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We Are Able (A Touching Story) / We Are Able (A TOUCHING STORY) / My Story, My Life (A Touching Story) (2) (3) (4)

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Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 11:13pm On Oct 08, 2014
christejames:
Sammyhoe the erudite writer its been a while following u from the GENIUS story to this awesome one is just an honour. Wishing u the best, and I also pray ur new website will bring you boundless joy in a short while... Keep it up, I would try if I could also register in that precious website for the learned family.

Thanks so much for this write-up. God bless you. Hope to see you on that ebiagplanet, www.ebiag.com
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by christejames(m): 10:46am On Oct 09, 2014
SammyHoe:


Thanks so much for this write-up. God bless you. Hope to see you on that ebiagplanet, www.ebiag.com
I will!
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by pricelesslove(f): 6:52am On Oct 10, 2014
I will like to use Nickybaby as my user name. pls register for me.thank u
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 10:12am On Oct 10, 2014
pricelesslove:
I will like to use Nickybaby as my user name. pls register for me.thank u

Thanks dearie, check your mail for your password details, see you on the ebiag planet soon wink
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Missmossy(f): 8:51pm On Oct 10, 2014
What a wonderful piece! Well done SammyHoe. Now on page 8cheesy

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Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 8:58pm On Oct 10, 2014
Missmossy:
What a wonderful piece! Well done SammyHoe. Now on page 8cheesy

Thanks Missmosy. You can com over to www.ebiag.com my official website to read my other stories. Take care.
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Missmossy(f): 9:00pm On Oct 10, 2014
SammyHoe:


Thanks Missmosy. You can com over to www.ebiag.com my official website to read my other stories. Take care.
My pleasure,would do that as soon as am done with this.

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Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by 5p1naz(m): 3:16pm On Oct 11, 2014
@sammyhoe I sent you an email about adapting this story for a short film.
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 2:19am On Oct 12, 2014
5p1naz:
@sammyhoe I sent you an email about adapting this story for a short film.

Okay, but you can easily reach me on 0808775117. Thanks

1 Like

Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by 5p1naz(m): 3:59pm On Oct 13, 2014
SammyHoe:

Okay, but you can easily reach me on 0808775117. Thanks

the number says not in use, i think you missed a number. its 10 digits instead of 11
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 12:18pm On Oct 15, 2014
5p1naz:


the number says not in use, i think you missed a number. its 10 digits instead of 11

oh I'm very sorry, the no is 08087755117. Thanks.
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by hebex12(m): 7:20am On Oct 19, 2014
@sammy I wuld luv 2use hebex12 as my nick
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 4:12am On Oct 23, 2014
story Continuation

Continuation…
My partnership business with Biodun continued, but it was shortlived however. Everything ended in six days, though Biodun had promised to extend his companionship to nine, and not eight working days anymore. No one would detect this since the excuse Laide gave his classteacher was that he was ill.
That fateful sixth working day, we ran out of luck. As usual, since the time Chinedu began to pay us for the sales, we paid visit to cafeteria to feed ourselves everyday before returning home. We would have fun, chatting and eating until around 5pm. Then we would hurry home so that Biodun’s mother, who arrived home 6pm daily wouldn’t discover our secret.

It was already 6pm before I realized that we had stayed too long having fun. I tapped Biodun on the wrist to alert him that it was time to go home. Biodun had no problem understanding me because we have both taught ourselves some common touch signs formulated by us both. Pulling his ear meant something as well as pulling his legs. Covering his blind eyes with my hands also meant something. I had even explained some sign language to Biodun, despite the fact that he was blind, such that whenever he needed to tell me some simple common things, he would swing his hands before me in the sign language I had taught him and I would just understand him.
When I tapped Biodun’s wrist, he thumped up in fright. Biodun pulled out five fingers to signal to me if it was 6pm already. I held his hands and pulled out one more of his fingers. He knew what I was talking about. We had already stayed late. Biodun picked his walking stick and began to rush ahead as if he would go all the way home by himself. I hasted to him and held him by the arm.

We arrived home around some minutes to 7pm. We needed nobody to tell us that we were doomed. As we entered the compound, we saw someone, a lady. I first thought she was Mrs Omotayo, but when she came closer, I discovered she wasn’t. It was Taiba.
Taiba was angry with us. She held Biodun by the hand, snatching him from me and began to hurry away. She was saying some things I didn’t understand, but I inferred that Mrs Omotayo wasn’t around yet. She must have been saying something concerning losing his job if Mrs Omotayo had returned earlier.
We were lucky, I thought. Quickly, I put the empty crates in the room where Toyosi did store them and bolted out at once. I needed to follow Biodun into their apartment, at least to avoid Bode’s troubles. I knew he would have been lurking around for me to do me bad. As predicted, he had put one of his legs on the passageway in the apartment, expecting me to stumble over it and fall, but he was making a big mistake. I made his leg a stepping stone instead of the stumbling block he had intended it for. He screamed as he tended the leg, but I was off.
I sat comfortably on the sofa, tightening myself on my heartthrob, Biodun. Laide was looking at us as if she was jealous. She had a saucer before her face as she sipped something I had no idea of. Maybe it was ‘Eve’ drink I wouldn’t tell. She was peeping at us from one side of the saucer.
Just five minutes later, Mrs Omotayo entered and three mouths greeted him. I bent my neck to show courtesy, but she was furious at us all. It was a great shock seeing her in such lugubrious state. What exactly came over her? I thought.

The next ten minutes were moments of cluelessness for me. Who would tell me what really happened? I just had to watch as she spoke and pointed to us one after the other. In the end, she came for me and began to pull me out of her apartment.
I was left in the dark about the issue until early the next morning when the whole family set me at the centre to make a laughingstock out of me. John laughed and laughed such that he had to quickly hold on to the wall beside him to avoid falling. Bode wasn’t backing out too. He brandished his milk teeth before me. Eventually, John gave me a note he had taken his time to write. I read:

Rose, my useless daughter, this is a reply to the note you wrote to me earlier, claiming that you are useful because you can do business more than even the normal people. Now, your secrets and lies are out here. Rose, what actually led you into begging for alms? Did we not feed you three square meals right from the day I thought to lessen your burden up till now? So why did you choose to beg for alms instead of being satisfied with what we give you here? Or are you doing it to impress us that you are able as you claim every now and then? So, you have been delivering alms money for us as the returns of your sales all these while. Stop deceiving yourself, Rose. You can never be able. Accept the fact that you are useless and that’s it. You should have begged for alms alone, but you included blind Biodun in it and implicated him. You would need to see how that woman beat his children black and blue yesternight, not sparing her housemaid too, because they all had hand in your foolish plan. If not for Toyosi, that woman would have sent Taiba her househelp packing that night if not for Toyosi’s intervention.She is very angry for your foolish act of making a beggar out of her kid. Rose, you are doomed!
Fear greeted my heart as I ended the letter. I couldn’t hold back tears; they flowed down like a fountain. The only friends I had were now gone in a flash. How would I survive not seeing Biodun again, or rather, how would he survive a year without me? I thought. The more I wailed, the more they laughed. No one would believe that the so-called alms were ‘freewill offerings’ as Biodun put it earlier. However, I wondered who saw us and informed Mrs Omotayo of the whole thing.
Bode and his father strolled away still laughing at my calamity. Little did they know that their lasting laughter would be the last they would make and my heartrending tears would be the last for me as long as we remained under the same roof.

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Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 4:13am On Oct 23, 2014
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

It pained me to the marrow that Mrs Omotayo would no more look at me with good eyes, having believed that I took her son out to beg for alms. To her, begging was a taboo. She hated it so much. She really lived by it because she hadn’t had any course to come to our apartment to seek any assistance whatsoever, but she had forgotten that she came to beg for me when her son, Biodun, was becoming sickly.
Toyosi crowned it up that Mrs Omotayo even vowed to harm me if she set her eyes on me. I was scared of stepping out of our apartment because of her. I had wept all the tears I thought I had in my lachrymal gland, so there was not a reason to cry anymore.
I set my crates of eggs on my head and headed for my lonely spot beside the road to start my trade. As usual, Chinedu came to drop his showglasses, but it didn’t work. Where was the voice of Biodun to call people’s awareness to what I had to sell? I was dejected and confused. When Chinedu came two hours later, he was disappointed at the little sales I had recorded. He just took up one of the showglasses and left. He came for the other one later, without paying me any commission for the ones I had sold.
I couldn’t sell more than two crates, thanks to those who knew me earlier. Those ones just came to the spot directly to buy the eggs. When they asked me where Biodun was, I just waved speechlessly at them.
Around 3pm, Albert came close to where I was. He was a student in the SPECIAL SCHOOL where I was attending with the children of Mrs Omotayo earlier. Albert signed to me that he was the one who reported Biodun’s deed to his class-teacher.
“Why did you do that?” I signed to him in annoyance and he replied me.

“Is it right to beg for alms just because we are disabled? Did our teachers not warn us to abstain from any act that would make people pity us, thereby making us look inferior? Yet, you were the same person who took it upon yourself to preach it in the school those days, but here you are, begging for alms.”

“I am not begging for alms!” I told him in annoyance. He laughed.

“Am I blind? I saw you yesterday with my two eyes; you were both begging for alms aside what you were selling. People gave you money without picking up an egg,” Albert said.

“We are not!” I signed to him but he signed back to tell me that I should shut up.
I got angry. I rose up and locked him up by the collar of his shirt. People were already gathering around us. Earlier, they had been captivated by the way we were moving our hands to communicate. But now, they had to rush to us to separate us.

“You are a hypocrite!” Albert told me. “You don’t practice what you preach. You said we are special and we are able and we shouldn’t in any way draw up people’s pity towards us, yet you were doing it in broad day light. So good, nemesis has caught up with you.”

I submitted to the elderly people around us who separated us, else I would have shown him my true colour, I thought. I wanted to weep, but I laughed instead as I went back home around 7:30pm with two full crates of eggs. I came with four in the morning but two was left, whereas the day before, I successfully sold twenty crates with the help of Biodun. Indeed, two heads are better than one, I thought.
I thought Toyosi would have arrived, but I was surprised she wasn’t home. Even John too was not at home. I wondered where they were. Taiba saw me and turned her head away from me. She didn’t want to have anything doing with me in her life anymore, perhaps heeding the warning of her mistress.
I walked briskly into the apartment and I was more surprised when Bode was absent too. What could have happened? I put the crates of eggs aside and went back to the parlour to have my buttocks on something, the sofa. I stretched my legs and put my right hand over the back rest. In a flash, I had disappeared in the spirit to the dreamland.
My dream was not sweet at all. It was something unspeakable. My mouth trembled when I woke up. I shook like leaf. The same friend who brought food for me on New Year Day, Mrs Omotayo, was the one I saw chasing me about in my dream. Now it wasn’t Toyosi anymore, but Mrs Omotayo, why couldn’t she forgive me? I thought.

To my surprise, it was 9pm and my guardians had not returned. I was afraid to sleep alone in the whole house. How would I be able to do that when Mrs Omotayo had crept into my dream to torture me too? I wondered why my enemies seemed to be more than my friends. I really missed these three people, Hannah my mother, Mrs Oyin my class-teacher and Rachael my aunty. My heart yearned to have them back. I wished I could hook up with them in the dream and never wake up again. Even, the last dream I saw my mother in it, she was asking me to come with her to the land of the dead.
I picked up a pen and a paper and began to write something down, a poem. It would soon be May 29, next two days, so I needed to write something about it, though I was not expecting anyone to read up my write-up. I had just finished writing a poem about the Children Day which would fold up in the next few hours from now.
I prayed a little prayer before I slept, confessing my sin of fighting. It was not my fault that I fought with Albert, I thought as I prayed. Was he not the one who started it by lying to my face that I did what I didn’t do?

I imagined how Biodun would be feeling right now. I felt for him. If only I could hook up with him in my dream tonight, I would be glad. When I finally slept off around 11:30pm, I hooked up with someone other than Biodun and that was Bode. As usual, he was tormenting me. He was even bigger than me in that dream. I was like a two-year old girl before him, yet in the real life, he had quite a small stature compared to mine.
When Bode gave me a punch on the face in the dream, I screamed and woke up, only to discover that I was alone in the parlour. Where is the whole family? I thought. Sleep had been deleted off my face by fear. I didn’t want to sleep, else I would see something more horrible than the one I saw in that nightmare. I was going to make the TV my companion, perhaps I would be kept company by those ‘dumb’ people on the screen (or maybe I was the one that was deaf). As I switched on the TV, a horrible creature brandished its teeth before me as if it would jump out of the screen. I screamed. Nobody told me that I had to switch the thing off before I did.
I slept off around 2am. When I woke up, it was in the cruel hands of Toyosi I found myself.

“Since when did you begin to sleep in the parlour?” she signed vehemently at me. Her sign skill was good. I didn’t have the idea how she was able to master the language as such, since it was only a little I taught her back then.
“Get out of here!” she signed at me in annoyance and I fled. When I turned my head backward, I discovered that she was weeping. I was shocked. What could be the cause of her tears? Did anything happen to my father or Bode? I sensed that someone had died, perhaps it was her husband who was abroad, I thought. Maybe he had plane crash on his return to Nigeria. I kept on flipping through the leaves of the imaginary magazine of thought in my heart.

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Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by bumsiee: 5:14am On Oct 23, 2014
Mr Sammyhoe Thank u 4 continuing it grin. Waiting 4 more kiss
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by kingphilip(m): 11:28am On Oct 23, 2014
tnx for da continuation Sammy
I'm so glad u remembered us today
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Eniqurl(f): 1:18pm On Oct 23, 2014
Thnks for d update...waiting fr mre.
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 10:03pm On Oct 23, 2014
bumsiee:
Mr Sammyhoe Thank u 4 continuing it grin. Waiting 4 more kiss
No thanks, I will continue...
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 10:09pm On Oct 23, 2014
Continuation
As I soon learnt later, it was all about Bode who slumped when he was on a swing playing with his friends the day before, which was the Children Day Celebration. Bode’s head hit hard against the swing and he bled to unconsciousness. That was the same day I was asked to hawk, not regarding that it was our day (Children’s Day).
John my father didn’t return home because somebody must have to stay with Bode in the hospital. Toyosi who returned early the next morning had only come to prepare something for her son.
If not that I asked her where Bode and my father was, she wouldn’t have told me. I had pity for them when I heard the misfortune. Was it not the same Bode who was healthy and kinky just the day before? Wasn’t he the one who made fun of me the most? I thought. I silently prayed to my God to spare Bode’s life because I would not wish anyone dead.
John and Toyosi lost their joy. They had to spend many days without going to their places of work, all in the name of wanting to cater for the health of their sons. With the confused look on the faces of the illegal couple, I thought they had repented, therefore I approached them to ask them if they would let me come with them to the hospital where Bode was, but my father refused blatantly. As for Toyosi, she had softened. Her eyeballs had popped out, just because of incessant tears.
I watched my father’s wealth gradually fading. I could do nothing but pity. Maybe God is fighting for me, I thought. But this war seemed too much for them to bear. Bode had already spent a month in the hospital, between life and death.

As if that was not all, Toyosi’s womb began to swell up. I thought it was another ailment until I got to know, somehow, that she was already pregnant for my father. They were confused, not knowing what exactly they would do with the pregnancy. If I hadn’t seen the doctor’s report where she kept it, I wouldn’t have discovered this. She was two months pregnant.
John and Toyosi began to have some quarrels regarding whether the pregnancy should be kept or aborted, because any moment from then, Toyosi’s husband would return from South Africa where he was. John wanted the pregnancy kept while Toyosi wanted it aborted. John believed that a bird at hand was worth two in the bush. Since they didn’t know if Bode would survive it, then John had easily passed him for two birds in the bush and ironically, the one in the womb would be the bird at hand.
The confusion was much for the illegal couple such that they even resorted to physical fight. John threatened to visit Toyosi’s home at her husband’s return and tell him the truth of the whole matter if Toyosi aborted the pregnancy.
I was surprised that John could regard a foetus still in the womb that myself, a child who was of legitimate birth. John lost his job and depended only on whatever Toyosi earned from her business. Whenever Toyosi refused to give him something, John would come to me and collect some of the profits I made from the egg sales and whenever Toyosi returned, she would pour out the content of her mouth, but who cared? I had no ears to hear her shouts.

The two began to behave like Tom and Jerry. They would pick offences at the slightest provocations. Toyosi threatened to abort the pregnancy without my father’s consent but John threatened to kill her if she did.
Amidst their piteous state, Toyosi received a letter. Her husband would be returning to Nigeria in seven months time, which would be February of the following year, 2001. Already, Bode had completed three months in the hospital without improvement.

Mrs Omotayo had become my enemy. She would turn her face away from me anytime she saw me. I even took a step to apologise, but she refused blatantly and shouted at me. I wondered why it seemed too difficult for her to forgive me.
Toyosi’s fear was that her husband would come when she would be eight months pregnant already, then it would be too late for her to abort the pregnancy and she would eventually lose him. Toyosi didn’t want to lose her husband because he was very wealthy, so she needed to abort that pregnancy on time.

South Africa? I pondered. That was where John’s younger brother went and never returned to Nigeria till date. I had missed him so much because Uncle James, as he was called then, was a very good friend of mine. Sometimes I had wondered why he wasn’t wicked like John my father. I remembered how Uncle James used to get angry at my father anytime he was maltreating me. He would nearly punch John on the face. Even the day I saw him last, it was through a hot brawl he left our house, threatening to jail my father for ill-treating me. That day, John slapped his face and he raised his hand too to send a hot slap on my father’s face in return, but when my mother entered the room, he retreated just for her sake.
James, who had been staying with us all the while because of accommodation problem, was sent packing by his elder brother. When my mother was pleading with John to let uncle James be, that wicked man slapped her and pushed her out of the way, accusing my mother of having sexual relationship with his brother. Uncle James left eventually. The day I saw him last, he only came to secretly tell us that things had eventually worked out for him and he would be travelling to South Africa. He told us to keep it secret from John his brother and my mother did. That was the last time we saw him; the only times I thought of him was whenever Toyosi was talking about South Africa where her own husband had gone too.
Surprisingly, Bode recovered from the illness and was discharged. It was then that John my father agreed with Toyosi to abort the pregnancy. She did and took ill for a whole month. All she could do was cry all day. John also cried along as well as Bode, but it was I alone that wouldn’t cry though I tried to, but tears wasn’t just going to come out of my eyes.

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Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 10:10pm On Oct 23, 2014
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Toyosi returned home sad after one month. John begged her every now and then for forgiveness, but she wouldn’t listen. Was there more to it which I didn’t know? Why did she keep crying all days? Did she not get what she wanted? At least my father had succumbed to her will by letting her abort the pregnancy, so what more? I thought.
The day they reconciled was the exact day John took ill; that was around September. John was admitted in a hospital as Toyosi expended all her profit in treating him. Then Toyosi begged me to go to the streets and beg for alms but I refused blatantly. She couldn’t touch me now, perhaps she had already realized that her nemesis was caused by her evil deeds to me in the past. Toyosi said she would release my mother from if only I could render that help to her. I had pity on my father who was between life and death and then went begging in the streets. Now I hung a laminated write-up on my neck too, indicating that I was deaf and dumb and I needed help.
When Albert saw me begging, he called me a pretender.
“Did you not lie that you didn’t beg for alms that day, pretender?” Albert spoke harshly to me. I was speechless.
This time around, it wasn’t Albert alone who saw me begging but many of my former school mates too, including Bose, who was my arch-enemy back then in the former public school I attended. Each time I saw Bose mocking me, I would feel as if I should strangle her once and for all, because she had done a lot of evil to me in the past.
I could remember what Bose did to me while we were in primary four. Back then, Bose came to me to say that she no more wanted any fight with me, but she would want us to be close friends since we were the only two people in the class with the same surname, John. She is John Bosede and I was John Rose. I readily accepted Bose’s proposal and we became close pals.
Our friendship was sustained for the whole term until the beginning of the next session when we got promoted to Primary 5. Back then, when we were friends, I lost my bag in which all my books were kept. Everything I had, including my textbooks, where in it. I wept because I knew what my father would do to me if he discovered that I had lost my bag and all the new books I had in them. As expected, my father dealt brutally with me for my carelessness and refused to get me another bag and books for replacement. I had to do the rest of my class without any textbooks and exercise books.
During the beginning of the next session, Bose began to come to school with some familiar books (exactly the types of books I had in my back the session before). I began to sense something fishy because of her reluctance to borrow me her books. I would have pointed accusing fingers at her if only I had seen any cancellation at the back of those books because I wrote my names on them those days; at least if they where mine, she would have cancelled those names before writing hers.
Something kept telling me they were mine because the writings looked exactly like mine. But when did I write Bose’s name with my own handwriting? Was I drunk while I was doing that? I wanted to know the fact, so I continued to observe. I knew the books were actually mine when I got one of her storybooks one day. I saw some marks I did inside the storybooks and now I was convinced. It had just occurred to me how easy it was for her to alter the ‘R’ starting my name and change it to ‘B’. She wouldn’t have had any problem converting them at all since the right leg of my letter ‘R’ were always curved somehow, not straight. Thus, she changed my name ‘John Rose’ to her own name ‘ John Bosede’ with ease, having added a ‘d’ and an ‘e’ to it to make me never suspect her(Bosede was the long form of the name Bose).
I was angry with her and took laws into my hands, fighting with her after school hour one day, just because the teacher I reported the case to ignored me for lack of clear evidence. We fought that day and I defeated her, putting sand into her mouth, contrary to the thought of everyone that Bose was the boss then, because she could bully on both boys and girls alike as a result of her rapid development.
The next day, her mother came to school with her and reported the case to my class teacher (not Mrs Oyin) and I was scolded and suspended for two weeks. I wondered why Bose’s mother backed her daughter up in lies as such. Sometimes parents could be the cause of their children’s bad manners, I thought.
I was shy when Bose made fun of me and promised to bring all our schoolmates to make fun of me the next day. When I returned home that day, I told Toyosi that I didn’t want to beg anymore.
“You must do it for your father, or you want him dead?” she said.
“No, I want him to live, but…but I can’t just do it anymore; my schoolmates are making fun of me,” I said.
“You have to do it if you want to see your mother alive,” she said. I was weighed down deep down my heart, but I couldn’t cry. She was the one doing the weeping.

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Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 10:10pm On Oct 23, 2014
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I kept on begging for alms, all because I needed to see my mother alive as Toyosi promised. John returned home healthy after one month. The family had been rendered penniless by the emergence of those sicknesses which happened to them in turn. Now I feared that it was going to be my turn. If it happened to me, I was sure no one would show any iota of concern. Didn’t they want me dead earlier? I thought.
Toyosi and John depended on me to have them fed. They would collect the money I made from my begging business each day and use it to get food for the family. Toyosi had written a letter to her husband abroad, but she hadn’t received a reply yet.
I confronted Toyosi again to release my mother or else I would kill myself with a knife. I was only trying to threaten her, because I was their only hope of sustenance at the moment, since none of Toyosi or John my father would be able to beg alms as I was doing.
When Toyosi heard that, she put her hand on my head and rubbed it in a passionate way as she wept.

“Rose, I have already put everything in place for your mother’s release,” she said in tears. “She will be here very soon.”

“I don’t accept that,” I replied her in an unconvinced manner. “Take me to her if you can’t bring her to me!” I signed in a vigorous manner. “I must see my mummy, or else…”

Toyosi held me tight to herself. I wriggled in her grip. I was already fed up with her unnecessary show of concern to me, knowing quite well that she was just an impostor. I submitted in the end and watched her drinking her tears like a cup of garri.
Laide and Biodun were on holiday. I was happy I would be able to see Biodun now, since he would no more be going to school. When I went to their apartment, it was Taiba who met me at the door and waved me off. She didn’t want me near Biodun at all; perhaps she was following the instruction of her mistress.

I wrote a letter in Braille and went back to their apartment. When Taiba came to the door, I gave her the letter, but she took it and shredded it to pieces. Taiba didn’t want anything to endanger her job and I understood vividly, but I couldn’t contain the feeling I was having towards Biodun anymore. We haven’t seen each other for the past three months, yet we lived in the same house.
Toyosi suddenly held her stomach and groaned in pain. She was rushed down to the hospital by her jobless illegitimate husband. I wondered what was going on. It was her second time she would be calling at a hospital within three months with the same complication. I began to guess that her ailment had something to do with the abortion she underwent some months back. Maybe it had affected her womb somehow, I thought, but since there was no one to give me an answer, I forgot about it.
While John and Toyosi were in the hospital with Bode, I took a day out to rest. I was going to keep it holy by not begging for alms that day. It was a Friday morning. I had stepped out of the apartment to take fresh air. I was looking towards Biodun’s flat, wishing deep down my heart to see Biodun appear. How would that happen when Taiba wouldn’t stop policing him everywhere? I thought.

The violent breeze blew some dust into my eyes and I began to blink to get the dust away. It took me sometimes to recover from the pain. When I did, I saw Biodun standing close. I was surprised.
Biodun touched me with his walking stick as he made his way to our door. I smiled. I went close to him and touched his nape. He knew at once that I was the one. Who would touch the back of his neck that way except me?
Biodun smiled.

I led Biodun in. He made a sign to me—my own language, something I had taught him a little of.

“Let us flee together,” Biodun had signed. When he asked me in Braille to teach him that statement in sign language in the eatery three months back, I didn’t know he was going to use it for real. Now that was the exact statement he was demonstrating to me with his hands.
It was amazing that he could come up with such suggestion. I touched him at the back of his head. It was a sign we both formulated together to mean ‘no’. Biodun’s face grew pale. He was disappointed somehow. Soon he was shedding tears. He did the sign again to say that we should flee. It was something I had least expected, myself fleeing with Biodun to continue our love affair somewhere else? Too funny to think about!
Biodun was serious about it. He began to weep. I clutched his head in my hands, a way of pacifying him, but his tears didn’t end. He asked for those Braille materials I had with me and I provided them. Biodun began to punch the paper with it. He was done with it after five minutes. I read:

Though I may not have seen it but I have heard it; when people can’t get what they want, they kill themselves. When you see me dead before tomorrow, then you should know why. Bye.
Biodun rose up. He took his walking stick and began to feel his way out of the parlour. He lingered a little while at the door and then went through it. I rushed towards him and stood on his way.
I never wanted him dead, else I would die too. Somehow, his soul had fused into mine. I was his sight and he was my voice. There was no one at the moment I understood more than Biodun, despite the fact that he was blind and couldn’t see me do my signs and I was deaf and couldn’t hear him speak.
I touched Biodun’s forehead. It was our self-formulated sign to mean agreement. Biodun didn’t believe it. He reached out for my forehead, but his two fingers couldn’t get there because he couldn’t see me. I knew what he wanted to ask, so I held his arm and set the two fingers there myself. He was going to ask if I was sure of what I had just communicated to him by my ‘touch sign’.
I touched his forehead with two fingers in return to tell him that I was sure. If I was not serious about it, I would have touched his forehead with just a finger and not two.
I rushed back inside to take my bag. I took the money I had in a purse and set out. I held Biodun’s right wrist as we began to hurry towards the gate. I opened the gate carefully so that Taiba who should be inside their apartment wouldn’t hear its sound. In no time at all, we were out of the house. All we needed to do at first was to get onto a motorcycle to take us to somewhere far from home. I waved down one and Biodun spoke with the rider. They didn’t agree at a price, so he left. Another soon came close and we mounted on that.
The rider didn’t move. Instead, he turned his head backward and it was a shock to us. When Biodun tapped him to ask why he wasn’t moving, he told Biodun something which I didn’t hear. Biodun tapped me and pointed backward. He was asking me to look behind me since I was his eyes. I looked behind me and saw horror! Taiba! She had probably been shouting and waving at the bikeman to get his attention earlier. Biodun must have heard her shouting and didn’t know she was the one.
Our plan was shattered. Now we had to beg Taiba not to tell Biodun’s mother what had happened. Taiba didn’t accept it until she got some money from us and pulled our ears, warning us that we shouldn’t dare try such a thing in our life. Biodun actually sneaked out of their apartment while she was having her bath.

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Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 10:12pm On Oct 23, 2014
Instead of waiting for me to post the whole story I have already completed, why dont you just click on this link and enjoy the rest of the story there? Click http://ebiag.com/index.php/topic,19.100.html now
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by seunviju(f): 10:28pm On Oct 23, 2014
Thanks for the update
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 10:48pm On Oct 23, 2014
seunviju:
Thanks for the update
We thank God
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Fatalveli(m): 7:51am On Oct 24, 2014
Finally caught up wit u guys, Sammyhoe dis is ur first story I read on NL and I must say u are da bomb! Keep it up bro
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 8:34am On Oct 24, 2014
Fatalveli:
Finally caught up wit u guys, Sammyhoe dis is ur first story I read on NL and I must say u are da bomb! Keep it up bro
And the whole story is on www.ebiag.com my official website. You can visit the site and register as member. Thanks.
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by pricelesslove(f): 12:23pm On Oct 24, 2014
Sammy I didn't see any thing oo
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by pricelesslove(f): 12:25pm On Oct 24, 2014
Sammy I didn't see any thing oo. I didn't see the registration stuff oo
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by s3nn2x(m): 7:57pm On Oct 24, 2014
Where is the story on the site? I can't find it again. I have tried...even checked the link you uploaded and did not see the story. I use to read it on the site before, but can't see it where it used to be...

1 Like

Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Fatalveli(m): 9:09pm On Oct 24, 2014
Hello Nairalanders, most especially the fans of THEROCK555, I wanna use the medium to inform you all that ur amazing author will be interviewed @ 5pm tomorrow so dat we can all get to know him better.... Follow dis link if u have any questions for Therock555 @. https://www.nairaland.com/1952165/weekly-interview-thread-subsidiary-dammysammytv/5#1952165.161. I'm pretty sure you all can't afford to miss this...
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 9:34pm On Oct 24, 2014
s3nn2x:
Where is the story on the site? I can't find it again. I have tried...even checked the link you uploaded and did not see the story. I use to read it on the site before, but can't see it where it used to be...

On the Literature Section
pricelesslove:
Sammy I didn't see any thing oo. I didn't see the registration stuff oo
I will register for you right now...just visit the site and login with 'pricelesslove'.
Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by Nobody: 9:42pm On Oct 24, 2014
Scroll down, visit the LITERATURE SECTION and click on STORIES AND POEMS, then you will find the story there @ s3nn2x
Pls don't just read the story try to register there too, I can register for you now if you wish, so all u nid do is log in. Thanks.

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