EROTICA.....UNCENSORED. +17 Brand new story title SHOWER TIME SHOWER TIME

Tonight, my baby is coming over. I hear him pulling up outside the house. He comes in the door and knocks. I open the door, and there he stands, in his uniform. This is the eye candy I have been craving all day. He is holding a wine and chocolate. He extends his hand with the goodies, with a mischievous grin. I am intrigued. I exclaim, “Why a wine and chocolate?”. He responds, “To match your black angel wings”. I laugh, smile and welcome him in.
I ask, “What do you want to drink tonight, baby? Need a beer?” He nods and I slip out to the kitchen to get him one. I am wearing my little sundress he likes so much. He loves the feel of the fabric when he holds me close.
I return to steal a kiss in exchange for the opened beer. I find myself saying, “You are so tense” while I rub his back. He looks at my patio cabana and say, “Baby, can I lay on the couch and you give me a massage?” That makes me smile and starts my juices to flowing. All I can think to say is, “Mmmmmm. Yes!” I can not wait to help him out of that shirt. I can not wait to touch his skin and smell his musk.
We steps out on the patio. I have a sitting area, cooking, cabana, hot tub and outdoor shower. He and sits down on the white couch. I love to watch him move. He has that s8xy, I got this gait. In my mind, I am silently humming he’s too s8xy for his shirt.
I straddle his lap facing him. He grabs my waist and pulls me in tight for a quick kiss. I start unbuttoning his shirt, slowly, intentionally, just one button at a time. I just can not resist. I am smelling his manly scent and I am getting turned on. I have to lean in and nibble on his left ear while I keep unbutton his shirt. I love his deep moans and his laugh. Now a few kisses on his neck, just to let him know how turned on I am being with him. His hand are going under my short sundress, sliding up my inner thigh, searching for my undies. He raises his eyebrow. I have a naughty pair of thongs, because he loves my ass in thongs.
After pushing that shirt down off those strong shoulders and pulling them off one arm at a time, he lays down face first and I grab the massage oil. The scent is like being on a tropical island – heavy and intoxicating. I love to feel his tense body start to relax under my touch. I love to get heavy handed working his muscled body. I let him know it is time to strip off all his clothes so I can really enjoy his body. He agrees.
So I slip off his pants and then his briefs. I take my time working his body from his neck to his ...........

To be continued...

As was told by Success Reginald Okonji.

Nemesis Of A DNA Test....(Episode 2). By Kelechi Onuoha

MY SHORT STORY.

See Episode 1
  In some given situation, 2km could be longer than 10km. The drive from the hospital to my house seemed like eternity. All the forces, spiritual and physical, seemed to be in a conspiracy to delay me. The traffic was unusually heavy, the shouts from vendors calling for customers seemed like they were laughing at me. Police stopped me at Oshodi demanding to know why I was driving and talking to myself; why my driving license was still so neat after four years of usage. Na wa for Police.
  I saw demon on the faces of the other drivers. I cursed and shouted at them to get off my way. A vendor came to entice me into buying a gala he claimed would nourish my body. The look on my face sent him on his heels. Another came with a book titled "Secret Of A Happy  Marriage." I knocked it off his hand, telling him to go to hell. A military truck passed by, trying to be at my front, I shouted at them. One of the military men at the back made a gesture with his hand that I was crazy.
  And maybe I was.
  Any man who remained sane after finding himself in my shoes must be suffering from an undiagnosed gentleman kolo, a form of insanity suffered by men in Lagos, Porthacourt, Aba and Kano.
  A man and his family were driving by, singing along to Steve Crown's "You're Great" gospel song. I looked at how happy they were, it reminded me of my family.  We were a very happy family until now. I wondered if the man was certain of his children's paternity. I wondered if his wife was cheating on him too. I was so angry with the world and with people that did me nothing.
  Anger is corrosive, it eroded my mind crippling every sense of sound judgment.
  I was able to make it home without smashing another car or killing someone. My children were there to welcome me, happy to see their Dad and friend. What's going to be the fate of these children from the fallout of this saga? How would they accept such a tragic news? Things has fallen apart, life would soon no longer be what they used to know. Oh, how the cookies crumble.
  Chioma was in the sitting room, lying down on the couch and watching Zee World with our daughter, Kachamma Daniela. She was on a bum short and a pink sleeveless shirt, knotted above the navel. At her age and after four children, she was still as seductive as she has always been. I never could resist her with her clothes off. She knew it and used it to her advantage. The times we had misunderstanding for something she did wrong, all she needed to do was dress in skimpy and seductive night wear, and I would be showing my thirty two teeth. She would lead me to the bedroom for a holy communion of romantic settlement.

  "Mma," I called my daughter.
  "Yes Dad. Welcome Dad."
  "Go and meet your brothers outside, me and your Mum have something to discuss."
  Kachamma is a very smart kid, knowing  when to protest and when to simply obey without complain.
  "Okay-y." She dragged the word with a little bit of attitude and left.
  Chioma looked at my face and sat up.
  "Is there any problem, honey?"
  "Don't just honey me."
  "Hian! Atọkwa m. What did I do this time?"
  "Please, I want you to be honest for once in your miserable life. Is there anything you would like to confess to me?"
  "Confess kwa. Over what, biko?"
  Her eyes dropped, trying to avoid eye contact. Guilty. When someone that normally looks you eyeball to eyeball starts avoiding eye contact, he is either guilty or hiding a secret.
  "Who is the father of those boys you call my children?" No time to waste time, I had to go straight to the point.
  "What? Father? Of which boys?"
   "Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego. Who is their father? "
  "Where is this question coming from, biko kwa? You're their father nau."
  "In theory, yes. Who is their biological father? "
  "Biology?"
  "No, chemistry."
  "Honey, why why why this ques question?"
  She stuttered. Guilty. When someone that don't normally stutter begins stuttering, its either he's guilty or have something to hide.
  "Don't  let me lose my temper. Who is their father? "
  She readjusted her sitting position, keeping her legs ajar for her laps to be evident. I was expecting such move, seductive hypnosis, which she had always used on me and it worked like magic. But this time is different.
  "Honey, what has come over you? Are you accusing me?"
  She started weeping. Emotional blackmail. Which she had used on me in the past and it worked like a charm. With her tears she melted my heart, cornered me to a position where I would be the one apologizing for a wrong I didn't do. Women na wa. But this time is different.
  She stood up, letting one side of the collar of her shirt fell from her shoulder, revealing her robust breasts. I didn't lick  my lips, which was how she used to know when she got me in her pants. This time is different.
  "Honey, I swear to God, those children are yours."
  "Please please, biko, leave God out of this."
  "What are you doing to us? We're happy, is that not what really matter? "
  "Being happy for the wrong reasons is not true happiness."
  She made to come and hold me.
  "Don't touch me."
  She turned her back, letting her butts bounce in rhythm with her weeping. My wife is a seductress. But today, betrayal and anger has arrested her seductive prowess over me.
   In life though, you never can say never.

FLASH BACK:
 ...................
  (This is getting serious. Do I grab her neck and squeeze it tight or do I give her my hand to lead me to the bedroom and let a sleeping dog lie?)

To Be Continued.

Composed & Written by
Kelechi Onuoha
© '18.

Nemesis of a DNA test (Episode 1) by Kelechi Onuoha

MY SHORT STORY.

  "You can't be serious, doctor. What are you saying?" I was in denial of the obvious.
  "I'm sorry Mr Onuoha, but you're not the biological father of your last three children. "
  "This must be an expensive joke."
  "DNA does not lie."
  "Doc, those children calls me Dad."
  "It doesn't make them your biological children. "
  I knew the doctor  wasn't lying. I only came to his hospital to reconfirm what a previous test had confirmed. Among my four children, only the first is my biological child.
  "Doctor Dibia, I've been the father of those children right from the time they were conceived. How could this happen to me?"
  "Kacy my friend, in this profession I've seen such cases many times. Some men will find out and choose to bury the secret because of shame, while some will take drastic measure."
  "I'm finished, doctor."
  "I'll advice you calm down and go home. Your wife has got some explanation to make."
  "Sure, Chioma has got some explanation to make. And it better be a reasonable one."
  What have I just said? A reasonable explanation? Can there be any explanation reasonable enough to justify this act? That I, Kelechi Onuoha, is not the biological father of Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego. Children that I love so much and loved their mother more each day for giving me three boys. I remembered when Abednego was born, I bought a brand new CRV four-wheel-drive for my wife in appreciation.
  Rant HQ has finished me. Suzan Ade Coker has ruined my life. Why did I even join that group? Oh Chioma! Chioma, you have killed me, Chioma. Ewu a ta m igu n'isi.
  I rushed out from the hospital, rushed into my car and drove off like the devil was after me. Anger was boiling in my stomach, pain was beating drum in my heart, and confusion was pounding yam in my head. In an instant I was becoming a miserable wreck.
  I'm coming,  Chioma.

FLASH BACK:
  It was about a week ago that my friend, Mr Gbenga, called me on whatsapp.
  "Omo Igbo," that was his usual hello.
  "Omo Yoruba," was my hi.
  "O boy, I want to add you to one crazy group like that."
  "What group is that?"
  "Where people rants two-four-seven and dey do amebo."
  "Amebo? Abeg add me sharperly."
  "There's something I would like you to read anyway."
  "Ok."
  Few minutes later, notification came on Facebook,  "Gbenga Ajayi added you to a close group, Rant HQ." Before I could click, another notification, "Gbenga Ajayi mentioned you in a post", followed by a message on messenger, "Please, go through the comments on that post."
  Something seriously needed my attention for Gbenga to have gone to this length. I opened the post, made by Suzan Ade Coker, which was asking men if they're sure of the paternity of their children and of the surprises a DNA test could reveal. What has this got to do with me? Why did Gbenga drag me to the post? I began to read the comments.
  Then, gbagam! I saw it. My beautiful wife, Chioma, was a member of the group. Her comment was attracting a lot of attention. It wasn't just a comment. She was practically raining fire and brimestone on the poster, accusing her of trying to break "happy" marriages. She asked for the post to be pulled down or her god will strike the poster.
  As I expected, members were attacking her. One said she was a suspect. The other said maybe her gateman was the father of her children. Another one  said she probably don't know who the real father or fathers of her children are. I couldn't believe what my wife was ranting. Why being so defensive if she was innocent?  Why spitting so much venom?
  Yes, her comment made her a suspect. Okwu ya achiputala ya ukwu n'ama. And I must get to the bottom of this.

BACK TO PRESENT:
  Wahala dey. Big wahala dey.

To Be Continued.

ANOTHER SILENCE BY INNOCENT AGBO

                                         
I looked up and saw her as she stepped into the bus, the last passenger, the one to occupy the vacant seat beside me.

She studied the empty seat, and to avoid her eyes, I looked away. I feared that my eyes may not be able to hold the secret of that moment; that they may become weak and reveal to her, how much I wanted her to sit beside me.

Nsukka was unusually cold that afternoon. It was long past the middle of March and there had been no sign of rain. But that afternoon seemed different. Though it was already 2:30 p.m, the usual hot malevolent tongue of the harmattan sun had not yet kissed the ground. All we had of the sun that day was a mild yellow disc beneath the hurrying clouds. It drizzled a little, just as I was leaving the bank but the sun was defiant and refused to give way to the threatening rain. The gentle struggle between the sun and the light rain gave that day a gloomy spectacle and from time to time, in the distance, one could hear the muffled protest of the thunder. It was the first promise of rain after the harmattan and the sweet scent of dry dust hung in the air.

The commercial motorcyclist who had picked me from the bank dropped me before Peace Park at exactly 2:30 p.m. I was to travel to Lagos the next day, for the commencement of my youth service programme, the one year compulsory service to the country. Emeka, a childhood friend and classmate, was also travelling to Kano State, for the same purpose. I had gone to the bank early that morning to withdraw some amount of money with which I would pay him the debt I owed him. He was staying with his elder sister around Ninth Mile junction. My target was to pay him up as fast as possible, purchase a few things and then, take another bus back to Nsukka to finalize my own preparations.

I bought a ticket and hurried into the bus. There were six passengers already in the bus but none of them had taken my favourite position, the seat directly behind the driver. ‘Man is selfish, naturally’, I thought to myself, ‘in case of any danger, any driver would strive to secure his own side of the vehicle first.’
I sat down and opened the book I had with me. It was an anthology of poetry, West African Verse. I buried my head in its pages as we waited for other passengers.

The driver came into the vehicle. He was tall and wiry, with a scornful smile that seemed to perpetually linger on his lips. The veins on his arms stood out like electric cables. A slightly oversized beret which had been decoloured by age, hung loosely on his small head. He picked up a brown towel from the dashboard and started wiping off imaginary dusts from the windscreen. One of the stickers on the screen read, ‘Life is an opportunity, Grab it!’ Satisfied with the wiping, he turned on the stereo player. The first song that came up was Fela Kuti's ‘suffering and smiling’. I gently closed the book and joined in the song,

‘Everyday na de same thing… suffering and smiling                                                                                              suffer, suffer for world… Amin                                                                                                                                 Enjoy for heaven… Amin                                                                                                                             Christians go dey yab... in spiritus heavinus                                                                                                  Moslems go dey yan... Allahu – wa – kuba'

Only one vacant seat still remained in the bus. It was the space by my right. Everyone was calm. They all seemed to have been lost in the magic maze of Fela’s music. I was lost too, but was jolted back to reality when the sweet scent of a certain feminine perfume wafted across my nostrils.

I looked up. It was the last passenger; the one to occupy the only vacant seat left, the seat by my right.

She was gorgeous. The tight pencil Denim jeans trouser emphasized her curves; a pair of voluptuous hips and two plump lobes of firm buttocks that quivered with each step. The white belt she wore had a blue stitching around its edges and helped to accentuate her hips as they heaved to announce every step. Even the V- necked pink top did not spare my adventurous eyes as it led them through the tiny line of hairs that ran from her navel into some point within the jeans, then up to the valley of her cleavage and the two firm and daring breasts underneath.

She surveyed the other seats and turned to get down.
I almost shouted to her that there was still much space left. But in a fraction of that second, I discovered that she wasn’t actually leaving; she had just gone down to get her bag into the bus.
She came closer, and pointing to the space beside me, asked,
 “Hope you don’t mind if I…”
 “Sure, I don’t”, came my frenzied response, cutting her question in a voice that I hardly recognised as mine.
“Thanks”, she said, and sat down. Her voice was calm, and the accent, soft. It was like listening to music. The pulse in my chest increased its pace and, though I tried to control it, I began to breathe faster. To my surprise, I looked around and the other passengers were all busy with their personal affairs. Were they so blind as not to have noticed the sweet, sublime and somnolent presence of this pearl? Was there not a single person among them who felt the way I did?

Just then, a tall skinny man in a tired brown coat brought the manifest, handed it to the passengers in the front seat and left. Many eyes followed his coat as it billowed in the breeze. Many eyes, except the pair by my right.
There was an unusual air of calmness about her. For no clear reason, deep within, I had an awkward feeling that she wanted me to say something, that she felt the way I felt. I banished that thought and, looking out through the window, I saw a vendor displaying some newspapers. The headline to one of the papers read, ‘HABEMUS PAPAM’, announcing the successful election of a new Pope. The drizzle had stopped and the sun was gaining more strength and intensity. My phone beeped a warning and I knew it was the battery. There had been power failure for the past four days and the usual resort to power generators had become an unthinkable option. The removal of subsidy by the federal government had made a litre of petrol as costly as a king’s coffin.

A small cock, bearing what seemed like a dead centipede between its beaks, ran across the vendor’s paper stand and my eyes followed it. It suddenly stopped, very close to the spot where the motorcyclist had dropped me, released the poor victim and in the next second, began pecking and tearing it into smaller shreds. The meal was almost ready when suddenly, from the other side of the scene, a bigger cock rushed in, chased it away, bent over, and busied itself with the meal.
My eyes were still tied to that short drama when she tapped me gently and handed me the manifest. She had filled her own columns. Her name was Nnenna, a student of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and her next of kin was Ann. Her phone number was also there in one of the columns.
As I entered my data, I managed to get all I needed to know about her, especially her phone number, which I memorized before handing the manifest to the man behind me.

An old woman bearing a tray of banana on her head came to the window beside me and brandished her goods. After a brief advertisement, she asked me to buy one for my ‘beautiful sister’ who sat beside me. I smiled at the woman’s ignorance and noticed that Nnenna also smiled.
“Mama”, I said, turning to the woman, “my sister doesn’t feel like taking anything, but she will, next time.” This time, it was the turn of the woman to smile.
‘Did I really hear myself well?’ I thought aloud, ‘I just called a total stranger my sister and even promised someone a next time with her.’ For the many ears present, it was just a joke, but I knew it was more than that. That statement revealed my innermost desire to be with her. It made no sense, but it was true. The feelings I had for this total stranger were beyond words. There was something about her, not easy to put into words, but it was there, only felt.
For the first time, I observed that she was looking at the book in my hands.
“Do you like poetry?” she asked
“Yeah” I replied, “it’s my only way of sending my mind on errands and keeping my spirit afloat in this season of drowning minds”.
“Wow! that’s poetic”, she exclaimed, and added after a few seconds, “I’ve also read a number of poems, but they are mostly western.”

From there, we discussed poetry and poets. Ancient and modern. The first was Kwesi Brew’s The Mesh, followed by William Wordsworth’s Solitary reaper and its sullen theme of unexpressed feelings. This theme of bottled-up emotion led us to the theme of the brevity of life and all that makes it worth living, including love, as in Andrew Marvel’s To his Coy Mistress. The final poem with which we captured the above theme was Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee, an account of how he met and lost the love of his life, Annabel Lee, in a kingdom by the sea.

So enraptured were we in the subject of poetry that we forgot the world around us for a while. For the first time, I realised that our bus had already left the park and was almost close to Opi Junction. She suddenly looked up and called my attention to a mirage that glistened on the long tarred road that stretched before us.
 “Devil’s water”, she said, and added almost immediately, “that’s what Ngugi calls it in his Weep not, Child.’
Although I had read that novel, I pretended as though I hadn’t. Her voice was something else, and her laughter had a strange way of lighting up the whole place. I nodded slowly, a way of showing my keen attention and she smiled and continued.

‘After the first white men had constructed the first tarred road that stretched across their village, some of the natives in that novel were amazed at the sight of the small deceptive ponds that appeared and disappeared from time to time ahead of them on the long shiny road. The inquisitive ones among them sought to find this mysterious water and ended up losing their way back to the village.”

“That”, I said, “is the same as what happens to most of our dreams and desires, they often vanish at the point when we think we can almost reach out and grab them”.
She wanted to say something but just then, a lady in a black suit, at the last row, invited everyone to prayer. The driver turned off the stereo and my battery beeped another loud warning. A lady in the front seat fought with the wind as she struggled to cover her hair with a white handkerchief.

After breaking the yokes of ‘mermaid spirits’ and ‘blood sucking demons’, the lady finally ended the fierce prayer, which had lingered for about 35 minutes. Nnenna was beginning to feel sleepy and, though she fought to keep it away, from time to time, her head hit my shoulder and she jolted to wakefulness. This drama was further aided by the driver’s intermittent attempts to avoid the deep potholes that dented the road. There were so much holes and the old shocks of the vehicle groaned violently at each bounce. At short intervals, the driver hit the break, swerving from one side of the bruised road to the other. Finally, Nnenna gave up the struggle with nature, placed her head on my ready shoulder, and slept.
She was even more beautiful in that unconscious state as her lips parted slightly, allowing the mild evening sun to cast its rays of gold on her partly exposed glittering teeth. She seemed to be smiling.

All that while, and in spite of his struggle with the steering wheel, the driver had been stealing glances at us, through the rear-view mirror. I looked up and our eyes met. He looked away in pretentious ignorance and started groping for the stereo. He finally turned on the radio and Lionel Richie’s I call it love came up. I mumbled the lyrics along with the artiste and my heart felt heavier than usual,
“Baby I don’t know what love is,                                                                                                                                                     maybe am a fool                                                                                                                                 But I just know what I’m feeling                                                                                                           And it’s all because of you….”

We drew closer to Ninth Mile and I began to feel a strange heaviness in my chest. That was my destination. That was our crossroads. The thought of a stillborn goodbye filled my stomach with great trepidation. I wanted it to continue. I wanted time to wait for us. She had become a part of me, but I was too ashamed to admit it. How could I have fallen within an hour’s journey? But that was the truth. I had.

I finally summoned enough courage and tapped her quietly.
 “Where are we?” she asked, wiping sleep away from her eyes with the back of her palm.
“We have come to the crossroads”, I responded. And she smiled at how easily I had made the first line of Kwesi Brew’s The Mesh, fit appropriately to her question. But I knew that I wasn’t just quoting a poem, we had actually come to the crossroads.

Adding a little touch of seriousness to my tone, I informed her that we were already very close to my destination. Her eyes darkened visibly and just then, I realized that I hadn’t even asked for her name ‘formally’. I did and ‘Nnenna’ was the reply, as I expected.
From her cold reply, I sensed she was sad too. She asked for my name and phone number. I gave her the former but not the latter. I neither wanted to give her my number nor ask for hers. I already had hers and intended to surprise her with my first call. At first, she persisted, but I assured her that fate would work out a way of letting our paths cross again. We shared the same hunger and would likely share the same road again, someday.
The bus stopped at Efficient petrol station, Ninth Mile and I came down.
‘Take care’, she said, and the bus sped off. I stood and stared, like a statue, until I lost the sight of it to distance.

Emeka was not around when I arrived, and his line wasn’t going through. I waited for about 20 minutes or more, and finally decided, while I waited, to surprise my new ‘beautiful sister’ with a call and know if she had reached her destination.
I did. But the voice from the other end of the line didn’t sound like hers. In fact it wasn’t hers. It was deep and tense. The voice informed me that an accident had just occurred around Texaco and that the phone belonged to one of the victims. Most of the passengers were dead already.

I didn’t give way to a second thought. In fact, I could not think. My mind was frozen and my heart began to beat faster, and louder.
Rushing out to the road again, I boarded a taxi that would take me to the scene of the accident. The news had already spread like a wild fire in harmattan. Even the taxi driver had heard about it. His own version of the story was even grimmer; he had heard that no one survived it.

We finally made it to the scene. A great number of people gathered round the upturned vehicle as the victims were being pulled out through the battered windows. The driver’s old beret lay very close to one of the windows. Shards of glass littered the whole place.
I looked up at another corner of the scene, very close to a wide gutter, and saw her lying helplessly. Her pink top was no longer pink but red. She was drenched in blood. The taxi driver helped me to carry her into the car. I couldn’t help the tears.
Inside the taxi, I felt her heart and found that it was still beating. We headed straight to one of the hospitals around.

The nurses were hostile, and the doctor, mean. They refused to touch the dying angel, if I did not provide a deposit of forty thousand naira. I was red with rage. How could they be that heartless? Someone’s life was fast ebbing out and all that mattered to them was money? The only money I had there was the thirty thousand naira I had come to give to Emeka. Without that money, how, in God’s name was he going to travel the next day?
When it became clear that the doctor meant what he said, I brought out the money and he invited me into his office. I was asked a few questions which included my relationship with her. I told him that she was my younger sister. I wasn’t thinking. The answer just tumbled out, uncensored.
I was warned to bring the rest of the money along, the next day or every treatment would cease. The only money I could count on at that point was the twenty thousand I had left in the bank, with which I was to travel the next day. But I had no option, what had to be done had to be done.

I sat beside her all through the night as I patiently awaited the arrival of dawn.  She had been garbed in a sky blue gown, the same colour with the curtains in the room. A long white bandage was wound round her head. She lay there, as still as a stone.

The night was long and there was power failure. Myriad thoughts flooded my mind. I tried to control them; to tie them down and stop them from venturing into wondering if she would make it or not. But the more I tried to wrestle these thoughts and shut them out of the windows of my mind, the more I found myself basking in them.
Apart from the fight with my thoughts, I also fought with the giant mosquitoes that persistently courted my ears. Each of them whined wildly and strove to fly into my ear, as if to whisper some long lost ancient secret. My thoughts, my fears and their whining, all worked together to banish sleep from my eyes. To distract them and free myself a little, I decided to try Emeka’s line again. I brought out the phone from my pocket and was still scrolling down my contacts list when the phone gave a final beep, and the battery went flat. It was around 1:00 a.m. The mosquitoes resumed their plaintive refrains.

A distant toll of some church bell brought me back to consciousness. My eyes were heavy and through the window panes, I noticed that the first lights of dawn were already beginning to dispel the dark shadows of the night. I wiped sleep away from my eyes, moved closer to her bed and felt her heart. It was still beating but she remained unconscious. I looked around nervously and reassuring myself that we were alone, I quietly kissed her forehead and left the room, hacking my path through the cold misty morning, towards the park, in search of an early bus to Nsukka.

The mind is always buried where the heart is trapped. The journey back to Nsukka was colder and longer. I was both present and absent. My body was there but my mind was at the hospital, sitting by her side. The image of her face and the blood stained bandage loomed in my mind. I was deaf to every other sound around. Though the other passengers kept chatting all the way, their voices and the sound of their laughter sounded no louder than a distant murmur, a drowned whisper. The only thing I still recall is the argument that ensued between the two passengers that sat behind me as the vehicle drove past a giant yellow signboard with the inscription, “St. Luke’s Motherless Babies’ Home”.
“What’s wrong with it, aren’t they motherless?” The first voice demanded.
“Just as they are fatherless too”, the second voice countered immediately. It was a female voice.
“So, what is your point then?”
“The entire idea of being motherless shifts the blame to the mothers alone, the women. Why aren’t they called Fatherless Babies?”
There was a loud silence. We thought the man had given up, but he suddenly added, with a firm touch of finality in his tone,
“Feminism is a fad, a flamboyant fern that will never either fruit nor flower in the African soil”
The debate gradually turned into a rain of invectives, a battle of the sexes. My mind wandered back to the hospital and their voices once again, sounded no louder than an insect’s hop.

8:15 a.m. found me at Nsukka and for the first time, I noticed the blood stains on my shirt. I had two urgent tasks to carry out. The first was to withdraw the rest of the money from the bank, while the second would be to rush home and change into some new clothes before going back to the hospital.

Within twenty minutes, I was through with the transaction and was about leaving the bank when they stormed in. Armed robbers. About twenty in number, or more. The entire bank was taut with tension. Two security men were already gunned down and the rest lay prostrate. My fingers tightened their hold on the money, and in that instant, I dashed immediately towards the back of the building. I had just covered a few steps when I heard the shots; the first and then, the second. My fingers were weakened. The money fell. I fell. And silence fell.

The stale and pungent stench of drugs was the first thing that hit my nose as I opened my eyes. Mama was sitting at the other end of my bed. A sachet of some colourless liquid hung on a long tripod stand by the left side of my bed. A narrow transparent tube led the liquid into the veins of my left forearm.

Tears of joy rolled down Mama’s cheeks the very moment I opened my eyes and I think I heard her shout my name, ‘Nonso! Nonso!’ as she rushed out to call the nurses. I was very weak and found it difficult to keep my eyes open. I was later informed that I had lain on that bed for almost two months. I had been shot during the robbery attack and it had caused a great damage to my spinal cord. I was to be confined to the wheel chair for the rest of my miserable days.

I was still brooding over my woes when a familiar perfume played on my nostrils. I looked up and it was Nnenna. She was fully recovered and had come all the way from Enugu to visit me.
But she was not alone. She was with a young man, about the same age as myself. His face was familiar. On a closer look, I recognised him. It was Doctor James, the doctor who had initially refused to treat her. Well, all that was over now. The important thing was the joy of seeing her again. Our paths had crossed as I prayed. But there was something sinister about her mood.

After their stay, just as they were about to leave, she informed me that James had proposed to her. They were about to get married.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I sat in silence, not because I didn’t know what to say but because I feared that my voice would quiver with each word and reveal the sullen heaviness I felt in my heart.

 “Congratulations,” I finally said, when I had found my voice,
“I’m so happy for you two”.
And they left. And she left, with a huge chunk of my heart.

In the evening, around 7:30 p.m., I overheard two nurses discuss the mysterious massacre of nine NYSC members in Kano State, the very state Emeka was posted to serve. According to their source, the dead Corp members were brutally butchered by some faceless anti-Western Education sect, known as the Boko Haram.

Mama bought a copy of the Daily Sun newspaper, the next day, and the news was there. But they weren’t nine in number as the nurses had earlier reported. They were seven, and their names were listed there. Emeka’s name was the fourth on the list. I was numb.

That night, I tried to sleep but could not. My thoughts wandered through these events. And, when sleep finally came, I dreamt of Nnenna, the cocks and the mirage.

INNOCENT AGBO

C: #2012

Winner of the 2015 Momaya Prize for Short Stories

HINDSIGHT BY INNOCENT AGBO.

HINDSIGHT

Setting: The Future(25th Century Nigeria, Year, 2479)

The children of Dr. and Dr. (Mrs) Ezugwu are watching the tempovision. Just like the television, the tempovision is a household leisure gadget. In fact, there isn't much difference between the two in outward structure except that the tempovision is more portable and easier  to operate.

The actual difference is in the function; whereas the television shows events that are actually recorded, the tempovision can show both recorded and unrecorded events. Thus, you can tune to all the annals of time; you can tune to the past, present and the future and right there before you, the events of the desired period would appear on the screen.

The youngest child, Betty, was insisting on watching the happenings in the spheres, in Mars, precisely. The two elder children said they would rather watch events in 20th Century Nigeria, which they said were far more thrilling than the happenings on Mars. What was on Mars except the multocars and the John Kennedy pleasure center and a few other places. A multocar, by the way, is a car that move-in road, in water, as well as flies, invented by a Nigerian roadside mechanic, half a century after the establishment of the Iron and Steel Industry and approved by modern technology, especially with the use of solar energy.

Dr. Mrs. Ezugwu met the children haggling and told them to sort their differences without breaking their heads.

"You wrangle like leaders in the same party in 20th Century Nigeria. What do you think you are doing?"

There was a guilty silence.
"Now who wants to watch the spheres?" Betty showed her finger.

"And who wants to watch the 20th Century Nigeria?" The two elder children showed their fingers.

"This is democracy, Betty. You sit back and watch 20th Century Nigeria like the others."

"I am sorry, Mum." Betty apologized.

"O that's alright dear, have a happy viewing."

She turned the tempovision far into the second half of the 20th Century Nigeria and left. The first episode they watched was FESTAC 77. the children laughed and laughed. Those ancient dancers. Did they have to be so wild in the way they danced? The oldest child, Sage, said that he wasn't surprised that most ancient Nigerians did not live for a hundred years, when they had to dissipate their calories in wild dances like that.

They saw some cities and laughed and laughed. See how filthy they were. Rubbish thrown about everywhere. Look at the markets: muddy and full of rubbish with disease carrying flies infesting the articles for sale. No wonder they died in large numbers from diseases like cholera, typhoid, et chetera.

Betty leapt back with fright as she saw a thoroughly dirty, scruffy, nude person leer at her, making wild disjointed sounds.

"Who is that?" Betty asked.
"Samboyemi." The others chorused.
"The mentally sick person Mummy told us about, the other day." Nneoma added.

"How can one be mentally ill?
"One can be fatigued in the brain to the extent that one doesn't know what he does. Such people were called 'Mad People'

"Why didn't they give them a psychoprop?"
There was no reply.

A psychoprop is a medicine discovered by a Nigerian traditional medicine man, Opata, which cures all types of mental cases. It surpasses all known mental case drugs. It cures all minor forms of mental imbalance like uncouth manners in the office, or a husband and wife shouting at each other, a driver running into another vehicle or a traffic staff arresting traffic offenders only to collect a fifty Naira, you name it!

They watched the 1979 general elections and laughed.
"Those ignorant ancients." They said.
"Why waste all that effort, old men plodding that vast country wasting energy and resources? Why didn't they use the psychoscope?"

The psychoscope is an instrument, much like the stethoscope, used in detecting personality. It is widely used in offices for employment of staff and in government for choosing public officers. With this, we would merely summon all the candidates to a large hall and  when the inappropriate candidate was tested, a red light would show. This would mean several things. The candidate was likely to be greedy, unlikely to fulfill his political promises and likely to divert all development projects to his village, etc. In the case of persons with balance and uprightness, a green light would show. Simple, no voting and time wasting and fraud.

In another scene, the children saw a typical execution of armed robbers by a firing squad. They were horrified.

"How ignorant and crude the ancients were." The children cried.

In their time, there was no case of robbery. For one thing, the psychoscope was there to detect those with robbery tendencies and they were immediately whisked off into a state residence (a place where mentally dense citizens were assisted to cool off. They were paid social allowances and given gainful employment)
Of course too much individual wealth was roundly discouraged. You couldn't have more than one house, more than one wife or husband, more than one car; you couldn't deposit more than 10 million Naira in your account. The State owned all wealth. So, citizens were not too psychologically oppressed as in the 20th and 21st Century Nigeria.
Hence,  to shoot people and defile the flesh and blood that God made with His own fingers for whatever offence or reason, was strange and unreasonable to the 25th Century generation of Nigerians.

The bell rang. It was a call on the children to go for their supper.

#Fantasy #Sciencefiction #Wishes