Sara sprawled on a bed, hugged her guitar like a baby, her breasts in a vest like two pointed noses. How could she play a guitar as she sat forsaking her legs widely open? Which song would she sing with that face like guys in Rwanda in reminiscence of that war? We spent last night watching Spartacus. Forget her dey there. From Conakry, it was too late to start travelling for that. What I did was simple: looked for a white, wide paper, pasted on the flat wood, picked up a pencil and paint, set to draw a fat man holding a Nigerian flag, today was 1st October. “I told you to prepare egusy soup with amala, you detested. I recollected the story of Jaja, you hissed.”
“You shatter my life.”
“What?”
“I could break this guitar. Say ssh and see.”
“Break it, it’s yours.”
“Don’t you know you make me angry?”
“Can you board a plane? Let’s go!”
“Let’s catch West Africa.”
“Reach there when the celebration is over.”
“Who’s the cause?”
“Sara, what you should do: prepare egusy with amala. Climb the roof, play guitar, I don’t care. I’ll dance like a mad cow. If you sing ‘I Believe in New Nigeria’, I’ll paint my face green, white, Green. In Eagle Square, forces and students march to salute the president. In Eco Hotel, there is a show. V.I.Ps land from Ghana, South Africa, Zaire and Liberia. In Lagos, the weather is good.”
Last year, I gulped wine and widened my eyes like a saucer. Now, I turned to my paint. The shirt: green, white, green. The trousers: green, white, green. The cap: green, white, green. The paint smelled like G.V.
“You mustn’t draw anything”, Sara said.”
“You musn’t hold a guitar”, I said.
“I hold it.”
“I draw it.”
We would roll to Hotel Mariador Palace, set what I drew beside like our baby, swim for an hour, jollied with vanilla icecream.
“Play guitar, sing I believe in new Nigeria, you won’t regret.”
“Unless I’m not patriotic”, Sara said.
“You can be patriotic here.”
“Not me.”
“We should have saved a lot for the flight, this odyssey on West Africa is tedious. But next year we must dey there.”
“Don’t say anything.”
“Watch N.T.A channel! blame me not. Remember your sister
in Italy.”
“I won’t remember any prostitute.”
“Why call her a prostitute.”
“I do! What is she doing? She’s a bank where Italians deposite sperm. In Benin City she erected a mansion. The world comes to an end, my father said, prostitution is acclaimed. Blacks in a trade in Europe.”
“Listen, Africa must survive.”
She took off her guitar, set on my typewriter, her breasts standing high, her miniskirt forsook her thighs.
“The world comes to an end”, I said. “An African Madam wears a mini skirt.”
“Where is mini skirt? This one?” “To whom you showcase these thighs? I have seen them already.”
“Even climbed and robbed them.”
“And can do it now.”
“Dey there!”
She sprang up, strode to the kitchen, her butocks appeared boom!

Read the original here https://marenjohnmafuyai./2015/01/11/independence-love/