Monday morning at the assembly, that is where Mrs Epele tells us about Ralph: Raphael Ebigide. He was attacked at Eneka, late at night when he went out to the market atrhe second junction to buy stuff.
Ralph is one of the big boys in SS2 arts class who has made close friends with most G's in our class already. That lively bubbly kind of G that sweats mad vibes.
Apparently, the bad news is that he was hospitalized as a result of the injuries he sustained.
The good news: He should be back to school within a week's passing, three at most.
Reason for Announcement: "Please endeavor to stay at home if it can be helped. Those of you who move around aimlessly at odd hours. Please. Please and please. We have entered the ember months—"
Aha!
Finally, mention of the dreaded ember-months!
I said it. I was just waiting for her to land and she delivered, right on target.
Once we get into S
Break time see the arts and sciences combined. Four long desks have been arranged in the middle of the classroom to form a large table at the class' epicentre. It's a mini-conference hall in here.Subject matter: Ever Shine."Oga, I dey talk say make we carry full force jazz these niggas down. You dey cap me talk wey no get head." Ojeh says. He unbuttons the collar of his shirt and yanks his tie knot lose as though it is the problem.Ahmed has both hands flat on the desk top, trying to glare him into nonexistence."And wetin go come happen na. As you no get any sense. Your own na to dey yarn careless talk like say you be superman.""Guy, I call you? I call your mouth here? Comot body o, blood dey hot." Ojeh retorts.Chideziri intervenes."Oboy coolele temper. Calm down first." He thumps Ahmed's shoulder.They have been like this for a bit now, rabid dogs at each others throats. Ahmed ha
Once, I told Tobi that my favourite section of PH-city was the city. The entire city. As you can imagine he looked at me crazy. I don't blame him; I looked at me crazy too. But it was the truth. Up until when Amanda took me to the river, the city was the place I loved most in this world, the deserty sand that sticks to the base of drums and buckets and trousers when it rains, the towns, the tarnished zinc-roofed houses spaced out awkwardly, standing like children who have quarreled. How the people move with ease but also purpose, at leisure with the familiar air and the putrid smell of green water which has flooded the gutters. That's why I take Amanda through them, l those tarnished roofed closes and rain-coated streets.No squad.Just us both, strolling.We stop by the movie shop and I buy a wrestling film—WWE's smackdown. Then we buy powdery popcorn and share it, the milk and sugar sticking to our fingers. To Amanda's upper lip. She le
Truth comes out on a Wednesday night, glaring and jarring. Like a wave of full brightness at 4am when sleep is at its sweetest. It washes over me in a tide, and it is terribly soothing.*Pascal hits my DM up while I'm texting Chantelle.Pascal: Brother man, afa?I text back: G, wetin dey sup?Very unlike Pascal , the texted reply comes in almost immediately: Chidi, plenty things. Plenty things.Me, not slightly as alarmed as I should have been: Wetin happen na.Pascal : Guy, show. I dey outside una hauz. Under that palm tree.The bloody palm tree.Why is everyone attracted to it?Outside, he is hyperactive, eyes alight, pacing back and forth. He pauses as soon as he sees me, as if he's trying not to scare me further. It backfires."Guy what happened? This suspense is killing me."He starts to answer me, then he stops. "Wait..." he mumbles
Immediately I put my phone on on Thursday morning there's six texts from Chideziri waiting for me. On my SIM, not social media where I could have missed them.That's heavy. That smells like trouble and its big brother.I sweep through them, each one telling me to lay low and meet him at school, first thing in the morning, and that if my Dad asked any weird questions I shouldn't even bother to play dumb, because he already knows about us. I return the call, it goes through, but no one picks the phone up.Chideziri's waiting for me by the side of a brick layered pillar when I get there. He snatches up my hand and drags me along the corridor, past SS1 Block, SS2,and then SS3 to the back. The back of the senior secondary block is quiet mostly. It's more of a fence than a backyard, with fancy holes letting in pockets of rays into the school. It's Little feats' hot spot, obviously. Writings cover the interiors, splayed across bricks like webs. Giant
She said it.She said those words that I've been craving since the days of John the Baptist. That three worded sentence that contains the entirety of what life means in its alphabets.A kinder part of me goes soft, gummy soggy soft. In that squishinesses inside of me that needs attention, that needed to hear those words sooner. Still, to most of me the words have no meaning. Just a sentence thrown in the air. And because most of me is still very hopping mad, and most of me owns my will;Most of me walks away.*Young,we were butterflies in a meadow,fluttering,meandering,seeking out the Sunniest petals,dreaming beyond the trees—Amanda.
We see.We see each other each day. We walk past each other every day. In classes, in the hallways, on Whatsapp statuses, on the field when he's chasing a ball and I'm running. I almost waved at him once, like normal. Only this time, nothing's normal.What does "normal" even mean, without Chideziri? I certainly am not the She you want to be asking that question.Running: the only thing that keeps me sane nowadays, the only time I actually begin to feel complete. When I am sprinting, I am well aware of the fact that the next probable collision will only be between me and the ground. That is safer than anything I can ask for. Running, till my lungs are heaving, ready to give out and my knees feels like jellyfish.Now, Chantalle is the only person that still talks to me. She was there the last time I nearly collapsed on the field. I keeled over, gasped and struggled for breath until I got some and when I looked heavenward, she was the
November legit tries to wash us away, to clean the slate.Like, I mean, you would think after October's being a teeny bit sunny that November will be dry. That it would be the actual beginning of the Dry season.But nope.It drizzles and drizzles and drizzles...and drizzles. And when it isn't drizzling, the heavens are trying fall down in a tsunami. I won't say it's not possible, with all of how damaged this year has been.The nightmares have started again, too. And as if to make matters much worse they come whenever they fucking please. At home. In school. Walking to the store near the house. I was just strolling and—boom—it all goes dark, I hear the chatter of pidgin on the stereo, the wipe-wipe sound of the wipers sloshing water away from the glass, smell a mist of candy spray in the car, seconds before the hit. It's almost like I black out. They are a vortex, sucking me into that fractured world of replayed drive-by
Everything happens in slow-motion.These days even the clock ticks at snail-pace, as if the seconds are sauntering by, trying to be noticed. There are the minutes within the minutes within the real minutes where I miss Amanda. Then there are the minutes when I realize what I am imagining: us, at the river, inside its mirror green stream splashing, giggling, loving. And I am shoving my way out of reality into another portal where I'm hating on her. I hate that reality upon the fact that it is the reality that I wish it was the realest. She could have just bloody told me. But no. Boils down to the fact that nobody tells me a thing around her, nobody trust me with the smallest things. I sit on the house's low fence, Duncan mighty's Fake love stuffed into my ears. I have had it on repeat all week. The music is the only thing that keeps me from snapping, from asking—no, from demanding answers. I try and try not to snap. Fate has never really had my best interests in mi
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
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
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
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.~
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,
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.
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
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
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.