A civil war is on the verge of erupting in the western part of Africa, Nigeria. Two boys are lost in the shadow of the war and must make their way out of the dark shadows. No matter what it takes.
View MoreA poem dedicated to “blood and water” by Osuagwu Alexander.MY SINWhat actually led me hereWhat have I doneCould I have saved himWas I scared or stupidAm writing to free my guiltBut reading this scriptLiterally pricks my conscienceAll I did was watchBut I feel my ignorance was a sinAnd it haunts me dailyI’ve always been waryBut this blame was mineIt was halp past nineOn that cold dark nightA scene pictographed in meMy eyes met him afarHis heels were in motionHis eyes were redFilled with undeniable fearHe was limpingHis body filled with shiveringHe kept on strugglingBeing aware of his doomed fateBecause of his faithAn opposition of religionWhich innovated destructionAn environment where ethnicityHas disrupted ethicalityAnd im
Elsie was buried the next day. A little wood carved as her coffin. I would always remember the tender smile and care on her face, she was the first love of my life and the first cut is the deepest. I didn’t cry I had learnt how to live hiding my own feelings. I watched as she was covered up in the sand, I forced the tears out from my eyes but they just would not fall out.I cursed myself for not being able to cry, the fury in my heart eating deep into my veins. “She was a good girl” the elderly woman said to me.Elsie was not just a good girl, she was something else, I would use the phrase “exceptional” when it came to her. She literally had this “crazy” attitude that jingled all through my heart.Moving on without her was very herculean though we had only known for months of war, I still felt that she was the best person to have been in my life. I could remember our conversations together, how it made me fee
All is fair in love and war, desperate times calls for desperate measures. Our survival was based on our innate ability to strive. The skies cried out at such malefaction, the heavens thundering as if it was trying to curse the oppressors.When it started, we expected it to end but it trudged on, we were violated by the aftermath as it tore through our once peaceful homes. Some of us danced to the tune, carrying guns to fight back what they called “injustice”. What about us who had fragile minds who could not stand to shed blood.We ran, being entangled between groups: one group branded us as “saboteurs” because we did not join in on the fight, they came to plunder on our survival retrospecting on the fact that weaklings and feeble minds like us had no reason to exist.The other group were solely aimed on destroying our social existence, they spat at our religion, abhorred our culture, tearing through to terminate every fragment of
I had been in the camp for a month but the past one week had been very different, we had been attacked ruthlessly, sometimes with heavy bombardments dropping and tearing through our camp. Each new day we arose, we prepared our souls to meet the almighty creator and when we slept, we snored with one eyes open and our ears alert to any rapid movement. The heavy bombs had torn our homes to shreds, death tolls were increasing daily, tragedy ridiculing everything we had imagined possible.Even Elsie could not stand it, her face became very sullen: sometimes when there was no way that a patient will survive, she would shed series of tears.“What’s the meaning of life?” she asked me one day “After all, we will all die” she had seen enough, dripping blood, amputations, hot chases. I could see the fears in her eyes, she might have been good at concealing but not this time.“Elsie…” I called gently “Don’t say su
The sun woke me from my deep slumber, my eyes still hazy. I pulled myself up, took my walking stick and continued straight through the path. My father would normally say “Seeing the sunrise shows that the day will be good.” I needed help or else my fate was undetermined. I could see a distant smoke, my eyes which were socked in desolation became agile as it sought for this source of hope. I broke wild into this specific direction, the journey seemed so far. At long last, after trekking for such a long mental time, I got to my destination.My gut was right. It was a small camp, crowded with people. I glared in awe, they seemed so peaceful as they went on their daily business. The women were taking care of the children while the men were carrying hoes and machetes into the bush. A sign inscribed “Welcome to the home of refugees.” They had created clustered homes for themselves, living on the support and protection of one another. The entrance was b
My eyes remained unflinched at the boy who seemed to terrorize me. His teeth was broken, his eyes were red probably because he had been boozed, he was bare bodied with a lot of marks on his body.He was probably younger than I was but the sound of war retards the concept of age. He was carrying a gun which weighed more than him.My mind kept on perturbing me “Take your chance”, I knew the consequences of trying what my mind had picture, I also knew the outcome of being weak and defenseless.I pondered – trying to decipher the right step to take, my mind solely concentrated on the boy. My height was an edge over him which seemed to make me his superior, he raised his hands to the trigger, I was sure that he would shoot, my idea seemed to take control over me. I clenched my fists very hard, folding it then released a heavy punch, he was taken by surprise as my fists jammed his face, racketing through his skull and eyes.Fists
What about their promises? They said that they would protect us but now it seems they are just selfish.I stood there with my brother staring at the doom about to be spelt out to us.We had been wrong, they were not going to be here until it’s over, they would desert us like overgrown weeds in a dead man’s farm.They were different, they had to be, how could they just leave us prone to the evil omen which will surely befall us.We had been wrong to trust them, doomed to think that they were going to stay forever. We could have known better but we decided to be ignorant – at least till it all went away.Fear crept into our minds, all our strive washed down the drain. How do we thrive on, struggle to survive now that we had no means of meeting even our physiological needs.The women wailed aloud, throwing themselves on the sand with tears of agony, the men were filled with resentment and despair, the question on everyon
It had been a month since we came to the refugee camp. The camp was a big catholic church being protected by a group of soldiers from ECOSOC.The camp shattered many people, probably about a thousand. It was not like home but we had learned to live in rough conditions.Food was shared every night by the humanitarian workers, we were locked inside the church compound being warned of the catastrophe of stepping out from the eyes of the soldiers.Who cared!No one went out, at least we had the protection of social workers and we believed that the war was not going to disrupt our terrain. “I Believed”… what else could we do but believe that darkness would not struggle us, we had suffered enough, lost loved ones, homes and even our own mentality.All we just wanted was for the war to be over, to be free at least from the scowling prowls of Hades.We were fortunate to be alive. Where we?Probably
Nelson Mandela once said “They can take all that we have, break our bones, make us bleed but what they cannot break is our spirit."We slept in front of mama’s corpse, we could not move forward, strive for survival which was only futile. My mind captured with so many dark thoughts “Why not they kill me too?”What was the real value of life – Nothingness.I woke to find that the moon had covered the skies, the atmosphere very serene. I turned my gaze to the direction where my mother lay lifeless on the grass – streek of silent tears clouded my eyes.“God, why!” I soliloquized. I could not comprehend why our metaphysical creator and protector would desert us when we really needed his solace. I felt this feeling of void space left porous in my heart. A part of my mind was mocking my existence, it kept on deepening the scar in my heart.I felt so rejected, dejected – we had been subjected to t
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