I have a small voice in my head.
I don't remember when it came, i don't even remember when it wasn't there.
I call it—him: Deziri. I think he's a braver version of me. Stronger, reckless, free-r, more daring.
And right now, Deziri is telling me, very brazenly–in the house of the Lord, to smack this lady.
I almost oblige him, and her.
One more.
One more nudge, and i will smack this paparika-faced woman into the heavens.
She has small chinese-y eyes inlaid on skin the colour of icheku fruit pods. Her gown, a blue-black stripped bodice is cinched at its waist in smooth ripples of three's. The bald man beside her could be her husband.
She started it when the church rose for ' high praise', it being intentionally quacking and nudging me, probably to force me to dance.
"Because you won't dance." a small thought says in my head.
I ignore him and hold my ground.
She quacks me again, this time with her shoulder, her eyes are a brown twinkle of mischief. She knows she's pissing me off. On a second thought i don't smack her. The mere thought of being held down by those muscled-thugs guarding the altar steps in the name of ushers is not appealing, but it isn't half as bad as that of being '' delivered' by Pastor Gabriel in front of the whole church for demonic possession.
"Not worth it!" i chant over and over again, until i almost to believe it.
The church is a wild sway of colours, amber here, emerald hue there, fire red and pink there. It is saturated with moist cold breeze from the air conditioners.
Conqueror's chapel is no joke.
At its full capacity, it is packed with people, their bodies swivelling vigorously to the rhythm of the music. It can't get any louder.
My eyes sweep the crowd until i spot a familiar hulking build at the second row. Tobi stands out from the trounge like a tree in the middle of a forest of shrubs (if he grew somewhere else, he could have been a baller), his tawn skin is a sharp contrast to the dark browns all around him. The slow pendulum of his shoulders is the only indication that he can actually hear the music. In that regard he's my role model.
Mumsi should be here. It's the fourth Sunday Sunday in a row since she last came to church. Today, her legs hurt. Last week she was too tired. I can't remember what the week-before that was.
A part of me wants to squeal with glee every Sunday she cooks up a new excuse, the idea being: Mumsi becomes lax equals Chidi becomes laxer; but there is this look on her face when she says it, a submissive weariness that feels like something in her is broken, something that can never be fixed.
It makes me very uneasy.
"Have your seats majestically in the house of your Father," pastor gabriel's voice booms. Can it get any cheesier?. The answer is yes, when two seconds later he tells us to 'take a moment to welcome our brothers and sisters in the Lord' to church.
If you don't know what that means, it means enduring handshakes and cologne-filled hugs from total strangers.
I groan, full blown psychological pain coursing through my body.
I didn't bring my phone to church, i never do, and I always end up regretting that decision. I should be in Teens church right now with Josie, not bored out of my mind in this mini cathedral. We would be whispering about something now, maybe how the woman with that tight lemon dress is sitting like a mannequin, or the wolverine-claw tribal marks of the other man's face–if i hadn't listened to Tobi.
His exact words were: Teens church is for 'small-small children'.
At fifteen, i may be the height of a full grown man but i am beginning to think i would have been perfectly fine there, with all the other 'small-small' children. But okay.
I feel myself drift, ever slowly, until only a small part of me in here listening to Pastor Gabriel's rant about " the blessedness of praise: gateway to guidance of the spirit".
Soon all i can hear is the whirl of fans above us and all i can see is the dull layer of oil paint on the walls.
Then i see her.
I see her,because she is not wearing one of those colour splashed ankara gowns that every other female has on. If she was, she still wouldn't have blended in. She is wearing a jeans jacket and leggings that cling to her leg with all its might. Not that i blame it.
I see what you doing there bro.
For a girl, she is on the tall side and her hair is a mess of coal black kinks piled atop her head. Then, as if fate suddenly decided to accept my friend requests, she turns– and looks right at me.
She is beautiful.
No, She is not.
Beautiful will stop in the middle of an expressway, with cars speeding towards it from both lanes, to stare at her. Beautiful's just a word.
She gives it a new depth, and for the very first time since i can remember, i am not at the church. I am in church: body, soul and if possible spirit.
And somehow, in that moment, i know that when ever i hear the word "beautiful", i will remember that day, and i will remember the girl with skin that trapped the light. She is staring back now, as if she can hear my thoughts, as if her spirit can feel mine across the distance.
Pastor Gabriel's voice booms over the speakers in symphony with my infatuation and for once i want to believe him. Badly.
"When the spirit leads you, you can do no wrong!" He said
"Hallelujah?"
A thunderous Amen.
The boy near the window is eye-balling me.Not in an alley-stalker way, or that cute playboy kind of way. It is as if i am the sun, and he's been blind his whole life. I would have been flattered if not that i am here, in CHURCH.Yes, i finally said it. IN CHURCHIt started this morning, between 5:30 AM and 6 when Dad woke me up, when he told me that we are going to church in that pacifying tone he uses when you have no choice in the matter. It's not like we didn't go to church in Lagos. We did, but not with this crazed early morning jerking people up frenzy, not in this size of church.The denim jacket and leggings i hastily pulled on are a sharp contrast to the beautiful ankara print gowns that seem to swallow the place up. There are suits of many colours grey, blue, blacks, senator kaftans and geles.The sun's rays filters through the large glass window in spears of golden light that twirl and dance on those numerous colours. M
The place is huge, like a colloseum or a battle field enclosed in a wall of brick. It is bursting with trees and plants. Two guavas stand guard at its entrance like gnarled sentinels of bark and green, pink hibiscuses and purple heart plants line the hedges at the wall of each block in a carefully tended array. There is an unending field of trimmed grass and two building stand adjacent to each other; both are stories high, almost blocking out the rays of the sun. It is a world of its own, completely divergent from the one beyond its walls.The school co-ordinator is a short plump woman,with conspicuous strands of grey in her bun and a face with more edges than a decagon. She looks like the kind of person that will switch into her language the moment a phone call comes, the type that will make exaggerated expressions and funny sounds egging the speaker on the other side of the line to go on with the story. I like her, instinctively, because she does not give Dad one of t
Mumsi is back from work.The house smells of soup, stockfish, and something i can't place–thyme, curry....or whatever.FYI, I am not big on cooking. I do much better wolfing down what has been cooked.Still, there's nothing like the aroma of food welcoming a man home after a long day at the battlefield. Yes, i am a warlock, come from the northern pass, great war axe in hand, gore dripping from my steel gauntlet.Sorry, i'm with you again, but you get the idea.I have a pro-active imagination. It gets the better of me sometimes. Did i ever tell you i have been a huntsman, a dragon rider, a Casanova on miami beach, Aragon from lord of the rings before?...i guess i didn't.I shrug off my school bag from my shoulders and fling it by its strap into my room and onto my bed on my way past. Correction there–my and Tobi's room.Yes, you heard me right. I share a room with my maniac of a brother
When Ernest hemingway said: There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. He was right. He was absolutely right.My music box is up to its highest volume, blasting J.cole, the soft tune of his for your eyes only caresses my eardrums. It shuts out the real noise—silence that is so silent it's loud and eerie.I write better like this, with songs in my ear and bass pulsing through my room. But today not even J.cole can save me.My jotter lies in front of me, its pages are a stark alabaster under the fluorescent practically begging me to tattoo poetic genius on its skin.Trust me, I would love to. There is only one tiny-pinky sized problem.I can't think of anything. Not a single word.I pull myself back into my body and start the hunt for inspiration. My room smells like tea and perfume. A heady aromatic fragrance that fits perfectly to the cool beige paint, i'm still tr
Her name is Chimamanda Yara Ezeocha.Yes, i got the full name.No, i am not a stalker.The first time she talks to me is in an Economics class, after Mr Uzoukwu had succeeded in ruining the class' mood for the umpteenth time with his ingenuity—Dictation.She said "Please, can you lend me your note, i didn't get the last paragraph."My ears were too busy doing cartwheels while the men in my stomach opened bottles of champagne and made toasts to my heart.It's funny how your wits leave you when you need them the most. How it can feel like your insides are squishy and your heart is playing a guitar."Um yeah" i said, stalling so my brain can reboot. It doesn't.It doesn't, even when she asks if she can take the note home. It doesn't, even when Deziri cheerly starts singing Mj's Billie Jean in my ears.All i can think of is the sound of her voice, a husky song that should belong to someone else.It's nothi
It's the boy from church, i can swear my life on it. I don't know how i didn't notice on the first day.It's his red skin and girly eyes– i'll recognise them anywhere. He fidgets, taking it out on his pen, caressing its glassy surface and scrutinizing it with more intensity than an Avanti pen should be made to endure.I had to leave my safe seat at the door when it became too unsafe for my liking a.k.a boys are hoes. This huge-boy (i think his name is Dike) with thick lips too red for his dark skin made it his sacred duty to pester my life.I don't know why boys don't seem to get the memo, but there's a fine line between flirting and harassment.Boy-girl's put every ounce of effort in his body into not looking at me, his eyes are everywhere, the windowsill, the marker board, the desk's plane, the glossy daylight swimming about in rays–anything but me.I didn't see that one coming.But i guess it's
There are pieces of white paper all over the class, it is like someone made confetti from another's note book. I sure am glad it isn't mine though, because i would really hate to show up in school with a sharp machete.It is break-time, not recess, because recess is what you say in America. Recess, is what you say in Americanized–Nigerian montessori schools where big men send their children to learn history and French and Poetry.For us, it is break-time. That obnoxiously short, time-racing period between late morning and early afternoon when teachers decide it is time for you to breathe something that does not include a totally irrelevant part of the human anatomy, a set of increasingly confusing mix of numerals, or a language you speak everyday but never seem to grasp completely.Was that tasking?...sorry.Today, it is also the period when the class is agog. Apparently, Dike Uzochukwu got into a fight with Ahmed Tombe. If
My phone buzzes in my blazer jacket by 4:30 sharp after closing assembly. I know it isn't Daddy even before i pick the phone.When you've lived with someone your whole life you tend to adapt to their habits. Dad's chronic ailment is tardiness. He can't be here so early.I am right, it isn't him. It's Aunty Seedy's silk-thin voice that's at the other end of the line. She told me that she's waiting at the parking lot.I see her truck minutes before i get there. Aunty Seedy's hillocks is like its owner– titanic, imposing and more than a little intimidating...up until it starts making sounds.That car practically purrs." How are you"I smile " Aunty, good evening"Does that mean that Aunty seedy makes me all teeth and cheeks: Y. E. SOther than the fact that she was my babysitter when i was little–she's practically my mother–the one kismet tried to rob me of.She makes the best meals and the ho