The two room apartment we managed to get was in one of the busy streets of Alaba where empty sachets of water and transparent nylons – both white and black – competed for spaces inside the ground like weeds fighting to outgrow roses, only that I was never able to tell which was the weed or rose.
It was with a fleeting feeling of dread that he rang the doorbell. He could hear his boys running to the door and his heart skipped a beat. Remember what she said, he told himself. He took a deep breath and broke into a smile when door opened.
I prayed that my guardian angel visits me and stay with me till I am first in everything, I prayed for a sign and then I heard a knock on the door. For the first time I finished saying my Rosary and I felt like all my prayers have just been answered.
The she suddenly stopped crying and shot the professor a dirty look. He returned it with a straight face, willing her to continue and I could almost imagine him making up his mind to tell the truth whether she liked it or not.
I was supposed to return to campus the next week so I decided to confront her. I wanted to do it when dad was not around because I knew if she wanted to spill, she might not be comfortable around dad. This was a woman to woman talk.
The story of my birth and all its activities was aired on local and national TV and sprinkled on the pages of several dailies. To crown it all, I came out a beauty. I inherited my father’s blue eyes and my mother’s flawless skin. My parents couldn’t have been more happier at that moment.
Mama always avoided beating me on parts of my body that could arouse suspicion. She usually aimed for my bare back and the back of my legs. I always wondered how exactly I made mama’s life miserable.
‘God fix me, what’s wrong with me, why I’m I thinking of sex, half the time? can’t I forget sex exists till I’m married? I want to be a Christian, please help’.
It’s going to be fine, my dear. Things happen and we ask God why, we have every right to ask. It’s very painful but we just have to believe that God knows best and he is working things out for our good.
It is Friday, the sky is gloomy as if it is in collaboration with the mourning too, today is the funeral service. Your father has been charged and transferred to white house prison where he awaits trial, you still don’t go to visit him or think about it.
They say he went out one night with his pee partner Jimi, but on their way back he fell and slammed his head on a stone. Jimi told the school authorities that he didn’t know Nedu wasn’t behind him that night. The next morning, they found his bloody body on the corridor. He had bled to death.
I was still in an awe when I was jolted back into reality and the time now was 5:47 PM and two nurses came to move my body to the morgue. I walked out from the Hospital this time not through the doors but through the walls. I spent my time on the streets watching as people went about their daily business
James was my elder brother; he was two years older than me. My father had just died, and we all sat in the blindingly white waiting room in the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital—James, our Aunty Grace, our help Agnes, and I—waiting for my mom. Aunty Grace had called her immediately it happened.
Joseph Onuchukwu
Uzzy
CeeCee
Victor Emmanuel
Rawwlin