DIVERGENCE

He sits on your sofa, the same way he used to all those years ago. Your best friend, well, not your best friend per se, he used to be your best friend, but not anymore. You don’t like him that much anymore; your likeness for him is just ‘there’ now, you like him no more than you like Golden Morn, or Semovita, or Wheat, or Poundo Yam – the way it tries desperately to be pounded yam but it just can’t. Your friendship is like that, you are really not friends but you still try to keep up appearances. He laughs exaggeratedly at something you say swaying his small head back and forth, it wasn’t even funny like that, you think. But you smile. You wonder what happened to him, he used to be your wingman, your sidekick. Now you can’t stand him and you’re almost a hundred percent sure that he can’t stand you either. He tells you how he is pursuing a career in singing; you nod in excitement and say ‘really? That’s interesting.’ But deep inside, you think he is better suited for a rapper. Inside your head, you say ‘you will never make it there; the industry is oversaturated; besides you cannot sing. Leave the singing for people with soulful voices.’ You remember how smart he used to be in school, how he used to argue with the mathematics teacher on one particular question for the full fifty minutes period, rendering the rest of the class redundant. You used to like it when he did that, especially when you were tired and were in no mood to be taught. You wonder if he’s still that smart, you doubt it. Even in conversation you can see that your IQ has risen farther than his, in such a relatively short time, it’s shocking. All you see is dumb and muscles when you look at him. He’s now a devoted Christian, he says. His friend is a pastor and he assists. You find this strange. He wasn’t a good Christian in school, you were; now he’s the devotee while you are considering becoming an atheist because you’ve seen just about enough fake miracles, just about enough men that were blind from birth and then immediately they ‘receive their healing’, they can tell the difference between colour red and colour yellow; enough dumb-from-birth men that receive the miracles of instant English language speech as well as hearing. You nod your head and smile. ‘Interesting.’ You say again. You believe that churches are springing up here and there because the rate of unemployment has greatly risen. You have a theory: The degree of successful citizens in a particular location is inversely proportional to the number of churches in that location. You start talking about the future and getting married. He says he wants to have four children and that he has to be married within the next two years; you feel it is stupid that he has a timeframe within which he ‘must’ get married, but you don’t say that to him. You see the way he looks at you as if you are from another planet when you tell him you don’t want children, his liquid gaze, his brown iris that look as though it was squirted over his sclera in a hurry. You remember that, you can’t forget. ‘You don’t want children?’ He asks, flabbergasted. As if the only thing we are here to do is procreate. ‘No,’ you say and raise both of your shoulders up for a second or two as if to say: I don’t know what the big deal is anyway. ‘How can you not want children?’ he asks. His face wrinkled from surprise. You no longer want to talk about it; it’s just going to start an argument that would never end. You wonder why he does not think like you. His mentality is now quite different from yours; you wonder also how you two were ever friends. He believes what everybody believes: Everybody must get married and have children, Gay people deserve to be buried from neck down and their head stoned until they die, the village is the best place to celebrate Christmas, a woman’s place is by her husband, and so on. You have a feeling that he has lost his ability to think for himself, if he ever had it. You shake your head and then smile. He asks you if you would come to his church tomorrow, Sunday. You lie, you say you will not make it as you are a chorister in your church and you have a ministration. You wonder why you did not tell him the truth, the truth that you no longer find any meaning in religion, that your belief in an afterlife – which is more or less the rationale behind religion, is gradually eroding, waning, dissolving into sweet nothing. ‘You can sing?’ He asks, in a pleasantly surprised way. You hope he wouldn’t ask you to sing to him. That would be ridiculous, you imagine. ‘I try.’ You reply, after a long pause during which you act as if your phone is vibrating in your pocket. You wonder what has happened to him, still. Why you have become so different, so opposite, so divergent – like magnets of the same pole. It beats you. Is it the time that has passed? Perhaps it is, perhaps it is distance and time that has blurred your friendship into mere acquaintanceship, and acquaintanceship into, well, nothing. A short time passes and he stands to leave. You exchange fake smiles, smiles that lack happiness. You are no longer impressed by him, just as he looks disgusted, the same way he has looked since the moment you told him that you are in no place to judge a person that is gay, as you are also a sinner. You thank him for coming and say to him that you will probably visit him next week. But you hope never to see him again; of course you would not visit him next week. Sometimes, there’s nothing more suffocating than hanging on to a friendship that has let go of you.

Only A Girl

ONLY A GIRL

She was only a girl. That was why her father shook his head in disappointment after the doctor gave him what he, the doctor, felt was a good news ‘Your wife has just delivered a beautiful baby girl.’ He was never there for her when she needed him, always waiting for her to grow up a little, so that he would dispose her to the highest bidder. He wanted a boy who will become a man, something, worthy. Not a girl, nothing, worthless.

She was only a girl. That was why the several times she came first in her class, her father would smile one of those his incomplete smiles, those ones that meant less than nothing. A smile that was missing its most important ingredient – happiness, he only had them on when he needed to fulfill all righteousness, when he needed to act as if it mattered. He would tepidly say to her: ‘Clap for yourself,’ as if ‘clap for yourself,’ was reward enough for coming top in a class of eighty five students.

She was only a girl. That was why on her fifteenth birthday, her father introduced her to the man with whom she will continue the rest of her life with, he said: ‘This is your husband, he will take care of you.’ But she did not know him, he was too old for her, besides, she was not finished with school; she wanted to go to the university then obtain a doctorate degree and become a lecturer and impact knowledge on the future. But her father had sold her off, like an object. Like a farmer would sell his hen – he feeds it until it is old enough and then he sells it off – it means absolutely nothing to him, the farmer. She means nothing to him, her father.

She was only a girl. That was why despite all his initial promises, her husband did not enroll her in school, and she was not able to complete her secondary education. While all of her friends were still in school, she became a house wife. ‘You now have a family to think about,’ her husband said. ‘You do not need to go to school; I will provide everything for you. You are now a woman. A woman’s place is by her husband, not in school.’ But she was sixteen. She wept. She blamed her father, it was his fault that all of these happened, it was his fault that she was not in school; She was not good enough for him, he wanted a boy who will become a man, something, worthy. Not a girl, nothing, worthless.

 First  published on oyamag.

Blast

Hello!! How's it going? It's going very very cold here, any further and I would freeze.
I like this weather though, much better than the heat that threatened to bake us. I'd much rather freeze than bake to be honest.

So, my prose got featured on omojuwa, Here it is, it's titled Blast

It's about insurgency and how it kills dreams.

I've always found it strange how people say 'Have a Blast.' What even? lol!

See ya!

Babble!

Hello people, I've been away for a while, sorry. I've been hustling. lol!

Anyway, as I have not much to talk about, I will just talk about this piece I wrote for an online magazine, it's titled 'The Hopelessly Shy'


It’s the 5^th time you’ve looked in the mirror in barely 2 minutes, you know you look good but you want to look better. You cock your head to the left and gently dab your already very well combed hair with your right palm. You wonder what she will say when she sees that you’ve cut your hair. The first and last time you saw her, you imagined that she will prefer you when you get a haircut. She didn’t strike you as one of those girls that like men on afro – she probably thinks afro make men look rough and unkempt, she looks too clean to like unkempt men. You will definitely talk to her today - that last time, at your friend’s elder sister’s wedding, the place was too crowded and she was sitting next to her friend all through, that was why you did not get a chance to say a word to her. Your friend thinks it’s because you are shy, but of course not: you’re not shy; you just don’t talk too much.

You can read the rest of the short prose here

Till Next Time,, Keep dreaming!! 

It’s the 5th time you’ve looked in the mirror in barely 2 minutes, you know you look good but you want to look better. You cock your head to the left and gently dab your already very well combed hair with your right palm. You wonder what she will say when she sees that you’ve cut your hair. The first and last time you saw her, you imagined that she will prefer you when you get a haircut. She didn’t strike you as one of those girls that like men on afro – she probably thinks afro makes men look rough and unkempt, she looks too clean to like unkempt men. You will definitely talk to her today – that last time, at your friend’s elder sister’s wedding, the place was too crowded and she was sitting next to her friend all through, that was why you did not get a chance to say a word to her. Your friend thinks it’s because you are shy, but of course not: you’re not shy; you just don’t talk too much. - See more at: http://oyamag.com/prose-the-hopelessly-shy/#sthash.r2dtAgqo.dpuf

It’s the 5th time you’ve looked in the mirror in barely 2 minutes, you know you look good but you want to look better. You cock your head to the left and gently dab your already very well combed hair with your right palm. You wonder what she will say when she sees that you’ve cut your hair. The first and last time you saw her, you imagined that she will prefer you when you get a haircut. She didn’t strike you as one of those girls that like men on afro – she probably thinks afro makes men look rough and unkempt, she looks too clean to like unkempt men. You will definitely talk to her today – that last time, at your friend’s elder sister’s wedding, the place was too crowded and she was sitting next to her friend all through, that was why you did not get a chance to say a word to her. Your friend thinks it’s because you are shy, but of course not: you’re not shy; you just don’t talk too much. - See more at: http://oyamag.com/prose-the-hopelessly-shy/#sthash.r2dtAgqo.dpuf

Jungle Justice: The Mob Mentality

It's strange how justice seems appealing when it is carried out by the victim himself. It's interesting how sweet revenge tastes. A Time to Kill by John Grisham is a perfect example, Ten year old Tonya is viciously raped and murdered (eventually), by two white racists, Carl Lee, Tonya's father finds and kills these two men. It gives one a false sense of satisfaction - I murdered the person that caused me so much pain. But that satisfaction does not last long, it is quickly defaced by reality, the reality that one has just committed murder, the reality that two wrongs can not make half a right, the reality that still, even after you have murdered these people, your pain linger and will linger.

It's strange how we tend to see sense in mobbing and murdering a ... say, thief, for instance. I will always make a reference to the senseless and barbaric ALUU4 killings that happened is Nigeria - May we never forget. It makes absolutely no sense to take a life unlawfully, a life you cannot give. There is a reason for law, there is a reason for justice, there is a reason this is the 21st century. I heard about an Afghan girl who was buried from neck down and then her head was stoned to death by five men. The girl was 12, she was raped and so she reported but they said she was an adulterer, It is absolutely retarded, archaic and stupid. And the interesting thing is, that was lawful murder, legal murder - calling a 12 year old an adulterer is even ridiculous enough, but stoning her to death, that's just stupid.

Jungle justice, killing a man because you think he deserves that, without the proper legal consent. The world needs to find a way to get rid of that because it is backwardness - may it not be said that we are backward in the 21st century.

It is true though, certain times, certain crimes make the victim broken inside, enough to desire revenge, extreme revenge as in the example in the first paragraph - Grisham's A Time To Kill - however if we just stop and think and imagine how much worse we will feel afterwards then we will find that it really is not worth it.

Mobs and lynches happen all over the world, not just restricted to certain parts, I think it has to do with the human mind, when a thief is caught the first thing that happens is that people stop thinking, sanity disappears, everybody is controlled by the crowd and the moment's rave. You just want to do what everyone around you is doing, which is hitting the unfortunate individual with sticks or machetes or anything sharp that you can lay your hands on, you forget that you have also stolen something before and that you were not beaten like this, you forget that the individual that you are hitting is also human and is asking to be forgiven, you forget that you did not give him the life that you are about to take. You are consumed by the fact that he has committed a crime and even though you also commit crimes, his own crime is much larger and therefore does not deserve a second chance, the type that you got.

Books of 2013

Hi all, Today, I am going to very briefly review a few of the books that I read in 2013. I think I read more Nigerian books this year than I have all my life - put together - hence four Nigerian books and one American.

1. Half of a yellow Sun: With this book, Chimamanda Adichie solidified her previously semi solid status as the new undisputed queen of Nigerian literature. Usually, when a book is that long, it has the ability to very easily become boring, especially for me. I find a lot of things boring. You've written a great book if your readers cannot forget your characters, and she did that very well. I have a crush on 'Kainene' as a matter of fact.

2. The Great Ponds: Elechi Amadi is Elechi Amadi and he will always be. He writes the way he wants to write and I think that's cool. I have a problem though, with the way this book ended, and to be candid, I did not find it extremely appealing - the whole package. Maybe that's because of the setting, I am not really entirely cool with the whole village thing, However, I thought it was a nice story, a very important story.

3. The Joys of Motherhood: I finished this book today. I thought it was nice. Buchi Emecheta's appealing writing made a book I would have found boring, quite interesting. I also did not like the way it ended, I didn't think she needed to die. I don't know what the writer wanted to achieve with Nnu Ego death at the end. The book would still have made sense if she did not die.

4. The Concubine - I read The Great Ponds before I read The Concubine so I knew what to expect. I must say I feel that The Concubine is up there among the top books I've ever read, not just because of the way it was written, but also, because of the story. As a writer, you can't go wrong with a good story. Big ups to Elechi Amadi.

5. The Brethren: I started reading John Grisham's works late last year, he's a genius and The Brethren has to be the best novel I read all year - and believe me, I read lots. It's a classic definition of two different stories colliding and then walking hand in hand, like a confluence. And, it ended very well too; you can choose the future of the brethren that is preferable to you. It does not get better than that.

Till next time,, Keep dreaming!!