SCARRED DESTINY PART 2

                                  

……apparently, Theo had a lot of people in his corner. Chief amongst them was my best friend Amaka. One evening, she called me a witch with a black heart for breaking my former’s heart. It was too much insult to take in my own home. Something feral was released in me and the end result was that we went at each other by means of blood red acrylic claws. The ferocity of enraged vixens was a kiss amongst lovers compared to how we lashed out at ourselves. No quarter was asked nor given. I could not bear her sit on her high horse and look down her uppity nose at me. That evening our relationship rested in pieces. I buried it and my heavy heart was its tombstone.

Sleep evaded me as twilight evolved into dawn. All through the sweltering night, the red hot pitchfork of insomnia tormented my brain, prodded my eyelids and tore the mental burlap within which I had wrapped up my past.

I grew up in an area called Lawanson with my mother who sells “pap” and seven siblings in a one room apartment “face me, I face you” house. My father had drunk and smoked himself into an early grave after being the security man of a primary school for the most part of his life. Mother was saddled with the grueling responsibility of caring for us all.

Due to deplorable drainage of the area where we lived, gills were needed to survive when it rained because the whole area gets flooded and the overflow filled the homes. We did not watch any TV for years since the only one we had got submerged during such an episode. We were reduced to watching “Voltron and Tales by moonlight” from “Iya Sikira’s” window. God help us when we did not help Sikira fetch water from the communal well because that was the end of our shows for the week.

Living in such conditions was hellish. The toilet had no water supply, so whoever went, had to take a bucket of water to flush after the “business”. We could not complain, most other places used pit latrines. I remember an incident that nearly led to blows when Mama Azubuike said “I no my shit and my child shit, no be Azubuike do this one” after my brother accused her son of going and not flushing.

Food was mostly garri that had been soaked for hours to enable it swell to about three times its normal size and when we were lucky, we got stale, fried, fish head from mummy Obinna, the lady that fried “dundun” and “akara” down the road.

Hawking naturally became a way of life for us to help out mum. My siblings dropped out and mum passed on after years of labouring without help. She died of cholera because we could not afford N10,000.00. I swore I was never going to suffer like Ma.

Thankfully, I discovered books and had to struggle my way through having a degree. A lot of guys did help me and it was not for free, believe me. Sometimes being good looking can be some kind of a curse. I really got to know that there are no free lunches even in Freetown like some people say.

My humble beginning was what unconsciously and consciously determined dropping Theo and hitching my cart to another.

Amaka had no right whatsoever to castigate me. Her words still rankled (maybe because they had stirred up the cauldron of my conscience releasing an odor of guilt I refused to acknowledge). We were in the university together and I know how many foul breathed lecturers she coupled with to get good grades to enable her land a good job after school. Even now, I know the several “Alhajis” she canoodled with to meet marketing targets in the new generation bank where she worked. Her parents even forced her younger sister to marry a frail rich old man who promised to build them a house in the village. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. That night, the truth hit me that almost everyone in this nation was like me. We had all been scarred by poverty!

So why should I feel guilty when I conformed to the mould of a whole country? No one had any right to point fingers at me. We were all part of the same national orchestra conducted by the hands of poverty (it is just that while I was working the Oboe, someone else was on the violin). The man who committed ritual killings, pounded little children and cut out people’s genitals, the public officer who stole and embezzled billions of funds that he did not need and stashed them away abroad while people under his constituency died of malaria and little children were unable to afford an education. Poverty was the explanation for a financial system that was not credible in establishments all across the nation.

It is what made Stella my cousin sit in an oil and gas job while her potential for creativity (she used to be an awesome musician), rotted away and became vestigial (however, if she had taken the leap of faith, how would she have managed without all those dollars she received baring stress at the end of every month). For crying out loud, Stella was unfaithful to her gift, skill and talents in exchange for a better life.

What about the kidnappers and robbers who ravage the countryside relentlessly? The doctors who made out wrong diagnosis in order to inflate treatment bills or the accountants who cooked the books eternally?

I am not trying to be self righteous here but am I not better than those who swallow drugs to earn some cool foreign exchange? Growing up not having was what made the police officers rough handle and extort money from the ones they are supposed to protect. The dearth of resources is what influences the university graduates to become a 419er. To escape the oppression that the privileged ones mete out to the unprivileged, people did everything it took even at the risk of imprisonment and death to become the oppressor someday. When the money started rolling in, they oppressed with cars, houses, wives and chieftaincy titles. God helped anyone who addressed the new upstarts without the chief in front of their names; the offenders were struck down with lightening from “Sango”, the god of thunder. Millions are shown off in crazy ostentatious displays at weddings and celebrants were sprayed with freshly minted foreign currencies by the new Chiefs, when others merely throw notes of small denominations around.

The papers were daily filled up with stories of charlatans masquerading as clergy men who give false divinations while salivating in anticipation of huge tithes and offerings. Most of these pretenders usually have a history where paucity played major roles.

 No one must judge me; we were cut from the same cloth of economic and financial insufficiency! We are kindred spirits. Poverty is the fungus that blights the whole green landscape of this country and to escape it, we would sacrifice everything! It is the grime that stains the pristine white backdrop of our nationhood. It is what shapes our destinies and takes us on a roller coaster ride of destruction. It leaves a mentality that makes us fight one another while rushing to enter decrepit buses even when there are enough to accommodate everyone albeit uncomfortably. Its effect lingers and corrupts, down to the spirit of our homeland. It colours all we do. I am even beginning to think its hue is green.

Deprivation and scarcity are the factors that make artisans in this environ cheat a client out of a few thousands while forgetting that a happy customer who trusts your services could fetch you millions in the long run. We torch today and see tomorrow go up in smoke. Poverty has cultivated arsonists of the future out of this country. However, most of this diatribe is in retrospect.

That morning as the sun escaped its incarceration and its rays exorcised misty ghosts tormenting the foggy dawn, the last traces of guilt were erased and I dressed up to the hilt. Gritty eyed and all, I was still the kind of dish you would want to break your fast on. After spraying my perfume, a cloud of heavenly fragrance followed me. I jauntily walked out of my apartment; head high, daring the world…game on.....

Please, watch out for the concluding part.

© 2013 Ekpo Ezechinyere

SCARRED DESTINY PART 1

                                                                

“For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been'.” John Greenleaf Whittier

The muscles rippled like pythons in a coital dance as her arms musically pounded the soft white mass of yam “fufu” in the black womb of the mortar. The rain had earlier quenched the flames of the sun, and dusk now came tiptoeing into the village. Suddenly, with a swift flick of a magician’s sleight of hand, the gathering gloom dropped its cloak on the cage of the world and darkness descended rapidly and reigned supreme. The night here is like the rains, heavy and brooding compared to the city’s, so thick you can chop through it with an axe. 

When I was younger, it was usually a scary experience traveling down from “Eko” because of the blanketing shadows and all those buzzing flies. The most poignant experience was when I was six and had to wake up to make urine. I felt the dark, weighing down on me, sitting on my chest, choking me; it was like being suffocated in a cold, thick, black, inky soup. As I grew older it dawned on me that it was because of the endless forest of trees which filter the golden grains of the sun unlike the metropolis I live where the murderous roads of civilization had laid claim to the verdant souls of their woody relatives.

From that spell of dusk, emerged the magic of merriment. In the black sea above, a canopy of stars twinkled and winked like mischievous diamonds, heavenly fireflies that made the whole evening fairy-like and ethereal. The voice of the “Oriental Brothers” sweetly rent the cool air, while nature’s band lent its voices to the whole show. The crickets chirped and the birds chirruped in combination with the occasional hoot from a lonesome owl as the rhythmic up and down metronome of the pestle generated the percussion for the whole delightful sequence. 

The only blemish to the whole scenario was the generator groaning and coughing in the distance like an octogenarian tuberculosis patient. As I watched my mother-in-law perform her joyful task, cascading rivulets of sweat joined to form a delta coursing down the black rock of her skin, my mouth watered with the anticipation of the coming meal. The buzz of the activities of in-laws celebrating me filled the atmosphere. The constant motion generated enough static to make me glow inside like a hundred watt bulb. I had never felt so loved.

From the thatched mud kitchen, the aroma of the “Ofe Owerri” soup bubbling and gurgling like a happy brook on the coal flames wafted into my nostrils. Right now I could shame Pavlov’s dogs. But rescue came even sooner than expected as the food was served in black earthen-ware by Ugo my youngest sister in-law. She is the one that cannot stand my guts because of the belief that I was around to deprive her of a huge chunk of her brother’s love and cash. She hissed like a vicious serpent as she dumped the food before me (it must have been at her mother’s instruction, she doesn’t usually accord me such honour). Mesmerized by the feast, I pretended I didn't notice her discourtesy as I performed ritualistic ablution of my hands. The chiaroscuro effect of the snow-white pounded yam in the black clay bowl combined with the palm oil red colour of the soup that had every kind of condiment swimming in it produced a masterpiece that even Picasso would have labored to create.

The steam from both plates was an offering to the altar of my olfactory senses. I tucked in and it was as though a pleasurable Molotov’s cocktail exploded on my buds. The whole sequence of it was unlearned art. With bare fingers, I cut a piece of yam from its parent body and molded it into a smooth ball until I was satisfied with its shape and texture. The lump was subsequently submerged in the pond of soup and transported into my mouth, each accompanied by either a piece of smoked fish or meat. The meat was so soft that it seemed to melt in the mouth. Filled with the rush of elation a lioness feels as it gorges itself on fresh kill, I engaged it like an enemy; strip upon strip. There was a surfeit of beef. Not surprising since I was being hosted by a butcher’s son. The pepper spicing was just enough to make my taste buds march in cadence to the commanding tone of its sharp flavour.  Each bud was an instrument of the orchestra making celestial symphony in my buccal cavity, local spices had never conducted better. It was the movement down my gullet that was most inexplicable, a journey so smooth that it became indescribable. I could feel my stomach stretching with orgasmic pleasure as each ball landed without fuss.
Frothing at the edges of its vessel, was the palm wine that had being left untouched and unnoticed for so long. Midway into my meal, I decided to relieve its indignation and took a sip like a connoisseur tasting new wine. The drink left a foamy mustache on my lips as the drink swirled in my mouth and streamed down to join the celebration in my innards. Believe me; the Olympians never tasted anything sweeter.

Everything sang and thrummed around me. A guitar in the hands of this sumptuous fare, every string of my being was plucked until every fibre of my soul said yes. As Deberre looked into my eyes, he saw that he had hooked and reeled me in like I was hapless catfish. 

From the inception of our fortuitous rendezvous, food had always been in the vanguard.  The first time we met was at a naming ceremony. I noticed he kept gazing in my direction with looks of appraisal but I completely ignored him. He was too short for my liking and clothed with all kinds of name dropping adornments. The brother was obviously loaded! Not that I gave a hoot anyway, at the risk of sounding immodest, I was a stunner. Tall with enough curves to make Venus de Milo envious and skin that shone like polished ebony, I had made a lot of men eat their hearts out, except for Theo, my “Nkem”. I knew the stranger was dazzled but I could not care less. I was here to enjoy myself as usual. Life was about living! Unfortunately the heaps of food turned out inedible and I happened to be ravenous. He overhead me complaining to my pals and offered to take us somewhere we could eat a superb meal to our heart’s content. Ravenous hunger and my being a gourmet of some sort made me agree and he drove us to a beach-side restaurant.

The place had class coupled with beautiful scenery. The cool air caressed my tresses and kissed the heat away from my face. The surf could be seen in the distance rollicking and frolicking with the sands. It was a haven from the roasting heat of Eko Metropolis. I began to thaw a bit; it seemed the guy also had some finesse and a taste for the finer things of life. The Mister then ordered and that was what unraveled me and melted the last vestiges of my resistance. The pieces of meat were very well fried. Crowned with rings of onions, with red and yellow slices of chilli sandwiched between, they were a bewitching sight. 

Needless to say I was enchanted by the spell of this man who knew what my buds wanted. Brilliant devil that he was, the chops he ordered were matched with a bottle of stout so cold that it perspired in its silicon vessel, so black it seemed like liquefied opal. As I quaffed the drink, the question that blazed in my mind was how something so chilled could evoke such glowing warmth. Of course, it wasn’t amazing to learn that I forgot my fiance in a hurry. All thoughts of him were banished beyond the reach of my consciousness.

I liked the new guy’s style; Theo was wonderful and romantic but rather old fashioned with a job that did not pay much. Beside the Courvoisier L’Esprit Cognac of Mr. Flashy, he was like Burukutu (local beer made from guinea corn). I was the kind of sister that needed a lot of glitter and gold in her tanks to run as smoothly as a Ferrari.  

That was the only blur that had clouded the silver lining of my boyfriend and I for the last seven years but not anymore. It was going to be all sunny from here on. I fell out of and in love in record time. In a short while the newbie’s marriage offer was accepted. Someone said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach likewise the road to this woman’s...... 


To be continued...............

  
© 2013 Ekpo Ezechinyere

INEXORABLE!!!

                                                                         

                                                                           1

…..My name is Saint Cristiano and I am fighting for my life.

I am pitted against Diablo Malvado the bone crusher and the odds are totally against me! The whole world does not give me a chance since the last opponent he faced is almost a vegetable receiving care in some intensive care unit. However, this was a make or break match, it is either I win and become the world champion or join the long trail of broken boxers who might have been.

I have struggled through the first four rounds with my breath sounding like that of a farrowing sow.  

The bell rang for round five and he came out of the blue corner charging at me like a raging bison high on amphetamines. Black, big, brutish with a shaven head attached to his shoulders devoid of a neck, he is the stuff nightmares are made of. Thick, tall, dark, a jagged scar tissue ran down his left eye all the way to his lips, giving him a perpetual lopsided grin that taunted me. He launched a flurry of punches, a flood of agony that drowned my senses. It was all I could do to soak up the furious onslaught without buckling at the knees.

Through the fog of pain, the voice of Manuel Christos, my trainer, mentor and friend in one pierced through saying “stand boy! Do all you can to stand!”.

 Despite his constant admonitions and the roaring chant of the cloud of witnesses in the hall cheering me on, I took a left hook on the jaw and crumpled. I saw stars and they were not the ones lining the Milky Way. The count was on and by the time the Referee got to seven I groggily got to my feet and was promptly saved by the bell. Coach has always told me, it does not matter how many times you fall so long you rise again. I walked shakily to the red corner battered and bruised but Manuel caught me just as I was about collapsing. I felt despondency wrap its thick fist around me.

OBINNA....His heart shattered into bits like fragile china vase as he watched her walk away with her usual panache laden steps.

"I cannot take this anymore!" These were her final words but they had been uttered with such vituperation that they became the sledge hammer that broke his soul.

Since leaving school, he had been working given that he did not believe in being idle but most of the jobs were owned by Nigerians which means you toil like a Hebrew slave with little or no incentive. Staff welfare is usually bad and most of the time the pittance paid does not show up until the end of the next month and in a lot of cases months go by without workers getting their salary while the owners of the companies trotted round the globe.

Thing is, this situation has crept up upon Ego and he with its clammy hands to kill the vine of their relationship. They had gone out for nine yrs and were supposed to be married this year but he could even afford to buy her recharge card lots of the time. She had come to the end of her tether and decided to move on with rich Ekene who had been piling a ton of pressure on her for ages.

His luck had petered out! As the fragrance of her perfume lingered in the Mushin one room apartment where he squatted, Obinna wept!

SANDRA……Their fellowship had gone sour like stale egusi soup after only three years. These days they lived like strangers in the house and did not even share the same bed anymore. She never thought the day would ever come when she and Omoregie would ever share different bedrooms (in days gone by, she used to feel such things happened to couples who lived in mars and not anywhere near her). Lately her husband was only consumed by work. It was either one miserable target or another and recently he had started staying out late. A couple of days back she smelt the fumes of alcohol on his breath and could have sworn there was a lipstick stain on one of his trademark T.M Lewin shirts. Passion had flown out of the windows of their love castle like a swallow migrating from a harsh winter to a warmer clime. Sandra felt so alone, so unloved and the only way she could see out of all this was for the unfeeling scissors of divorce to slash through the ribbon of their fellowship.

OLU......His name was missing on the list for the umpteenth time, he has failed again. As the sounds of jubilation from successful candidates erupted around him, he trudged back to his room crestfallen. Olu felt like a trapped rat, there seems to be no way out of the confusing maze of his dilemma! A predicament that had made him contemplate suicide a few times.

IYABO.....the threads of white hair escaped from her dark mass of curls like exuberant wisteria. The crows feet around her eyes were becoming more prominent everyday despite all the beauty products she splurged on. There was no way, she could escape the fact that she was growing older and was still single. Pressure from family, friends and folks squeezed her like the folds of a boa constrictor until she had become emotionally exhausted! It was not like she had the ability to create a husband from clay or sand but they would not let her be, everyone harassed her like angry hornets. These days she felt she was continually running against time that was ticking like a bomb....Iyabo felt tired, so tired!

TIFFANY....The pain ripped through her like a serrated knife in the hand of a maniac, slashed at her core like a pepper fortified axe. She still found it difficult to believe that her brother in-law waltzed into her matrimonial home and slapped her! He called her a shriveled yam that should be thrown into a bin. The main sting was that Odun her husband did not even say anything, behaved like he did not know what happened. In seven years of marriage, she had never felt the pain of her infertility so acutely!

                                                            2  

…..Round twelve, I am amazed to have made it this far. My eyes are puffy and swollen, I can barely see. The punishment continued. The tear above my eyebrow dripped blood into my eyes. I could not take it anymore. I sincerely wished that Manuel Christos would throw in the towel and save me the torture. It was time to quit but I knew if I capitulated that would be the end of my boxing career. He never works with quitters and he is the best in the world. It was great privilege to train under him and I was not about to lose that. He got me my first title and I never forget what he told me after he congratulated me.

“Saint, if you ever turn back in the heat of battle, my soul would have no pleasure in you. No one is fit for my attention who ever looks back once their boxing gloves are on. I and anyone who decides to stick with me are not quitters who lose out. Oh, no! We’ll stay with it and survive, believing all the way”.

So I dug in my head, fixed the prize before my eyes and slugged it out. I went at him toe to toe, squared up eye to eye. I made up my mind to win or die trying! I fought the fight of my life!!!

OBINNA…..The offer from Ette was quite tempting. All Obinna needed to do was cook the books and no one would have ever noticed. He would have made the easiest three hundred thousand naira of his life without any repercussions. It would have come in handy too. He was tired of squatting and would have been able to get a self contained one room apartment in Iju. Furthermore, it would also have been some kind of sweet revenge against an unfriendly and rapacious system. He tossed and turned for countless sleepless and sweaty nights weighing his options. After a long week of deliberations, he decided to pass albeit reluctantly because he could not stoop that low. Ette called him a big fool. The insult rankled!

SANDRA……Dennis was your typical ladies dream man. He usually looked like he just stepped out of the pages of the latest GQ magazine. A natural model, slick in his ways, sleek in his moves, smooth with his words, he was the type ladies would gouge one another’s eyes out for. Funny thing was that he was still single even though he could have any woman he wanted at the snap of his fingers. Lately, he started showering her with attention and being the most accomplished gentleman, he did a lot of things that her husband would not even do in the next millennium, simple things like opening doors and waiting for her to walk past. Since Sandra's esteem had taken a hit due to Omoregie’s attitude, she lapped up all the attention like a voracious cat going at prime cream milk. Truth was, she was beginning to think her husband could go jump into a lake; he was not even half the dude her toaster was, not by a long shot. Hence, when Dennis invited her for lunch in one of the deluxe restaurants in town, she jumped at the invitation but on her way she called him, apologized profusely for not being able to go through with it and wept with her head banging the steering wheel. She felt like a fool who had torn up a lottery ticket.

OLU……..The big three knew of his dilemma and offered to help him out this time. For a paltry sum, they would tender the questions of the next exams to him. He did not want to fail anymore considering that some of the people he started with were already way ahead of him. He agreed to the offer but a day to the agreed date, he called them and called off the whole arrangement. They called him a failure and a loser.

IYABO…….It is so nice to finally have someone she could call her own especially on days like Valentine. However, she finally had to tell herself the truth; the guy had no values, was only interested in sex and only placed stock on ephemeral things. She figured that if she finally agreed to his proposal, her name would change from Miss to Mrs, her finger would bear a ring but she would be eternally miserable. She broke up and everyone called her stupid!

Tiffany…..it was dark and quiet, shadows and silhouettes loomed like otherworldly structures in the soft gentle glow of the moon. The hut was decrepit, beside the village river and the crone sitting in front gave her the hibbie jibbies. Her mother in law held her hand and pulled her closer to the woman that was supposed to have the magic that would give her a baby like she did for her sister in law. Tiffany felt she must have been out of her mind to have given in to the woman’s pressure. She snatched her hand and ran for dear life while the women rained all sorts of abusive words on her in a stormy rage.

                                                                      

                                                          3

My tenacity was getting to Diablo Malvado. He had always been the type who does not like long drawn out matches; he would rather sneak in and floor his opponents with a sucker punch. Ducking his wild round houses, I concentrated on making every punch count. This time I was not hitting like one hitting the air.  Every punch was deliberate, each blow made to count. Head filled with Manuel Christos words, I was resolute, determined to floor this giant.  Diablo could not withstand my faith once my fear dissolved. He wilted under my relentless salvos. All this time I kept talking to him, throwing Christos’ words, telling him how he was going to be toppled unlike the earlier rounds when fear gripped my voice box and made it impossible for me to talk. I gave him a thunderous jab and followed it up with a right hook which almost decapitated him. The rest was history. He could not get up for the tenth count and the whole hall went agog. I was carried shoulder high, the belt of gold was placed on my waist and Manuel kept applauding and smiling at me. I still cannot get over the fact that I won….   

OBINNA…he came out of his latest Honda Accord sports and hugged Awele his wife while his son and daughter ran to him shouting “daddy, daddy”. He scooped them up and planted kisses on their faces. It was so good coming back home to his loved ones after his two weeks training in Dubai which the multinational company he worked for sent him on. Home is certainly where the honey is, he thought smiling.

SANDRA……“until death do us part.” As her husband said those words, joy exploded in her heart. His eyes were such oceans of love that washed over her. They had the tenderness, the softness, the passion, the love that she used to know. He declared them from the depths of his being and hugged her ever so tightly. They had had a rude awakening when they nearly lost their only daughter because of the break in their communication lines. It was a wake up call for them; he cleaned up his act, stepped up his game and she stopped nagging. They got back to winning ways and renewed their vows.

OLU…he threw the hat of his graduation gown into the air as the camera froze and immortalized the moment. Food and drinks were in surplus supply as he celebrated. To cap it all, he had gotten a scholarship for further studies in the USA. Life is indeed groovy; he mused as everyone congratulated him and danced to Frank Edwards “U too dey bless me”.

IYABO…after throwing her bouquet to the throng of her single lady friends, she ran into the arms of her husband who gave her a kiss that warmed her through like she were a chestnut in a fire. Smouldering and aglow with the warmth of love she wondered how someone could be this handsome. The heat spread all the way from her heart to her whole being and smiling to herself mischievously, Iyabo knew they were going to set the Bahamas on fire during their honeymoon.

Tiffany…the song “everything na double double” was blaring from the speakers as she danced carrying one of her twins while her husband carried the other. She had named them Manasseh and Ephraim. The canopies were spread across the field like multicoloured mushrooms with people milling about celebrating and rejoicing. It was a rollicking time for everybody. She was still stunned beyond belief, it was all like a dream, her mouth was filled with laughter and singing but she remembered what Ozioma her best friend kept telling her over the years……

He that endureth to the end shall be saved…

This piece is dedicated to Mohammed Ali, the greatest boxer that ever lived especially for his staying power against Joe Frazier in their bout“The Thriller in Manilla”.

 © 2013 Ekpo Ezechinyere