Larry Sun Is Missing. . .

quote author=Iaz93]Larry Sun Is Missing. . . [/quote]

Seconded!
If not, I dare u 2 prove us wrong.

See cobwebs everywhere! Damn! This place is f'n dusty!

larry i bet it took u years to write pride of cain .the mixtake we did was think u could do a better job with this one but congrat u succeded in proving us wrong.

Let's not be hasty in judgement. Who knows where he is now?

brokoto: Let's not be hasty in judgement. Who knows where he is now?

reading n commenting on other pple thread

Ice4jez: reading n commenting on other pple thread

lol. Ok. I no fit defend am again.

Wow,i just remembered this thread 2day n larry hasnt disappointed me:he still hasnt updated.

I didn't want to come here ohhh, wetin I find reach here, I promised myself I won't come here till am sure he has finished the story. Oya larry come and finish ya tori ohhh.

Still waiting for updates larry... You're wasting time for goodness sake...

THREE

Those five words! Those five words which had turned him into a helpless insomniac. The five words that had endeared his pitiful heart to flutter than usual. The words had excited him, had emblazoned him with passion, had unleashed in him a hound of cupid scent.

Daniel tossed and turned; he wouldn't have acted more impressively if he were inside a barrel rolling down a hill. He was still oblivious of his surrounding, of time...of himself. He was back in the vehicle; the annoying wails of the conductor had faded into nothingness, the stale odour of the dirty fat man had dissolved with the mist...and most of the discussions he'd had with the pretty lady were now coming in whispers. It was only five words which came out clear from that blessed mouth; strong and resounding; as sharp and as audible as a judge's gavel. Those were the only words Daniel was hearing now.

"...I may even marry you." These words were being repeated in his dome more times than any emotionally-struck dervish like Daniel Oliver Famous could count. These words had struck such a perfect cord on his cello that series of uncontrollable musics were now playing inside his skull.

"...I may even marry you."

The girl could be joking, she might even have forgotten totally about Daniel let alone manifesting the nuptial possibility she uttered into Daniel's hearing. But he didn't care about all that. He just wanted to be with her again...wherever she might be. It was not impossible that even if he saw her she wouldn't recognise him. Yet though, he believed positively that the woman had liked him when they spoke in the car. He was sure of that. Perhaps not half as much as he was fond of her now. He knew that she probably wouldn't be having any sleepless night over him. Coming to rethink of it, she could actually be, he thought. She could, mayhaps, be counting more ceilings than Daniel had been doing since the last couple of days...but not over Daniel but on someone else. This thought elicited a sliver of shiver on his skin. That could be disastrous, it really could be. The possibility that the girl whose thought had saturated the whole of his mind having a longing for someone else was too heavy for Daniel to bear. If that really was the case, Daniel decided that he would shave his hair, walk bare-footed all the way to Okija Shrine and demand to have his head washed with a parrot's faeces mixed with the chief priest's saliva. Because by that time, he would believe that a curse had been placed on his head by a kind of cult who wanted him to remain a celibate for the whole of his life. Rather, he would feel like nature was hurling all the trash of the world at him.

He quickly shook the thought out of his mind, fearing that the thoughts would manifest if he meditated too long in them. Although he knew himself a hopeless pessimist but he still managed to allow the pleasure of a blissful thought travel through his head, thinking of a better world for himself and the girl. This thought rendered his imagination to run faster than a speeding car. He began picturing her in flowing gown which extended from Lagos to Mogadishu, and he in a clean white suit purloined from Pastor Chris. They would be standing beside each other as a religious leader...it could be a pastor or an imam, or even our humble traditionalist...reading the Bible, Qur'an, Torah, Scroll or parchment, Daniel didn't care...and in the end they'd permit him to kiss the bride. They would kiss, he and she, in such a way that hot blush would be elicited from the faces of every single guy and lady in the gathering, and mothers would be forced to place their hands across the faces of their little wards who would struggle to watch the newly-wedded couple sucked tongues and swallow saliva. Afterwards, their lips would be swollen from overkissing.

He continued picturing a life with the lady. Popping her cherry on honeymoon, if she's still got a cherry, and breeding like rabbits. Growing old together with no problem whatsoever in the world other than wondering where they had placed their false teeth the night before, and having grand and great-grandchildren with a population that would top the residents of the Lagos Police Barracks brought together.

The alarm clock shrieked!

Daniel started suddenly. He was startled to find out that it was five already. He groaned, the passage of another sleepless night. He decided that he could not continue like this, he had to find something to do about his current predicament. He knew that there was only one thing to do. But out of pride and the fear of disappointment and shame, he had refrained from doing it. Now, with the way things were going with him, Daniel would have to flex his gullet muscles and gulp in that pride.

He had nothing to lose, except his sanity.

...now I have to restart this story again from the beginning.

Tnk God Larry has finally updated d paradox of abel.*dancing azonto*. But wy na? Wat kept U soo long?Tnks anyway

brokoto: ...now I have to restart this story again from the beginning.

gbam! We will be strong

larry! Do u know dat i dont even understand what am reading again? Why are u giving us morsels like fish to the bait? Like children soliciting for help or what? If u wana write a story be faithful to it and do it once instead of what you are presently doing!

brokoto: ...now I have to restart this story again from the beginning.

exactly!!!!!

An hour later, Daniel rose from the bed; he had been able to steal a half-hour's sleep. He forced himself to do a couple of dozen situps, pressups and deep knee bends; after his exercises, he went directly to the bathroom to shave and wash himself, taking particular care to brush his mouth with the air of a butcher hacking meat from bone. He believed that everyone should be sweet-tempered, polite, considerate and brush their teeth twice daily. There oughtn't be stale breath and furry tongue added to the problems of the world. He trimmed his toenails and sprayed deodorant under his arms.

It was almost 7am when he was finally prepared to go out. He turned off the lights and exited his room, locking the door behind him. Knowing that he would be in Lagos in the next three days filled him with glee, he'd be celebrating Christmas with his family.

Unlike the usual traffic congestions that seemed to be the trademark of the city, the transportation from his location down to the stadium took less than thirty minutes, an unusual and suprising thing to have happened. As soon as he reached his destination he sought out the man who mowed the grass. There were twelve men who did the work from Mondays to Saturdays; two men for each day. The previous couple of days, Daniel had monitored the men who had come to perform the labour in the last five days, and none among them was the man he wanted to know and talk to. And today, a Saturday, was the last day of work for them. He was expecting to see the final batch of labourers today, hoping that one of these last two men would be the man he required.

He particularly came to this stadium this Saturday with the expectation of meeting the father of that extraordinary girl whose thought had invaded his mind, assaulted his dreams and threatened his sanity. Because today wasn't the official training day for the senior players, the stadium was empty and locked. He had come too early. He would have to wait outside the gate of the stadium for the labourers to come and unlock it, even the auxiliary players who took the weekends for their trainings didn't always come this early. As Daniel waited, sitting on a slab of stone, he thought about how ridiculous it was for him to wait here so early in the morning, where he should, perhaps, be on his way to Lagos. What if the girl was only lying? What if she had no father working here at all? She could easily have said it without really meaning it; just for discussion's sake, or just to pull his legs. He would not find it funny at all if he realised that he had woken up early in the morning, travelled a long distance, and sat on a stone slab fit for a shrine, all for nothing. This could be a wild goose chase for a goose which existed not.

Coupled with his disappointment, he would also look much like clown when he approach the two men and ask:

"Hey! Which one among you is the father of the pretty girl I encountered in the bus last week?"

With such a question, Daniel knew that the men would probably book an appointment for him with a psychiatrist.

It was at this moment that the problem of what sane words he would say occurred to him, if he was lucky and found the father of the girl.

He waited forty-five minutes, deeply engaged in a conversation with himself, when he spotted the two men coming. The sun was beginning to come out high above, among cumulus clouds which resembled scoops of vanillla ice-cream, the cloud drifted lazily above. The high sky went on forever; the air was fluffy, with a softness that caressed the skin. The breeze was scarcely strong enough to raise kites and faint shadows were cast on the grounds beneath. The men appeared to be of the same age; they looked about forth-five or fifty years old. This left him particularly sad as he was hoping to catch one younger and the other older. He was sure that if the younger one appeared being in his thirties, then, perhaps, the older one would likely be the man he sought. This closeness in age between these approaching men had built a strong wall before his amateurish logical deduction. Some daughters resemble their fathers, he thought. He studied the faces of the two men carefully as they came, trying to determine with which one between them the lady had a close resemblance. None. Daniel sighed in frustration, the girl apparently resembled the mother. Sometimes though, offsprings do not take any facial resemblance with either parents. Thus, subjecting the husbands to question their spouses' faithfulness.

He stood up from the slab as the men reached the gate, his pelvic bones were beginning to complain. And to his utter amazement, the men did not appear to take notice of his presence. A part of him suspected that these men wouldn't have noticed even if Godzilla took a stroll past, leaving wreckage in her wake, provided she did not step on them. Have I turned into a ghost or something? He asked himself.

One man extracted a bunch of keys from his pocket and inserted it in the lock. This one had a close resemblance with Soyinka: a mountain of greying hair, enough moustache to sweep a parrot's cage, and the kind of beard Prophet Mohammed would have cherished. On his face was a pair of contact lenses that could easily have been stolen from Awolowo's reading table. He was tall and lanky with an inability to stop himself from blinking.

The other man, who was busy making a phone call as his partner struggled with the gate, was clean-shaven. He was heavily built; a broad-shouldered man who looked like he could nudge a locked door off its hinges with no trouble at all, and he could have subbed for the biblical Samson, pulling down pillars and crashing edifices and roofs upon the heads of the Philistines. The only features he lacked were skin colour and hairlocks. He carried himself with the air of a man who could break Daniel into a dozen different pieces without breaking a sweat. The footballer suspected that under the big clothes this giant of a man donned, he probably had a barrel chest and legs like mahogany trunks. Over all that, fur. The man was more hairy than the average orangutan. His hair was almost reaching his palms. Thank goodness that he was at least clean-shaven, he wouldn't have looked a bit human otherwise. Daniel would rather prefer the bespectacled man to be the father he sought.

They still hadn't noticed Daniel.

He didn't believe that the two men, Soyinka and Samson alike, were unaware of his presence. He felt that they intentionally ignored him. This could possibly result from the fact that they knew him but not approve of him, which was almost unbelievable too. Trainers and grass-mowers did not always meet; the labourers came very early before the trainers and finished their works before trainings resumed. Then they returned again in the evenings, after the trainers had departed, to tidy up the stadium again, with the exception of Saturdays where the labourers had the liberty of rsuming work later than usual. There wasn't always major trainings on weekends. So, Daniel sufficed that these men wouldn't have known him. Except, Oh! Except the girl had called her father and told him about Daniel. And the father had reecognised him from the description given by the daughter. The protective father who didn't approve of his child having a boyfriend at twenty, recognised Daniel but wouldn't welcome him with open arms. Instead, he chose to ignore him (Daniel), and told his partner to do likewise. But statistically, Daniel reflected, a woman should have her first baby at the age of nineteen. He intentionally refused to acknowledge the statistic that also proved that no woman should start copulating before the age of twenty-six. What father disallows his daughter from having a boyfriend at twenty?

Daniel was certain now about that. He believed that was what had really happened; the reason why he was being sent to the Coventry by these mean men. He even suspected worse. One of these men, the father perhaps, could be concealing a sharp object under his clothings.

They intimidated him; he was afraid to approach either of them, lest one conjured up a magical pistol and shoot him. Daniel was more afraid of being shot than any other harmful means. Inexperience does not the best teacher make. The white-bearded, blinking man continued to turn the key in the lock; a process that endured long enough to calculate the square root of 2.

Before he knew it, his mouth said, "Good morning, sirs." Oh! Now I'm definitely going to be shot.

Phew finally updated....but oga larry this isn't FAIR...

I was too preoccupied, I'm very sorry all.

The men cast a sudden simultaneous look at Daniel, as if the youngest man was a meteor rock which had just droppped from the sky.

Daniel found himslf grinning nervously, like a demented incipient. His heart was squinting blood through his arteries at a speed Sango couldn't have matched with a bolt of lighning from his wand.

"Howdy?" Soyinka said, he had finally won in his battle with the gate which now stood ajar like like the entrance of a cemetery.

"Good morning, how may we help you?" Samson asked, the Nazirite was neither smiling nor scowling.

I've not been shot yet?

Daniel continued smiling so ridiculously that both older men exchanged uncomfortable glances. He quickly spoke out before the men would conclude that he was an escapee from a mental institution. Besides, the impressive way he was clad didn't give them the liberty to arrive at such a conclusion earlier. Daniel had learnt the art of dressing from one of the best, Richard Kish.

"Um-I-I work here. I train here." Daniel assessed himself and decided that he wasn't convincing enough. He added, "My name is Daniel Oliver Famous."

"Okay. So, Daniel Famous, how may we help you?" Samson asked again.

He had racked his brain for thirty minutes without a definite explanation for his presence here. He decided that the only plausible explanation he could give was to come clean. The worst they could do was buy him a straitjacket, or they could rush into the stadium, shut the gate in the process; hence locked him out. They could do worse than that, he reflected, they could shoot him.

"Will you answer the question or not?" said the laureate. His pupils behind the spectacles revealing the slightest degree of inquisition.

So, Daniel dropped the bombshell; paltering a little bit with the truth, "Okay," he took a deep breath, "I don't know which one of you is her father. Last week, I met a girl in a bus, her name I don't know. But what I got to know was that she seemed to be running away from home. I'm here mainly because she told me that her father works here in Liberation. I just want to find the father and tell him that his daughter travelled to Lagos to search for her mother. I think she went to her grandfather first. A very rich man, she described him.

He ended his news just as abruptly has he had begun it. Much unlike a triumphant note, as if he had managed to prove out a particularly difficult mathematical theorem which he wasn't sure of the authenticity of its rightfulness. Not in the least a show of QED.

The bearded one stared at Daniel sheepishly, he had probably not digested anything from what the ex-police officer had said. It was the clean-shaven who appeared to have heard Daniel.

"Are you trying to tell me that Remi left me for her mother?" The man's facial expression was not bearing any trace of humour.

"It-It appears so, sir." Daniel replied. Great! He name is Remi.

"And she'll be spending the Christmas with her grandfather, right?"

How would I know that? "That's what she told me."

The man suddenly grabbed Daniel, as if he were a ream of papers, and embraced him in a bear's hug. Daniel felt like he was hugging the slab of stone on which he initially sat.

"Oh! Thank you, Mr. Famous. Thank you." Remi's father eventually released Daniel, the young footballer was immensely grateful for the freedom. Goodness! This man weighs ten bags of cement.

But the man still held Daniel by the shoulders. Fearing the his shoulder bones might snap under the bear's grasp, he politely shrugged himself free.

"There is one other thing I'll like you to do for me, Mr. Famous."

"Please call me Daniel."

"Okay, you can call me Mr. Johnson. This is Mr. Lala." he pointed to his bearded partner, who continued to stare at them.

Daniel bowed his head at Mr. Lala and forgot totally about him afterwards. The man could continue to stare till Jesus take a stroll into Liberation for all he cared. He had found the man he sought.

"What do you want me to do, sir?" he said to Mr. Johnson.

The man smiled, "It's very simple, we're going to Lagos together to find my daughter."

An opportunity to see her again! Daniel worshipped the idea. He couldn't believe that he was really going to see the girl again, within such a short time. This is too good to be true. He supposed that God was answering his every prayer. Then something suddenly cut across his mind and he frowned.

"Wait a minute, Mr. Johnson," he said, "When are we leaving for Lagos?"

"On Christmas eve."

"Oh no! That's impossible!"

"What are you talking about?"

"My family expects me home on Christmas eve, Mr. Johnson. I should be spending Christmas with them. I can't afford to be somewhere else on both days."

"Your family? Are you married?"

"No!" Daniel nearly could not believe his ears, "I mean my parents and siblings."

"I'm sorry about that, really sorrry, but it's very important that you travel with me to my father-in-law's house."

Daniel became confused, "Important? How is that important to me?"

"The transport fare from here to Lagos is exorbitant, considering the peanut I'm receiving as salary here. So, if we travel to where you said my daughter went and she is not found there, then it would be apparent that you've wasted my time and money, Daniel."

Daniel could still not get the drift of what Mr Johnson was talking about.

Why is this man complicating things? He thought to himself, how would I know if she was speaking the truth or lying. She could be anywhere now.

"And I don't like having my time wasted," Mr. Johnson continued, "I don't like it at all."

Daniel asked suspiciously, "So, what's going to happen if we don't find her there?"

"Just pray we find her there."

"What if..."

Mr. Johnson cut him short, the next word Daniel heard made him realised that he'd just stepped his innocent neck into a hornet's nest.

"There's no 'what if', Daniel. If i can't find my daughter, I'll tear off your right arm and beat you to death with it. Period."

*Brings my bed,lay down* and start from the begining.

Nice one bt always update on time plssss

bigsholly: Nice one bt always update on time plssss

Thanks, I will.

Oga, this isn't fair *straight face*

oyestephen: Oga, this isn't fair *straight face*

But I'm updating already.

Just finished chp1,great suspense,Beautiful character development and so far in my short stay here,I ve never seen anyone describe the way u did but...2 quick questions-
1.What time era was chp1 set coz am getting mixed signal.
2.I know most banks in Nigeria has one entrance and I just couldn't stop wondering how did the arm-robbers and Mike escaped?

Be back to finish it.

luvmijeje: Just finished chp1,great suspense,Beautiful character development and so far in my short stay here,I ve never seen anyone describe the way u did but...2 quick questions-
1.What time era was chp1 set coz am getting mixed signal.
2.I know most banks in Nigeria has one entrance and I just couldn't stop wondering how did the arm-robbers and Mike escaped?

Be back to finish it.

Thank you, Luvmijeje.

To your questions:

1. The chapter was set late last year, December 2012 to be precise. And Mark's experience with the robber was set ten years prior...that is in 2002.

2. The robbers escaped through where they came in; so also did Mark. The cars were out of the bank's gate, so both Mark and robbers alike reached their cars by making their ways out of the bank.

So far so good, the plot is still straight on, but it'll get to a stage where references would be made to events that had happened in its prequel (The Brand Of Cain), if you haven't read the prequel I'd suggest you read it...you'd be enchanted

Thanks again,

Bless you, ma'am.

Larry u re welcome, before I bounce out to read the prequel I will love to go into specifics why I asked those questions.
1.In 1975 Cain was 18.In chp1 nine yrs later Daniel was flashing back? That is where am getting the mixed signal.
2.I know Nigerian police are useless but they couldn't be this dumb.They were also at the entrance and the arm robbers escaped without damaging their car!fine that one is even ok,the one that amaze me is mark,he even has the time to change bag and id card and also drive out!
Let me go and read the prequel.

luvmijeje: Larry u re welcome, before I bounce out to read the prequel I will love to go into specifics why I asked those questions.
1.In 1975 Cain was 18.In chp1 nine yrs later Daniel was flashing back? That is where am getting the mixed signal.
2.I know Nigerian police are useless but they couldn't be this dumb.They were also at the entrance and the arm robbers escaped without damaging their car!fine that one is even ok,the one that amaze me is mark,he even has the time to change bag and id card and also drive out!
Let me go and read the prequel.

Much like the prequel, which has its Prologue set in 1985 and the chapters set in the year 2009, this Paradox of Abel follows almost the same pattern; the Prologue set in 1975 and the rest of the chapters set in 2012/2013, with a few back-shifts in time. You'll find out that even in the first chapter of the prequel, a back-shift in time was also made (twenty-three years in the previous). Everything connects.

About Mark's feat, I described Mark as a boy who possessed the mind of an adult, and he did his things with aplomb. He was not afraid of anyone, remember when the robbers confronted him and a gun was pointed at his head?

He believed, most times, that writing could be a lonely business. People of his calibre had argued countless of times with him about that but he still stuck to this belief. He had explained that it was either you, your computer system, a pen and a piece of paper. He didn't mean about play or movie scripts. Those were communal endeavours to him. Writing with commitment was what he meant, which goes deeper into the core of human imagination. To him, both novelists and poets were recluse. And after spending too much hours behind the writing desk with this anchoritic profession, you lose the sense of the great big world beyond you. You forget how to act. Associating with people becomes a challenge because you continue getting worried about what they think of you. Your whole universe, however, would be condensed into a blank sheet of paper. The life of a writer, inadvertently, turned into an inactive life, sedentary, and mentally and emotionally chained to your desk.

Ariel was a writer; an unpublished one though. He had grown a fondness for literature at an early age; at age seven, Ariel had read Chinua Achebe's classic Things Fall Apart, and before he clocked his tenth year he'd devoured all Achebe's to date. Although his favourite had been Chike and the River until he turned eleven and begun to read tales from the Western world, including literature texts. A bibliophile that Ariel was, by the time he became eighteen years old, he had consumed the whole of Soyinka's plays and poems, and had read Shakespeare front to back twice; his favourite of the plays was The Tempest, and his favourite character therein was Ariel. Hence his own pseudonym. This love of literature and works of fiction had heightened his desire to write his own novels too. His first book, which he titled Babylon, was nothing but a file document on his computer laptop. The second book, Brick of Jericho, was at least forwarded to a publishing company from which he had never gotten any reply. Although Brick of Jericho was Ariel's second book, it later turned out to be a prequel to the already written Babylon. But contrary to their titles, none of these two books were having any biblical reference in their plots.

Believing strongly that he would one day become an accomplished writer, Ariel never stopped writing. His third book, a work-in-progress, he titled Ash; a book with a particularly different genre from its two predecessors. In this new novel on which he was working, he was trying to write about fate and destiny. About a young and poor doctor who lived all alone. The doctor found a beautiful lady who got knocked unconscious by a runaway bus. He carried the lady to his home and had her treated. The lady's wounds healed and she came awake after days, then she fell in love with the doctor. In the end, the lady was revealed to be a rich man's only daughter. They got married and lived happily afterwards. A silly story for a nice concept, Ariel knew, the average story that could become Nollywood's finest but would never win an award. He knew, therefore, how to change the dull piece of work into a tale which could charm and mesmerize readers. There must be suspense, twists and turns; like, the driver who hit the lady being the man who had been blackmailing her father for a crime committed quite a long time ago, and the doctor had been the victim of the crime, which was the cause of his own penury, or something more technical. There was an abundance of yarns.

Ariel was a young man of twenty-four years, and single. He was a man who lived a quiet life; created a lone world of his own and lived by the rules. He made his own bed each morning, brushed his teeth twice daily, did his own laundry and washed his dishes. He rarely did anything out of the ordinary, except write. Even in secondary school, all those girls who liked bad boys; which, strangely enough, seemed to be most of them, thought of Ariel as a nerd for his chivalrous personality, or even thought of him not at all. If they could see him now, writing a novel, they wouldn't swoon on him and become giddy with desire, they wouldn't even throw their panties at him as if he were a superstar; as some ladies did at the P-Square concert the week before. They would simply roll they eyes, boo and hiss at him. He would appear to them more boring than he initially was back in high school. None would even take a sneek-peek at what he had written. He knew that before girls like those ones both in high school and higher institution would swoon over guys like him, the sun would rise in the west, tiny babies would grow beards, Pasuma would win the Grammy, and a honest man would become the President of Nigeria. Well, each man has a cross to bear. At least he hadn't been born with a hunch-back or suffer strabismus.

However, two years earlier, Ariel had met Ella at a social gathering for upcoming writers. Their passion in creating a desired kind of literary art had brought them together. Ella wasn't one of those 'hot' girls but she was quite beautiful, and Ariel had loved her on the instant. At the age of nineteen, Ella had published two novels. All of them received well by reviewers and critics alike, but none of them sold in sufficient number to make her famous or even guarantee that she would find an eager publisher for the fourth. Both Ariel and Ella, though with different writing styles, worshipped each other's works. They believed strongly that they would rule the literary world of the country if they persevered and continue having each other. Their love knew no bounds but their relationship lasted only six months.

One Thursday morning, Ella parked her Honda, a gift from her father, near an ATM to withdraw ninety-five thousand naira. She had been robbed of the money by desperate hoodlums, then stabbed in the eye. He car was driven away. She was helped by kind pedestrians but she died before reaching the hospital. This unfortunate event had dealt Ariel a blow from which he had not been able to recover. The only thing he knew he could do to keep Ella's momory alive was to continue writing and plotting thick tales. From hence, Ariel had always edited his works with a red pen and a metaphorical hatchet, leaving evidence of bloody suffering with the former, and reducing scenes and dialogues to kindle with the latter. Ella had taught him that worthwhile art could be carved only from raw language and with self-doubt and justice as sharp as a chisel. Regarding his work, Ariel was extremely puritanical, he found virtue first in self-flagellation.