At school-over, after i didn't answer his first two "Guy, make we dey push." Ahmed practically yanked me out of the assembly hall by my joggers. I was so blissed-out that i didn't mind being dragged around. My mind is a prism, a glassy box full of Chimamandas. She's everywhere in my mind, every thought, every memory, every smile is saturated with her.
I must have been looking stupid because Chantelle snapped her fingers repeatedly in my face.
"Do you care to join us, mere mortals, down here on earth." It's enough to yank me out of the green hills of the Federal republic of Amanda, Yara state.
I glare at her. She makes a rude gesture with her fingers and smirks. This girl doesn't know when to piss on my parade.
I grip the straps of my bag and hold on to stop me from running and whooping, or doing something even more childish.
But the exhilaration doesn't last long, it dissipates like a bonfire doused with
After eating dinner–a huge cake of moi-moi i found in the fridge (Aunty seedy drove by when i wasn't in) and watching two episodes of MTV's Shuga Naija, i'm sprawled on the fur rug spread at the epicentre on the sitting room, looking through old albums on my phone.There's the picture of Lorita and i, at a Queens Christmas party, she has an over-sized santa cap on and a we are grinning like cheshire cats. And there's another, it was at a Bole festival, where got each others names painted on our faces, hers in gold lettering, mine in black.It only made sense, my skin is a light brown, so weightless it could be called yellow, and hers, so dark that at some point she jokingly started to call herself "Blackie". We were each others ying and yang, and if data and video calls prevail, we always will be.But i'm not placing my bet on video calls or any network service, because if you have lived my life you'll know that people die, and people leave a
I spend half the night waiting for Chimamanda to text. And the other half stalking her on facebook.When I type her full name into the search box a hundred names make a grid list. I scroll through till i am positive exasperation and frustration are two different levels of anger.Then i remember how she was about her middle name, so i put in her first name and middle name, and her profile pops up like an iconGod bless Mark Zuckerberg.My stalking game is on point. It's not really stalking though, more like watching.And this girl posts plenty. It feels awfully good to see her again, in my room, even if it's on a phone.There are hundred pics of her and her friends, and i think her dad, tens of her being goofy and having fun.The best is a Snapchat picture. She has dog ears and nose, and her hair is brushed out into a crazy mane that resembles a soft black cloud, both palms are pressed flat
Amanda:HeyChideziri:Hey youAmanda:It's me, Amanda, sorry i took all night.Chideziri:Of course i know it's you, I've been waiting for you like it's the second coming of ChristAmanda:SorryAmanda:It didn't think i would catch you awake. Why are you awake at this time? Like who stays awake past twelve.Chideziri: No 1. Sleep is for mortals. No 2. I am watching porn. No 3. People who watch porn.Amanda:As for numbers two and three? Come lemme tell you about Jesus.Chideziri:Woaw...... Am i talking to the rite person here? The girl i want to talk to sleeps durin sunday service. Pls give her the fone.Amanda:Low blow! Not fair! I didn't know this was a fight.Chideziri:Oh it is, btw dose who sleep off when the service
Here's the thing about collisions—they hurt. Concussion kind of hurt.No matter how long you have known they are coming, or how prepared you think you are, you are always in for a surprise, good or bad.It may be a weekday, and you are walking to school or riding to work, or the weekends and you're just at home; chilling.It could be a phone call, a gas leak, a knock on the front door with your ex telling you that you both had a child way back in secondary school.It could be fire, from the amber stained kerosene you bought at the junction for half the usual price.Something happens to something, like a catalyst.And then you are moving at increasing velocity, accelerating faster than you want to.And there are lights. Bright lights, just before the crash. Bright lights that help you see the bigger-frightening picture.Then Blam! Your life is altered, forever.
We couldn't be more alike. How many girls like rap, and what are the chances that those few that do aren't crazy for bounce music.By the lunch bell we are arguing fiercely. Subject matter:Who's doper between J.Cole and Eminem. Marshall Mathers can actually be rhymed with subject matter. Just look at that!She disagrees though, says J.cole's is better. Talk about heart break."Oh my God, are you serious right now? Have you heard for your eyes only? Let nas down? Nothing lasts forever? Stay? Tears for ODB? "She ticks her fingers off with each name—i shake my head at each.Truth is i have never heard the name J.cole, and when i finally admit it, the way she looks at me you would think i just confessed to child molestation."Wait." She says "you are being serious right now? You haven't heard cole, like ever?.She says it like i'm supposed to be ashamed.I am so not ashamed.&nb
The bell rang almost on cue, after Miss Bernice had embarrassed us all to her satisfaction, with the worst topic choice to revise: Oestrus Cycle.I have never seen a person's face turn as many shades of red as Chideziri's did, from terracotta to brownish red to copper and russet.Considering the number of "she's on heat" and "abi you are on heat period " i have heard within the last two seconds i think it's safe to say the class was very-very conversational. I don't have time to think more on it because Chidi slips his hand into mine underneath the desk where no one can see.When did he go from boy-girl to chidi? Effing beautiful boy. It's not right for someone to be so pretty, it breaks the laws of humanity. Like mixing Chadwick Boseman to Jacob Latimore.In his hand, mine looks like a little girl's; where mine are lean and long, his are broad with long immaculate fingernails lik
CHIDEZIRI"Can i hug you?"It's so out of the blue, but i am not even suprised. I think i am getting used to never getting used to her, not knowing what she'll say or do next. And i am liking the anticipation.AMANDAHis confident smirk is back on, baby face locked safely away,and i know he's about to be a smart ass."In this part of the world we don't ask that. We just spread our arms out and smile."CHIDEZIRIShe spread her arms out wide like a barney mascot at a kindergarten party and.... Boy! did she smile!AMANDAThat night, i stay up all through reading A.H Mohammeed's Forcados high school for what will be the five-hundredth time, and for the first time i vouch for Ansa.CHIDEZIRII stay up the whole night chasing J.cole songs around the internet. They a
Saturdays teach you how real life works.When you are a child, saturdays are like gorgeous puppies–beautiful, adorable, unforgettable. Then gradually, they morph along with you as you grow–into very un-adorable, un-hug-able, bleeding, black, over-sized rottweilers. Saturdays are the days you can't escape home, the days you work from eight to ten o'clock before you get a bite of food. The days you want to stop and ask if you really are a legit child or you were adopted. Pascal alway says i take life too gently. He says "You dey like to do your things soft-soft". When it comes to saturdays, he's right; I take them soft-soft, a step before another.I wake up to the sun glowering into my face. It actually seems pissed that i get to sleep in so late. I am tempted to stick my tongue out at it, Jealousy. It glowers even more. Tobi barges into the room at that instant and frowns at the grin on my face and my sprawled form. He always
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.