One of the many unspoken rules of PH city everybody and their mamas know is that when you are in a place, and boys start speaking strange pidgin and sizing up one another or breaking bottles, you need to get out of there, and you need to do so quickly.
I can't though. Bro code says so.
Rule number one: Never let a brother go to war alone.
Rule number four: Never leave a brother behind.
It couldn't get any worse.
I swear to God, Amadioha, Idemili, Ala, Anyanwu—every bit of divinity that cares to listen infact—if Abe gets us killed, I will resurrect him, just so i kill him myself.
Abe punches the gee on his throat, and he staggers back, spluttering and spitting. Someone screams in the crowd and they disperse in a surge, on the brink of a stampede. The ruckus creates a rift between the guy and his backups, a small chasm of flowing bodies and for an instant he is alone. Abe follows up the fou
Abe didn't get himself killed after all, as hard as he tried. That's some consolation. I think of neither the fight nor consolations on the ride home. There were still some taxis zooming on the highway at that time, even as young as the morning was. Chideziri shoved Chantelle and I into the first one that stopped. The cab dropped me off at home and I wave Chantelle good-bye. She was still glued to her phone. She seemed happier at the party, lighter, less like a scared child. I liked that. I think of Chideziri sliding his hand into his hair and pulling at a single stubborn kink. I think of Pascal rolling up the sleeves of his GAP sweater. I think of Abe, just before the fight, I think of how he moved care freely, the mad vibe he gave off. I think of Chantelle's laughter, rare and wonderful. I think of the lights, how you won't think that crimson could be so lively. I replay the night in my mind when I climb the steps, till when I turn the key in the lock. I don't notice the dis
Anger isn't always an outspoken emotion, but it always is a dangerous one.Dad's anger uncoils rapidly, in increasing degrees of piss-tacity, like a boa constrictor disentangling itself from an oak. He stares at me slack jawed. Even the black shadow that has pooled around his feet under the flame of the bulb and stretched toward me looks incredulous. They both stay there staring, still as rock."Amanda? " his tone is even more flabbergasted. He wore one of those his plus sized t-shirts that smell new and look old. It has a faded picture of an isle emblemed on its chest and i can see the links of the gold chain on his neck catch the light and sparkle above the cloth's fraying collar. He never takes that necklace off, ever. He even wears it into the bathroom, when he wants to take a shower. It's gold, plus it has his and Mum's wedding bands as its pendant. Gold upon gold."Amanda is that you?" ."Yes Daddy? Daddy welcome." I manage.
Amanda hasn't come online since we crashed the party.I'm thinking it's her battery. Or she has no data. Both of which are remediable if I knew which. Abe has been online, however, more than usual. Mostly, he's angry—at whom I don't know. How he is throwing shade online you'd think he sells sunglasses, i swear. He's there, talking about: They tried to put me down. But I came. I saw. I conquered. (Fire emoji)#undefeated.The guy is a joker. If Pascal and I hadn't showed up when we did, we'd be talking of how we should go about embalming him. I shut my trap though, lest he turn on me. I don't have strength for beef now.I am still lying there, on the sofa in the parlour, swinging my feet and laughing at his rants when Mumsi comes in. As soon as she showed up, she asked me a question, at the doorstep while I was still trying to haul in her numberless bags.Take a wild guess."Have you eaten?" or "how are you?" are t
Tom drums always lead the march.They are not the largest, or the most domineering. Basses, with their hollow echoes that bounce back from all corners of the space, making the place seem like one large bubble, coveted that position. They are neither the most impressive nor ear-catching; that is a privilege known only to the whistling rattles of snares. No, they are not.Still, tom drums lead the march.When they call, every one else answers, without pause, without question. That precisely is why I chose the tom.We are on the field, every last Little feater in the secondary section, outside. Blades of manicured spear grass swish gently beneath our hooves, the belated silver afternoon sun directly in our eyes, blazing off the linen white of our bright green blazers. It drizzled hours before, a weightless shower that descended in slanted spears. The swishing grass at our feet is humid with beads of the sky's tears. After-rain s
If i was a bird i would land at my own windowsill, too.That's because it looks homely—old and forgotten, the wall it peaks through is crawling with vines; aged vines, budding tendrils, it doesn't matter, they all died when the house's decorator, whoever he or she was, covered them in a heavy coat of cream-coloured paint.The pigeon at the bowed ledge of my window waddles about on dragon-scaled orange feet, its body a startling snow white that defies the principles of natural pigmentation. I have never seen the like. The bird belongs on the prow of a war ship, carved and etched in fine timber. I rap my knuckles against the mirror like face of the glass, examining its feathers. It doesn't so much as flinch, only its eyes move; unblinking jet black dots flecked with raisins of curiosity that follow my every motion. If I had my phone I would have taken a close up picture of its streamlined figure. I would have Google-searched its name. I pull out a
Amanda looks beautiful in that jeans pinafore, the honey brown of her face shining with that soft sleek translucence of oil. Her hand flies to the black choker circling her neck; she clutches it, her pupils dilating. I think have had enough of people stare at me with round eyes for one full day, so I go ahead to recite the sentence I repeated in my head over and over again on the way here till it started to sound right. Trust Chantelle, she won't come with me even when I begged her. In my experience, an extra person makes for easier conversations and less awkwardness. I practically groveled at that chap's feet; she wouldn't budge. Some much for Bro-code."Hey, Amanda, afar? You weren't—". She didn't even let me finish."What are you doing here?" She whispers. Good question. An even better answer: I let bloody Abe talk me into coming to your house."I just decided to come—"."How did you know the way to my house?". If sh
Someone should as well come up to me and ask: Any last words?. Because i am a zombie, walking dead. A meat suit on two feet if Daddy catches me. Catches us. I jerk him into the sitting room by a handful of his dress shirt and shut the door behind us, quickly."Amanda, slow down first. What's happening?" He asks.How about "my Dad is going to murder us".I shush him and pull him by his hand past the sitting room, past the black glass dining table we don't eat at, through the passage and....into my room. I have been doing that a lot lately, dragging him around, I mean. In this scenario, it is absolutely necessary. We enter my room and I close and bolt the door, panicking myself shitless. A thrill runs through me, climbs up my tummy and evaporates into my chest in a shiver. There are beads of sweat under my arms, uncomfortable, like shards of glass, and the butterflies in my stomach are flying around my insides like mad. I would recognize the feel
The voice beyond the chestnut brown door reverberates with the same sonorously sweet huskiness I fell for a month ago. Still, it is different, more controlled. It is like steam; tepid and everywhere. If Amanda's voice had feet and it could on walk on water, this is exactly what its footsteps would sound like."This is the eyeglass from the clinic. Try them on a d check if it improved anything. Remember to take the drugs we bought. Two in the morning. Two at night. Okay?". She doesn't reply immediately, and although she says "Yes Daddy" sweetly after half a second, I smell the terseness in that nanosecond, amplified and velvety, and it eroded the silence into a chasmic void. Next, i hear the slap of shuffling foot, going in the opposite direction, away from my position. I hear her barefoot sweep against the face of the tiles when she steps back to shut the door. Then the slapping sound stops, and returns to the door. My head is on fire, and I am wondering how he saw me,