I could, so I kept on writing.
One day while I was surfing the internet for writing competitions and I found one essay competition, organized by UNESCO, I quickly applied since I didn’t need to be a university student to do so, 4 months later, the results were out and I won. I was the only writer picked in my country and I had to travel to Tokyo in Japan for the award ceremony. Everybody now believes in me, I am their favorite writer; I have been recognized by an international organization as a writer. I simply have moved from gory to glory, I have been given hope in despair.
17. ) Orjighjigh Alom – LESSONS OF YESTERDAY
Mother was a strong woman. By day, she was the epitome of hardwork slaving to feed the family and send her only child to school, but at night she always broke down, a suffering woman who needed to cry herself to sleep. Father used to work at the factory at Tse-Kucha, with a reasonable income. We lived a happy little family until that November in my second year in secondary school when the cement factory was closed down and staff
laid off.
Father had not saved for the rainy day so it hit us hard. Ours was not the only family that staggered; some former workers even found the world too cruel a place to live, wives left. He spent the initial days sleeping at home but soon started spending the whole day at Madam Go-slow’s joint just down the road, coming back deep into the night. He was just going through the motions of existence.
Mother’s petty trading was our means of survival along with the few pennies I got from doing odd jobs around the neighbourhood. There was our ever punctual landlord as unfailing as the inevitable month’s ending. There was food to be bought, there was also my school fees. Some days we ate once and some other days, not at all. One night as we
sat on the varenda breaking melon seeds, I asked Mother why she hadn’t let me drop out. She hesitated a moment and answered, “Don’t you want to go to school?”
“I do.”
She hesitated a moment longer than at first and with a calmness peculiar to her, she went on.
“Our condition right now is very bad, you know that but it doesn’t have to remain this way forever. I would rather go to bed hungry so
that you may go to school. I don’t mind going naked either, just so you go to school. You know why?”
She didn’t wait for an answer but went on
“Because there is hope; you can have a good future, but you have to go to school first. One day you’ll pull us out of this wretched life we are living. Despair only strives where there is no hope; hope will always triumph over despair.
I have a strong belief that you will come to something if you go to school, that gives me strength.”
Those words were never to be forgotten.
At school, I kept pushing on. One day, our English master asked us to write a factual account of the happiest day of our lives. I wrote my essay in future tense, the next day he called me to his office. He told me my essay was quite the best but curious to know why it was in
future tense. I explained how my happiest day was yet to come. I went ahead to tell him all. That day he went home with me.
The following term I left to live with him and his wife in the school’s staff quarters. He was the Vice Principal so he had a house in school. He was to take responsibility for my schooling for the remainder of my secondary education. Mother was overjoyed.
Mr. Dajo, the VP provided an environment that allowed me to come out with an O’ Level result that earned me a state-government scholarship
to the university.
Looking back, I’m most grateful to Mother, that woman who walked naked, slept hungry in hope. Through all the hard times, she never
despaired. She passed away before I completed my engineering degree, she didn’t enjoy the fruits of her pain. A year later, Father also passed on. The lesson Mother taught me never died: hope over despair.
18.) Adetokunbo Ajenifuja – THE LOST HEART
The sun has failed to search the blackness your heart has become and the hole that has been your soul. The hole that deepens with each passing moment, plunging into an abyss, a dark eternity, where a speck of light could not brave, where echoes of words reduce to nothingness, not even the word of your mother who stays in your matrimonial home, whose word of consolation is always:
“Aminat, don’t hurt yourself with tears…See how frail you have grown. By the grace of Allah, you shall carry your own child. Five years after marriage is too long to wait, I know. But doctor says nothing is wrong with neither you nor Suleiman. Is this not enough to praise Allah? You are no longer the faithful worshipper you’ve been from your childhood. You no longer observe your five daily prayers at due time. All in the name of childlessness?”
And she would wipe your tears with the edge of her wrapper. But you are sick and tired of her consolations, sick and tired of life itself. Because, after all, nothing has changed, absolutely nothing, except your husband. Everything about him has changed. He no longer takes the meal you prepare. He no longer smiles nor utters those soft words to you. He no longer offers you the romantic touches, which you still crave from him despite that he’s no longer himself, despite that he reeks of alien perfumes and other wanton odours and his lips shocking with red gloss, which you never wear and which has never affected your beauty, according to Suleiman.
You have to rest your mind in the palms of your creator, your mother would say. Because when you lose hope, you lose your faith. You lose everything. You are lifeless. You are…
At this you scream like a demented thing, you scream in protest, cutting your mother short. This has been you, until one day when you open the window of your bedroom to view the world at the backyard of your husband’s mansion. Your eyes, running across the bushy landscape, suddenly take a pause on a tree, once a dead tree, now sprouting seedlings and fine green leaves. All these overnight? You wonder. This is not foreign to you. Not at all.
But this particular tree has been too hopeless for survival, has been there before you and your husband packed into this house – a burnt tree, a terrible thing. And your mouth has turned agape with the endless chants of “Allahu Akbar!” (God is great) without as much as a permission from your mind. You begin to seek divine forgiveness. You begin to feel the darkness in your heart give way to light. Your mother is right. Allah is wonderful, merciful, indeed, but the secret is: You have to remain hopeful. You have to remain faithful. You have to remain alive for that desire. These you recite to yourself, like a hymn, when the dead feeling of despair is about to wake again with her deadly weapons. These you repeat to yourself until after a few months when you’re pregnancy test is positive. Kneeling down before you, like a broken slave, Suleiman seeks for your forgiveness, apologizing for his change of altitude. Will you forgive him? Yes, you will, because Allah has condoned your ignorance too.
19.) Chiamaka Nwosu – MY AMAZE-ER
Now, what amazes you? What do you find so intriguing? Is it the smile? Or beauty? Or courage?
My amaze-er is Kosi.
I first noticed her when she was born. The child who survived thirty hours of labour. She was determined to live in a world where people didn’t know what it meant to live. Born without a father, nursed without a mother.
I smiled the day she walked straight into the trap you set and walked out unscathed. You visited her in broad daylight. Barely twelve years after your first visit at the Labour room where her mother was your victim. She was so innocent and gentle. You caused her uncle’s vehicle to somersault several times on that wet road.
The accident left her a bigger warrior, losing the only family she had. Lone survivor of your guerilla war. After the accident, you watched in pleasurable pain as she moved from one home to another. Seeking life and spreading smile. Each foster home with its unique experience. Remember how she was starved for days because she burned a pot of Ogbono soup at the Obasi’s. How everything was going on perfectly for her until John slid into her with a lustful rage. How she endured the torture and moved on. How she got admitted into the university to study medicine. I sa