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[center]HOLY SACRILEGE
A PROMISING MIRAGE
TURNED INTO A MILD RAGE
ON LOVES TRAGIC STAGE.
[/center]



[center]ON THE RUINS OF THE SOUL

In our dying breath
In our waring souls
From all length and breadth
We run with our wounded soles.

From the safety of our homes
From the troubles of our wives
We run to the ruins of our tombs
To the vanity of our lives

Let lose to curse our days
Set free as demons to the underworld
On the scenes of this terror plays
In tragic way we bow out of our world.[/center]



At the periphery of ruin they sit with hands clamp across their mouth. The drumbeats of sadness resound and echoes in their traumatic painful gory tales. Shadows of darkness descends in the middle of the day, sunny as it was yet, pain was a darkness, mixed with undiluted fluid of sadness, flowing in the alphabets and words they utter. Sorrows flow through the being like water flowing through a broke and stream unhindered by anything. They don't think about the day, but previous nights and the next night fall. Night falls where heroes fall victim of terror that graces and settles on the terrain.
Such is the continuous romance of sorrow, it has become a tradition sewn into the fabric of their skin, terror is the sweat that emanates from their skin, death alone is the product of their thoughts, the rain falls but could not wash in its flooding the messy scenes of these spasmodic madness.
It was not the first time they had struck, but never had they struck the holy places of worship and never had holy blood been shed, it was not going to be the last time they would strike, not the last time they have heard or will hear about the horror tales of unholy sins. The tragic news will take its deserved seat in history, national tragedy has become a banner, days are dotted with horrific tales, it was a historic day with a historic calamity. It was not a September 11 nor anything of such magnitude but considering where it is wrought the fear that has been hideously expressed is now openly courted, it was not a freedom struggle, for they have long been freed from the shackles of colonialism or there was nothing of bondage about the demands of the killer gang, and now the people are beginning to give true meaning to terrorism even without attempting its definition, to attach meaning to pain even without falling victims to sorrow, they have shed unwarranted tears even without the slightest acquaintance with the casualties. Blood flow gushingly from lifeless bodies; they have come to dread war even without knowing what peace is and to appreciate comfort even without feeling the luxury of wealth.
The church was in ruin, fire, smokes and smells of burning bodies ascending to the heavens like a burnt offering of Abel ascending up to the cloudy rowdy and sad heavens. The church service had halted, from the sanctuary of worship people found their loved ones quickly taken to the mortuary and booooooom! In a split second the sunny day was painted in pandemonium, an unholy sacrilege of terror visited on Gods faithful. There was a painful laughter on the faces of all, the priest had disappeared without his shoes, scampered for the safety of his flesh, a spirit filled man who left behind the spirit to rescue the flesh from mortal and earthly decay, the wind stood still sensing that evil was upon its tail and trail, man has visited terror upon man, watching slowly as their breath reached a point of vanquished, a chrismas mass became a mass burial, as people left for heaven and hell en mass not needing a clearance or a pass, someone has driven straight to the heart of the church and its members in the middle of service and let loss the madness of a bomb to extort lives that had come to worship Go.
Some have asked why God could not neutralized such evil and hold it still till his children had all made their exit, o how had the prophets not been vigilant enough to see from the spirit and warn the church of the impending Armageddon, and of cause why have they been left to ask God questions He was not going to grant them answers to, and is He not God and will this tragedy dethrone him from the position he so cherished?
Unholy curse, or, is there a holy curse? Unworthy death or is there a worthy death, unpleasant news, and for sure they have all forgotten what is sounds like to hear a pleasant news or if there was anything as pleasant as far as this life was concern. For as long as they could remember years have come and gone their suffering is the only medal the carry on their neck, yet they have been happy to suffer and smile, not threatened by insecurity that has invaded their dwelling places...

The famous darkness of light takes its place as people scampered, leaving behind children and loved ones, on that fateful day when heaven lost its calm and watch in angry silence the troops of men finding death the easiest way they never bargained for.
‘We use to know the touch of affection’
Ethel said with an unusual naiveté, tears streaming down her fine cheek like water fall cascading down the rocky hills of Obudu ranch, while the pains hastily streams down her spine, yet she smiled with an adulterated innocence.
She has just lost her brother in the inferno, and maybe tragedy is a friend of the family, she proclaimed with an unannounced exclamation…
‘I was told my grandfather died in the civil war, now so it seemed or is it not, that when horror visits the neighbourhood, our house is always a point of call’ and has her dad not met with tragic death too as he was brutally murdered at gunpoint by hoodlums who have become masters of the roads.
The country has just celebrated her independence day a few months ago and still counting, fighting and grumbling is yet to ceased and the behind-the-scene gimmicks of a confederate state will not stop or so it seemed that the forceful union which had given birth to an area inhabited by people who are shy to relate and trust has engineered cleavages that could no longer be tolerated or was it just a mere reaction of the north to the man that had been lucky enough to man the golden stool of the nation, and neither can the splinters and ruins of peace so shattered be salvage to ensure continuous national malady.
It has been years of painful feeling, and one is always forced to wonder if anarchy can ever pass through the ruins of their poverted lives without peeping in to mock at them, just like hunger have laid siege on the whole city where the common man cannot boast of a filled stomach at any square of the meal he could afford, when they will see the appearance of peace and feel the texture of love and affection.
Many lives have wasted in vain already, there was yet a call against the menace of sectional madness that have carved out an enclave in the very heart of the nation, and why did they fight the same ones who they stretch their betraying hands to call brothers and the same people they share a smile with and wish the very best life could offer, for all that could be visible, the various attacks have been targeted at a selected crowd of people, tribe and faith, for all, there had not been a war declared yet there had been heightened fright as people began to quake under the threatening wind of insecurity, in fact there was no neighbour involved here, they were at war with themselves. This palpable fear engendered by the notoriety of aggrieved groups aimed to kill and maim with a broad day light and open impunity, it is a fight they had no bargained for because such bargain will destroy the very heart and soul of a pursued unity and nationhood.
Whatever names that would be attached to it, call it an invincible menace yet they have and are expecting to witness much more, the very seeds of separation and enmity planted by the juntas and tyrants who had struck the newly born independent at the soul of its very tender heart, or have they not survived the civil war of unity and have they not still been stuck together like Siamese twins inseparable, yet this was a very known enemy taking arms against a brother. The invincible brutal yoke of incessant killing and maiming, and the escalated intolerance has finally turned a once peaceful nation into
Aceldama, a killing field and a boiling cauldron and while they struggle for the survival of their souls, their brothers in the south are still entangled in the shenanigans of Niger Delta militancy who before the government deceitful and amnesty had made oil drilling and exploration a deadly and hazardous venture, still haunted by incessant Kidnapping, rape and armed robberies, the combination of these have made life remarkably and truly miserable and no area a safe enough haven to dwell in peace and this madness called conflict have seen brothers taking up sword against their very lives.
As far Ethel was concerned the country is blessed, absent of the many strange natural disasters that are recorded in the history of other countries, disasters that could set them on their heels scampering for their lives, and in the long run, they have become their own disaster, they have become their woes and have forged tragedy with their own hands, unleashing its whole terror on the very ones they had long embrace and called brothers, this was a mayhem that was pushing the country to the brim of collapse.

As one who was vast in history, she understands
that no event ever happens in isolations, she
seeks to enquire into any possibility of an
invincible hand making things happen, and
maybe this was the underground scheming of
some evil elements bent on perpetrating the
downfall of a country that was already on its
knees, and have tugged at the seams of a
nation’s garment of oneness and peace with a
view of rending it into irreparable shred, and
now the face of terror they can see walking so
tall in the streets while the people are helplessly
watching the state degenerate to a state of
nature described by Hobbes where life was
brutish, nasty and in fact short
While she is concerned or was anyone
unconcerned except those not affected by the
threat of insecurity, for the debilitating state of
the nation, they are too helpless as they
watched in their painful tears the series of attack
that was in fact setting the nation back slowly to
the pariah status of a military era.
This was a terror war, attack on man by man,
and when will blood cease to flow for no reason,
the menace of bombers and demise of safety
have left them all to walk in the shadow of threat
that trails their footsteps. Did it not bear
semblance to politics, was it not having the
finger print of an after poll war, a grievance
displayed by the evil intentions of some never do-well politicians who find it hard to stomach
defeat and who have gone round to preach the
zoning gospel.
And she is aware that the cleavages keep
multiplying while their fears increase by the day,
and the rampages and notoriety of the sect has
gone unchecked based on the flawed security
network and a suspected political gaming.
‘Danger has probably marked us for his’
She said dismissing as a conclusion of one who
had followed the recent development in events
as she proclaimed with innocence and concern
‘As days pass, we are forgetting what peace use
to feel like or what sleeping with both eyes
closed is like’ and true she had spoken for they
have come to live, to flounder with tears and
pain, they flinch at the sight of sorrow and are
flattered by the spasmodic peace that deceives
them sporadically while they flaunt the scum of
their perverted spirits, awaiting condolences and
sympathy from their flatulent leaders.
In the long run, the leaders in search of a
uninterrupted power have all assisted in
mortgaging today on the platform of war that in
the real sense was uncalled for, and what will
happen to tomorrow if their today was cursed
with abundance of tragedy, for while she had
sure heard that they are the leaders of
tomorrow, she is left to question if there will be
tomorrow in the wake of the very many bomb
blasts and other evil perpetrated.
No one should be carried away by the
sympathies from the royal and privileged
classes, she is sure, no one except the poor
knows the agony of living in the den constantly
gazing at death in the face, only the poor feels
the agony of emptiness, and no one except the
unsecured in slums and streets can explain
better the fears of endangerment and a life not
assured against the horrors of stray bullets and
explosions.
The scum of past crisis are heaped and the gory
scenes of yester-pains, suffering and sorrows
still lingers, no one could interpret the painful
laughter that permeates their faces and though
the masses struggle to lift their hands to their
mouth, and move their belongings to a corner of
the house whenever it rained, while watching
their parents scout and scavenge for the
children, they are still happy to know that life
will always last them till the next day, absent of
the tales of terror that befalls their kin in strange
lands.
While these scouts and seekers of wars hide
behind their treacherous actions, they have
mange to pay the conscience of whoever they
use and have sent them to fight and die for the
cause they alone stand to benefit, the youths in
their lust for quick wealth, have given
themselves to foolishness, lost their mind and
reasoning and have joined in a war they never
will be able to end and have learnt the very craft
of aiming sorrow at their friends once they are
weaned, while their invincible sponsors pay lip
condolences to their wasted age, to their
foolishness, to the mindless brutality and
terrorism they themselves have gingered, and
every time a horrific attack is being plotted other
prominent youths is sent to his early grave.
She could remember vividly the blinking pictures
of doom that lingers on her memory, doom that
befell the nation on the wake of its civil war, and
even though was not born then she had learned
through history the irreparable damages. She
has at least witnessed the painful scars of
slavery carved on their backs by the villains of
junta hegemony and military dictators, and
wonders why the sponsors of the various evil
scenes have never taken arms to fight for a
cause they so propagate.
There’s so much scenes of madness, pictures of
suffering country men left to suffocate under the
yoke of this terrorism, and how do they pick up
arms against the turbulent sea of trouble.
Tears could be seen flowing from her fine cheek,
Ethel as indeed an angel forsaken in the ruins of
tragedy.

Curse upon this slate of pain
Tears upon our faces stain
[/i]Darkness in our hearts contain
Sorrows no one can explain
Maim to leave behind our plight
Forced to abandon our fight
Death sets in in broad day light
Taste of the inevitable sour bite.
Tales of pain we live to write
Place upon epitaph our fight
Intentional erasure of men of worth
With kins left behind to mourn and curse.[i]

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CHAPTER TWO

WAR AGAINST PEACE
On that tragic eyes of sorrows
With our hands, we send peace to the gallows
Now we seek sanity to borrow serenity
To host our shattered tomorrow
Trail by wars’ deadly claws
Delivered from peace sane jaws
Satires of our peaceful hands
Stuck firmly to guns and knives
On the scenes of these numerous sins
Left to rue the trajectory of pain
Peace deserts our desolate land
War and fury are silent echoes.


‘We use to feel the nudge of affection from the neighbourhood, we use to feel the warmth of peace’ she paused as the sadness that had faded away returned with full force, struck by a pandemonium of thoughts, she held back the flow of pain that was about to swallow her up. She tried to stand up but the nurses pleaded with her to stay still, she tries to remember how
she had gotten to the hospital, for all she could remember was jubilant soccer fans celebrating in the soccer house, and what had happened to her, why was she unable to move, why couldn’t she feel her legs, fresh tears rushed out of her eyes as she began to gather the pieces of the memories that were being wielded together. She became aware of the situation, she was the latest casualty of the last terror unleashed in the hood.

Fresh and undiluted sorrows and pains gushedout of her eyes, as the tears overwhelmed her. Ethel was a very special girl, somewhat between a dubious, truthful and an unpredictable fellow, her eyes were between bulging big, with a classy that defined her undefined and undefiled defiled features. There was a specialty about her sense of humour, the tentative and intermittent mischievous but captivating smiles she gave was enough to ease whoever it was that she was talking to.

She had graduated from one of the universities in the country and had just finished serving her NYSC, this was going to be a great loss as the mum had neglected the education of her other siblings just to see her success become a reality. The stench of sadness spread through the room like smoke permeating a building or an atmosphere. She held her head in her hands wondering why for once she had to give in to Sam’s plea and idea of going to watch a football match that night. She remembered clearly, speaking in a voice that sounded a little more than a whisper, many a times she had resisted and turned down the temptation of following Sam to a soccer house and for once she has pleased him and had fallen victim of man’s conspiracy
She stares into the heavens as if to question heaven’s involvement in the tragedy that has befallen her. Ethel again was filled with tearful tears that threatened to tear her tearful heart.
She remember Sam, why was he not here with her? Maybe he was dead and maybe he was not as fortunate as she was, maybe he had not survived the blast. She looks around wondering if she would see him smiling behind one of those teary faces she was seeing.
Sam had been Ethel’s friend and colleague from the university. They had first met when he’d rescued her from some never-do-well students who tried to harass her. All though he was not strong enough to confront them, he knew he didn’t have to fight, and since he recognized a familiar face among them he was quick to reason, ‘ken tell your friends to leave my woman alone’. Ken was just an idiot sharing neighbourhood with Sam and although Sam was lady’s man, Ken could not argue that he had never seen this particular lady ever paying Sam a visit. With such a straight forward audacity and approach, Ethel was already won over and while Sam came to later explain that he had in fact admired her and nurse such intention for long. Although she will in the future realized that her peace has been contorted, she was too careless to realize that accommodating Sam was the
beginning of a misery that will take long to manifest and blossom. She had read of wars, cold war and revolutions but never had she understood that the war within a person’s soul and heart was the most dehumanizing and demoralizing.

They had both become very closed and had formed a successful study partnership and a reading habit that would see them both graduate with a second class upper division and in a more local parlance, they were running things. She looks around again and asked
‘Where is Sam’? And why hasn’t he come?’ sensing the fear looming, the doctor calmed her down andassured her that Sam was okay, only being under treatment in the intensive care department. Sam had been unconscious, in a coma and the doctors were tending to his wounds, he was lucky to escape with minor injuries, however the doctor feared that the shocked had made him unconscious and might be killing him gradually. He had lost both his parents at the tender age ten and was taken into his uncle’s care. As Sam will say my uncle was the nicest person to me after my parents’ death but I had to live with a demon in his house. The traumatic memories of his parents dead left him soaked in sorrows, again he was found at the scene of the accident unconscious too. This painful memory always evokes sadness in him. However uncle’s kindness was short lived as he was thrown out of the house at the age of fifteen. He once made a painful reminiscence into his days with his uncle; ‘
I always saw demons in her eyes, my uncle’s wife, the way she looked at me, the way she smiled at me, I hated it, I thought I was only blinded by my hatred for her. My uncle was always away on transfer as a policeman, I had to be at home with his demon, his wife, she was charming and beautiful woman at her mid-twenties at then. I could sense hell once I stepped into the house. It all started like a joke she walked into my room after I took my bath and told me I’d not bathed fine and she took me into the bathroom to show me how to have a clean bat.

That was the start of the series of helpless molestation he went through in the hands of his uncle’s jezebel. Such pity is evoked whenever he sits to remember the past that has turned him into a beast, yet amidst the dehumanizing and tragic past, Sam was able to hold his head high enough
above the waters as he strives towards the tomorrow he had long dreamt of, a tomorrow he was not going to let be in jeopardy, a tomorrow that is now threatened everyday by insane blasts. The war has long been fought, yet there was no telling that they could identify their enemies, and they, innocent as they were, fall victims and are sent to the graves to kiss their forbidden fate.

The variegated patch up work they have come to live and call their own, proud to belong, one nation as they often hail, liking the names but hating their diversity, and while they have often thought that their problem was carried on the wings of corruption and electoral insincerity, they have now identified another cleavage that is clogging the wheel of their country’s unity; unwillingness of the various ethnic components to exist side by side in harmony, setting them back to the vanity of their desire to progress. There has been, there was and there is still more organized attack on the peace of the country. The very root which was the reaction to the first coup which had resulted in a civil rebellion bringing with it untold hardship to the whole
citizenry and though the war has long ended they are still threatened by consistent sounds of bomb blast sending the already dead souls to their early graves. And though Sam has watched many relationship break up and though he has engineered many break ups in his young life, he believes that the unity of the country is stronger than any relationship and while he has always argued that disintegrating is not the solution no matter the calamity that befalls the country, the calamity that has gotten to his doorstep was beginning to change his opinion already.

The streets was filled with heavy military presence, men who had been drafted to see an end to the madness that now roams the nation causing death, even children have become suspects for they were at times used as messengers to drop explosives at strategic points. Ethel and Sam in the hospital, weighed down by sorrows, their city fell under the siege of military men sent to fish and ferret out the culprits and for the first time the government has responded quick to calm the tension that was rising in the area or was it just a mere show that will not last the night? In this war even the soldiers and policemen were not spared especially when they loss their guard, and as they last in the area, bombing and gun attacks have become almost a daily romance, the streets have been deserted, left to waste, only few vehicles dare to ply, while many of these people who reside in volatile places are consigned to their vicinity with their radio and handsets readily available to tell them the location of the next bomb blast. And who will not adapt to this survival strategy in a city that has rapidly turned into a killing field. The city has been captured by terror, many businesses and markets closed down while those who consider themselves non indigenes flee to where the least of their safety could be guaranteed.

The soldiers have come to restore hope and order to an already hopeless city and the war against peace have become fiercer as Sam and Ethel will find out on their return home from the deadly jaws of death. The soldiers bent on finishing the operations raided the towns while leaving young and innocent death with a slightest fear of suspicion and while Sam wakes to consciousness he realizes that houses in the neighbourhood have been indiscriminately burnt, cars paralyzed and the mortuary and cemetery filled to its brim with corpses and souls of young men fallen victims not just to the bomb blasts but by the very bullets of the men who had been sent on counter operations to rescue them from death. The miseries of widows and orphans dampened daily, while young men have been caught in the crossfire between this deadly sect and military operations, and the massive exodus of non-indigenes who must make a return to their promise lands and escape the threat to their lives.

And so Sam and Ethel forced back to their state returned to the Niger Delta they had left as children, leaving behind the painful bitter memories of the stay in conflict ridden states of the north; for while it is easy to kill and while anyone can do it, only a real and responsible man can protect his fellow men. So life, to Ethel and Sam was full of continuous sadness dotted by a protracted joy, characterized by a gripping tension, insecurity and suffering occasioned by the series of attacks and military reaction. While people struggle to evade the stray bullets and blasts, the presence of the soldiers which at first had been for security reasons rapidly became a platform for humiliation and brutalization, extortion and undue hardship. While the terror intensely grew, the people are afraid to openly discuss issues concerning these masked men. While they seek peace, war is waged on what is left of the harmony they once experienced and now seek for and only luck must have saved the lives of those two, those with a lasting mark that will conspire in the future to deal the final blow on her. She will now be confined to a wheeled chair, her hopes of walking again hanging so thin by the thread of chance and only to be determined by divine forces that had somehow managed to keep her alive. As for Sam he would hope that the scars of that life threatening incident will not deal a devastating blow on the woman he had cherished all his life, he would hope such trauma she had experienced would not drag her to depression and the brink of suicide.


Peace within the soul doth stray
Mind of reason sold away
Joy to sorrow though is changed
Love becomes a paradise.
Nothing left to sway our joy
Life then treats us like a toy
Sorrows and pains though suffice
Love becomes a paradise
Swung to grave, naked like a slave
Put to rest hearts once brave
Unwelcome tears shed not twice
Love is still our paradise