2015

When I think about 2015, I think about how terrible I felt half the time. Ill, exhausted, empty. Going through all of these was not pretty. I remember sitting curled in a ball in my apartment, eyes closed, thinking nothing, feeling empty. Often I took long walks to clear my head. Often I went out to be among people, noticing their smiles and soft laughter like a baby’s bottom.

Despite all of these I remember how I smiled, my closed my smile that reached my eyes so that they squinted and looked like a pair of Chinese eyes so you could barely see the glistening black balls.
This year was me doing things I really wanted or needed to do without letting the way I felt at the moment hold me back.

I do not know how to describe my year succinctly. How I failed Nigeria or how I lost a friend. I cannot describe how I tremble when I think of four hundred level land law and law of trusts or Equity and how God saw me through it all. It might seem easy, painting it delicately, the way the sun smothered my skin on the sunny days or the way my skin whitened and lips broke and bled during the harmattan, but I could never do it well. I could never describe what a friend I found in Assumpta or Dunni or Ife, or how great my Arts and Africa family has been to me.

2015 was good to me in so many ways. I had so many opportunities I never expected. How to thank the people that made it all happen, I do not know. All those free stage play tickets I got and free books made my year surreal.

Seeing as I captured a lot of 2015 moments, I’ll describe my year with pictures

 

 

Rele readings.

Amazing day listening to Toni Kan and Victor Ehikhamenor.

Ake festival, Tobi and Ruth.

I was a volunteer at Ake festival 2015. It was a lot of work. But it was fun.

 

Artsandafrica.com kicked off this year. It is incredible being part of this family. I’ve learned so much and met amazing writers from all over the continent.

Somtimes, Tosin, Assumpta, Dunni and I would go to creamium and spend the little we had on ice cream. #2015rituals

I met Binjo this year. He is an amazing friend and takes all my crap bullshit and gets all my jokes. haha. And Denike too. Awesome friend. Unfortunately, can’t find any picture with her.

 

A lot of other things and mad men and specialists stage play (Wole Soyinka month)

I saw a lot of stage plays this year man. Made several trips to Terra Kulture and Muson center. I think I’m still in debt.😂

 

Saraba talk; Eghonghon, Victor, Fope, Excuse me, Tani.

I remember this day. We got to the venue of Saraba’s talk very late because of the issue of wrong address. The Saraba talk was hosted by Dami Ajayi who is one of the coolest people you can ever meet. I’m not even joking. From talking to him and reading his work, I learned a lot this year.

 

 

Cocktail party opening ceremony of Lagos poetry festival

Tosin

Wura baby and our late nights (Lagos poetry festival)

Middle picture. Funny day. Before we got to freedom park for the Poetry festival, I called Tosin creative poverty. I said it so naturally, I thought it was funny that he was reacting a certain way. Lol. We had an awesome time here. I left early, but later that night, my cousin drove me back to freedom park for the borderless concert against my wishes. When we got bored, we drove around Lagos. Awesome day. And night.

Last Picture. Also a night thing. Wura and I had so much fun. We got home real late. Have I mentioned Wura is absolutely amazing? Totally lovable.

 

 

 

Zainab my first daughter or so

Big brother

Having a good time. Sisters.

About to stun at my cousin’s wedding.

Wedding, parties and other stuff with my lovers.

Assumpta

Ona, Dolapo, Fope

We were slaying anyhow. Amazing night. Fope, Ona and I had our short stories featured in the book published to raise money for autistic kids. Amazing writers Ona and Fope. It has been a good year with Fope. She is so much of an amazing Partner. even with the ups and downs.

An exhibiton at terra kulture. Lots of exhibitions this year.

 

 

Film festival

 

 

London Life Lagos Living.

Social Media week at the human rights firm

 

 

(June 20 2015)

First semester, four hundred level. Law. Julius Berger Hall.

Car selfie. Tosin. Assumpta

After class selfie.

I played with a lot of dark lipsticks this year. (White shirt means, class in a bit)

After test selfie. Look how puffy my face is 😦

 

Class selfies and other selfies.

Last day at Chris Ihidero’s Story Story Master Class. awesome experience (October)

 

This was an amazing three day workshop at British Council. Learned so much.

First sunday in the year.

When my baby sister made me up. Took myself out.

When Duny (Old sister, middle) graduated Masters with a distinction, I was just too proud.

 

 

 

With Tochukwu at an exhibition.

Before Saro with Duny

All the awesome people I met at Saraba talk.

Pre-wedding selfies

I don’t know why my head is raised like that, Oko-iyawo duties eitherways.

Paintballing with crazy arts and africa people

That time they featured us on their page. Love rele.

Assumpta’s birthday party.

At an exhibition

Film festival

We were seeing a stage play in terra kulture. first got bankrupt in the bookstore. Fope.

An exhibition

Fope’s birthday party

The first Arts and Africa hangout.

Etisalat Prize for Literature award ceremony. Peep Angelique Kidjo’s head and Chinelo Okparanta’s beautiful smile.

With Remi Sonaiya. Lovely lovely woman. Assumpta. Ife.

These are but a few pictures from 2015. And these are just some of the people that made my year. They’re a lot. If I were to talk about Efe Paul whose poetry I so love or Lola Shoneyin who made Ake festival happen, I’d be writing a new blogpost.

Plus there’s Damola Olofinlua through whom I could attend the Etisalat prize for literature award ceremony. An exclusive beautiful event. I was very close to Wole Soyinka. So close, I could have run my fingers through his hair. Jokes. I would forever be grateful. Then there is Adebola Rayo (Artyliving) who made my Easter with two tickets to see Saro Musical. There are so many other people. You, as you read, you’re making my 2015. Thank you.

There are so many people I have to thank. So many things I have to say. But I’ve been unable to arrange my thoughts. Perhaps before the year runs out, I’ll dish out my vote of thanks like I’m at an awards ceremony.

Ake festival was a huge highlight for me this year. I got so many free books, my book shelf is spilling. I met a lot of people and mostly, I got to be a part of something huge. (P.s I am Maxim Uzoatu’s personal person)

Maybe I was not all that happy this year. And often I ask myself, what am I going to do about that? It is not like life is not going well. My grades are excellent, I’m in almost good health, and so I often say, Ope, you have ever reason to be happy. But no. There’s something else. It’s like getting up to pick something somewhere but getting there and forgetting what you went there to pick in the first place. It is small. Often unbearable. Sometimes you stare into space and start crying, conjuring unrelated things that should be long forgotten.

If you know, you know.

I’ve found my solace in so many things. Novels. Mariam. Friends. God.

These keep me sane.

Whatever it is, all I know is I’m getting closer to being who I want to be, even though I’m not sure what exactly or who exactly that is. Baby steps Ope. Closer. And closer.

My writing also grew and grew this year, even though I did not write as much as I wanted to, I read a lot. A lot of big things happening next year, that I am sure of.

It’s been an amazing year and some. Thankful.

(P.s; thanks to Isma’il for some of this amazing pictures)

 

 

 

A Curious Tale

#1 It’s that time of the year again!

30writers

#1

The very first post in this series is written by Adenike. Adenike is a writer who is “finding her voice.” She likes to write poems and occasionally, short stories. She writes to inspire and entertain. She blogs at denikhe.blogspot.com and can also be found at lucidlemons.com. You can also follow her on twitter @denikhe

In this powerful poem, Nike seeks to capture the abstract nature of the curious tale and country called Nigeria.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

This is a curious tale of love

Of blood that birthed tears

Tears that washed hands

Tears that deceived you into thinking your hands were clean and you were pure

You who is listening to this tale

Hear, hear

Even if you do not need to listen

For this tale is the song that resonates in your heart

An ever present melody

A curious tale

This…

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30 DAYS 30 WRITERS

Hi everyone.

Last year my friends and I ran a writer series titled—30 days 30 writers. It was a series which aimed to celebrate Nigeria. It was a medium of expression for the Nigerian youths.

That was 2014. A lot has happened since then. People have died, people have given birth. Nigeria has grown. We have a new president; President Muhammadu Buhari. Yes, so much has happened.

And here I am asking for your hands again—readers and writers, to contribute to this—Independence series, to celebrate Nigeria. The series starts 2nd of September and ends 1st of October. If you are interested, send your posts to ope.adedeji@hotmail.com

(N.B you don’t have to be a professional writer, so far as you can articulate your thoughts and feelings on Nigeria neatly, your post will be picked)

Prose, poetry, poesy, drama, articles anything, will be accepted. Remember, your piece should appreciate Nigeria in any form. You can look through some of the past entries on the blog. Posts from the series Last year.

Last year, the series featured writers like Seun Odukoya, @thevunderkind, Fope Ojo, Timi Yeseibo (livelytwist.wordpress.com) and a lot of other great writers.

Feel free to ask questions in the comment section or you could just email me.
Send your post as an attachment to the above email. Include in the body of the email a short bio, a short summary of your post and a feature image to go with your post. (Your post will be edited)

At the end of the series, there will be a writers meet (open to readers and writers that did not participate) where we can just all mingle and discuss etc. The venue will be communicated at a later date.

Oh one more thing, the posts will not be going up on my blog this year. I hope to make this a yearly thing and so, 30writers.wordpress.com is the blog where all the posts would be featured.

I do hope to hear from you.

Ope Adedeji.

Mama (Part three)

Mama liked to pray. It was the first thing she did in the morning and the last thing she did at night. She sat on her bed, very close to the window; a pink and blue scarf tied to her head. She nodded a lot while she prayed. Sometimes, she only moved her wrinkled hands, gesticulating or wriggling them together. She prayed only in Yoruba. On rare occasions, she went on her knees and cried in prayer. Her prayers were always muffled and small, her thin lips barely moving. It was always hard to tell what she was saying. When we were sick and not eating anything, Mama stood by our bedside and said long prayers that were sometimes really annoying. When we got well, she would raise her hands to heaven and smile a really wide smile—proudly showing off missing teeth. She taught me how to pray too; asking that I clasp my hands together, close my eyes and repeat after her.

Mama loved to pray but Mama stopped praying the weeks before she died. She stopped sitting up by the window side early in the morning or last thing at night. She just lay on her bed, her gray-black afro neither tended to nor scarfed. She didn’t eat much. She didn’t even speak much. She didn’t pray for Momola when she fell sick or congratulate Uncle Hassan when he bought the new car. She just stared—that empty scary stare. Mama was very sick those days. Her heart was failing.

The day she died however, she sat up on her bed and slowly and with so much effort, moved her buttocks to the right, until she was right beside the window. Then she asked me to fetch her scarf. The pink and blue one not the yellow one, she insisted. As the sun streamed in, lining her clay brown face, Mama looked up to the sky and whispered a thank you.

There would be no tears.

You want to cry. You want to die. But you want to cry more than you want to die. You want to flood your home with tears. You want your wails to paint the wall. You want the tanbolos crawling on your table, to listen to your pain. But you are sitting by the window, watching the rain, unable to cry. The look on your face is plain, as plain as soup without salt. Usually, when your heart feels this sort of pain, you chew on your bottom lip, bury your head in your palms, and weep. You would weep the way the sky is weeping right now. The sky is weeping, as if it feels your pain, more than you do—like the well-wisher that wept more than the omo-oloku.

Your hands are clammy. There is a pen standing between your thumb and forefinger—you are trying to write. You want to write about the pain that occupies you heart. You would tell about it through the eyes of a young girl who allowed Love move into her heart. You would tell how Love became Pain and how Pain kept on hurting the young girl. You would tell how Pain instead of Love, built a mansion in her heart, and never wanted to leave. Then you would tell of how Pain decided to leave, but because the girl thought it was still Love, she longed for it. You would be careful so your readers do not know that you are the girl. But you cannot write as you want. You have written several words and doodled endlessly, but you cannot tell your story.

You feel as helpless as the time when your grandmother died. You did not like her very much. But you felt the pain of losing your sole guardian. She was the one who birthed your insecurities. “Orobo!” she would call for you as if she did not remember the names she gave you eight days after your birth. She was constantly teasing you about your size, comparing you to your slim siblings. She was constantly telling you how nobody married fat girls. She would point to a fat woman on the street, and whisper maliciously, how the woman’s husband was always at a brothel at night. After some years of living with the wounds her careless words caused, she complemented the nickname with a new one “Crying machine.” She gave you the name because you were always crying like an emere when she abused you. Sometimes, she would call you an emere, and laugh, emere to tobi, bawo lo se ma n travel?

It was not like Maami specially disliked you, she was always insulting everyone and everything. But the negative effects stuck to you like a bee on nectar. You were young, but it still made you sad. It was worse when your classmates started to call you orobo and copy your walking steps—you had bow legs, and were overweight, so it was funny to copy. As much as a joke this was, it continued your journey to sadness.

But you discovered love. And though he became pain, you were determined to keep him close.

Your pain looks like a long chocolate bar—six feet, dark complexioned, smoky cat eyes, one bad leg, charm and beauty. He is your love that became your pain. Maybe now, he is your drug, because you do not understand why you need him so. You need him. You want him. There were days when he treated you like shit, and took you for granted. There were days when he smelt of other women and other days when he mocked your weight. Instead of leaving him you took to praying for his weakness.

“Men are very weak, you have to pray for them” your grandmother told you this, a long time ago and you cherish it like a rare gem, holding it close to your heart. You would stay up all night to pray for him. But your prayers were not answered on a permanent basis. The answers were always temporary. Today he is loving, tomorrow he is not. So now, you find yourself unable to find words to pray that he comes back.

You want him. You want him, so that while he is not treating you like shit, he is telling you how beautiful you are, and how he would very much like to bite your nipple. He did know how to flatter you until you flew and flew to heaven. You want him so that when he is in a good mood, and sauntering all over the place like a butterfly or a romantic French boy, you can feel alive. It is only when you feel alive that you can write those captivating stories everyone on your twitter timeline talks about. When you’re sinking in self-pity, like you do when he is mad at you for no reason, or when you’ve received criticism on one of your stories, or even, when you feel ugly and fat, you feel dead, so you cannot write.

Since you started this relationship with him, you’ve been telling the world about your adventures. You put it up on your blog—Chronicles of my Part-time Lover and share it on twitter and Facebook. There was nothing special about the adventures; riding power bikes, going mountain climbing, visiting art galleries and museum—but you modified them, you glorified your tales into the kind of passion young girls purred for.

When he was happy and not brooding about his joblessness and how he was mistreated because he was “handicapped” he was your biggest inspiration. But most of the time, he was sad and would throw tantrums at you. You are very weak. You could not do anything, but upturn your lips in sadness that could not be feigned. Even with the sadness in your eyes, he would hurl insults at you. He would watch you cry, and torment you with your secret nickname—crying machine. He had once gone on to sing a song you told him in confidence that your grandmother sang to you. Ah toh le ologbo, ho jeun tan, ko palemor.He could not even pronounce the words right. You were more angry that he could not pronounce the words right, than that he brought up your childhood bed-wetting habit. While that was the most callous thing ever, you did not leave him. And you had no plan to leave him.

He would get better, you constantly consoled yourself. At least, he never raised a finger to hit you—if, and when he did, you would leave him; that was what you told yourself. At least, he called you Nkem, which was all you ever wanted—to bask in the love of the one you loved. Now you would cling to the way he said “I love you” on good days, and the way he patted your bum while you cooked. You would think about his bouts of jealousy and his overprotectiveness and feel butterflies dance flirtatiously in you.

You do not know why he grabbed his bags and left yesterday morning. All you know is that he was raging like fire in the turbulent wind and you had no dignity, so, like a firefly, you chased after him. But he pushed you away, his face as one who was utterly disgusted. Who would rub your ego? Who would cloak you with awesome compliments that your low self-esteem and inferiority complex never knew. You draw the words with your scrawny handwriting on your notepad.

Who would love me?

You want to cry because nobody would. You want to cry because there is no love for fat girls. You want to cry because now you’re thinking; maybe he is irritated by me. Maybe my fat irritates him. But you would not cry. You draw a huge ball on your note pad and you write “Hi everyone, I’m Salewa, and I’m a fatty.”

Then a lone tear falls on your notepad. But it is not for him as there would be no tears to mourn him.

Angel of Death

The sound of death is what wakes me up from my nap. It is a small mosquito that is dancing by my ears. My hands are pushing and slapping at it but it is trying to tell me something—about death. I do not want to listen because I know the person that has died. I rub my eyes groggily, until the blurry and hazy things in my vision stand still. I can see the angel of death standing by the net of our room. He’s dressed in a green and black pattered ankara, agbada. He even has a cap on. He has a big belly which pushes his agbada out—the way the bump of six month old pregnancy would push out a woman’s maternity gown. I know he is death because I have seen him before. I know he is death because he has a smug look on his face.

We are staring at each other—death and I. I have so many questions for him. I want to know why he came to my home next. Weren’t there other people he could have picked?

I was there the day he came to take the old man who owned the compound. It was just a year ago, and the old man had been seriously sick. We call the old man Daddy Ilaje. I saw him staring at the greenness of the landlord’s door, a smile playing around his lips. He saw me, twirled his moustache with his left hand, and with his right hand, motioned for me to come.

He whispered, slowly and charmingly in my ears, that he would be coming back for more. A few weeks later, the old woman who lived in one of the rooms in the backyard died. I did not see him that time, but I knew he was the one that picked her up—a woman who had not even been sick. She had just slipped on the wet ground and died. I was very angry because it was the old woman who used to tell me folktales. I was also angry because death was a glutton. I cried, but no one understood.

I’m determined not to cry now. The smell of death steals into me as I try to sit up, so I’m pushed back down, against the hard ground on which I have been sleeping. It smells of burnt soup mixed with the pungent smell of stale shit and urine.

My hands are beginning to itch. They itch the way they do when bedbugs slowly steal unto my skin and suck my blood. But there are no bumps now, just the itchiness, which I scratch relentlessly.

“Why won’t you please go away” I ask him in Yoruba, my small voice attempting to be loud “I don’t like you. I never would. Just leave my family alone”

He laughs. His laughter is even more sickening than the smell of death. I start towards him, more confidently as he starts to speak.

“I just wanted to tell you, I’m done with this compound dear” his voice is harsh, yet soothing. I’m near him. The angel of death has a bad odour distinct from the smell of death. He smells of garlic, cigarette and sweat—the way the louts at the bus garage normally smell. This odour mixes together with the smell of death that is painting itself on the walls of my home. “I just wanted to tell you, you won’t see me for many more years’ sweetheart”

I want to hit him, I clench my right fist, open the net and push my hands towards him—but it’s the curtain I’m pushing. There’s no one there but the green curtain of my home. This makes me angry and scared all at once. I look around—the boys are playing in the backyard. They would never believe me if I told them the angel of death has just left with sorrowful news

What if death was just joking, playing a fast one on me? What if I had only been imagining things?

I walk towards the compound’s front door, downcast. There’s a slight rumble in my stomach, and I know it’s not hunger. It is fear, dancing in me. I am wondering how I would survive. I swallow hard. I sit on the hard concrete ground. I do not care that I am still wearing my school uniform, I know that the moment my mother returns home, she would not notice it. Ordinarily, still having my uniform on, would have cost me a slap. She would be consumed in mourning the death of my father to even remember my existence.

My father. I wonder what sins he must have committed to be doomed with such a fate. Agony and pain—and a host of other evils, conspired against him. Though I’m barely six, I can tell this much. There were always so many worry lines on his face. He never smiled, and he was always looking ahead; even when he was sewing. My father loved to sew. He was a tailor, a very important one in the Bariga community even. But poverty was the order of our lives.

My father was always worrying even about the little things. He would worry about how I did not understand simple additions. He would worry about my brother, Kazeem, not doing well enough in the relay race at our inter-house sport. He would worry about his ex-wife, that she was the one orchestrating his ill lucks. He would worry about life—building a better home for us and removing the clutches of poverty that grabbed us. He would worry about my mother, the way she was boisterous, and always starting or ending arguments.

I feel like my mother is the cause of his death. Last week, she got into a fight with out late landlords wife. My father hadn’t been taken to the hospital on admission yet. He was still lying on the bed, nothing but a bag of bones, looking but not seeing, moving his lips, but not speaking. Insanity was working itself through him.

In the argument with our landlady, my mother had accused the landlady saying “We all know that you killed your husband.” That was the final straw of the argument. I couldn’t believe my mother would say that to an old nice lady and I dare say; she does have a heart of gold. The landlady, delving into her dialect—the egun dialect, spawned curses, all sorts of curses, at my mother. I saw curses rolling and dancing towards my door. It was then I first knew my father would be dying soon. Very soon.

And now he is gone. I wonder what life holds for my brothers and I, beyond today. My mother is just a cleaner, and as affordable as this “face-me-I-face-you” compound, is supposed to be, I am pretty sure she cannot afford it. I wonder if we would have to beg on the road, as the Fulani men and women do on Abeokuta Street. There are many of them there, and I wonder if they would accommodate us. I wonder if I would have to stop going to school—gladly even. I hate school. I hate the way I’m beaten every second for flimsy reasons. My teacher has wickedness running with her blood. She says the education we are getting is almost completely free, yet we are good for nothing. I listen to those words, every day, the koboko, hitting my skin, as if I am nothing but an animal. Hence, I have come to this conclusion; school is not right—at least for me. Maybe we would hawk. Bolatito might continue to his tailoring school. But Kazeem and I, might start selling plantain on the streets of Bariga. Of course, mother can do us a favour by marrying a second husband, a richer one, that can control her—that would be the ultimate plan.

If I had known that my life would head in this direction, I probably would have died at birth. I hate this life. I hate that people are saying my mother was the one killing my father. It is questionable and probably true, but I do not want them talking about it like it is their business.

My mother was always so lively during his illness—dressing well and plaiting beautiful hair styles. She was always complaining too: “I can’t go anywhere; you’re his daughters too, come look after him. I have places to go. He’s stressing me”
They only took him to the hospital a week ago, when he’d been sick for months, sickness; unknown.

My eyes flare up. The night is enveloping me, with a reassuring hug. Its darkness is soothing—but I know doom has only just arrived.

A cab screeches to a stop in the compound, and my mother comes out. Her hands are spread apart in sorrow. Then swiftly, she’s on the floor, rolling. My stepsisters are trying to carry her. The women from the compound rush towards her, weeping and trying to comfort her at once.

My mother is screaming.

“Baba Bolatito is dead, oko mi ti ku”

Tears are welling in my eyes. I wish there was something I could have done to stop the angel of death from visiting. I hate this scene— seeing my mother like that especially.

I bury my head on my laps, and ask for the angel of death to please come and take me away from all of this.

For Love of Peace.

You’re just like your mother, she says. She says it as she slams the door in your face. She says it as she leaves repulsed and fuming. The words echo in your ears. She’ll be back, you say to yourself as you fold your hands against your breast, tapping your legs against the hardwood floor. Waiting, you hold on to her cogent smell that breezed through as she ran out and had stained you just a few minutes ago. You tell yourself there’s no way she can make it anywhere in the rain. She’ll be back you say. So you wait. You wait another ten minutes, and then your hands grow weary of being in that position. You grow weary of standing.

You take deep breaths watching as the rain water kisses the window—a slow romantic French kiss—almost like the one that had just happened. You bite your lips.

She hadn’t taken an umbrella. She had just taken her handbag and left, her face wet with tears that looked a lot like the rain that is customary of this winter season. She stormed out of your home like a raging wind that forcefully wanted to shake the earth—just as this wind sings against your windows and vibrates your home.

You walk towards the kitchen counter and pour yourself a drink—white wine. She’d just bought it, and you feel guilty unscrewing the cap to drink it without her. You taste it and smack your lips. You linger on the taste for long, savoring every bit of the droplet on your tongue.

Your eyes sway sadly as reality hits you hard. She wouldn’t be coming back to you. The truth literally knocks you off, as it settles in your mind that she is gone. You chased her away, the same way you slapped mosquitoes at night back in your village in another country. You chased her away, the way you blew away the ants that perched on your counter occasionally. You discarded her like she was used toilet paper.

You are not like your mother, you say to yourself. But the words are weak and flat. They sink to the bottom of your glass. They mock you with dreadful laughter.
You stare at the straw yellow color of the wine, and drink it up as if in a hurry to swallow your words.

You are not like your mother; you try to convince yourself again. The words are harsh and bitter, even against the sweet taste that lingers in your taste buds. You cannot believe she made the comparison, despite everything you told her about hating your mother.

You conjure the last image you have of your mother in your head and suddenly, it smells of your childhood again. It smells like the bitter leaf you grew at the backyard when you were young. It intensely feels like the day your mother left you and your father, without even flinching. It smells like the untouched food of rice and fish stew on the dining table cooked by your mother, the day she left. It smells of the older woman that came to pick her up.

You remember the older woman’s harsh face, her sarcastic smile, and her distant eyes. You remember the older woman’s beautiful things, the excess golden bangles and rings on her hands and fingers, the excess strawberry scented body spray, the heavy red lipstick, the brand new red Toyota corolla that matched her suit. You remember the older woman’s condescending eyes as she stared at the dingy shack you called your home. You also remember your mother standing beside the older woman, holding her hands, a smug smile on her face, announcing that she was leaving you, and your father, to be with this woman.

A million feelings rush through you now, as it did that day, ranging from genuine surprise to hate. But it’s not that day. You’re a grown woman now and here—with hair, full breast and wide hips. You’re strong and tall, a replica of your handsome father, even in his frailness.

You told Alafia—your half-caste friend, everything. You told her how your weak Father died a slow slippery death because your mother had left him at a critical point in his life. You told her how she had left him when he was poor and dying—and stank of potion and pills. You told her how you had watched him die. You told her how your Mother had beaten your father once in his illness, when he defecated in his pants. You told her all these because you had slowly taking a liking for Alafia. She had become your drug—to save you from the pain of these memories.

You always think of the bitter leaf you used to grow as a child. The native doctor who came to your house once a week to administer drugs to your father had told you bitter leaf was a good drug for his strange illness. You think of the failures of the bitter leaf, and the way you and the bitter leaf tree had bonded as if it was your pet. When you’re hungry for complete peace, you plug in your head phones, listening to beauty of Enya’s gibberish. You’d try to chant with her. You’d try to float in the air, as Enya songs made you feel that light. But none of these gave peace of mind well, as speaking to Alafia about your life problems.

You pour yourself some more wine. Do you regret the actions that sent Alafia running? Your now silent home answers you back. You stare at the lines of water on your window—it still reminds you of the kiss. You do not regret experimenting. You do not regret what would have been called an abomination by the old women in your village.

You think of your earlier acts; how you had kissed your best friend. When you reached out to her cheeks, you had been having one of your heart to heart with her, her listening ears being the only harmony you needed. You felt hazy as you touched her soft cheek, a whirlwind spinning in your mind while your subconscious screamed for you to stop.

It felt like something you’d always wanted to do, with her.

No, you do not regret trying. You do not regret trying to know if you were attracted to her lush light skin, almost as creamy white as that of the Caucasians you live among, or attracted to her full red lips as you’d found yourself more than once, staring intently at them. It was almost a full minute before she withdrew from the kiss, pushing you away. Her face was white as one who had seen a ghost; a mixture of fear and a bit of anger.

Are you like your Mother? You ask yourself, the bottle of white wine to your lips. There’s no answer. The wind, the rain, the otherwise silence—they don’t answer you. You do not regret kissing Alafia, but does that make you gay as your mother was? You smile, then you frown. You do not know.

My Ugly Cousin.

Have you met my ugly cousin? Have you seen her red eyes of hatred and her white tongue of hurtful words? Have you studied her callous hands—the evil she crafts with them? Have you listened to the slowness of her words, the way they buzz in your ears to annoy you? That’s what makes my cousin ugly as we are almost twins.

She always has her hair in Bantu knots like mine. She has pimples dotting her forehead, just as I do. She has a broken smile, though sinister, they are just like mine. Yes, we could almost pass for twins.

My Mother has always wanted to get rid of my ugly cousin. “Ifeoma, we need to get rid of this devil” She’d say holding on to her bible “I do not like all these rubbish” she would refer to my cousin’s evil as rubbish, nonsense—and refer to her as the devil. I was forced to chuckle sometimes, when she brought up my cousin. It was hilarious; the way she included my ugly cousin in our prayers during the family altar. She would tie her head, sit, legs wide apart, and nod her head, up and down as she prayed against the evil.

But I didn’t want her to go.

There was just something about having her around that made me powerful and secure. I decided it was my low self-esteem that made me desire her presence very much. In my anger and fury, I clung on to her, the way a baby clung to the full breast of his Mother.

My ugly cousin was full of action—my wish was her command.

It was exactly two months ago I saw Uche, my friend, with a boy I was infatuated with. My ugly cousin was with me when Uche passed by us in our school’s cafeteria, with the boy, a senior boy in ss2. Uche was gushing over whatever the senior boy with his uncombed koko hair was saying. My face had heated up as I felt betrayed that she would hang out with someone she knew I liked liked. I had looked down at my shoes, to avoid staring intently at them. I studied my laced up school shoes, looking intently at the lace of the shoes, and the dull color of the black. I studied my socks, looking attentively at the whiteness, and then the patches of orange and red, faded, but stubbornly refusing to go away, despite the JIK and HYPO. During break the next day, when Uche went to sleep in the sickbay like we all liked to do when we felt sleepy, Uche’s hair become an unruly mess of hills and valleys in place of beautiful full afro hair.

When I was regarded as a likely suspect and reported, I had told Mama it wasn’t me. “Mama, it was my cousin that did it, not me” My reply accompanied scolding, prayers, the desire to fast—climb the mountain top even, just to get rid of my ugly cousin.

We belonged to a very serious religious sect. Fire on the Mountain of God Church. We had a very serious looking pastor, who claimed he had a degree in casting out of demons. He always held his bible up, beside his armpit. He wore ill-fitting suits and ugly brown shoes, all the time. It was Mother that invited him a month ago. She invited him, just the day, she had caught my ugly cousin spitting in the water she was about to use to turn garri. She had shouted “ewoooooo,” letting our female neighbors rush to the door of the kitchen, their nose, long and ready to poke. Mother had her hands on her head, stamping her feet on the ground occasionally. She was dumbfounded, as she stood there in the kitchen, her white shirt, beginning to get stained with sweat at the armpit sides.

Mother didn’t speak to me that day. She didn’t want to know who my ugly cousin was trying to get back at. I wouldn’t tell her anyway. I wouldn’t tell her that my ugly cousin was preparing that meal, just for Father and Mother as they had earlier on, compared me to my elder sister Ada, who I was jealous of.

When the Pastor arrived that day, in his rickety car that seemed to want only to fall apart and sang songs of rage and fury daily, my ugly cousin was gone. He prayed and prayed, swinging his bible up and down. I wondered what theatrical performance he wanted from my ugly cousin, were she around. He summoned my ugly cousin but she was nowhere in sight.

It was Ada that suffered the most from the hands of my ugly cousin. It was just yesterday. Her friend, the beautiful one with beautiful clothes and accessories came to visit. I really liked that we had company, as we hardly did. But then, Ada started making ugly remarks about me. she thought I didn’t hear her from where I sat outside under the sun, watching the neighbourhood children, run around, kick stones and dramatize. But I heard. I heard her tell her friend my food was too salty. She said I was a bad cook. She told her she pitied the man who would marry me. If nothing else had happened after that point, I’d probably have told my ugly cousin to let it go, but then, Ada’s beautiful friend started to laugh. A hard, harsh laughter, that made me perspire. I was clasping and unclasping my hands, trying desperately hard to be undercontrol.
But before I realized it, my anger had reached it’s peak—and that coincided with their decision to call me in and have a little talk with me. I told my ugly cousin to follow me. they sat me down and talked to me to be more lady like. They spoke in ibo,intergecting it with laughter that was supposed to be good natured. They told me to work harder, “Biko, use roll-on, spray perfume ehn, biko Ifeoma” Ada said. I nodded at everything they said, and thanked them for the advice that they said they were giving because they loved me and not because they wanted to spite me.

That night, when Ada sent me to fetch water for her night bath, my ugly cousin decided she’d help me instead. I had stood by watching for her next move. A satchet of HYPO was torn and poured into the blue bucket of water, a dethol cap was removed, and poured also into it and then carried to Ada. I don’t know how Ada was oblivious to the smell—maybe it was the deep stench of urine in the bathroom that didn’t make her notice the pungent smell of hypo, I do not know. But all I knew was that, one moment Ada was singing in the bathroom, the next she was screaming.

When she got into the sitting room, only clad in a towel, Mother put the lantern close to her body to observe what was making Ada scream so much. Her skin was red with big bumps all over. I pitied her, to be honest. I pitied her as I searched her sorry eyes. I pitied her as she scratched and scratched her skin.

Mother then put the lantern to my face. I could feel it’s glow. I could hear her silent questions.

“Yes mother, I did. I poured hypo in the bucket of water sister Ada used to bath”

I didn’t know why Mother didn’t give me a dirty slap first. I was expecting a slap that would resound through the room and even into our neighbors houses. I expected a slap that would stop the children singing outside from singing, a slap that would cause the moon to peer in through our open window. But there was none.

I knew she was surprised that I hadn’t blamed my ugly cousin. I knew she was surprised I had acknowledged my bad behavior for the first time in a while.

I know you think I have a psychological disorder, and if you’re a religious freak like my Mother, that I’m filled with demons more than legion, but my ugly cousin is only a metaphor.

Thomas

You call him Thomas. You’ve been calling him Thomas for a while now. You never say it to his face though. To his face, he is still sir. Good morning sir, yes sir, God bless you sir.

You call him Thomas when you’re deep in thought during your long walks. You call him Thomas when you see his brown teeth with meat stuck in between, as he laughs during meals. You say to yourself, Doesn’t Thomas look so cheerful today huh? You call him Thomas when you study his receding hairline as he sleeps on the couch in the parlor, snoring loudly, a book to his chest. What a sight Thomas, you say from where you sit at the dining table studying him.

You started calling him Thomas at the end of your junior year in secondary school. You would never forget that night that the words leapt out of your mouth, fresh and new. You felt like a god. You felt like you just created a being of your own. It was the night before your trip to Paris. You could barely sleep out of excitement, so, you dwelt on thoughts of Paris

You thought about the trip to Paris, the shops and the food, the romance and the wine. In between thoughts of fruit wine and the handsome boys with summer bodies, you heard the sound that would change everything. The sound came from the next room. You heard the creak of the door as it opened. You heard the deep breaths and silent tiptoes—you clung to every sound from that room that night.
The walls are thick but you can hear everything that happens from the guest room. If a rat scurried away in that room, you’d hear it, loud enough. Just the week before the incident, you’d heard your visiting grandmother, who slept there, in a silent long prayer, ask her God to ward off the demons that she knew lived in your house with you.

That night was sinister. The memory stinks and is as a fresh wound that hurts only when you dwell on it too much. You remember that there was no light. You remember that there was the persistent mosquito tugging at your thighs, and another dancing by your ears. You remember that it was a bit cool, but that didn’t stop the sweat that dotted your forehead and creased your brows. If there was electricity, at least the humming and the buzzing of the electrical appliances would keep away the sounds from the other room.

But there was no light and light wouldn’t come that night.

You had always known Thomas wasn’t a good man. From the time you were in primary five, you had known he wasn’t everything he preached. There was a way you stared into his eyes when he mounted the pulpit in church. There was a way you read his titles and then spat out, disgusted. You couldn’t stand the hypocrisy. And all you needed was that night in August to know you had always been right about Thomas.

Thomas had a history of calling his girlfriend at home while you and Dara watched television and Mother cooked. He’d try to code the conversation, but you knew he was talking to a woman he had a soft spot for. Your curiosity grew like the tree planted in the river. It grew sporadically, its branches spreading out—long, straight and wide. You started to read his texts. The words blinded you, even with the mumbo jumbo of technical business messages. But if the texts blinded your physical eyes, you would like to believe that the pictures destroyed the eyes of your heart. The woman in red lingerie; the woman whose breast sunk; the woman, whose hips were wide; the woman whose backside was the two huge pumpkins that you only saw in Halloween movies.

You’d watch your mother. You’d stare at the smile in her eyes. You’d gaze intently at her broken smile. You’d bite your lips. She was beautiful. But, Thomas would forget the exquisiteness of the jewel he kept at home to go lick the honey lips of an evil eyed woman.

You wondered if Mother knew. You wondered how she couldn’t know. You wondered if Dara knew about it. You cursed yourself for knowing these things. You were young; the knowledge was too heavy for you to carry. You considered telling Dara about it but every time you tried, the words slipped away down the slippery road that led to oblivion.

You felt your Mother suffered. You felt her pain. Yet you were angry, that she wouldn’t do something about her obvious unhappiness.

That night you started calling him Thomas was the proof—the ultimate proof of Thomas’s infidelity. In the past you would make excuses for him. You’d make the excuses because you loved Thomas immensely. He was your Father after all. But after that night you started calling him Thomas, all the love evaporated with the sweat that dotted your forehead.

‘Baby, touch yourself’ you heard Thomas say. You knew he had to be on the phone. There was no other person in the house but you, Dara and Mother. You heard him cajole the woman on the other end. You heard him use cuss words. You heard his profanity—the things you only heard white people say. The things you were banned from merely hearing. You heard him moan, loud and clear. The sounds broke your heart in half. You heard him say he loved her. You didn’t know what was happening, but you would find out soon. The moaning got louder, more ecstatic. Sometimes they sounded like pig grunts, but you knew they were born out of pleasure. Soon, the moaning stopped, but only with a final loud gasp and deep breaths.

Then you heard a knock on the guest room door. Fear gripped you. It seemed you were watching one of those African magic movies. You sat up, and waited, until you heard your Mother’s voice. Her voice a bit on the edge,
“Nkem, what are you doing, come back to bed”

“I’m fucking praying” he said loud and clear.

There were two things that came to your mind. Did your mother know what he’d just done? Had she stood outside through the whole orchestration, and still asked him to come back to bed? You would never know. Or better still, the other thought, did your mother just decide to come and check on her husband? Did she believe he was really praying?

The conversation ended there as Thomas started to speak in tongues and your mother retreated.
You heard Dara’s shaky voice sooner than it was ever expected that night. Did you hear what just happened? She asked.

What? What? Sleep Dara, you were dreaming. That’s what you say to your baby sister because you have no idea what to say to her.

You spent the next two weeks in Paris on an excursion that made you forget all about home and dwell on exquisite places like Les invalides, sainte-chapelle, palais garnie, Musee d’orsay, notre dame de paris, and the meals like pain au chocolat, croissants, baguette, and the different kinds of wine.

You came back and remembered Thomas. There was this new silence in the house that continued to grow with the stillness of the house—even the buzzing of electricity seemed quieter and the hands of the clock, seemed not to move.
The burden, fear, and frustration grew heavy in your heart.
You couldn’t wait to move on to your new school, a boarding school, you prayed it would make you forget. It didn’t. Somehow Thomas’s drama followed you to the new school.
You started to get strange texts and calls from a woman that asked if you knew a certain somebody who had impregnated her. Who is he to you? Help me please? The calls came every weekend when the housemistress would give the students back their phones. You memorized the number and you stopped picking the calls because it distressed you to know that your Father’s girlfriend had somehow gotten hold of your number and was now pestering you. Whatever the true explanation was, you just didn’t want to know. You wanted to have a normal teenage life.

A few weeks before the visiting day, Thomas came to see you. He collected your sim card and replaced it with a new one. You would imagine that after he left—when he was alone, he’d break the sim card. You asked no questions. You didn’t ask him why he came alone. You didn’t ask why he collected your sim card. You just gave it to him, gratefully.

Yesterday, your Mother called to tell you that she was getting a divorce. She doesn’t explain why. You don’t ask why. You and Dara don’t even talk about it. You let the news fly far and above you like dust in the wind. You don’t think about what the neighbors would say about your family. You don’t think about what the church would say. You tell yourself that you won’t think of Thomas. You would forget about him. You would bury Thomas and the memories in a graveyard, and have a decent burial ceremony just for them.

Aunty

We call her aunty. We drag it, leaving out the a sound in the word and puncturing the on sound, so it ends up something like ontiiiiiii
I only ever met aunty once—and that was during her wake keep, after her death. Her body lay in the parlor of my home in a brown and golden coffin, embalmed, unable to feel, but dressed exquisitely in a lace dress and royal beads, cotton wool adorning her nose. I remember the sheen in the darkness of her skin that is unlike the light skinned picture that has been on the wall of my home’s parlor, ever since I can remember.
I remember that if I got too close, I got a whiff of Aunty’s stench, mixed with the emergency perfume spray, my mother, her sister continuously sprayed, to prevent the heavy odor they said came with a corpse.

Before and after I met Aunty, I always wondered about her. I pondered on why she was just called aunty, without a name to follow, like my Mother’s other sisters; Aunty Bose, Aunty Bukky and Aunty Lara. I wondered why everybody, even Mother, who was a few years older than aunty, called her Aunty and nothing else but aunty. I wondered if she’d always been known as aunty.

I like to stare at Aunty’s picture that hangs on our wall. I like to wonder about the white and black picture of the beautiful young woman in the picture who is no more than thirteen. I stare at her low black hair. I stare at her white frock dress and flat ugly sandals, and then move back up to her face, to stare at the cat-like shape of her eyes and her wide smile that exposes milk teeth. I stare at the twinkle in her eyes thinking they are a reflection of the stars in the sky. She’s sitting on a wooden chair. I can’t discern the background of the picture but Mother says that, that’s what the front of our home used to look like in the early seventies. She would point at the sand that the wooden chair lays on and tell me about the soldier ants that matched through it in the rainy season. She would tell me to be thankful about so many things that have changed, mostly our interlogged ground. She would laugh heartily as she knit or cooked.

“My Mother and Aunty fought all the time because of that sand you know.” She would chuckle “never mind that girly picture, Aunty was never a girl. She was a tomboy. She loved the sand like it was her life. I don’t know what she did see in the sand. She’d pack sand in her hands and pretend she was going to build a house, mixing it with water like she said the builders did”

I loved to listen to stories about Aunty and this small home of mine which had been owned by my Grandmother but devolved to my Mother as the first child.

Maybe it was in the bits I captured from Mother whispers to her other sisters. Maybe it was in the way Mother shook her head after narrating one of Aunty’s nonsensical adventures. Maybe it was in the way Aunty’s name struck chords in me as strange. I don’t know but I soon realized even before her death that Aunty was a very sad woman. It could be a combination of the different reasons. Or instead, it could be that, in most of the grown up pictures I saw of Aunty, when my Mother and all my other aunties, had carved out families for themselves, Aunty stood distinctively out lacking that glimmer that I adored, her finger without a marriage ring.

I remember the day Aunty died. I recall the way my mother’s chest heaved; up and down, how her eyes danced all over the room. I remember how my mother didn’t cry. I remember how the other women, my aunties, were all silent. I had buried my nose into my Mothers laps, inhaling the Morgan’s Pomade and kitchen smell that her black skirt stank of, trying not to break their seemingly useful silence by crying.

I was chocked up by their silence and the smell of death that their black outfits carried with them. Camphor took prominence in the air, wafting around like the aroma of a well cooked meal, but the pungent smell of death stalled it. They had sweat on their forehead that stuck like droplets of water on a leaf after a rainy day. Someone raised a curtain, someone started to clap her hands, the rickety fan’s tune became persistent, but silence from the women prevailed.
It was Aunty Lara that first spoke. She told me to go outside and play with the rest of the children. I didn’t want to, so I looked up to my Mother for her final assent. She simply nodded her head and I was dismissed.

But I wouldn’t go far. I crouched by the verandah and listened for their voices. I knew they didn’t want me to hear whatever they had to say. Even now, I know I would probably never know Aunty’s full story because they didn’t want me to—apart from what the pictures seemed to tell about her sadness. But I stayed there, hanging on to the sound of their words, until Brother Michael came and caught me by the ear.

Aunty Bukky sighed and said, her voice husky that Aunty had no reason to kill herself.

My mother told the women they weren’t to dwell on that. She asked them, how were they to bury their beloved sister?

Aunty Bose raised her voice a little louder than necessary. She asked my Mother why she liked to avoid important issues. Aunty Bose is the youngest of the sisters. That day, I wondered only for a moment, what right she had to snap at my Mother like that, and why my Mother wouldn’t reply her.

I waited and waited for the conversation to go on but it never did to my hearing.

My curiosity grew even stronger after that day. I wanted to know everything about Aunty.

A while after the burial, I decided to take a bold step and went into my Mother’s vanilla smelling room, to find Aunty’s picture album. I finally found the object of concern after scrupulous searching. I pulled out the album that had been retrieved from Aunty’s house, after her death.

I started to leaf through, looking out mostly for Aunty. I noticed how Aunty was obviously the most beautiful of the sisters, and how her beauty waxed on as they grew older. I also noticed that a constant feature of Aunty’s pictures was that twinkle in her eyes, like the reflection of a glassy item was always in sight when she took pictures. But after a while, I noticed, Aunty’s face began to look gloomy, whatever the occasion. It seemed that a monster held the camera and compelled her to stand there, with a glamorous but fake smile adorning her face.

I also noticed that, after a while, the entries stopped. There were no pictures of her as a middle aged woman and I wondered why. I also wondered why she had never stopped by my home to see me since we all lived in the city of Lagos. She almost didn’t have an excuse.

There’s a strong conviction in my heart that Aunty was one of the unhappiest women ever. After all, she committed suicide. But I longed for Aunty. I longed to have that kind of beauty she had, and that kind of swagger she possessed. She stood tall, like one of the fashion models, with high cheek bones and hollows in their neck that mother called konga

Looking at the photos, I develop the story they seem to tell.

Aunty had a child out of wedlock but was too busy to take care of the child and so the child dies leaving Aunty really sad. In my story, my Mother condemned her for having a baby outside of wedlock and that’s why, Aunty never did come around to see me. They were estranged sisters who were once close.

The story appealed to my senses—and still somehow does, because the more I’ve thought about it, the more truth there is to it even though it doesn’t explain everything. I suppose the bulge of her stomach, in one of the photos, explains this line of reason. In that picture, where she looks or is pregnant, her eyes, smiled but didn’t have that luster. She doesn’t stand with any man either. There are no baby pictures that evidence a child. All the pictures dated after the supposed pregnancy date; show a sad but smiling Aunty.

And though everything about Aunty is still somewhat a mystery, I’m glad I have the pictures, to tell me a story.

Now that I reflect on the stories I have conjured of my Aunty, I realize the power of pictures.