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Disenchantment: Chideziri POV
Still dressed in school blazers and slacks, I head for the shop.
I'm supposed to jump in and assist Mumsi go to Tank market to buy hair stuff, since she's always so busy.
She isn't at the shop.
Aunty Sade is.
She's showing off her expertise on a customer who's ebony forelocks are speckled with grey. Another is waiting at the dark corner of the shop, her face lost in one of Aunty Sade's many fashion magazines.
She only looks up to answer my greeting. And she is a he, as odd as that sounds.
I wonder how he survived secondary school.
Aunty Sade says Mumsi stepped out for an important meeting, leaving instructions that she won't be there long. She backs me the whole time so I can see her face in the mirror.
It's lacking expression. As always.
The fragile igbo accent she's picked up from years of working under Mumsi laces her sentences, inflecting her voice so that w
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She Belongs To The Sky Reason To Leave/Stay: Chideziri POV
I check my phone for messages.There's no notification on the screen. At least, no useful notification. Just the expected barrage from Men dem and a reminder of lessons scheduled for ten o'clock at school.I sigh and slip the device into my pyjama's pocket.A perfectly ordinary morning.I go about doing my chores. Sweeping. Dusting. Washing and drying surfaces. A heavy layer of dust has coated the entire country by now.Chalkly spicy air which settles brown on our eyelashes, snuff-coloured brown.Brown film on the stretch of cars abandoned in that garage on the way to school, for-sale stickers pasted on them all.Brown breeze.Flowing browned-white kaftan on the mallam's body.The sun has already risen when Mumsi emerges, high up above cobalt cloudlessness. She's kept her door locked, bolted from the inside since the police station.The police station; th
She Belongs To The Sky Reason To Leave/Stay: Amanda POV
"Abraham, you are deranged! Completely! There is no going back for you." Pascal bellows.You can tell that he's this close to knocking Abe out with the control-pad in his hand.Abe goes about ignoring him, whistling happily.Ahmed nurses his thoroughly beat-up head. He earned it cheating Abe to win the third round of a Mortal kombat match they both played.Abe took up the nearest throw-pillow and proceeded to pound him into a brown-out. Then Chideziri stepped in and it became a world-war.There are tufts of white pillow foam strewn around the house. Pieces of white on the Dining table, all over the couches, trailing the courtyard cramped full of old electronics— they even took the brawl to the toilet.Chideziri's perched on the glass centre table, drinking cool water from the fridge. His hair is a birds nest and holds more foam than the pillow Abe weaponized."You guys know that if Chantelle wa
She Belongs To The Sky A Foreign Place: Chideziri POV
CHIDEZIRI Even for December, it's an unusally chilly night. But that's probably stemming from the unsaid fact that I wore beach-party-worthy clothes to an evening party. Sleeveless tee and tracksuit trousers, because of the heat. I regretted the decision immediately I stepped out of the house's warmth. I'd forgotten how antonymous December days are from the nights in the Harmattan. Blazing hot days and bleeding cold nights. As soon as I arrived, Abe pointed out my track trousers and sleeveless, joking that this wasn't the Olympics but a 'bash'. Point noted. And yes, another party. Since after we broke the news of Amanda's imminent departure, nothing was the same. Amanda's become quite the celebrity at school with her carefreeness, her poems and easy nature with answers in a test hall, so everyone's feeling the loss, even before it has happened.
She Belongs To The Sky A Foreign Place: Amanda POV
Amanda "You want something to drink? My throat is parched with all this dancing we've been doing." Chantelle says out of nowhere while we are grooving . I nod in agreement. My throat is a pulsing, raw arid wasteland, too. I let her drag me through the crowd in the courtyard which is swelling by the minute, empty cup raised above her head and the crowd. The evening air is sweet, with lively music and jaunty voices. Dancing out in the open is therapeutic, it turns out. Somebody should have told me.Someone presses me closer to her and my arm sticks to hers, cool with fast drying sweat. "Girl, you are sweating like a pot of boiling water. You came ready to par-te! For real, for real." She swats my butt, and her signature smile-smirk is a torch in the night. She loves parties, like Abe. "I'm only trying to keep up with you." I say. &nbs
She Belongs To The Sky Stay: Chideziri POV
Late into the night, Abe hijacks the home theatre, links it to his bluetooth and plays Cole's Stay.I asked him to. The loud bass is sweet music to my ears. I look over the crowd and there she is smiling to the music, too. As if she understands, as if she hears me.Amanda taught me about J.Cole. Then she taught me about love. And now...now she's leaving me with all that new knowledge.It's tragic. It's Jack and Rose's retelling without the giant ship or the iceberg. It's the curtains falling before we are ready to stop dancing. It's us.And it's beautiful however you look at it.
She Belongs To The Sky Stay: Amanda POV
AMANDAStay.It booms through the speakers, deafening and delicate at once. People groan and curse at whoever changed the song.I look up and I'm perplexed to see Abe at the speakers—he gives me a thumbs up—and Chideziri manoeuvring his way down the staircase, hands in his pocket.He's beautiful.Not handsome. Not rough-and-tough good looking.Beautiful."Hey.""Hey you." I reply. "They don't seem to agree with our taste in music.""I thought you might want to listen to some J.Cole," he answers. "I wanted to.""Fuck them." is what he's actually saying. He knows it and I know it. We share a conspiratory smile.Tell me how am I supposed to leave this.~ The lady prosecutor—the one who looked as if she had never before spent a day of her life in a cell filled with mosquitoes and grumpy cell mates—called you a monster.
She Belongs To The Sky Slipping Time: Chideziri POV
Finals are easy. Mostly.I was the first person out of the hall; the post-school tutoring paid off. That or I just failed the last paper of the term, and year. English. With 20 minutes extra time to go. A combined paper, so everybody wrote.Like most of my mates, Abe stumbles out, cross-eyed and confused, cursing the essay writing. Cursing the English teacher. Cursing Little feats."Write an essay arguing for or against the motion to legalize abortions in Nigeria, giving cogent reasons. And it carried 15 marks. Just fifteen." Abe sparks. He squeezes the offending exam sheet, balling it up in a fist."They are trying to kill us." I say for his benefit alone. Every year, since SS1, Mr Harrison, the Literature and English teacher pulls a stunt of the same nature. Debates. Essays. Short prose writing. Anything to make you "wear your thinking cap" as he puts it.And every single year Abe emerges from the hall, sweating, spewing hate
She Belongs To The Sky Slipping Time: Amanda POV
"They are here!" The voice startles us.Abe. And the entire squad. They followed us."Lovebirds." Chantelle chimes.Pascal crows, "Chimaziri." grinning.They all are. That conspiratiory look kids have when they have done mischief and you just can't place a finger on what exactly it is they did."You are kidding me." flies out of my mouth.Chideziri groans, "Seriously?"Abe eyes us. "What? You want time alone to fornicate. Not happening. Not while I'm alive."Chantelle steps up to the edge of the plank, where we sit, and there is amazement in her face at the sight of the water."So this is where you guys stay. It a smart hiding place. It isn't too close to your house or his house. An in between."Abe makes to sit, but we are at the middle of the jetty, and the space is too small."Shift," he says. I groan."Shift, abeg."Half bent, he pauses, na
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