Cookies with Christ

This was written by my brother @dami_maverick . Feel free to download

DAMIWRITES

Ever wondered what Jesus would say to you if He came visiting? Ever wanted to discuss with the Lord in the comfort of your home?

Well, Cookies with Christ details a series of thoughts stirred by an overwhelming sense of intimacy with the Christ. It highlights the Father’s wish for fellowship and reiterates emphatically the oneness that the anyone who dares to believe in the Son would receive.

Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship and in this book Jesus comes visiting with cookies to teach you about His Life.

Click here to download

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My months of the year

Hello, My name is Wuraola and this is my 2014 in months review, I have to say that while the year did go by fast enough, it seems like two years instead of one to me because of all that happened.

My January came armed
With battle axes of resolutions
But if there’s one thing sure about my January, its that she listens to no one
Especially not herself and before the month was over, her resolutions were naught.

My February is a three piece suit
Ready for business with little or no time for pleasure or love and turning the required heads of course.

My march was a discovery channel. I found my voice, my poesy, my art back…
My march also found solace in words albeit empty and fancied herself in love. She learnt soon enough.

My April is a bad decision with its ample share of drowning regrets
She gave her most prized away to the least deserving.
She bathed in her tears.

My may is a gladiator,
Fighting off many strikes and still standing
Beautiful still with that broken smile

My June had an August lover,
Friend and editor
Somehow his love for her rattled him
Too much.

My July decided it wanted a Christmas break
I couldn’t bring her santa
But she had tears for supper on Christmas eve.

My August is that sheep who wanted a little adventure.
Young, free, bored, couldn’t be confined…
Oh, she did eat shit I tell you.
After all, didn’t the adage say “the sheep that follows a dog will soon eat shit”?

My September was a tub of regrets
And I took baths in it every night
It had me becoming what I always loathed “distrustful”
But work soon made me too busy to trust or distrust

My October was of stooling and love and convocation.
All great events in my life but still pretty uneventful.

My November was an experience
She could have learnt from someone else’s
But where’s the fun in that?
Deserts and scalding sun beats any camp tales I dare say.

My December is a petulant child
Unwilling to accept the fact that actions though silent are always always
Louder than words
Because all she’s been used to are empty words.
But she’s on her way to rediscovery and she’s learning to “let people love you their own way”

Happy holidays guys, thanks for being a wonderful part of my 2014.

Written by @goldenwura

The good, the better and the happiness.

Zainab:

Her body was here, but her soul was already with her mother in the saloon across the road. There were about fifty reasons she stayed with Mama Supermarket and another fifty reasons she would prefer to stay with her Mother in the Saloon. For such reasons, crisscrossing in her mind, her heart galloped and studied the road that led to her Mother’s saloon. She stood keenly by the glass door of the supermarket and watched as the bikes and cars lazily drove out and into the estate. She observed the sandy road, filled with debris here and there and studied the pale green paint of the complex where her mother’s shop was found. It was the fourth shop. If she did what the adults did, she could get to the saloon in no time.
She made sure no one was looking and the supermarket was busy before stepping out. Yesterday, she had been on the verge of crossing as Her Mother’s apprentice beckoned to her from across the road. But Mama Supermarket caught hold of her, spanked her bottom five times and cursed the apprentice for being the devil in disguise. She had never crossed the road by herself. But it shouldn’t be that hard. She saw the children in pants and worn out clothing do it all the time. She could do it. She ran to the bottom of the slope of Mama Supermarkets house as the shop and the house were in the same compound. She stood, laughing cheerfully. Her glee stained her fair cheeks pink. She was going to do it; she was finally going to do it, something she had never done by herself. And then she ran, hands flying in the air. The warnings of her mother and Mama Supermarket disappeared in the meantime. They were suspended in the air in the same way she assumed time paused for her to cross the road. She wasn’t hit with slaps of guilt from their voices.
When she was safely at her Mother’s saloon, she looked back at the supermarket with a smile. She did good.

*****

My 2014 was an unusual unexpected year. The beginning of the year was filled with promises, especially after staying at home for six months. There was a delightful sun smile that first day of the year as harmattan broke our lips and whitened our skins. There was the hope that crowed with the cock of our neighbours, the animation that stained the darkness of my eyeball, and the faith that held the tree standing strong despite wild winds.

It was with the grace of a repented prodigal I entered the year. My decision to shed off a skin within the first three months was spontaneous. It came off exactly the way a snake shed its skin. Layer after layer after layer gradually came off. With it, I glowed. I became different. I was experimenting, stepping out of my comfort Zone.

I became the exact way innocent Zainab felt on the first day she crossed the road. I felt like a baby sojourning out in the world for the first time. The sun hit my skin differently, polishing it with a glow only it could give.

My workout routines gave me that new confidence; the pleasure of the skin I wore and the air around me. My feet were lighter and I constantly felt elated as a bird in flight.

There was the realization that I was my own person, with a vast land of dreams staring ahead of me and a mine of golden accomplishments, waiting to be tapped into.

I was finding myself, searching the recesses of my mind for who exactly this person they called Ope was. I was stepping away from old expectations of people that had given themselves their own meaning of my name and person. I moved away from my struggle to please them. I stepped away from my goodie two-shoes personality that I grew up with. I started to question things, starting with the so called “good” society proffered as the only good and the questioning the evil they claimed was evil.

I no longer wanted to be the girl everyone wanted me to be; mostly a 5.0 CGPA student like my older siblings. I wanted to be different, with my own accomplishments to be called at my name; for people to identify me, not as being a shadow of some other person, sibling or not.

I’m still in that search. But what I’m sure of was 2014 allowed me to cross that road, allowed me to break that boundary I sought to break. It allowed me to step on stairs I had never foreseen myself.

Everyone must have thought it dangerous for me to step out. They asked with care “Are you sure about it?” But there was the assurance in my heart that if I wanted to do it, I could do it. Applying Zainab’s exact situation, there were fifty reasons I stayed in my comfort zone; (being an introvert, my comfort zone was any comfortable place away from humans.) and there were fifty other reasons I wanted to venture into the world out there, to feel the breeze billowing on my face and speak out opinions and fears; things I only could do in soliloquy that resembled madness. I desperately wanted to be on the other side of the road

The age old statement, you can be whatever you want to be, only started to make sense to me in 2014.

I saw my beauty in my eyes and not my skin. I saw deep in my soul, a quiet fighter. I began to laugh with ease. I began to break guard of my heart and allowed new people in.

I met so many writers this year that have both inaudibly and piercingly, impacted good in my life. I opened myself to knowledge and I learned so many things.
I dealt with certain fears I never thought I’d be able to overcome.
In 2014, I crossed that road they believed I would never be able to cross. I was better, in 2014.

Farouk:

Lots of things irritated Farouk. If Mother didn’t come to clean him up immediately after a dirty duty, it became a problem that sent tears to his eyes. Apart from hunger, thirst and heat, other things irritated him. The inability to communicate his irritation was worse than the irritation itself. The tears that clouded his sight and turned his beautiful mouth into an angry frown irritated him. That grandmother would pat his bottom irritated him worst. He hated that his stomach went into knots when he was hungry and Mother’s breast wasn’t in sight. But he had found certain joys he clung to that could elude him from such irritations. Toys didn’t have that effect. Sucking on his thumb was able to help him totally zone out. Sometimes, it was that thumb that lulled him to bed. At other times, it was that thumb that made him peaceful. With other non obvious irritations, he would cling to his green napkin, it was able to keep him distracted. He’d keep the napkin to his lips or raise it up as he flayed his arms on his vibrating rocker.

Farouk’s habits to supress tears and keep a smiling face are to me, my struggle for happiness in 2014. I knew for a fact that I had to find happiness. Having left heartbreak and trying to leave insecurities, I clung to the thin almost invisible thread that was supposed to act as my happiness seed.

Taking baptismal classes, I also learnt of the joy that came from the Lord and I aspired towards that, on a daily basis. Through inconsistencies in studying God’s word, I learnt of a joy that could only spring from His well; the one that quenched our insatiable thirst. I was the fat kid in the candy store, taking all the candy, tapping into the Love of God.

Breaking out from the status quo of rejection, sadness and heartbreak, I have chosen happiness, a guide in all circumstances; one to ward off all appearances of evil.

As a child, my mother referred to me as a crying machine; producer of tears, yaddi yadda. Not for mockery’s sake but to make me aware of a weakness that threatened to become a part and parcel of me. It wasn’t the usual cry a child gave. In my case, it was tears that lasted hours unending and sent me to my room to be alone for the smallest thing. In 2014, I was able to break up with my worst habit, without a single tear.

This year, I loved and lost, but I know I would love again.

I am still in a quest of sorts, but for now, this is me saying I have found my happiness. Although when I look at the circumstances of my case, it seems happiness found me and not I, it.

So as at December 2014, without having to list any achievements, without having to mention the number of friends I have, without having to mention my CGPA, I can successfully say I conquered 2014, with a smile etched out on my face.

Untitled. Merry Christmas.

I once read that you could tell when it was your time to die. I think it was Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel.

I read that the angel of death would hover around you on that day. Yet, I had no idea that it would be my time to die. The smiling sun in the horizon held no secrets. It spread its wings and embraced me in a hot hug. The chirping birds as they flew around my balcony told no tales of death. They whispered romantic tunes in my ears, insinuating it would be a lovely day. The steep ground on which I stood wasn’t shaky as I assumed it should be when it was my time to die.

A lovely old lady like me had nothing to live for, aside family. I thought about death on a daily basis, catching glimpses of him occasionally with kisses on my cheeks that told me he wouldn’t take me yet; silent promises, really.

The day I died, it would rain heavily, the heavens would roar, a lion welcoming its cub. The angels would sing. The clouds would grace the day with darkness, the sun would shy away from the earth. The moon, its face ashen would finally come out the moment my ghost left. It would be full and strong but mourning my departure. In its eyes, there would be tears.

But today was sunny and though I had my umbrella, I let the sun caress my skin. My broken smile went to my neighbours as I walked past my tightly sealed apartment. I waved my wrinkled old lady hands at the little ones, inhaling the fresh smell of a vivacious new day. I informed Mama Iyabo that I was leaving to spend the rest of the year with my daughter in her home in Lagos.

I rarely ever went on a trip outside the state capital. My daughters always came to visit with their children. But this time, I thought it’d be nice to go to them. I had bags in hand; bags with gifts for seven of my grandchildren. I imagined it a delightful holiday. I pushed my half-white full hair back, as the harmattan breeze sent strands dancing my face. It danced around the nape of my neck—and the singular act, sent chills down my spine; chills that I quickly disregarded and rushed off to board my bus.

I couldn’t wait to see my grandchildren. I couldn’t wait to pinch their soft chubby cheeks and pat their little bottoms. Though, they dreaded my long brown cane that I carried as a walking aid, and an occasional cane, I knew they loved me, as I did them.
I reached the motor park in no time and quickly took my seat in a half filled bus. I must have been the first to spot her. She looked regular but there was something too regular about her regular. She was trying so hard to fit in; a square peg in a round hole. I was a school teacher. I knew when a child wanted to play a prank and this lady looked like she had a prank itching at her fingertips. She looked like she had just stolen a candy bar from the sacred candy box though she tried desperately to be indifferent. I studied her unattractiveness one moment and moved on to other thoughts.
I had a sack load of pineapples, bananas and pawpaw for my grandchildren. I was going to spoil them silly. It made me happy, to think that I had the opportunity to spoil them. Many people didn’t have that. I was grateful.

The bus was taking a while to get filled up, but as I wasn’t in a hurry to go anywhere, I waited patiently. The other passengers hammered on and on about the delay. I wondered what the rush was.

It was just as the bus driver was about to take off, just as he was about to leave the place where his bus had been idly parked for hours that it happened. I had been wriggling my hands nervously for some reason. I had peered at the full sun, it still bore a smile. Then  I heard screams of horror from another bus. The screams pierced my inside. My head shook and vibrated like I was some sort of bubble-head. A headache came through at the same time. Sweat immediately filled my armpits and stained my white shirt.  I was suddenly irritated at myself. I wanted to go home, but it was too late.  It was a new wave of fear that I had never felt in my life that I felt.

In no time, I heard screams from my bus. The heat of the fire gripped me slowly. It was warmth first, then the heat came slowly. There was no means of escape, so I sat petrified. It came to me, a long time friend and I watched it burn my skin as mild horror, covered my lips. I closed my eyes, trying not to feel it. The screams of the other passengers died slowly with them, but I didn’t want to die. I wanted to spend Christmas with my babies and spoil them silly.

I never once thought I’d be a victim of a suicide bomber—a female one at that. I never thought I’d die today, a few days before Christmas. I finally let myself be taken; a shrill scream escaped my lips as my whole was consumed within seconds. Silently, I wished my family a merry Christmas.

My love and sympathy goes out to everyone that has lost a loved one by unfortunate circumstances as this, this Christmas and this year in general.
It’s Christmas, and even though I don’t want anyone to feel saddened by my story, this is reality, slapping us in the face. As you eat your chicken and have a good day with your loved ones, remember to say a prayer for someone out there who cannot make merry as you are.

This is a short, under researched story of the experience of our fellow Nigerians in Dukku Motor-Park, Gombe, Gombe State, on Monday the 22nd of December 2014. 19 were killed and 40 were injured.

My prayers and sympathy goes out to them and their loved ones.

Saving Mankind.

In the spirit of Christmas, I bring to you this beautiful piece.

Angels from realms glorious,

bearing glad tidings of one virgin born,

cradled in trappings of humanity.

Divinity dressed in a cloak of clay;

“Emmanuel shall be his name!”

Forth came great prophesying;

“Governments & ghettos, galaxies & grottoes upon His shoulder”;

He that is called the Hope of Nations, of whom

Isaiah spoke & Micah wrote.

Jeremiah telling of tender mercies and of a

King, our kinsman redeemer and

Light of the world sent from heaven.

Men watching their flock heard the medley. That

night, nearer drew the eastern scholars,

on their camels bearing great gifts.

Pitch black darkness became clear as day.

Quiet was stirred by the Eternal rhythm

resonating with the chords of creation. The

Star shone sending serenity into shepherd hearts;

twinkling, telling of the tale of a baby born, a son given

unto us to unchain and unlock our souls, not

visiting but making his tabernacle with men.

Wild and unrestrained as the lily of the valley, a

Xerophyte; love planted in the hearts of men.
Yeshua! God’s very image and express glory

Zion’s best given to save mankind

Written by @dami_maverick
Blogs at: damiwrites.wordpress.com

Unashamed and Unafraid; Malaika’s story.

They just came to take papa, exactly seven days after they took mama. The day looks the same; the timing is almost the same. The only difference is the fear that is in our hearts this time is greater than the usual fear that lives with us in these turbulent times.

I was feeding the chickens out of my hand when the van, raising dust after it, sped to a stop outside our home. Our half blind papa had struck his walking stick twice when he heard the engine quench from where he sat at the verandah. It was basically a warning for me to run and hide in Mama’s closet. I only turned back to look at him and my little sister, Sara who was seated on his laps and continued feeding my chickens.

If there was something I could do, I would have done it. Neither parents owned weapons, so I was no match for the men in weird army like uniforms, coming out of their vans, fully armed. Yet, I continued feeding my chickens. Last Sunday when they took Mama, I had fought them hard, kicking and pushing at them, but they’d only laughed at me and kicked me into the dirt.

I managed a momentary glance up. Like my mother’s captors, these soldier like people covered their faces with black masks. Only their eyes were visible. They approached me and tried to scare me off. They only succeeded in scaring off my chickens. I stood up and turned to my papa who was beginning to stand up. Sara was thankfully nowhere in sight. She would be in Mama’s closet. It was the agreed secret hiding place.

I wondered what they would do to my Mama. I constantly wondered if truly they were torturing or raping her. It was what papa said they would do to her. She brought it upon herself, he said. Why won’t she allow the war times to be peaceful and quiet for them an average family, he lamented.
It horrified me to think they would do those things to my Mama. But what wrong had she done? Papa said the law of our land was crap. That the terrorist group that took Mama ruled the country, not the president.

I gulped hard hearing those words.
I watched my papa’s creamy brown skin glisten with sweat as the men finally reached him. They had no words for him and unlike Mama’s arrest, in which they’d had to resort to violence, papa’s taking was peaceful. Papa offered himself, hands thrust out. They cuffed it and pushed him down the stairs.

“Malaika, take care of your sister” he said lips trembling. I watched his full lips quiver, unable to cry. Why was I unable to cry? Why was I taking it all in as if, this was routine and normal? I placed a hand over my heart. I wanted to beg the men, convince them to bring back my mother, tell them I would die without my parents.

I heard my sister’s fast footsteps, I heard her sobs. I held her to my side, my chin on her hair. I couldn’t tell her everything was going to be alright like I’d done on Sunday. That would be a lie.
When my papa was finally in the van, his face looking out the netted window, I managed to talk to the last soldier.

“Sir, what about us?”

He gave a short nervous laugh “you don’t want to go where you papa is going. You’re in heaven, stay here” Was it sympathy I saw in his eyes or nervousness I heard in his accented English? No, the hard hearted man could have no sympathy.

I wondered how this, my current situation, and that of my neighbors, who were probably watching the scene through their window was heaven. I wouldn’t blame my hiding neighbors. Any resistance and the resistor would be in the van too with my papa, away from his family to face the fury flames of hell. I took a deep breath and watched as the dust circled after the van even when the van was not in visible sight. I turned to the elements. I watched as the sun spread its wings across the earth. It seemed a massive cobweb, ready to take domination of the world.

A few minutes later, Nkechi’s Mama was on our lawn, approaching us.
“Come,” she said “I would take care of you, everything would be alright.” She smiled sadly “your mama was a good woman. She said things that were true, things that didn’t make the bad people happy. She condemned the bad people”

It was unfortunate that Sara and I would hear a different story in a few minutes. “Mama Nkechi, I told you not to bring these children in here” Baba Nkechi said strolling around his room, bare chest as we entered his parlor. His stomach told tales of beer and drunken nights. It told tales of heavy meals after 8pm. It told tales of sleeping while his mates were working.

“Baba Nkechi, they are my friend’s children”

“oho, why din’t you tell your friend to stop running her mouth like water. Ehn? Abi you din’t know this evil would come upon her, da way she was always going paparampapa all over da place. As if she’s da only preacher in this town. da woman was a dumb fu—’

“Baba Nkechi, watch your language in front of the children” she warned

“I dun care” he said as he settled into a sofa that sunk under his weight “read my lips, I dun care, this is my house—”

“Children, please go outside” Mama Nkechi said

We went outside to sit by the steps with Nkechi. I didn’t know what to do; I just kept the weight of my head under my palms and looked at the approaching night darkness as it covered us with a cloud of doom and sorrow.

I wondered, thinking it weird that, if only my Mama had shut up, we won’t be facing this. I considered it strange because we’d been groomed to speak up. Mama taught us that there was nothing wrong with having opinions. I wondered who wanted Mama’s life for saying the truth. The person must simply be horrible.

The net that covered the front door of Nkechi’s house suddenly came to life as it was snatched open and slammed, and then snatched open and slammed again. Mama Nkechi was running after Baba Nkechi. “Where are you going to, there’s a curfew, you’ll get yourself killed”

He hissed and looked at me with blood shot eyes. “Now look here boy, I dun want you in my house no more. I dun want them to torture me as they’re doing to your goddamned mama. Do you know that they cut off her ear just yesterday because she was preaching Christianity? They’re making her convert to their religion, and it’s either she breaks or they kill her. You know that right?” he laughed, mocking me gently, staggering off like a stallion in a game. He wanted me to believe him. He was guessing. He didn’t know what was happening to my mother. No one knew.

I bit my lower lips, and let the tears flow down. I watched as it hit the floor and then covered my face in shame. Nkechi took my left side. She held my hands tightly. In another life, she’d have been my girlfriend. I tried to smile, but the more I tried, the more I cried. Mama Nkechi ran inside the house, her frustration, obvious.

“Your mama is a good woman” the older girl said. Usually, I’d have looked down at her maturing breasts, distracted, or studied her lips, enchanted, but today, my eyes saw her soul. “Your mama was helping us. We are a minority group in this area, we Christians. I’ve read in the books that the war is against western education and corruption. But I think otherwise. Teacher from down the street says this war is against Christianity. She’s right because they’re constantly killing and kidnapping our kind. Despite this, your mama was unafraid and unashamed, speaking at the market square and public roads. She was speaking out for all of us. My papa is a coward, I’m afraid. I want to be like your mama”

“Why did they take my papa?”

“It is part of the game of torture” she said carefully “i’m suprised they didn’t take you and Sara. You must be lucky. unfortunately, the luck won’t last. they would be coming after the two of you soon.”

She squeezed my wrist

“isn’t there something we can do” I asked

“the police don’t care, the army have a hard job catching this terrorist group, the pastors would pray, as they should, the president is giving silly excuses like he has or had no shoes so he cannot do his work, I don’t know.”

I looked at her disregarding the humor.

She looked back with a gentle smile.

“Be prepared Malaika. Be prepared”

****

My little way of celebrating human rights day (December 10th) has been to write this story and share with you Chapter 4 of the 1999 Constitution, Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The following are fundamental human rights enshrined in the 1999 constitution and accorded to all Nigerians. –

1. Right to life – Section 33: Every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life,save in execution of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria.

2. Right to dignity of human person – Section 34: Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of person and accordingly no person shall be subject to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment.

3. Right to personal liberty – Section 35: Every person shall be entitled to his personal liberty and no person shall be deprived of such liberty.

4. Right to fair hearing  – Section 36: In the determination of a person’s civil rights and obligations,every person shall be entitled to fair hearing.

5. Right to private and family life – Section 37: The privacy of citizens,their homes,correspondences and telephone conversations  is guaranteed and protected.

6. Right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion – Section 38: Every person shall be entitle to freedom of thought,conscience and religion,including freedom to change his religion or belief.

7. Right to freedom of expression and the press- Section 39: Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions.

8.Right to peaceful assembly and association – Section 40:Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons or political party.

9. Right to freedom of movement – Section 41: Every citizen in Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof.

10. Right to freedom from discrimination – section 42: No Nigerian shall be discriminated upon on the basis of his community, ethnic group,sex,place of origin and political opinion.

11. Right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria – Section 43: Every Citizen shall have right to own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria.   12. Right against compulsory acquisition of property – section 44

Can you point out one or two contravened human rights in Malaika’s story?

Day 11: Cecilia

Jeremiah's Scribbles

I stumbled on her blog a few months ago.

loved it so much, and now she’s here.

@Opeeee_ is gifted.

________

I still do not know why I moved in with her. One day I was staring at her fat buttocks and the next, I was in the house with her talking about pepper soup and what other things Emeka liked. We were both his girlfriends. Why did we become friends? I ask myself most times when I wake up and I see her next to me on the bed. Did we become friends to share the pain of losing our loved one? Mother didn’t like her. She said her buttocks were too fat. Mother said she wanted to do evil to me. “Nne can’t you see it?’ she asked many times. But I couldn’t see it. Of course, it was strange that we were friends. It was strange that…

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Embracing Change.

Based on a true story.

I always dreaded growing up. For some weird reason, I’d rather be the child of my mother and the son of my father, the one they slapped and spanked. The one they yelled at and sent on errands. I’d rather be that than my father. I’d rather be that, than be tied with shackles to the disease of adulthood, working and not playing under the scorching vengeful adult sun. I’d rather roll in the sand and drink cold zobo with noodles and cakes instead of drinking beer and eating kolanuts. I didn’t want to obey the strict rules of dieting that came with adulthood. Don’t eat meat, don’t take salts, don’t eat egg…

I didn’t want to grow up, because I didn’t want to die. Death, in my little head, happened to adults alone. I had watched baba Tope die when I was seven; one of the most excruciating times of my life. I’d watched as his body was carried out. Though my face was buried against my mother’s skirt, one eye was taking it all in, out of curiosity. I’d listened to the relatives accuse Mama Tope of killing her husband. I’d heard the story of how they shaved her head and made her drink the water that they used to bathe her husband’s corpse. Mother said, worse things have happened, but I couldn’t imagine anymore.

So I made up my mind, to be child-like. A strong conviction filled me when the Sunday school teacher, in the dirty small shed, we used for Sunday classes to talk about Jesus, said, Jesus liked only children. I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to grow up. Every other person wanted to grow up fast. Temitope with the cornrows from the class across mine complained about her meager pocket money, couldn’t wait to be earning hers. Olamide from the next house constantly said “When I grow up, I wouldn’t be wicked to my children.” They dwelt constantly on the different things they would do, while I kept to myself the fact that I didn’t want to grow up, I didn’t want to do anything different. I didn’t want to hear mother say I’d outgrown any of my clothes. I wondered if they knew that when they grew up, they would eventually die.

I was ten and I wanted to be ten forever.

But something happened that forever changed my thinking. That made me know change was the inevitable. It was the tenth of May. I remember that day clearly. I remember the smell of divine paint that was the constant pungent smell of our home. I remember that the lady called iyawo was already frying akara and making koko for her customers. I remember tracing my hands on the rough wall of the corridor, and dragging my worn out brown school sandals through the badly cemented grounds. I remember, smiling sheepishly as the sun shone down into my eyes, and I remember that it was just one moment of dizziness I felt, before I slumped to the ground in front of the compound, in my school uniform.

I would imagine that the woman selling food not too far from where I fainted was the first to see me. I would imagine her scream, frail and short. I would imagine a crowd over my face, hitting and slapping me. I would like to think that they’d poured water on my face to revive me. I would imagine that the smartest of them, a girl who I’d crushed on, Nkechi would have given me mouth to mouth. I would imagine that my mother’s name was shouted and when she heard the calls as she sewed my little sister’s pinafore, that she sped like a hare, tracing her hands through her untidy weavon, not bothering to tie her wrapper well. I would imagine the dust that rose from behind her slippers as she ran from our room to where I was on the floor. I would imagine her panic stricken face and the tears that welled up in her eyes as she saw me there, helpless on the floor. I would imagine these things and more with satisfaction.

I should have died that day or any other day in that month. A cold, hard and wicked death. Mother constantly said with reference to that bloody day, “God did not allow my enemies rejoice over me” When she mouthed these words, I would visualize ghastly dark figures in hooded black gowns, sipping red wine, laughing a horrendous laughter.

They told the story with so much drama, as if I wasn’t there when it all happened. In reality, after I was resuscitated, lying on my Father’s bed, all I felt was pain. I was there, unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to see well. The pain grew fast, spreading through my limbs, mixing with blood, smothering my spine. My heart thudded with the exact same rhythm that the sticks drummed against my head.

I constantly felt like I was six feet beneath the ground, covered with all that earth that wouldn’t just disappear. I was pushing the earth away with my fingers, digging ferociously, and just exactly the same time I got some breathing space, the earth resurfaced back, even filling up my nose. At that point, I would cough and cry for help.

My mother said she never left my side. Doctors came to see me she said, but I fought them off with my fist. It was then Iya Precious and Mama Nkechi, suggested, maybe, just maybe my problem might be spiritual. My father, the most unspiritual man ever, he who had even boldly condemned my mother for going to church, acquiesced. He’d said that I was throwing up the drugs I was given, refusing to be touched by anyone especially doctors; maybe, just maybe an evil spirit had taken residence in me.

An Ifa priest was invited, courtesy of Baba Toyin, father’s colleague. Incantations that sent the whole Christian neighborhood, into a fit of dry prayer and fasting took place. The man spewed incantation like he was sipping diluted Fanta through a straw. Three days and my skin burnt like I was Moses’s burning bush.

An Imam came, I vomited on him and that was the end of his visit.

The pastor from Mother’s Pentecostal church came. He was full of hope; he said no one would die on his watch. I, even in my oblivion, began to feel some form of hope. I listened to his word; I even knelt when he forced me down to the ground. Kneel before your master he screamed. My parents and I were to fast and pray, how nice for him, since I wasn’t even eating in the first place.

At the end, he told us, that God had told him I was going to die and there was no hope. “Atone for your sins my friend”

My common sense somehow surfaced about the same time. I somehow began to grasp the fact that I could die. Even in my dire state, I was aware that I was going to die. I was going to be nonexistent. I was going to leave the world as I knew it. Who did I offend anyway? God? My parents? The hooded figures? I watched my mother sob, a leaner woman after one month’s suffering. I watched my reclusive sister through the film that covered my eyes. I watched my father’s face, even more hardened than usual. I didn’t want to die, but I started convincing myself it was an easier fate to die. Was there anything I could have done to stop death from visiting my home? I was just a child; couldn’t death pick on someone its own size?

I could sit up sometimes, at other times; I was so sure that it was the exact moment death was going to take me. I thinned. I was all bones and hardly flesh. I was curled up as a ball in the bed, shivering despite the heat.
One night, hope and faith completely dead, I found myself sitting up and drinking Garri and eating moin moin. Mother laughed, and whispered some words to Fathers ears.

Recounting the story, Mother said that she’d told him I was definitely going to die. She said her Mother had shown signs of strength the night before she died.

The next morning, I was all of a sudden not on the brink of death. I was led outside to sit in the sun and the hopeful journey to recovery started, that exact day. It smelt as usual of dirt, gutters and dustbin trucks, of jollof rice and baby soap—it smelt of hope. Hope wasn’t in fact dead. I Inhaled deeply and smiled woefully. I could have died and I’d done nothing with my ten years. I laughed a horrendous laughter.