MERRY CHRISTMAS

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From all of at ADK SCRAPBOOK, we say have a wonderful Christmas celebration!!!

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MY LOVE STORY

If someone had told me that with all the changes and transformations the world has undergone, things as horrifying as this still happen, more so, that it could happen to me, I would have laughed it off.

My name is Queen Adindu; I became a part of the Adindu family by marriage to my once sweet love, Chinonyerem. I will hold myself from giving further information about his background as his name already suggests that he is from eastern Nigeria.

In my university days, I was that slim, dark-complexioned, average height, teenage girl, who had no particular friend. I kept to myself a lot. I had a journal, where I wrote poetry when the gods of creativity smiled at me – that journal served as a companion, my one true friend.... As I walked out of the classroom after a class ended one bright Friday afternoon, someone bumped into me and my companion fell to the ground, he ran along; he did not even stop to say sorry or anything. I made a move to pick up my book only to see a stretched out hand giving it to me. He was my classmate, who, according to him, has been observing me. He moved swiftly to open the book before I could stop him.

Days later, someone joined me as I sat in class brainstorming, he introduced himself as ”Chinonyerem – the one who helped you pick up your journal the other day,” and from that day, we started talking. He was the only person that had come close to me, close enough to request that I write him a poem. Although I got to like him, but that was it, I could not bring myself to write him a thing. We saw a few more times before he finally asked me out, which I declined. Before I gained admission into the university, I resolved that I would not engage in any extra-curricular activity that would interfere with my studies. I made this known to him, but not without an offer that he tries again after we were done with school – if he was still interested in me by then.

Time passed, and my fondness for him grew as we moved from one academic year to another. You will excuse my feelings, because even as I stood my ground about a relationship in school, I got extremely jealous when I saw him with other girls.... On the day we wrote our final degree examination, he walked up to me and asked me again to be his girlfriend… you can imagine my excitement. We went out for another three years before we tied the knot.

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Many years have gone by since then, and we have with four daughters – homely Chinaza who turned 20 last month, quiet Ogechukwu, 18, naïve Chetachi, 16, and ‘hot-headed’ Ugochi, who is 14. From the day my husband realised that his fourth child was also a girl, he hated her so much. I have always thought that the reason why Ugochi is emotionally strong and daring unlike her sisters stems from the unavailability of affection she suffers from her father. In addition, I no longer enjoyed his love.

Though we did not live in separate apartments, I cannot say that my daughters have any relationship with their father other than paternity. They all shared this aversion, especially the last. His hopes on her to be his heir were much. Maybe that was the reason why he hated her more. After my last birth, he seemed distant and so much under pressure. Maybe the stress of not having a male heir was weighing him down, or so I thought. Wait! Was it Nuela, my husband’s sister? Sister Nuela forbade anyone from addressing her as Nkechinyere since she was 25 and beautiful. Fifteen years on, Sister is still single. I heard stories of how men of different calibre came to ask her hand in marriage, but no, she wanted the high and mighty. She cared more about her hair and her nails and her skin than she did about marriage then. Sister shares our apartment with us, not that she pays any of the bills; she has no source of income whatsoever. Well, I do not know about any! Like an African mosquito in dry season, Sister continued singing into my husband’s ears to get a young woman who would bear him a son.

“I choro ka ama gi chie?” She would say in Igbo. No one will carry on your name.

I do not like that woman. Something about her makes me puke each time our paths meet. Maybe she has developed an odour from her prolonged use of cheap bleaching lotions. Yes, that is it… if not, why does she wear deodorant, body spray, and cologne to bed?

It was 8:27PM when my husband returned with a girl. She was about my size and age when I left my parents’ house to join Chinonyerem. Her youthfulness caused me a mixture of anger, pain, and jealousy, and I imagined that she has been enjoying my husband for quite a while. Sonia came in three months pregnant. Chinonyerem could not gather encourage to tell me about it, but I overheard his conversation with Sister when I set the table for dinner. He brought her along to the dining room, and when I served the meal, I hoped that she would decline to eat but no, she did not!

Months rolled by and it seemed sudden when Sonia who was now in her third trimester went into labour. On the day of her labour, we were both alone at home. I battled with the thought of whether to help her out or just let her wallow and writhe in pain. I finally decided. On our way to the hospital, I phoned my husband to inform him about the development, and under 15 minutes, he joined me in the hospital.

You could literally hear my heartbeat when the doctor came out to announce the success of the birth more than six hours later. “It’s a boy” was the last thing I heard before I slumped.

DEEP RIVER WOMAN

Photo Credit: cosmopolitan.com

It was night; a dark night with a pale moon sitting in the sky surrounded by weary stars that gathered like Catholics in a candle light vigil on Easter eve. It was strange to see them so. Stars are often scattered, but this night they seemed to have come together for an alleluia chorus.

Cold air rushed from the west and swept through the river bank and it stung on my skin, biting into the pores of my skin with a mild fury. There, I stood and watched the river from its lonely bank. This is where I meet the woman in my dreams....

I don't know the name of this river, but it was beautiful in the night. Calm and serene, it lay like a blanket beneath the stars; endlessly stretching as far as my eyes could see. There were ripples of weak waves swaying, making the dark blanket quiver and the congregation of stars danced to the music of the waves.

She will come, yes, she will come.  She always comes to my dreams and this night can't be different. I thought as I stood. I clasped my palms against each other and rubbed. They were frozen in the cold and it hurt, but I rubbed anyway. I had to keep them warm, to keep the blood flowing. I tried to sing, so my voice will tell her it was time but my teeth gritted in the cold and drowned my voice.

This was the tenth dream. For a while, I have been dreaming about this woman every day.

The first time we met in my dream was some months ago. I can't remember when with clear precision; but I just know that it has not been up to a year. In that dream, she was a sprinter and practiced for a contest. She had ran for a mile when we met on this river bank. Broken and tired she lay in the sands. She had had a sprain and couldn't move her legs. For reasons I can no longer remember, I was at the river bank.  It was early morning just before the night's dark cloaks became multiple shades of bluish gray. I did not clearly see her face.

"Hello," I said. "What's wrong with you?"

"I'm okay, don't worry. I'm fine."

I can't remember the dialogue but I eventually helped her up and massaged her legs.

"There's no shame in asking for help, you know"

"Yes, I know. But you humans have a way of preying on the weak. I didn't want to appear weak."

"You humans? What does that make you?" I asked.

She laughed. "I meant to say you men."

"Oh! I thought as much. True anyway. A beautiful young lady helplessly lying at a river bank by this time of the day"

"You see what I mean?"

"Yes, I do"

She felt at ease and smiled in the darkness.

"Why did you help me?"

"Huh? I guess it's natural to want to help"

"What about those that prey on the weak?"

"Well, it's natural too. I just guess it depends on which part one comes from. I just don't know. There is good and evil. It depends."

"So you are good?" She asks.

"I don't know. I just did what I felt was right."

I perceived the smell of smoke; something was burning. I looked around but there was no fire.

"So, what's your name?" She asked as if to distract me from the smell.

"Ekene. My name is Ekene. You?"

As she was about to say something, I felt a jerk. Someone gave my left leg a ferocious pull. The dream was gone. My sister had woken me up.

"Bia, Nwokem! Do you want to burn the house? How come you put the soup on fire and slept off?"

Oh! That was the smell. I looked at the time and it was midnight. That whole night, I slept with one eye open. I could not shut my mind against that woman. I thought about her as if she was real.

The second time we met was some weeks after the first. It was still in my dreams and we strolled through the bank before I was jerked up to go and discard the dirt. I remember our laughter in the night. The echoes of our voices as we sang some folklores from her home. I grudgingly went out to discard the waste. It was 9PM and how could I have been dreaming so early?

For months, I did not meet her in my dreams, but I dreamt of other things – women, lions, sharks, cars, jets, wars, movies, fire, apocalypse, bomb blasts... There were nights when I dreamt of mountains falling into the oceans and woke up sweating.  I dreamt of everything but the river, the bank and her.

Last week, she came for the third time. I found myself beneath a capsizing boat. The quiet river reverberated with kicks of struggle from my dying legs. I had taken a few gulps of water, drinking myself to the bottom of the river. She came in swift strokes prowling like a shark in the deep. Then, she grabbed me from behind and pulled. Her strength stunned me and I turned in my sleep. There are dreams that act like movies; you watch them and you react in your sleep. Such dreams have a way of telling you, "this is a dream, you are asleep"

She locked her hand under my armpit and pulled me.

"I've paid you back man," she said.

"You came?" I asked.

"Yes I did," she answered.

She was still bent over me and drops of water fell from hair.

And since that third dream, we have met every night. She always comes before me to wait on the river bank or pass the time swimming. When I come before her, I sit on the sand and sing. She believes my voice is a spell and calls me the enchanter.

Now, I stood waiting for her but could not find her. Dreams don't last the whole night and it hurt me that our often short moments of wild encounter was being cut in half. I wondered what kept her. She had not told me about herself; she is just a woman that lives somewhere in or around the river and I'm just a man that comes around the river. We only meet at the bank. Then I remembered that the few times I came before her, she came swimming out of the river. I thought of jumping into the river.

After the night I almost drowned, I swore never to get into the river again. Fear washed over me, cascading over me in complete effusion. But I wanted her and could not wait anymore, so I waddled into the river and took a dive.

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Warm! Warm! The river was warm. I savoured the blissfulness, swimming in the calm serenity of her world. I took more strokes that led me farther away from the river bank and I kept moving without really knowing where and how to find her.

I had swam so far away that I could no longer see the land when I saw her patiently afloat in the middle of nowhere. Around her, the serene river formed a carousel of ripples like a halo on the head of a saint. Her hands caressed the river with gentle strokes that kept her afloat. She smiled.

"I've made you work," She said.                                  

I should have been angry. I should have thrown tantrums, but I had no glass cup to cast and there certainly was no wall upon which to break the glass cup. I rather had a sense of deep fulfilment that broke into happiness.

"There you are madam," I said as a way to tell her that her attitude that night was bossy.

"See what it takes me to get to you sir; see how far I swim to be with you"

“Wow! But I'm no fish like you"

She broke into laughter and sent splashes of water against my face with one monstrous strike.

"Is this just a dream woman? I still don't know your name"

"My name is whatever you want to call me and yes, this is still a dream. Your dream"

"How long have I been asleep?"

"I don't know. But I know that split seconds can give you an eternity of dreams. You may have been

asleep for a second"

"I waited for over an hour in the cold. It will soon be morning and I've missed you"

"Oga missi missi; come with me."

She took a very deep breath and dived. She has a habit of taking you by surprise and I've developed a tolerance for sudden jerks and surprises. I rushed my breath and went after her.  In the few moments that followed, we explored the river from beneath.

"It's all in your head. This dream is yours and you can do with it as you wish. If I'm in it, then I'm yours. Take me. Let's create our own world. Say what you want to see, we can decide that this river is now an ocean or a land. Let's create an island on it so you won't have to go back. Stay with me."

"But I'll have to wake up and when I do, all these will be gone. Reality is what it is and this dream is not real."

She felt a stab of pain pierce through her ears as I uttered the words "not real". Her eyes glittered under the moonlight and flashed like that of a cat. It scared me for a second, but I knew this woman could not hurt me. Slowly she allowed the current to move her slightly away from me. All this while, she looked at me with disappointment in her eyes.

"You know nothing, Ekene. Your mind is blank. You don't know how far we can go. Dreams are real as real can be. What you call reality is a series of limitations that you humans create with your imperfections to chain yourselves."

"But someone will just wake me up and that will be it. The dream is gone. That's what I mean." I protest.

"But you love me. You race to sleep to find me in your dreams and you worry and pray the tides don't carry me away. You think of me as though I'm part of you and can do for me all in your power. You swam all the way to the centre of nowhere not minding if I could ruin you. What if I strangled you? But you just believed I won't. Is that real?" She insists

She knows more than I do. She has seen more than I have. She has lived for thousands of years and now, she has found me to love. That was scary. I held her hands and she grabbed me to hug me. There we were in the middle of that nameless river. Two warm bodies wrapped around each other, surrounded by a blanket of shimmering waters. I saw the moon sitting on the sky and quietly, I opened my eyes. It was morning.

What if I could make my dreams my new reality? What if we could build an island on that river? She could be right.

ENTANGLED 2

Continued from last time... click to read

Abigail just returned from school when Austin rang. He wanted to spend some time with her, so he needed to know if she was done with classes for the day. She quickly went to the market to get stuffs for soup and returned home to prepare it. Austin had to have something to eat when he comes around, she thought. She had just finished making the soup when she heard a knock on her door. It was her new-found-love; he came in and sat down on her 'student chair' then she served the food which they ate together. They had a chat for a while after which she excused to go have her bath – her apartment was a one room self-contained which Vince had been footing the bills since they began dating. She put on her nightwear and requested he goes to have his bath, but he told her he didn't want to inconvenience her so he did it at his place before visiting. They watched a movie on her laptop computer and she fell asleep, to wake up later to a cold night and needing warmth. She found Austin lying next to her and the computer shut down. She snuggled back in bed not knowing he was still awake. Then... he stretched out his arm to her waist and she didn't object. She tilted her waist towards his hips and felt his third leg; hard and desirable. He placed his hands on her breasts to fondle them and found her nipple cold and pointed, he grabbed and squeezed as she yielded. He pulled up her night gown and placed his mouth on it, biting gently on her nipples and making her moan. She was so wet, she couldn't wait anymore, and she rushed for his shorts and brought it out and led him straight inside her. She moaned in pleasure – she has not had this in months and she wondered if that was the reason why she was cranky. The last time was the eve of Vince's departure from Nigeria – Austin worked on her: kissing, kneading, fondling, biting and thrusting.... They lay there exhausted and he dragged her to himself and they slept off.

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As the sun pierced through the window the next morning, it had Abigail feeling shy, so she scrambled for her clothes before he could wake up. She stared at him in disbelief as she never imagined that they could have something more intense than what she had with Vince the last time. Was it because she was loving him or is it a case of misplaced feelings and emotions? She was still ruminating in the experience of last night when her phone rang. It was Vince. She was rattled. Before she pressed the answer button, she wondered if he felt her betrayal from there. Finally, she answered the phone, and an excited Vince announced that he would be in Nigeria the next day – the business he went for have been signed and sealed. Austin had awoken by the tone of the phone when it rang. A frown grazed his face and he inquired why she would receive Vince's call when they were together. He felt he had a certain right to her now that he had eaten her. She sat there transfixed, head-swollen like one who had seen a ghost. She thought about how to disentangle the various threads her emotions conflate. How she let this thing she felt for this guy go this far. How it could be that she is in love with two different men at the same time. She thought about how she could look at her would-be-husband in the face when he returns.

MANIAC

Photo Credit: pixshark.com

When pastors and preachers talked about Jesus and said that ikwokirikwo is fornication, Onyeka barred his teeth and cussed. Why must they always talk about this one? They cornered him in every joint as though heaven have been stalking him, yelling about rapture, abi capture – whatever! The public buses were their favourite spot and they made him want a private car above every other thing. "This is invasion of privacy and my rights to peaceful movement," he protested. Don’t tell me about Jesus!

Then someone said, "Don’t watch porn; it messes with your head". He scoffed and spat. You are talking to the hand. "It’s cobweb in your mind! It’s a dent on your soul!! It’s immoral!!! It is bad. It is this, it is that...."

Who gives a damn? Did God not create the hole for peg? If I don’t chook it in there, will He chook it himself? Relax, I know the bible too.

So he goes on Google and finds all the links to those funky sites. Why are they all whites? White tits, white butts, white dicks and pink pussies. White! White!! White!!! He goes back to search again. This time, he writes "black pornography" "black sex" "black fuck".

Ahaaaaaaa! That’s more like it. The hotspot in school is cheap, so he begins to download. Loading… Download complete. Ahaaaaaaaaaa! Porn time!!! 

4:00AM, his trouser is soaked and his muscles tensed. He feels his dick and it’s hard like a rock. I have to do. Man body no be firewood. It’s 5AM and someone somewhere is yelling, talking about... Jesus again! Did David not do? Did Solomon not do? Even Abraham the father of faith sef do! Jesus really turned the scriptures upside down. Even Dan Brown said he did in that new book. They should go and rest jare. Rubbish!

Sometime during the day. He is in class and sees the handwriting on the wall, on the white board, on the ceiling and on the sidewalks. It drew white tits, black and white pussy, black tits, six inches dick, eight inches dick, ten inches dick, fifteen inches dick.... Someone is messing with my head. He buys  one sachet of water to wash his face, he is tired and sleepy but arrrgh... lectures!

"Hey you!" yelled the lecturer, "why are you sleeping in my class?"

"Sah? Am I sleeping, Sah?" the class explodes with laughter and the fat idiot who loves to sit at the back renames him Am-I-sleeping-Sah.

Chai! It’s sleep. I didn’t sleep well at night. I think those stuffs are messing with my brain. He goes to the library to revise. Finally, there is quiet, heaven! No tit, no butt and no pussy. Ahaaaah!

First page… last paragraph…. Second page... first paragraph….What is this strange sound? The library is totally quiet. Someone is being murdered here. It’s behind the shelves. They are strangulating her. She is crying and yelling for help. He goes behind the shelves to see for himself. She is moaning. She puts one finger in her mouth and blinks at him.

"Do you want some pussy?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

Then he feels a rough brush against his shoulder.

"Hey! Young man, this is a library. You are disturbing. Don’t talk in your sleep."

Haaaaaaaaaaah! This film has done me in. No. I’m no longer a child, I’m 16. I should be able to handle this. If I get used to it, I'll stop hallucinating. Later that night he watches some more. His dick almost exploded and yes, he slept off by 1AM.

They have been friends for a while now. She is pretty and sexy. And, her ass looked like the ass of that last black girl that took that guy’s peg in her mouth. Wow! If only she could give him some of that peg eating stunt. He lies on the bed thinking about her. Her tits, her waist; her this, her that.

She knocked on the door. He opens. Small talks. Big talks. His peg jumps up. Oh my God! Not this time, please. He puts his hand in his pocket to hold the renegade down but it loves to rebel. What does it know? Nothing!

His mind begins to fight itself. A tug of war begins to rage.

'Who knows, she wants it too.'

'No, she doesn’t..

'Yes she does. Her skirt is short.'

'So what?'

'Yes na, it shows she wants it!'

'How does short skirt show she wants it?'

'I don’t know. Ok. She’s smiling.'

'Girls smile na! It's normal.'

'Yes, they do.'

'So?'

Her smile looks like that white girl that tore off her bikini when the white guy pulled off his boxer shorts.

'Really?'

'That’s how they smile when they want it.'

'Chai!'

'But, what if she doesn’t want it?'

'Then make her want it na.'

'They eventually get around to like it anyway.'

'Really?'

'Yes!'

'Are you sure?'

'Hian! Didn’t you see the other girl that was shouting "leave me, leave me" and when the guy rammed the dagger into her thingy she started to shake like earthquake?'

'That’s true.'

'Yes na! she’ll come around and like it. Just make sure you ram it in real hard.'

'OK.'

He decides. This will be good. Uh lala! Time to get laid. He moves closer and begins to smile like a sheep. If he was a dog, his tail would be waging like a disturbed rope, flailing itself from side to side like a dying python. She wonders why this guy smiles like a sheep.

"You know you are very beautiful"

She begins to blush and smile like a sheep too. "Thanks, dear."

Something about her voice drove him wild. Or is he "dear" really? This is green light oh! Time to act is now.

He moves real closer. He touches her shoulders and she smiles some more. Really? This is working. He tries to kiss her but she pulls off her face. Hian! Where went the green light? Well, initial gra-gra. Keep moving anyway.

'Make her want it! Make her want it!!'

"What is wrong with you?" She demands.

"Please, stop."

"Relax, you'll like it."

"Like what?" She tries to stand but he holds her down. Time to be a man. Hahaaaa! Hold her down! He begins to play a song in his head. The biological radio in his groin has turned on the dial. 'All I want is your waist, your waist, your waist, all is want is your waist...'

She started struggling first and tried to throw a punch. She has seen it before and can now smell it. The other time it happened to her, she was fourteen and the idiot neighbour had smiled like a sheep too, said something about beauty and touched her like this. She knows how it will turn out so she started fighting first. She kicked, and punched and scratched and bit. He grabbed her hands and pinned her to the ground.

Hey! This is not pornography. I guess you know what happened in that scene.

OK. Now, she and her brother are standing at that lonely junction waiting for the idiot. She has a broken bottle in her left hand. They planned to cut off the peg from his cursed groin. There was a vision somewhere in a dark place that in five hours, Onyeka will be lying in a hospital wishing he listened to the preachers.