LOGINShare
Bacteria, Morning Breath And Nuts: Chideziri POV
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56When Tobi wakes up, it is barely dawn outside but I've been up hours before, listening to the song of crickets and all those other early morning insects we really can't identify, chirp away.
He yawns, stretches in his big hoodie he worn at midnight because at some point in the course of the night the cold became too cold. Blood dampening cold which seems to drip out of the soaked walls and seep into one's spirits. Me, I was feeling very defiant—I have been lately, no inkling why—so I dozed off in my singlets and trunks; which is why I am so feverish.
Tobi smiles to himself, eyes closed. I cannot fathom what is so amusing until he rolls on to his bed toward mine, then blows a hot mouthful of morning breath my way.
"Gooooooooood!" I curse. "Phommmmmmmm!"
He laughs and flops back on his bed.
Typical Tobi, making a prank out of everything. Once he put tack nails on the Sunday school teacher's chair. It's a mira
Related chapters
She Belongs To The Sky Mending The Spines Of Our Diaries: Chideziri POV
I dial Amanda's line, lying on the fur rug in the centre of the sitting room. She doesn't pick up, but seconds after the first call, a text makes my phone chime.Amanda: HeyAmanda:YouI type: I wanted to say I am sorr—I delete the entire text, re-text: Can we talk—Delete, again.Eventually, I settle for: Wassup.She doesn't reply for such a long time I begin to imagine she's ignoring me, texting others. It turns my tummy, even though I will never admit to jealously.Then, it appears, a pop up on my screen: The sky, chideziri, the sky.What I have to say is too heavy for a text message, so I opt for the closest remedy; voice note. I speak hurriedly, before my courage fluctuates.I say: I was wondering if we could...meet up? And hash out a few things we have to...At the river?The typing notification shows on her profile and I get the abst
She Belongs To The Sky Mending The Spines Of Our Diaries: Amanda POV
It's later into the evening that when we went previously to see the water.The sun is slowly on its way to bed, blacking out of the sky. Soon there will be no trace of its existence, only a scar of pink where there once was a beam. The clouds already look lonely without the Sun.Chideziri meets me at Oro-igwe junction, near where the mallam sells biscuits, cigars, bracelets, anklets, anything legally tradeable, anything not, too. There's two men sitting in front of the shop playing cards, an Olamide song effusing from the corner. They stop to stare at Chideziri and I, at our awkward meeting, because when we meet up we obviously don't know to do, how to react whether to hug, shake hands, smile at each other, do all of the preceding. We settle for a handshake, but any drunk walking by can see that we aren't acquaintances, or casual friends. He keeps my hand in his palm, holds on softly for an extra, extra awkward milisecond. He opens his mouth to say somethin
She Belongs To The Sky Gently, Gently: Chideziri POV
Some nights, it rains so heavily that I have to wonder if going to school the morning after will be possible. But then again, with my type of family, absconding from school isn't possible, even if it were brimstone and rock salt raining down, and not water.Mumsi has been home more this time around; she's there when I leave for school in the morning, and a hour or two after I've returned from school. Not that she's home from the saloon. Nah. I'm thinking from Amanda's Dad's house; which technically is Amanda's house, too. Which technically is way past awkward, well on its way to disgusting. But we take life as it comes now, eh, don't we?.For a bit now, I've ached to ask why she wouldn't tell me what was going on, but the courage eluded me. Like asking an underpaid seamstress to add extra layers of fashion to your clothing's design. Once, while she was in the kitchen, slicing onions into the blender to make stew, I was sitting at the dining table, looking i
She Belongs To The Sky Chantelle: Amanda POV
Chantelle returns to school on an ordinary Wednesday morning, after morning Assembly. A so not Chantelle move. Walks straight into the classroom, dumps her backpack on one of the desks and starts taking out her notebooks, trying to stay unnoticed. Ahmed doesn't let her hide. He screams, "Smallie" from the far end of the room, and then it's as though the whole class was waiting for the signal to swarm her. Chideziri is somewhere, doing senior prefect duties, so he misses it all. The plastic smiles. The how are yous and where have you beens, like they have no idea where the fuck she has been. The sly mentioning without mentioning.Chantelle is a firefly trapped in a glass jar that won't give no matter how badly she wants it to. She stays stiff through it all, not much fluttering left in her, just looking away, as though she's wishing she were some place else. I take her hand in mine when Abe manages to extract her from all those side hugs."Amanda." She croak
She Belongs To The Sky Chantelle: Chideziri POV
Chantelle. Chantelle's here...Chantelle's here and nobody thought to tell me.A small mist blows around my mind, thickening into light-headedness, and my tongue becomes too heavy for itself. Sweat dots my bare palm.She called and called, and called and...called. And I wasn't there when she needed me the most. A small voice in my head tells me it isn't entirely my fault, but the boulder in my chest that seems to keep doubling in size with each step I take towards the class says something else. Says that if I had just picked up that bloody call, then maybe things would have gone down differently.The class is rowdier than a fucking coven when I enter it. Papers flying. Beat boxing. Gossip spilling. A whole lot of green and white blazers. But I am looking for only one person. I spot her at the back, sitting up on a desk, talking to Pascal, her fingers leafing through a spiral-bound notebook,
She Belongs To The Sky Healing Our Hurt: Chideziri POV
With November on its way, the sun shines more often. Heavy veiled clouds ebb to reveal the naked Port-Harcourt sky—so pale it's ashy. It is fascinating how a billowy, lean sheet of gas can conceal behind itself a thing as wonderful and whole as the sun, blotting it out like only ink can.Chantelle is staying with her elder sister, now—not her aunt, correction noted. She goes to school from Eneka, and does not have as much liberty as she used to. Immediately it's five o'clock she has to go. Her sister works shifts at the hospital, and her shifts always end at that time of the day—early evening, stuffed somewhere between late afternoon and twilight time.Now that she's far away from her stepfather, has her sister to take care of her, I thought I'd ask her if she had told anyone else about the episodes, if she'd told her sister. Basically, if she wanted to report it to the police. She only shook her head vigorously. So vigorousl
She Belongs To The Sky Healing Our Hurt: Amanda POV
They hoot, holler, whoop, and cheer after I have finished. They didn't even let me have a break to catch my air. To feel self conscious after the last full-stop. The quietness that's overtaken Abe since Chantelle was hospitalized parts like a drape. He grins approvingly, and waits for a moment before he fills his ears with Nasty C, again. Pascal leans over, daps me up and snaps fingers with me. He tells me, "You get flows die, leave am." Ahmed does a wiggly waist dance thing in his sitting cross-legged pose. Joking, he says it's a good thing that not everyone in the squad lacks the essential sense of art. Chideziri beams at me, so bright, so hard, it's as if he's the full moon and I'm a moonlit night. Chantelle? Looks as if I gave her Mars, Pluto, and a crown and sceptre to rule over both of them.
She Belongs To The Sky Palms Open, Asking: Amanda POV
Sunday, after the lengthy grueling session that has become church, Aunty seed comes to pick me up. Okay, redress.Actually, Church isn't so piss-poor like it used to; with Chideziri in the vessel, I'm not sure it can ever be. He made us relocate to Teens Church ASAP—which ordinarily should feel like a demotion. Strangely it doesn't. The instant I stepped through those glass paned doors—saw how the dust sprinkled rays of Sunday's sun sliced past the windows, how teenagers our age where all about, doing what they wanted, on their phones chatting, making jokes—both dry and good ones—before the Sunday school teacher arrived—I was absolutely certain I would love the place.And I did.Some days, I pause in between doing goofy stuff like shaking it to Cardi B (of all people), singing loudly in the shower into my microphone/toothbrush and performing my poems to the mirror with the shower turned on
Latest chapter
She Belongs To The Sky Eclipse: Lorita POV
Calling Ma to tell her the exam is over will only make her rush me, I think.Today is the one day I don't want to rush things. So when others pull out their phones and gather round for selfies and corny posts such as GRADUATE IN A BIT or BEEN HERE, DONE THAT, I push my phone deeper into the slash pocket of my overall."And we good to go!" my best friend appears just as she disappeared: when I wasn't looking, and all of a sudden.She stretches her arms out for a hug."Ewwww." I dodge her. My best friend, Amanda, only seems to want hugs after one of her many visits to the toilets. There's enough bacteria on the doors alone to kickstart an epidemic."You know you want this hug," Amanda grins, inching closer.The periodic toilet frolicking is normal, the usual. The grinning is new. Whatever Port-Harcourt did to her was good. She even let me read her journal for like six seconds—which is a record. She n
She Belongs To The Sky Eclipse: Abraham POV
I slump onto the grass next to Chideziri. He keeps staring up ahead into the tree, as if he's looking for something in particular, not paying me any mind. "G." Nothing. I shove his shoulder. Still nothing. "Are you going to sit here sulking all day?" Finally, he looks at me. "I can try, can't I?" "It's passing out day, you fool. We had plans, remember?" "Frankly, I don't." He says. I raise a brow at him; he only shrugs. I adjust myself till I am lying on my back in the untrimmed grass. "Well, since you don't remember, I'll wait here until your mermory starts to come back." "You'll be waiting for a long time" "I have enough time." I fire back. "Jesus Christ." Chideziri mutters. "Don't use the name of the Lord in vain, bro." "Guy, g
She Belongs To The Sky On The Wings Of A Flood: Chideziri POV
After four months of complete drought, March releases the first rains.Rooftops turn red with dust filled water, dust that accumulated over the dry season. Children play around under the rain, splashing in puddles.I spend half of most days in second term numb and staring. Staring at the teacher, at the writing on the board that makes no sense to me whatsoever, at the wall clock hung above the marker board. Then I spend the other half of the day noticing I'm numb and staring.In church, I no longer swing my shoulders to the music. I don't listen to J.Cole anymore.She is too everywhere. Too present to be so absent. My clothes smell of rain-beaten leaves, of abandonment, of freshly written poems. How hard I scrub makes no noticeable difference. Weeks after January the sixth, my knuckles are red and raw from trying to scrub her away, and failing to.She is too everywhere.I learn to stay in my room, curtains drawn
She Belongs To The Sky On The Wings Of A Flood: Amanda POV
Queen's is as quiet and sprawling as I remember. Almost too quiet. The pinafores are also as I remember, shining from excessive ironing. But now the shirts are cardboard paper and the weather is always so dry that I have to keep lipbalm in my bag, just in case my lips crack. Again.Lorita's here, and she definitely missed me. I get cupcakes literally every day of the week, and a lot of guilt trip for that one time I abandoned her, went to Port-Harcourt, and while there, lived my best life.The absolute best thing about being back is that Queen's installed a new track. I'm feeling it.Now, I can run.As far as I want, as far as my legs will carry me. So fast that I fly. I close my eyes and there I'm in PH city, with Chideziri, sprinting, the rain right behind us.When I open my eyes, he isn't there.~
She Belongs To The Sky Exodus: Chideziri & Amanda
CHIDEZIRI I kiss her now, because when she's gone, I want to remember how her smile tastes mixed with tears. I want to remember the flayed pink that the sky took on, how rays peered down through clouds. I want to remember the mangroves, their dying leaves forming a glade of rusted confetti. I want to remember the sun, before it was eclipsed. ~ AMANDALeft to Aunty Seedy, suffocation by embracing is how I'd die."Nne, I'll miss you sorely." She says, smothering me. I lose count after the seventh hug. All our stuff will be moved to her house. Sofas,
She Belongs To The Sky Purple Hibiscuses: Chideziri POV
The trees outside my window are almost naked now, burnt to figs by the ever angry sun. In the darkness of dawn, their branches resemble bones. I can't sleep, and being awake staring at the skeleton branches isn't helping, so I take Tobi's hoodie and leave the house. Outside is silent, much like everything else. So silent that when I pass the playround, I can hear the grass whistle. I walk. I walk by the tailors shop, to Close 4 and past. Past the hulking buildings and lonely trees. I walk till I get to the river. Elimgbu river has sunken so low that the stones underneath break its glassy surface. The first time we were here, it was full to its brim. Leaves floated on its surface. Pebbles lived under. It was beautiful. That is the thing about faded glory. It always starts out beautiful.
She Belongs To The Sky Purple Hibiscuses: Amanda POV
January, the sixth arrives quickly, quietly. January, the sixth steals our time. I wake up not remembering what the day means, at first. It comes to me slowly. The night before we leave, the night before January the sixth, I learn two things: there are two kinds of hunger, and one can keep you up all night, staring at the ceiling and missing a place and people you are yet to leave. It is two O'Clock in the morning and disconcertingly quiet when I decide that I can't endure the trashing and turning. I take a book from the shelf that will no longer be mine by evening, purple hibiscus, with the cracks on its cover and Adichie's delighted face above its blurb, and I go to the sitting room that will not be ours by evening. There, I turn on the light and cozy up on the couch. Halfway through the first chapter, feet shuffle in the hallway and Dad emerges from
She Belongs To The Sky Yultide: Chideziri POV
Ahmed is stuck at his mother's shop. But as always, he finds a way to vanish. Abe's on his way already. Pacal posted pictures of the places his family had been to today: cinema, swimming at a pool and Ferris wheeling. The mere sight of the Ferris wheel gave me vertigo.By the tone of his last text, he's down for a reunion. Although he's never been as good as Ahmed at vanishing, I know he'll be there. Chantelle gets there first, to our spot at the river. Her sister's nurse friends visited, and in her words, turned the house into a marketplace. Amanda arrives last. The sun has sunk below the horizon by then and mosquitoes are biting. "I come bearing gifts!" she bellows, stomping down the planks, her footsteps heavy with the weight of five paperbags she's clutching. "Since when did Amanda become Santa?" Abe says. Yet he grabs his gift bag when it's offered.&nbs
She Belongs To The Sky Yultide: Amanda POV
Christmas is explosive. Literally so. The number of fireworks produced in a single annum is alarming. But what is even more alarming is the fact that the effing hoodlums that deadbeat parents in my neighbourhood call their children seem to think that detonating all those fireworks in the street just beyond our gate is cool. On Christmas eve, after one "knock-out" landed on our roof, I reached the end of my thoroughly stretched patience. I stormed out to yelled at a couple of them loitering in the street. All of which I did barefooted.Don't blame me, I was spectacularly pissed.The twenty fifth—Christmas day itself—is spent out of our house and in Aunty Seedy's, with her and Ozo. Dad wanted us to go to Chicken Republic, or one of the many fancy restuarants he made it his business to locate in the area once we arrived, since neither of us can boil an egg.
