Fridays in October always start off as cool days. Often, they stay that way till tired Saturaday mornings arrived. Or they don't. At times, they melt slowly into afternoons hot enough to deep fry a chicken, so damp and itchily lukewarm that you want to shed your skin, exit, stray away from your body, just leave. On top of that our class has no fan. There is a single bulb, fluorescent, yet I felt as though half the heat in the square is a product of its emissions. Weeks go by faster when you are happy. It was only yesterday I was in blazers and skirts braving an early morning rain to get to school. Small nescafe ponds of water carpeted the estate's dirt roads and each time the car's tyre hit one, it sunk, sprayed water on unsuspecting passers-by. One woman, an old lady in a hijab cursed the loudest. Dad muttered a sheepish sorry that she wouldn't have heard even if the windows were rolled all the way down; they were not. Then I go to bed on an unceremonious

Break time see the arts and sciences combined. Four long desks have been arranged in the middle of the classroom to form a large table at the class' epicentre. It's a mini-conference hall in here. Subject matter: Ever Shine. "Oga, I dey talk say make we carry full force jazz these niggas down. You dey cap me talk wey no get head." Ojeh says. He unbuttons the collar of his shirt and yanks his tie knot lose as though it is the problem. Ahmed has both hands flat on the desk top, trying to glare him into nonexistence. "And wetin go come happen na. As you no get any sense. Your own na to dey yarn careless talk like say you be superman.""Guy, I call you? I call your mouth here? Comot body o, blood dey hot." Ojeh retorts. Chideziri intervenes. "Oboy coolele temper. Calm down first." He thumps Ahmed's shoulder. They have been like this for a bit now, rabid dogs at each others throats. Ahmed ha

 Truth comes out on a Wednesday night, glaring and jarring. Like a wave of full brightness at 4am when sleep is at its sweetest. It washes over me in a tide, and it is terribly soothing. *Pascal hits my DM up while I'm texting Chantelle. Pascal: Brother man, afa? I text back: G, wetin dey sup? Very unlike Pascal , the texted reply comes in almost immediately: Chidi, plenty things. Plenty things.Me, not slightly as alarmed as I should have been: Wetin happen na.Pascal : Guy, show. I dey outside una hauz. Under that palm tree. The bloody palm tree. Why is everyone attracted to it? Outside, he is hyperactive, eyes alight, pacing back and forth. He pauses as soon as he sees me, as if he's trying not to scare me further. It backfires. "Guy what happened? This suspense is killing me."He starts to answer me, then he stops. "Wait..." he mumbles

She said it. She said those words that I've been craving since the days of John the Baptist. That three worded sentence that contains the entirety of what life means in its alphabets. A kinder part of me goes soft, gummy soggy soft. In that squishinesses inside of me that needs attention, that needed to hear those words sooner. Still, to most of me the words have no meaning. Just a sentence thrown in the air. And because most of me is still very hopping mad, and most of me owns my will;Most of me walks away. * Young,we were butterflies in a meadow,fluttering,meandering, seeking out the Sunniest petals,dreaming beyond the trees—Amanda. 

November legit tries to wash us away, to clean the slate. Like, I mean, you would think after October's being a teeny bit sunny that November will be dry. That it would be the actual beginning of the Dry season. But nope. It drizzles and drizzles and drizzles...and drizzles. And when it isn't drizzling, the heavens are trying fall down in a tsunami. I won't say it's not possible, with all of how damaged this year has been. The nightmares have started again, too. And as if to make matters much worse they come whenever they fucking please. At home. In school. Walking to the store near the house. I was just strolling and—boom—it all goes dark, I hear the chatter of pidgin on the stereo, the wipe-wipe sound of the wipers sloshing water away from the glass, smell a mist of candy spray in the car, seconds before the hit. It's almost like I black out. They are a vortex, sucking me into that fractured world of replayed drive-by