Elsie was buried the next day. A little wood carved as her coffin. I would always remember the tender smile and care on her face, she was the first love of my life and the first cut is the deepest. I didn’t cry I had learnt how to live hiding my own feelings. I watched as she was covered up in the sand, I forced the tears out from my eyes but they just would not fall out.
I cursed myself for not being able to cry, the fury in my heart eating deep into my veins. “She was a good girl” the elderly woman said to me.
Elsie was not just a good girl, she was something else, I would use the phrase “exceptional” when it came to her. She literally had this “crazy” attitude that jingled all through my heart.
Moving on without her was very herculean though we had only known for months of war, I still felt that she was the best person to have been in my life. I could remember our conversations together, how it made me fee
A poem dedicated to “blood and water” by Osuagwu Alexander.MY SINWhat actually led me hereWhat have I doneCould I have saved himWas I scared or stupidAm writing to free my guiltBut reading this scriptLiterally pricks my conscienceAll I did was watchBut I feel my ignorance was a sinAnd it haunts me dailyI’ve always been waryBut this blame was mineIt was halp past nineOn that cold dark nightA scene pictographed in meMy eyes met him afarHis heels were in motionHis eyes were redFilled with undeniable fearHe was limpingHis body filled with shiveringHe kept on strugglingBeing aware of his doomed fateBecause of his faithAn opposition of religionWhich innovated destructionAn environment where ethnicityHas disrupted ethicalityAnd im
Blood and Water is a story that points to a civil war in West Africa, Nigeria and the hovering hunger for survival by two teenage boys. Hope you enjoy. Completed version with no coins for now. Make sure you drop your reviews...***Rumours of a WarA proverb says that when it rains everyday, there is a bound of sorrow within the rain. Maybe we were not that rich but we were happy or we claimed to be. The only problem was that I was no longer in school. I think I liked it that way, school stress was so hard especially now that I was in the junior secondary.“Eze there is no water in the house, “that was my mother’s voice, she was a school teacher but since the “defendants” started protesting last month, all schools have been closed. The defendants wanted more social amenities for our town and more finance to aid our development but the government did not heed to them. There is a rumor that they want t
I woke up on top of the mat in my room which I shared with my younger brother. I was subconscious of how I had gotten to the room. Mother must have carried me inside.I thought I should be the one taking care of her. I remembered my father and ran off crazily waking my brother with the shuffling noise. Mama was at the backyard boiling water in the separate thatch used as our kitchen. “Good morning mama!” I greeted, she stared at my direction, nodded her head and kept on with what she was doing. I was really filled with curiosity, I wanted to know where my papa had gone and if he was back. “Mama, is papa back yet?” I asked waiting patiently for an answer that I didn’t get. She kept mute and this heightened my anxiety. “What if something bad had happened to papa, to my papa” I thought subconsciously. My mind kept on imagining crazy things, Papa shot dead lying in one of those forests. Our community was no longer the way i
It has been a fortnight since the soldiers took papa. We’ve not heard from him, we’ve no idea if papa is alright. My mother had been torn with anguish, she rarely ate nor did anything at home except sleep and cry.This was the time for me to be the man of the house, to handle the responsibility that papa had bestowed on me, it was not easy as anticipated, I didn’t even know where to start.I got some firewood and started to cook inside the kitchen. “Ikem” I called while he replied from inside of the house and made himself visible.“There’s no water in the house, please go and fetch some water” Ikem did not complain he took the gallon and went off to fetch water, I was surprised that he had obeyed without complain, I kind of expected some resistance. I finished preparing food and served Ikem some then took some to Mama.“Am not feeling hungry” mama sighed.“You’ve barely eaten a
Edmund Burke once said and I quote, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."We may seem to have acted but we were still the minority in the state.The morning was serene probably the first time in a long time to have a dawn rise without the soldiers gallivanting our streets, without the blaring of fear lurking around in the corners of the streets.We were packing our luggages to flee the community on that specific dawn. Everywhere seemed to be peaceful but there was this humongous stench of fear violating the whole geography, this seemed like the right opportunity to flee.Such degree of calmness was ironic to the real commotion. The villagers were also fleeing the destination like us, we had decided to travel in groups for security and precautionary reasons. Mama placed the huge bag on my head as we trooped out quietly with some of the other villagers. “We will be crossing the border by 3am hopefully,” pap
The stars seemed to have lost their luminating colours. A foul stench of the apocalypse violates the biosphere. Two months since the ordeal where we had last seen papa. the community is unreasonably quiet, the soldiers have returned in their multitude to restore order in our community. They came back prepared. They had modernized weapons such as an armored truck and sophisticated guns which sounded like a granite.Hunger had torn down homes. Sicknesses were prevailing in the jurisdiction, we were cut off from the outside world, the media could not project our situation.They projected us as enemies in their daily news cast, projected us as anarchist and terrorist who can only be quenched by violence.Everyone had failed us; the media, the government, the outside sources which my father had believed could protect us. We were not only subdued but forced to watch hunger and death tear through our vanjing homes.We were eaten up by kwashiork
I covered myself with a grey wrapper which I saw on the canoe. The man who had rescued me seemed to be in his mid seventies. He was quite kind to me – a character which seemed rare to come by these days.He seemed to be a fisherman. He was quite very optimistic though he had made no catch yet since, he’d just keep on being in high spirits.“Are you a runaway?” he asked. He had a very weird voice.“No” I replied with a gesticulation.“Did you want to drown yourself?” he queried again “You can just dive back and I will act like am not here” sense of humor, huh. I crossed a smile across my face “I want to get my sick brother some drugs in the city” I tried to defend myself from his peering, inquisitive gaze fixated on me. He nodded his head for some time, he seemed to be digesting my story, probably to discover the fallacity in my tales. “The town is on
I followed the van till it got to its destination. I thanked my stars since I had been quite sapped out to continue, my legs were very weak, aching but I just covered the pain in my face.I was just in time to see Papa being escorted out with the rest of the prisoners, he was almost unrecognizable. A man who had once been great was now similar to a psycho living under the bridge.I followed immediately trying to breach the distance. Papa was looking scraggy, his beards overgrown, his hairs tattered, his eyes diluted, he was bleeding, probably over beaten and tortured by the soldiers. His face was no more the smile I had been familiar with, his eyes were red, he had grown very lean – the part which seemed to change the most was the despair written all over his spirits.He was a broken man, one who had lost everything, a role model who could not even inspire himself to heights he had projected. He turned to me, gave me a faint smile, nodded his h
A poem dedicated to “blood and water” by Osuagwu Alexander.MY SINWhat actually led me hereWhat have I doneCould I have saved himWas I scared or stupidAm writing to free my guiltBut reading this scriptLiterally pricks my conscienceAll I did was watchBut I feel my ignorance was a sinAnd it haunts me dailyI’ve always been waryBut this blame was mineIt was halp past nineOn that cold dark nightA scene pictographed in meMy eyes met him afarHis heels were in motionHis eyes were redFilled with undeniable fearHe was limpingHis body filled with shiveringHe kept on strugglingBeing aware of his doomed fateBecause of his faithAn opposition of religionWhich innovated destructionAn environment where ethnicityHas disrupted ethicalityAnd im
Elsie was buried the next day. A little wood carved as her coffin. I would always remember the tender smile and care on her face, she was the first love of my life and the first cut is the deepest. I didn’t cry I had learnt how to live hiding my own feelings. I watched as she was covered up in the sand, I forced the tears out from my eyes but they just would not fall out.I cursed myself for not being able to cry, the fury in my heart eating deep into my veins. “She was a good girl” the elderly woman said to me.Elsie was not just a good girl, she was something else, I would use the phrase “exceptional” when it came to her. She literally had this “crazy” attitude that jingled all through my heart.Moving on without her was very herculean though we had only known for months of war, I still felt that she was the best person to have been in my life. I could remember our conversations together, how it made me fee
All is fair in love and war, desperate times calls for desperate measures. Our survival was based on our innate ability to strive. The skies cried out at such malefaction, the heavens thundering as if it was trying to curse the oppressors.When it started, we expected it to end but it trudged on, we were violated by the aftermath as it tore through our once peaceful homes. Some of us danced to the tune, carrying guns to fight back what they called “injustice”. What about us who had fragile minds who could not stand to shed blood.We ran, being entangled between groups: one group branded us as “saboteurs” because we did not join in on the fight, they came to plunder on our survival retrospecting on the fact that weaklings and feeble minds like us had no reason to exist.The other group were solely aimed on destroying our social existence, they spat at our religion, abhorred our culture, tearing through to terminate every fragment of
I had been in the camp for a month but the past one week had been very different, we had been attacked ruthlessly, sometimes with heavy bombardments dropping and tearing through our camp. Each new day we arose, we prepared our souls to meet the almighty creator and when we slept, we snored with one eyes open and our ears alert to any rapid movement. The heavy bombs had torn our homes to shreds, death tolls were increasing daily, tragedy ridiculing everything we had imagined possible.Even Elsie could not stand it, her face became very sullen: sometimes when there was no way that a patient will survive, she would shed series of tears.“What’s the meaning of life?” she asked me one day “After all, we will all die” she had seen enough, dripping blood, amputations, hot chases. I could see the fears in her eyes, she might have been good at concealing but not this time.“Elsie…” I called gently “Don’t say su
The sun woke me from my deep slumber, my eyes still hazy. I pulled myself up, took my walking stick and continued straight through the path. My father would normally say “Seeing the sunrise shows that the day will be good.” I needed help or else my fate was undetermined. I could see a distant smoke, my eyes which were socked in desolation became agile as it sought for this source of hope. I broke wild into this specific direction, the journey seemed so far. At long last, after trekking for such a long mental time, I got to my destination.My gut was right. It was a small camp, crowded with people. I glared in awe, they seemed so peaceful as they went on their daily business. The women were taking care of the children while the men were carrying hoes and machetes into the bush. A sign inscribed “Welcome to the home of refugees.” They had created clustered homes for themselves, living on the support and protection of one another. The entrance was b
My eyes remained unflinched at the boy who seemed to terrorize me. His teeth was broken, his eyes were red probably because he had been boozed, he was bare bodied with a lot of marks on his body.He was probably younger than I was but the sound of war retards the concept of age. He was carrying a gun which weighed more than him.My mind kept on perturbing me “Take your chance”, I knew the consequences of trying what my mind had picture, I also knew the outcome of being weak and defenseless.I pondered – trying to decipher the right step to take, my mind solely concentrated on the boy. My height was an edge over him which seemed to make me his superior, he raised his hands to the trigger, I was sure that he would shoot, my idea seemed to take control over me. I clenched my fists very hard, folding it then released a heavy punch, he was taken by surprise as my fists jammed his face, racketing through his skull and eyes.Fists
What about their promises? They said that they would protect us but now it seems they are just selfish.I stood there with my brother staring at the doom about to be spelt out to us.We had been wrong, they were not going to be here until it’s over, they would desert us like overgrown weeds in a dead man’s farm.They were different, they had to be, how could they just leave us prone to the evil omen which will surely befall us.We had been wrong to trust them, doomed to think that they were going to stay forever. We could have known better but we decided to be ignorant – at least till it all went away.Fear crept into our minds, all our strive washed down the drain. How do we thrive on, struggle to survive now that we had no means of meeting even our physiological needs.The women wailed aloud, throwing themselves on the sand with tears of agony, the men were filled with resentment and despair, the question on everyon
It had been a month since we came to the refugee camp. The camp was a big catholic church being protected by a group of soldiers from ECOSOC.The camp shattered many people, probably about a thousand. It was not like home but we had learned to live in rough conditions.Food was shared every night by the humanitarian workers, we were locked inside the church compound being warned of the catastrophe of stepping out from the eyes of the soldiers.Who cared!No one went out, at least we had the protection of social workers and we believed that the war was not going to disrupt our terrain. “I Believed”… what else could we do but believe that darkness would not struggle us, we had suffered enough, lost loved ones, homes and even our own mentality.All we just wanted was for the war to be over, to be free at least from the scowling prowls of Hades.We were fortunate to be alive. Where we?Probably
Nelson Mandela once said “They can take all that we have, break our bones, make us bleed but what they cannot break is our spirit."We slept in front of mama’s corpse, we could not move forward, strive for survival which was only futile. My mind captured with so many dark thoughts “Why not they kill me too?”What was the real value of life – Nothingness.I woke to find that the moon had covered the skies, the atmosphere very serene. I turned my gaze to the direction where my mother lay lifeless on the grass – streek of silent tears clouded my eyes.“God, why!” I soliloquized. I could not comprehend why our metaphysical creator and protector would desert us when we really needed his solace. I felt this feeling of void space left porous in my heart. A part of my mind was mocking my existence, it kept on deepening the scar in my heart.I felt so rejected, dejected – we had been subjected to t