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Call Me Pessimist: Chideziri POV
Huling Na-update:
2024-10-29 19:42:56I wake up in the middle of the night. My room is so black that I can only make out the door frame, because of the light bleeding in from the sitting room. The door is open a fraction; it has no bolt and can't be locked.
I hear the noise of voices disrupting the late night's delicate noiselessness. I creep closer to the brightness and I hear Mumsi on the phone, laughing. Laughing at what whoever is on the line is saying. At two effing thirty O'clock in the morning. I go back to bed, close my eyes, and try to catch some shut eye. I don't catch a single wink. Turns out it is not possible to sleep with my mother giggling in the room next door, like a teen girl in secondary school. I remain painfully aware of her glee, till I can't anymore.
I fish around the head of my bed, take my phone and switch it on. There's like two hundred texts, a hundred audios, and stickers lining the walls of my DM from Men Dem alone. Since Amanda was added to the group chat it
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She Belongs To The Sky Call Me Pessimist: Amanda POV
"Amanda get dressed. We are going out." Dad says. He's standing in my door way fully dressed. That string of English words that scatters my plans for the entire evening—which include lying in bed, a dogeared novel in my lap, smiling at pictures on my phone and letting YouTube suck up my data with a straw. Having a parent like mine is always difficult, because except when he's extremely happy—which occurs every five blue-moons—he always sounds the same: at the very brink of grumpy. It's hard to gauge his mode. I dress up quickly, struggle into my pocketless jeans that has become firmer around my thighs in the last month, slip my feet into slippers and leave hurriedly. Dad is waiting for me in the dining room, on one the onyx-black dining chairs that is too small for his body. Yellow and cider glint on his neck. It seems he couldn't keep Mom tucked away for that long, eh."You are ready?" He asks. I am sure he's really a
She Belongs To The Sky We Are Departed: Amanda POV
Friday comes too soon.Why does friday come too soon? Apparently, because Friday is a rare chance for me to embarrass myself aka stutter on stage in front of the entire damned school.Chantelle breezes past me chasing someone in the hallway, barking threats. Abe, Ahmed and a few others are at the back drumming up some noise, rapping both terrible unworthy-to-be-heard lines and okay-lines. Chideziri is at the staff room; he always is on social-gathering Fridays. I asked why once. He only shrugged. Ishaq is braiding Chinonso's hair. It is more brown than black, the ends straight while those wooly strands at the roots are curled stiffly.Mr Harrison—the Literature teacher's name if you were wondering—insisted that I'll be the person to represent the group after he'd heard only two of my poems.Yes. You got that correct.Me.Me, myself and I.Me, who doesn't know wh
She Belongs To The Sky We Are Departed: Chideziri POV
It's finally Saturday.Which means I have to get to Amanda's house. Which means I have to get kitted up.She invited me over this weekend to hang out—and whoa, whoa, whoa. I know what you must be thinking. Don't even dream about it.I bring Chantelle along for security purposes; somebody who'll keep me in check. Someone who won't let things get out of hand. Amanda doesn't blink when she answers the door, acts like Chantelle was always in our day's agenda—which I immensely appreciate. She enfolds her in one of those full on girl-to-girl hugs which ordinarily should be awkward, but isn't. But she doesn't kiss me, although I know her Dad is supposed to out."Come in, come in." She says.You'd think us showing up in her crib is an everyday thing. We kick off our footwear on the porch and enter the house; Chantelle's Nikes, me, palm-slippers. It has been getting warmer these past few days, making November taste like m
She Belongs To The Sky Peerless: Amanda POV
Esther is the scrawny girl from poetry. She's in SS2 Art's class, and daily, she heys me when we cross paths.Her teeth are crooked like mine, her smile is crooked like mine. But with gaping spaces between one tooth and the other; unlike mine."Senior, have you written anything new?" She always says.I think she already knows that I have, and that I am writing another.Cyril too, winks at me during combined Maths and English classes. And when he catches me aloof, penning a poem or some other thing that pops up in my head at the hardcover of my note, he grins; as if we share a small secret.Nightly, Tonye sends voice notes to me. She's huge on spoken-word poetry and although her poems are spiel and boring in a Shakespearean-ish manner, I adore her voice. It is a violin—reedy and young and nectarous. I fall asleep to her most nights.Side Note: If Chideziri hears that...Mr Harrison—the li
She Belongs To The Sky Peerless: Chideziri POV
The house is asleep. A graveyard that has cricking crickets for epitaphs, shadows for tombstones and silence in place of spirits.Everyone is asleep, too—everyone being me and Mumsi.I keep awake, counting the asbestos on the ceiling.One.Two.Three.Four.Five.Six.Seven.Eight.Nine. Ten...The result of napping in the day.Yellow light spills in from the hallway.The drowsy silence makes the creaking sound of a door in the hallway echo louder.Footsteps pat the floor. And I wonder, if like me, the person who own those footsteps couldn't sleep a wink. If that person, like me, has been counting the clock's tick-tocks hoping to fall asleep before dawn.The footsteps go down the passage, fading. I turn in bed and snuggle my pillow, sleep finally whispers to me. My bedsheets are hot with sw
She Belongs To The Sky Melancholia: Amanda POV
"Are you sure you are fine?" I ask Chideziri. For the hundredth time. "Do you feel sick or anything? ""No." He says. Then he goes back to ignoring all of us.Chantelle presses a palm on his neck. He shieds away from it. She frowns deeply."Is it girl problems?" Abe asks. I know he can feel the searing heat of my glare on his profile.''Or is it your time of the month? Like menstruation."We all stop to look at him. Even Ahmed is dumbfounded he'd crack such a joke now.Chideziri actually half-smiles. He never does that when he's like this."Leave him alone. Before he'll enter Avatar state now and deal with everyone." Pascal says. Chewing on a football sized orange I can only guess he robbed off one of Little feats many trees."Not me," Chantelle says. "He's my baby.""Amanda, are you still sitting there?" Abe jokes.I snort. I'm not scared of Chideziri and Chantelle'
She Belongs To The Sky Too Many Cooks: Amanda POV
Because we need a break in transmission, I invite everyone over to my house, Saturday, instead of Pascal's.Everyone being the squad.But first I'm supposed to meet Chantelle at the market. Tank market.She's standing beneath a squat billboard, relaxed on the mast when I see her.She beams at me; stark white teeth and unusual deep purple gums."Hey. You got here earlier than me. What was chasing you from your house?" I say.No answer.She's on earphones beneath the hoodie, and it's only when I get really close to her that I notice the almost imperceptible bop of her head."What took you so long?" She yells. I can hear the music from the earphones, loud and hip-hoppy."State matters." I joke.Again, she yells, "What?"This time she takes off the sound-impending earbuds out. Though reluctantly."Do you need a megaphone, or will a mic do?
She Belongs To The Sky Too Many Cooks: Chideziri POV
"Wetin dey sup with your people na. Where are they?" Tobi says, on Saturday evening, when he bursts into the house unannounced, looking mad stressed.By my people, he means our parents.He's obviously in the dark, so first, I tell him, "There's rice and stew in the kitchen, but you may need to warm the stew."He will need food in his stomach when I break it down.Then I tell him, while he's wolfing down rice and cold stew. He was too hungry to wait, I think.I tell him everything.How hot and damp and sweaty we were.How stunned I was a hour after we had been at the station, blue and black uniforms flaunting past.How all the police did was make Daddy hand over the spare keys he had, and how with a musty weed smelling breath and wearing Awolowo-spectacles, the D.P.O said to Mumsi,Madam, are you sure you want to file this complaint. Why don't you go home with your hus
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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.
