Beat the ground

  I didn’t know I had dreaded this visit, had no idea that the motivation for finding reasons and excuses was fear. This fear was the type that crippled, the type you couldn’t taste or touch- as transparent and weightless as air. You live with it, you’re not even aware of its presence and importance. Like wind, it will hurl you when it’s strong enough, it will leave destruction in its path.

Holy

“Our mission is to depopulate the kingdom of the devil, to save souls bound for hell” 

He’s pacing the length of the stage, his hands waving in an unworldly rhythm, he means those words, the force of his sincerity touches you even through a television screen. He’s talking about soul winning, the great commission of evangelism. The noise from the congregation would drown the voice of a less gifted speaker, but this man can’t be overwhelmed by this frenzy of adoration, this crowd was small potatoes.

A friendly coup

They watched the flurry of activities from their perch at the window, their feet rested on the seat of the club chair propped under the window and their noses were pressed on the window louvres- different louvres because the girl was taller. A woman rolled dough and cut it in strips for chin-chin, another was washing cuts of beef and frozen chicken, their mother was chopping vegetables for fried rice while their aunt had just finished washing a gleaming white mass of rice.

Unfurling

 “They don’t have iodized salt and I don’t understand this sea salt and rock salt that they have” she said looking up at the man beside her who was carrying their basket.

Of friends and fishes

“Dodoyo” she said, she was referring to the driver who’d caused the obstruction. He’d rather delay traffic than wait for two cars to pass through the bottle neck created by the partially open gate.

“I’d thought dodoyo was a typical Yoruba curse word” he replied with a look of surprise, she couldn’t speak Yoruba.

Love's true lie

Being in the farafina creative writing workshop has been a very beautiful experience. I've learned plenty and hopefully I've gotten better at this writing thing. We're supposed to do things we wouldn't normally do, "stretching our writing muscles" in Ms Chimamanda Adichie's words.

 I haven't really written sex scenes before, not because of religious reasons or because my mother reads my blog (well that's a little chunk of the reason), but because I think sex scenes should be well done. I wouldn't write a sex scene unless I think it serves the story and it would be realistic. No flying monkey stuff for me.

The story I'm putting up today doesn't have a sex scene but is very sexy, please let me know in your comments if you felt it was well done and if it felt realistic.

Speechless

“And I would kiss them, suck their nipples and lick them all over”

“For real?” I asked, I wasn’t quite expecting this tale when I told him about the neighbour’s house boy who’d kiss and touch the four year old me.

Too much talk

"Stop that" she said when he touched her breast.

"Na akpu? why you come dey use all your muscle dey press my bobi?" She continued as she watched him fumble with his belt buckle.

Nwachinemere

   "Nwachinemere!" He cried

     Dimka’s voice reflected the bottles of Guinness extra stout he had French kissed until he coaxed the last drops out, his eyes barely focussed on the young man he was calling, the song of alcohol in his blood was affecting his senses. The other men in the bar echoed his call as they welcomed him to the revelry that can only be found in a Nigerian beer parlour.

Jazzed

  I love jazz, I think it's the music of the gods, the only genre of music that can express any emotion fully. Soul is the only other genre that comes close but there's no way Soul can make you feel the heights and depths, plains and tangled paths that jazz guides you through. The people sitting, dancing or just lounging in the quadrangle seemed to agree with me, the look of bliss on their faces as they listened to the live band play Earl Klugh's "Tropical legs".

  I was still clearing tables when the band segued into "Calypso getaway", Bassey the bartender whistled and Jaiye the other waiter nodded at me. I ignored their blatant attempts to see my famous reaction to the song, I've been known to bawl like a baby on hearing the song. Unfortunately for them, I was in a hurry to get home to my man, my shift had ended and the pesky tables were only delaying me.

   The bus ride home was uneventful but the driver kept singing 'Careless Whispers' at the top of his lungs, thankfully he was singing the original version by George Michael. I wouldn't have been responsible for my actions if he'd been singing the jazz version by David Koz. It brought up unpleasant memories and I hated those memories. It had one redeeming feature, without it I wouldn't have met the love of my life, the same young man I was rushing home to see.

I open the door stealthily, trying to make as little noise as possible. Tochukwu is a light sleeper and I hated to have him wake up when I'd come home, he wouldn't go back to bed for the next two or so hours. He'd ask endless questions about my day, tell me everything that happened in his class and at Kachi's- the neighbour who took care of him during the day. I didn't get my wish, he wasn't even asleep.

He runs to hug me, his legs thumping on the cement floor and his words tumbling together in garbled order as he trys to tell me twenty things at once. I finally get him settled on the only sofa we have while I put away the food I brought from the hotel into our fridge- another thing I got from the hotel. The main perk of my job is the fact that I'm allowed to take food home, that way I get to save a bigger chunk of my salary for Tochukwu's education. 

"Mummy play 'together again' on your phone" he says as he flashes the smile that reminded me of the charm with which his father dissolved my defences before he disappeared like dew on a hot morning. Tochukwu loves David Koz's classic song, although I'm pretty sure he developed that love as a defence mechanism due to my excessive binging on the song when he was a toddler.

"Mummy, we have to dance to this song at your wedding" he says as we dance. I smiled at the thought of my wedding, a beautiful pipe dream that could only be imagined by my beautiful five year old son. He has no idea how slim the pickings were for a single mother of a male child whose income put her just above the poverty line.

I lift my son and our eyes are on the same level as his dangling feet betray his glee at being carried. I rub his forehead with mine, we'd done it since he was a baby. He believes it allows him listen to my thoughts.

"I know what you're thinking, Mommy" he says as he claps his little hands. "You're the happiest mommy in the world" he pipes.

  My man is right, he's always right.