Uju

To anyone looking at them from without, they seemed like strange bedfellows. She was small and when he stood beside her, she seemed smaller still. When I first met them, before the great trial of their lives began, and laughter had become a stranger, he used to joke about how he was her tree, providing shade from the sun. She would respond by rolling her eyes and mumbling about trees without leaves.

It was not only the difference in height that made them seem so incongruous. There was also the fact that she was round like a ball and he was thin and spare. He wore glasses but her eyes shone and when she laid them on you, you felt like she could see your secrets.

The mis-match didn't stop there.

The first time they walked into my office I immediately knew who was boss. She talked a mile a minute but he was a man of few words and they became even fewer after the great trial started.

They are sitting in the same seats they had sat on the day that I had first met them. It has been four years. She is still as beautiful and as round as she was back then. She has weathered the storm better. Only her eyes and the lines on her face tell tales. Everything else is instructable. I turn my gaze to the man but even before I do I can feel his pain. It enters the room before him, announcing his presence. It enfolds him like a shell but unlike shells, it does nothing to protect him.

He only comes here for her, to be the tree that towers over her and shade her from disappointments, to be the one she can lean on after hope has failed.

I smile at him but he does not smile back. We share a moment while his wife continues to talk about everything except why we are here. I know he blames me for his wife and her continuous effort at hope – he has said as much. I am the reason Adannaya continues to hope. I am the reason she finds her way here faithfully every third Thursday of the month. I am the reason she drags him here for this charade, this dance that starts with hope and ends with disappointment.

But not this time. This time, the dance will continue long into the night and when it ends, it will leave behind joy. I wait for her to miss a beat before interrupting

"The results are in.” I say.

Adannaya nods her head and I can see the beginning of fresh hope in her eyes. Her husband frowns at me. He folds his arms, protecting himself from a heart that has been broken too many times.

“Zee, what is it? Tell us; it can’t be worse than anything we have been through these past three years.” Adannaya says. She is sitting on the edge of her seat now and I can see the excitement coursing through her.

“I don’t know what you are excited about Adannaya. It has been four years actually and not three, four years Adannnaya, since Zee and his friends in Europe and America and Singapore started poking us like lab rats. I don’t know what is different this time.” Dike sneers.

“Dike Okoli!!!” Adannaya scolds. She turns to me and her fair face is flush. I am not sure if it is from anger at her husband or from hope. Her hands are trembling and I am glad I am not Dike.

“I am sorry, Zee. It has been hard on all of us, especially with Uju gone and all. Dike doesn’t mean any of it. He appreciates all you have been doing for us. Even when we couldn’t afford the procedures, you did them for free. And Uju’s gift; we can never thank you enough. Dike is just having a hard time at work, that is all.”

“I am still in the room and can speak for myself.” Dike says but I can tell the fight is gone out of him. He loves her with a love that is like the love I once had. He would give her the world if he could. He would fight his way into that place in heaven where the children were kept and steal her one if he could.

It is their love that has kept me going these five months.

“Adannaya is pregnant. Two months pregnant. It worked guys, the last procedure worked.” I say calmly even though I have wanted to jump and dance ever since the lab called me this morning.

They are both quiet; Adannaya holding her hand to a heart that must have been going a mile a minute, Dike staring at  the floor, shaking his gray head, as if, if he shook it long enough, he would wake up from this reality that casts him as a father.

They say nothing for the longest time. I don’t know whose tear is the first to fall but soon it is a free-fall. I don’t know when or how they find their way to my side of the table and wrap their arms around me. In four years, we have never hugged. It occurs to me that even with all the knowledge I have  amassed over four years about these bodies that now embrace me, I do not have the slightest clue about what it feels like to hug them. I feel their tears mix with mine and water the marble tiled floor of my office. Someone reaches out for the tissue box on my table. I am not surprised that it is Adannaya. She takes her time; wiping away mine and Dike’s tears like we are children. She will make a great mother. I have always known this.

“We will name her Uju.” Adannaya declares when we finally pull ourselves together. They are leaning on my table while I sit in my chair.

I nod and smile.

“She will be your daughter as much as she is ours.” Dike tells me and I nod again.

I don’t know if it is the tears or the fact that Uju is still gone, but I suddenly feel very tired. I don’t know what I was hoping for, but it wasn't for the emptiness that still assails me as I stare at the picture on my desk.

“You both should go home.” I tell them.

They share a look and say “No!” at the same time.

We all laugh.

“Well you have to go home sometime. Besides, Eloho has a ballet show that I need to go see.”

“Can we come?” Dike asks. I look at him, amazed at how quickly good news can change a man. “We need to practice at being parents anyway for little Uju.”

“You both don’t even know if it is a girl.”

“She will be.” Adannaya says. The fire is back in her eyes and she winks at me.

I laugh and the emptiness isn't as bad as before.

“No, you guys. I need some time alone, really. I will be fine. Go home and celebrate.”

They finally leave. I had lied about the ballet show and they knew it. Eloho in a tutu? That would be the day, I smile, thinking of my  rotund child.

The bottle of cognac hidden in my drawer is almost empty but it will do.

“They seem happy, don’t they?” I ask my wife.

“We did a great thing, Zee.”

“You did a great thing, Uju. I just did my job.”

A year ago, my wife found out she was dying. As a her final laugh in the face of death, she asked me to harvest her eggs for Adannnaya. We had all become friends somewhere along this road.

“You should go home.” My wife tells me.

I haven’t been home since Uju died in this hospital. I am afraid that if I leave, I will leave her behind.  

My daughter lives with her maternal grandparents, orphaned by death and by grief.  I see her often but retreat to my rehab as soon as she starts to remind me of her mother.

“It feels like you never left, Mrs Eburu. You were always on my case to stop working and come home.” I tease my wife.

She smiles and moves closer to kiss me.

“Maybe that is because I never left. Maybe that’s because I will always be with you wherever you are-whether in this hospital or at home.” She whispers in my ear.

“I love you.” I say to her as I let myself breathe in her scent.

“And I, you. Go home, Zee. Go home and be a father to Eloho. Go home and help Dike be a good father to Uju. You have spent yourself healing others. It is time to heal thyself, o physician.” My wife says to me, her lips lifted in a teasing smile.

I squeeze her hand and she squeezes back. When I wake up, it is dark and raining but I take my wife’s advice and go home anyway.

Song of the day: Lagbaja - Never Far Away

Amara

You have just gotta love Funminiyi's style of story telling... this is an excerpt from his story 'Amara'.

Please read and leave a comment to encourage my friend and egbon in this story telling business... :)

They sat beside each other on the cold cement floor, their legs stretched out in front of them.

Amara stared at her legs. They had grown fat and lumpy, like a woman’s own - a woman who had given birth to four or five children. And even though her neighbor was farther gone, Aniekan’s legs on the other hand were skinny like the rest of her. Her shoulders were bony too, extending into hands like tree branches. Her arms rested on her big stomach, their long green veins evident, straining against her flesh. Her head was hung on one side, an absent look in her eyes.

“Are you okay, Aniekan?” Amara asked. The other girl did not respond. She just blinked. She had not spoken for almost two days now. She just sat there and stared, and blinked.

Amara got up from her sitting position and looked out of the window above them. It was noon, and the sun sat lazily in the sky like an old woman. An occasional bird crossed its smiling face, punctuating the laughter in the compound beneath with loud squawks. Amara eyed the teenage girls. They were all busy, washing clothes, sweeping, clearing debris, chatting and laughing.

Here was a nightmare.

She had thought that it was only children who could find happiness in dark places. But she had come to find she was wrong. Here she was, in a place where happiness had been wrested from the hands of every inmate, yet, life went on as if all was well.

She wondered what was going on back at home. Were they looking for her? Or had her father, after the first few frantic weeks, come to terms with the idea that his daughter was missing and with a shrug, retreated behind his endless newspapers? What about Ada? She was sure Ada would have gone on with her life, with her provocative dressing and the reckless use of sexual allure to fund her life and education.

The girls were really having a good time. She could barely hear what they said because the louvers were shut, but one look at Oma, the tough round girl with unmade wooly hair who sat on the pavement told Amara everything. Oma who rarely mingled with the others was smiling indulgently at the chit chat of the younger girls around her, filing her nails and spitting intermittently into a gutter.  Her spittle was startlingly white, compared to her charcoal complexion.

“See this mumu? Na one thousan’ them take fuck you?” Oma guffawed, pointing the piece of metal in her hand at Chinenye, an awkward girl with a long thin face guarded on either side by hair weaved strong and erect in black thread. Chinenye’s back was turned to the window and Amara could see she was bent over a bowl of clothes, washing vigorously. The water in the bowl was a dark color and had little lather. Beside her gritty heels that were marked with Y-shaped lines like cracks in a wall was a mashed remnant of green bar soap.

All the other girls laughed at Oma’s jokes, more out of deference than funniness. They all showed Oma a lot of respect because she was the oldest there. They said that she had produced up to four - all of them male. She was carrying the fifth

 “I have saved some money. Hundred thousan’,” she had told Amara on one of those rare occasions she had been in a chatty mood. “After this one, I will leave and never come back,” she had said as they sat on the balcony downstairs and watched a shooting star.

“Did you see that?” Oma asked, pointing.

Amara squeezed her eyes shut and palmed her boiling forehead. There was a turbulence brewing there, and sometimes she felt as if her brain was in a vortex, and her skull was readying to cave in, to implode on her

“But, aren’t you worried? Amara had choked, ignoring the other girl’s question. “I mean, about them, that you may never meet them in the real life?” Her second hand was cradling her own swelling stomach. An inferno had traveled down through her chest down there. She was burning all over. Tears fell freely from her eyes.

Oma looked at her, then away. “Well, sometimes...” she had replied, pensively. She had looked as though she wanted to add something else, but then had shrugged it away. “You should do the same too. Have two or three, save some money, then go an’ start your life afresh. Obodo bu igwe. Life is hard, nwanne’m. You have to use what you have to get what you want.”

It was funny that was the same thing Ada had said to her that night, six months ago.

Choosing to Live

Your body hates you. This much you know. It is something you have always known. It is something you do not need to be reminded about.
 

For who better to tell of the many times your body has let you down than you yourself, the victim? Of the numerous  times when as a little boy it had chosen the shame of urine over the fear of monsters that lay beyond the door of your bedroom and guarded the path to the bathroom? Of the blinding pain it inflicted on you, crisis after crisis? Of the many diseases it has embraced with open arms over the years-malaria, typhoid, cholera, mumps, measles, asthma, diabetes- the names sounding more complicated as you aged. Of the day it succumbed to fear and the heat of Lagos as you gave your daughter's hand in marriage to a man you knew would never make her as happy?

And now, this...

You listen to the doctor go on about new research. He suddenly looks so very tired-like a man who has given the same speech too many times to too many people and no can longer hear himself. You want to tell him it will be alright but your body again refuses to do your bidding. So you stay silent and let your mind wander instead.

You think about your grandmother, your father's mother. You remember that time your father had dragged his reluctant city living family to the village to visit a woman as far removed from their world as night was from day. It was so long ago and yet you remember the events of those days like it was yesterday.  

You remember seeing her for the first time and falling hopelessly in love with the bald head and wise old eyes. You remember how she had looked at you suspiciously at first; and how when you had bowed in greeting, she had caught you before you could touch the ground. You remember how small her hands had been but also how strong. How she had held you to her and began to sing. Later, your mother would tell you, the song was your Oriki.

“What is an Oriki?” You had asked your mother.

“It depends. Sometimes, it is a song of praise. Sometimes it a celebration of an identity. Other times it is a prayer.”

“Which one was mine?” You had asked your mother as you watched her dole out your prescriptions later that night. Flagyll for the tummy aches. Ibruprofen for the joint pain. Chloroquinie to fight malaria. Calcium tablets for your bones.

She had looked at you for a second or two before saying.

“Take your drugs and go to bed.” As you slept on the soft mattress, you had wondered if the way your mother’s eyes glistened as she looked at you had anything to do with stars that were a little brighter in the village. You had hoped with all your heart that it was the stars and nothing more.

You had spent hours sitting with the old woman in the days that followed; watching her weave her baskets, listening to stories about your father that you were sure were made up but you loved anyway. It was she who told you that you were an Abiku. A child who didn't want to live.

"But I want to live." You had said to her, coughing as you said the words.

"So why then did you die four times already?" She had asked you smiling.

It was from her that you had heard of the ones before you. It was from her you finally got an answer to the question you had peppered your parents with for so long.

"Can I have a little brother? Or sister?"

It was from her you had learned the reason why you were born in Nigeria even though your parents had always lived in London. They had come back because the old woman had insisted on birthing you herself. She would see to it that you did not die like the others had done in Charing Cross, she had promised your parents. She would birth you with her own hands and you would live, she assured them. And so they had gotten on the next plane they could find and put their faith in the old woman.

 It was your grandmother that told you everything and when she was done with telling, you said "I will live, I won't die this time."

"I believe you." She had replied. "Now go and drink the ‘agbo’ I made for you this morning."

You had made a face but acquiesced. If drinking the bile inducing 'agbo' meant proving to her, to the world, to your body, that you wanted to live, then you would gulp it down by the gallons.

You look at the doctor now and smile. He knows nothing about you. Even though he has known you for years now, even with his fancy tools, complicated diesease names and all the information he has on your body; he knows nothing about your grandmother or the 'agbo'.

You interrupt him to say.

"When do we start treatment?"

You can tell he is caught off guard and you almost laugh. You miss your grandmother and her bitter elixir at that moment, her easy solution to living well.

"Olu, it is Alzheimer’s. I am not even sure where to start from. I have to consult with other doctors. There are no cures for old age, Olu. You know this, you are a doctor yourself. You can stop teasing now. There are some medications of course but there isn't much they can do to halt it. All we can do is prepare for it."

You smile again at him and tell him you would like to go home now.

The drive back home is short and you are thankful the traffic has chosen another part of town to belabor. Your driver is quiet and you want to ask him if everything is alright but then you know the answer to that. You still remember regaining consciousness to find the poor boy crying like the world had ended. You can tell he is still not over it and so you let him be and watch the world from your car window.

Your daughter is waiting at the door when you arrive. You wonder who it is that called her. Probably that pesky housekeeper of yours or the driver-it would explain why he kept mute throughout the drive. Her hair is starting to gray and you are taken aback by the realization that she too has not escaped the disease of old age.

"Well , well, what did the doctor say was wrong?" She asks wiping her hands on the dish towel she is holding.

There is a reason you named her ‘Yewande’; for that old woman who had made you feel like living was worth doing. ‘Yewande’ to remind you of your promise to live.  'Yewande’ for the nights when you wanted to give in and give up to the pain. ‘Yewande’ for the good times, Yewande for the bad times; Yewande,an ‘agbo’, a ‘cure’ for every season.

She is smiling but you can see the worry in her eyes. It is alive and breathing; waiting in the shadows, ready to take over the rest of her and leave you with nothing to remind you of the amazing woman you have created. You don’t want that. You want to remember her as the reason you have stayed with your body all these years, even though it has let you down one time too many.

“He says you need to start minding your own business and to leave this old man alone.”

You take her hands and kiss them- they are small and yet so strong, just like the old woman's. She blushes and it warms your heart to know some things do not age and never grow old.

“How are the boys?” You ask her.

“You can ask them; they are here too.”

"I should wander away from home more often then. I try it once and the whole football team is here to see me.”

“Don’t joke, Baba mi.”

You smile at her and want to ask her forgiveness- for the tears she will cry, for the emptiness that will soon replace where you now stand, for the diseased and old body you will leave behind.

“The doctor  says hello and to make me some agbo for the malaria."

“Agbo??? Since when do medical doctors prescribe ‘agbo’? You better not be lying to me, old man. You know I will find out. ” She says as she kisses you on the cheek and takes your hand to lead you inside.

You hold onto her small, strong hands for as long as you can because you know that when the time comes and you have to make your way from life to death, from one world to another, from everything to nothingness; the only way not to lose your way will be by holding on to the hands that guided you into this world, the hands that saw to it that you did not die, the hands that saw to it that you lived.

Song of the day: Jason Nelson - Nothing Without You

The Liberation of the Tortoise and other poems

So these days I have been listening a lot to Alysia Harris and the Striver's Row. This is the result of that. i am trying my hands on poetry again. Here are two wacky ones.

And of course they tell a story. I am all about the stories, people. :)


He waits till you are breathing again before he steals your breath away

He waits till your tears have dried up before giving you new and beautiful reasons to weep

He waits till that moment
When you think it is safe to come out of your shell
Before he breaks it,
Before he breaks you,
To pieces

So that there is no more hiding
No more shells
No more heavy burdens to carry through life

You are no longer a tortoise
You are free
You are his
And you steal his breath away,
Time after time.

GPS

 

Her skin is the color of nighttime and though I have been here many times,
I find that it is still easy to get lost
In mountains and valleys and waterfalls

Time is my GPS
And so I spend it tracing her body with my fingers
Seeking directions to truths that were never lost

But there is never enough of this thing called 'time',
And soon another night finds me lost
In ancient streets of warmth
In dark rivers of joy
In valleys laced with milk
In her midnight skin...


Song of the day: Lorde- Royals
 

Social Media and its Pitfalls

I am putting in this quote late, probably everyone has read this already...but better late than never

“You used to be much more..."muchier." You've lost your muchness.” 

Alice in Wonderland

It has been a while since I ranted on here.

This has been a long time coming... Y'all have had it coming.

And feel free to tell me I am pot calling kettle black...

Like everything we lay our hands, Nigerians tend to take something that was meant for good use and find a way to make bad use of it. Social media, Twitter specifically has not escaped our leprous fingers.

From ordinary people pretending to be all that they are not
From uncrowned princes crowing in their pajamas about lives lived in their castles
From unknighted preachers telling you what to do and how to do it and failing everyday to swallow their own medicine...
From writers with no shame pining for votes

The list is long and boring.

I stumbled upon a blog recently and I was so enamored by the writer. This was the real deal-tackling real issues and sharing experiences. And then Twitter got ahold of the blogger. Today, said blogger has become a Twitter celebrity. I resisted the temptation of following for a few weeks and then I did. It took a few weeks for me to retrace my steps.

Why do we need validation? Why do we crave love from people we might never meet? Why are we so hungry for things what isn't ours in the first place? And in so doing, we soon loose the essence of what it was all about in the first place.

Today, very few real people blog anymore. What we have now are preachers who have never been to Bible School, writers for whom writing is all about gaining popularity, relationship experts who wouldn't know real love if it slapped them in the face...Name it, we've got it!

And I will be the first to say I am guilty. I can smell crap on myself too.

Even on here, i find myself writing stories i know people will like, stories that are not me and ring hollow, just because I want people to say 'oh you are a great writer.'

But I AM a great writer. I am validated in myself and the feeling I get when I read my own work. I don't need anyone else to tell me this. (Feel free to tell me though. :) )

This weekend some guy copied me on his 'Letters to my Daughter' or something like that. I read it and all i could think is 'what an insult?" to fathers everywhere. I asked the said dude if he was a dad, if he knew what it was to birth a child and watch that child grow away from you and you can do nothing about it? if he knew that fathers went to bed sometimes crying for their children? If he knew that fatherhood meant fear and courage at the same time? (i dont know all these things either -lol)

Guess what, dude has no child. And yet he writes "letters to his daughters". These letters, according to him are based on his experience as a relationship coach. I swallowed my next question but i am sure you can guess it.   

I am so tired of the rubbish I read on blogs these days.I am so tired of people telling me to hold my tongue and not say anything. I am so tired of conforming. Why can't we stop for a moment, breathe and ask ourselves why? Why am I doing this? Is it for the praises or because I will get no sleep if i don't type out the words burning in my heart? Is it because I bear a  burden for the unsaved or because I want to be called a 'man of God' or whatever titles people use now? Is it because I love my neighbor or because I love myself and the sound of my own voice? is it because I love what I do or because you love it?

I am a great girlfriend, an amazing sister, a loving daughter, a friend that sticks closer than a sister, a smart business woman, an evolving great writer (lol), a Child of God. I do not need anyone's validation of any of these facts. It is like asking for validation from the next person on my skin color. Don't I know I am black? Don't I know who I am? Why am I waiting on your approval to go ahead and be me? Why won't I stop, breathe and just do me and let you jump into the Thames if you don't like it? Why do I open myself for definition from people who wouldn't know where to start, from people who have no sense of worth, from people who go along with the crowd always?

I am Kiah.
I am a Season's beginning
I am a lover
I am a warrior
I am more than what you say I am
Who are you?

This one is for all the amazing bloggers who have kinda let the mediocre ones take over. Come back! Yeah, you, T.Notes, to start with. Then maybe we can Muse to come back too. Stay away from Twitter though- there are Mad Hatters thereon.

Song of the day:  Jewel - Hands

Poses

This was written by one of my favorite writers and an amazing human being...He says I inspire him and he is only trying to be like me... i think he is flattering the crap out of me. He has his own style so jst in case you don't like my work, hopefully you will like his. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the one, the only, ooluwafunminiyi . 

He had been talking about it for a while, and when he was excited about something, he became a child again - sated only by the fulfillment of his fantasy. 

It was their son's first birthday. He said they could not make any noise about it, for obvious reasons. Instead, they'd have a sunny day out in the park, just the three of them, and cap it off with a photo shoot at the new and expensive studio where the creme de la creme took powerful photographs with state of the art cameras and printing machines. He talked animatedly of the poses he would strike with his son. She watched him handle the child like a pearl while he dreamed up pose after pose; she eagerly agreed with the poses he tagged 'fantastic', and laughed indulgently when he discarded others. And when their son began to cry from all the activity, she had stuck a nipple in his mouth before asking his father to show her the poses he and she would strike.

There had been a new light in his eyes when he described those, a light that held hope in its beams. Laughter rang out in her little apartment that night, the first time in a long while. Long after the baby had slept and she had placed him in his Graco playpen, they practiced their poses under the flickering lights of the muted television. It felt a little awkward at first, their bodies touching like that. He had not touched her since she had broken his commandment. The sun rose in her heart when they held hands and locked eyes across the miles that stretched out between them. Finally, they practiced 'the pose of the shoot' - as he called it, the one in which she laid on the rug, her head propped up by a palm, and he got in behind her.

'This is a risky one,' he laughed, his voice suddenly husky, his breath hot against the nape of her neck.

They knew they were going too far when they stayed like that a little longer than was necessary, 'refining the pose'. It wasn't long before she felt him hard against her back, before she felt her skirt lose its tightness against her stomach - before she helped take away what was left of his inhibitions.

The made love like a prayer, a word less plea for forgiveness - for her desperate attempt to trap him with a child, for her inability to bear the thought of losing another woman's husband, that he forgive himself also for cheating on his wife, and for the many other wrongs he had done to her and perhaps, countless others. Her passion implored him to stay with her and with their child. Yet when she had paused and held his face between her palms, earnestly searching for answers, any at all, he had kept his eyes shut, refusing to let anything through except a recalcitrant tear drop.

And for that rare moment, no matter how much she was hurt, she had been eternally 
grateful to him.

The following morning, they had gone back to yesterday. He was gone before she awoke. Her world was empty once more, the harsh silence of the apartment interrupted only by the cries of her baby and the ricochet of the curses and threats they had traded in that room.

It was also not surprising either when three days later, at the photo shoot, he had taken gleeful pictures with his son - and when they had gotten to the part where she was supposed to join in, he had refused, asking her to take her pictures alone with the baby.

She was stubborn too. 'Let us go then,' she said, and picked up her hand bag, her voice quivering, her eyes brimming with tears. The photographer had never met a stranger couple.

That evening, she left the apartment that he had rented for her and her baby in a part of town where he was sure his wife would never have found them. She had no clear idea where she was headed. She would let her destiny work that out.

'Where ever we go, your father will never find us,' she smiled sadly at her babbling baby as they melted into the night.


Song of the day: Ellie Goulding - Burn

Babajide

This one is for the grandfather I never met, the one with skin the shade of anthills, the merchant, whose gap-tooth I have only admired in fading photographs, the one people still refer to as 'the good man', Babajide..



It was the 4th day.

Aduke could hardly believe it. It seemed just like yesterday the midwife had first placed the child in her arms. And yet it had been 4 days. 4 days since she came to full knowledge of what it meant to love. 4 days since he looked at her with those eyes of his and etched his place into her soul forever.

He had filled out a lot since he was born and even though everyone said he resembled his father, there was no doubt in Aduke's mind that the child was his mother's son.

His chin was hers. His smile, the long fingers that latched onto her breasts as he fed, the anthill shade of his skin; it was all her.

His eyes though, his eyes were Baba's.

3 more days before they could present him to the world. 3 more days and she wondered if 3 days would be enough for the shriveled old man sitting in front of her.

"Aduke, are you still here?" Baba called to her.

"Yes Baami, I am still here."

He sighed and spat out the kolanut he had been chewing, his sightless eyes depending on his ears to help him determine the right direction for his spittle.

"Go home, my child." He said when he had rid his mouth of the kola.

"Your child will be waking up soon and seeking his mother's breast. Go home."

"How can I go home, Baami? The naming ceremony is in three days' time and yet the gods refuse to pick a name. "

"Aduke, you must learn to be patient and trust the gods. Your son will have a name by his naming ceremony. Go home to your husband, my child and trust. Go on now"

Her breasts were starting to ache and she knew she would get no respite until the mouth of her hungry son had found them. She sighed and made to get up from the mat. It was hard to believe the frail old man sitting on the mat was her Baba. The same Baba that had swung her high over his head as a little girl. The same Baba that had made a place for her on his shoulders and in his heart even though she was an unexpected child, a child of his old age, a child the gods had sent to renew his youth like he loved to say. Aduke's breasts ached even more and this time it had nothing to do with the child and everything to do with the old man. She got up from the mat and took both his hands in hers.

"Don't cry, Omo Ola, Omo Ekun, Oriade mi, you are a woman now, you know, with another's tears to tend to. Be strong, Aduke. Your child will have a name. You will not be ashamed."


The old man waited till he was sure his daughter had walked far enough. It was then that he turned towards the direction of his gods.
They had never failed before when it came to giving him names for the children. They had not failed now either. He had a name. He was just not ready for the destiny it would bring.

He smiled to think of Aduke. She would have made a great priestess- she had a good heart and a determined soul, the tools of the trade- but her name had not suggested such a destiny. Ifamuyide, his second son would do just fine. He would miss her most of all of all his scions.

He closed his sightless eyes and took deep breaths before speaking.

"I am ready whenever you are, my fathers. I am ready for my destiny."

When the 7th day finally arrived, they would name the child 'Babajide', for his grandfather, the chief priest whose funeral was the same day.

Song of the day: Corinne Bailey Rae - Like a Star

Blank Canvas

He would finally make it to bed sometime before dawn. She would feel him get in beside her and turn sleepily towards him so he could hold her. She need not have bothered. He would have held her anyways. She was his anchor afterall, the one thing that held him down. 

It would take some time but soon enough, the kissing would begin and then the clothes would come off and the dance would start Her eyes would be wide open by then and even though the room was still dark, she would look into those tortured eyes and long to erase the fears they reflected.

He went limp before either of them had a chance to get the release they sought. She closed her eyes and waited, shutting them so he wouldn't search for answers that she didn't have. She held on fast to him with her thighs, letting him breathe and come back to her in his own time.

"I don't think I have it anymore." He said to her.

"Hmmmm..." She answered.

"It has been more than 2 years since I last painted anything worthwhile."

"Yes." She answered

"It isn't like I lack inspiration. I am inspired all the damn time. But what is in my head never comes out right on the canvas. I feel like a failure, like a one-hit star, like this was all a mistake. This moving to New York to pursue my dream. This adventure that haS slowly become a living nightmare. I have lost it, Alero. I think we should just go home to Baltimore and start afresh."

"Hmmmm..." She responded.

"Are you even listening to me?" He asked the woman underneath him.

Her eyes were still closed and she shifted slightly to bear his weight better. The movement sent a jolt down his spine and he found that he was suddenly ready again. The dance continued from where they left off. Only then did she open her eyes and let him know it was okay to drown his fears in her.

When it was over and their heart rates had calmed, she began to speak.

"Have you ever thought that making art is a lot like making love? Sometimes it is slow and sometimes it is fast. Sometimes, it is nothing - a mere reaction to pent-up hormones, and sometimes it is everything - the only way to show how much you love something. At the end of both processes, there is always a release. It is why a lot of people have sex. For the release. For the end. They look forward to the end of a thing and so they forget the right way to begin. So there are rapes, faked orgasms, unsatisfied parties and so on."

"You paint like most people make love. You paint for an end and so you do not know where to begin.  You keep looking forward to the painting that you forget that there is a certain beauty to the process, to the foreplay. Maybe you need to start looking at blank canvases as beginnings and stop seeing them as the paintings you want them to end up as. But what do I know, I am only a girl who hasn't orgasmed in months now."

She kissed him then and went to make ready. She had rounds of the children's ward today. She liked children a lot- they were in no hurry for endings.

When she got back that evening, he would meet her at the door with paint in his hair and a brush in his hand. He would lead her up the stairs and watch as she clapped excitedly over the three paintings he had completed in that one day. Even when she kissed and said "I have never seen anything more perfect," he would only be thinking about beginnings and the many blank canvases that were waiting on him.

Even when he would get his first reviews in the art section of the New York Times.
Even when one of the three paintings would fetch them more money than they could dream of. Even when she would tell him she was pregnant and other fathers-to-be would have been ready to paint a clear picture on the blank canvas of their minds of what their child would look like.
Even then, and forever after, he was content to stare at blank canvases, at her flat stomach, and enjoy beginnings as much as he did endings.

Song of the day: Sheryl Crow & Kid Rock - Picture

Stormy, with 0% Chance of Rain

Everyone came to help us move. Even Uncle Ansa whom I had not seen for a long time. I still remember the night you and he fought and you slammed the door at his exit. Mama had tried to calm you down but you had gone into your study and shut the door on her too.

I was supposed to be asleep but the argument woke me up. I came downstairs and cuddled up to Mama as she waited for the storm clouds to pass.

That was the way it was with you, Papa; stormy and cloudy, but with 0% chance of rain.

Mama says I have your temper, and your big heart. She always smiles when she says that. I smile too. 

I do not want to leave this house but Mama says we must. It is strange how it is the things that give me comfort that keep her awake at night. I heard her talking to Uncle Azu last month, when she told him about us moving to Nigeria.

"Every time the door shuts in this house Azu, I imagine it is Ifeanyi in one of his moods again. Everywhere I turn, I see him; his smile, his dance, the bushy eyebrows he would never let me shape, his glasses, his brandy... Every sound I hear, I imagine it is a harbinger to his laughter, his terrible singing... Every man in uniform I see, I want to run to. I want to ask him if he has seen my Ifeanyi, if he can tell me where to find him. I can't get away from his memories Azu, not in this house, not in this country. And I need to. I need to for my sanity."

I listened to their conversation and cried. I went to the study and found the book you had been reading. It was a book of poems. Your place mark was on W.B Yeat's "An Irish airman foresees his death".

We don't have much to pack but it takes hours for us to be done anyway. Mama told me the other day that our things will be sent to Nigeria on a ship, just like the ones you spent most of your life on, just like the one you died on.

"Why can't we send it by air" I asked her. "What if something happens to this ship too?"

She had burst into tears at my questions. It was just the two of us at home that day so I counted my toes a thousand times and let her cry.

We will spend a month in Uncle Azu's house and then it is off to Lagos where Mama has family that can help her 'cope'.

She sold most of the books but let me keep the one with the poems.

They tell us, you died serving your nation but didn't you always say you were Nigerian at heart?

They tell us we should be proud and hold our heads up high but they forget sadness weighs heavy.

They tell us you were one of the best sailors the Navy ever had but what does that matter to a 12 year old boy who loves planes and needs a father? Or to his widow who will never again sleep in her husband's arms?

I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above.

My father met his fate somewhere among the seas below. Does that make it less worth it?

"Maybe someday you will join the Navy too, son and make your father proud," One of the men in uniform said to me as he shook my hand, on the day that we buried you.

"I think I’d rather be an airman." I informed the man.

"Whatever you are, this country will be honored to have you."

I miss you every day, Papa, and when the storm clouds gather and the rains start to fall, missing you gets harder. It makes me miss the storm clouds with 0% chance of rain.

I will be an airman so I can stay close to those clouds.

In balance with this life, this death

Song of the day: Fergie - Finally

It Rains When You Dance

So this one is for Mr Kiah. 

For you my darling, a thousand times over...


When I walk into the room, she is still writing. Sheets of paper lie forsaken all around her chair. The waste basket is brimming with even more scrunched up balls of paper. I wonder about the trees they came from. If there ever was a house deserving to be haunted by the ghosts of trees, it is this one. 

My wife is a writer. 
She prefers to be a writer the old fashioned way. 
This translates into weekend shopping lists with requests for pens, pencils and of course, more dead trees.

I can tell things are going better. The unruly curls that had previously formed a halo around her head are now tucked behind her ears. She isn't nibbling on pencils and pens like she was when I checked in a couple of hours ago. Her head is cocked to one side and her lips are moving silently. She does that sometimes; reading aloud to herself to see if the words fit.

Behind her, the sun is out and the rain clouds have moved house to some other part of the world. I can hear the sounds of children coming out of houses that can no longer contain their excitement. It is the first rain of the year. There will be little ponds on the road to explore and splash in.

She taught me to dance in the rain, to move in sync with the rhythm of the earth, to open my mouth and drink from heaven, to break the rules, to be more than the world expects of me.

It will break her heart to know it rained while she stayed in this room and put more trees to death.

"Has it stopped raining?" She says to me. There is a half smile on her face. She has caught me longing for another dance.

"You knew it was raining?" I ask her in return.

"I always know when it is raining."

She sighs and stands to stretch her tired body.

"Come, come, let's dance." She beckons to me with hands stained with blue ink.

"It isn't raining." I say matter of factly.

"Do you  dance when it rains or does it rain when you dance?" She asks winking at me.

I glance outside the window and it is darker than it was a little while ago.

I hear the screams of the children as they seek shelter inside the houses they had been set free from only a few minutes back.

I walk to my wife and hold her in my arms and we dance to the rhythm of the rain.

"Is it a good story?" I whisper.

"Who knows?" She answers.

I breathe in deeply and am overwhelmed by the scent of all that is right with the world- of trees, of paper, of ink, of rain, of someone who is as in love with me as I am with her...

We dance and it rains.

Song of the Day: Elton  John - Can You Feel the Love tonight