"Yeye man, look at you, no be your mate they buy wrapper for their mother in laws " she pushed him while going out of the bed room. She kept on firing, no be your fault say I still dey your house, I for follow mama philo advice, leave you make you die, useless man like you, you make my friends they laff me say na woman I marry no be man. She went into the kitchen and sobbed for a while.

He moved closer to the kitchen door, scared of what her reaction would be, he slowly, quietly and gently opened the door "Nkem, you know is not my fault things are going this way, I hate the situation am into presently, things have not been the same since I lost the job at the bank. I have tried all my contacts and business associate if I could secure a loan to set up a business enterprise so I could support the family, but to no avail, Nkem you know it's not my fault, if I had a magic wand that could change my present predicament we wouldn't be here. Bby am sorry" he moved much closer standing behind the love of his life, the woman in which they stood before God and man and pledge till death do them part, in both sickness and joy, she also added a clause when reciting her's, she promised to love him even a day after forever.

Her sobbing increased, now she screamed on top of her lungs, " if you ever touch me with that broke hands of yours I will kill you, just immediately there 2 beautiful kids walked into the house. Two amazing kids Ella and Stella both six years old, so identical that the parent atimes mistake one for the other, they heard voices in the kitchen so they hurriedly ran towards the voices, Daddy Daddy look at my drawing screamed Stella, he acted as if nothing was wrong, went down on his knees and kissed both girls on the lips as he usually does, "my little angels are back, daddy missed you guys how about you go to your room cleanup ,change your clothes then come out for lunch" before they could step out of the kitchen, all guns went blazing " which lunch? As a man when last did you buy food in this house? Ehn tell me ? When last did you pay tuition fees for this girls? You are a disgrace, you have failed as a man, he smiled while trying to take the girls to their rooms.

Caesar was a young banker when he met Bukola, she was still in her first year in the university, then he was just a casual staff at the bank, they went to the university community when he saw Bukola for the first time. She was young and innocent, she had all the typical Yoruba girl features, a beauty that he has never behold in his life, before then he thought Cleopatra of Egypt was the finest woman to have walked the surface of the earth, but Bukola to him worth more than a million Gold bars. He was able to get her contacts and they became friends, they regularly call each other and soon they started chatting on 2go, most times since they can't talk during the day. Because of how busy he was,they started late nights chat

Love came softly for both of them, first to Caesar then to her. She started calling him ore mi, then she switched to Ifemi then she switched to ololufe. She was skeptical about him, growing up her mum told her " men only want one thing from you, which is sex" that stocked to her head, she believed he was after that, so she denied him the first time he asked her, that was over a year when they officially started dating, he never asked, even times when she came over for weekends, she sleeps in his arms, and wakes up in the morning untouched.

The first time he met her mum was on her dads funeral service, he travelled down to her home town somewhere in Oyo state with some friends, she couldn't not believe he could mk the trip. After the burial proceedings he practically became her dad, he took over responsibilities and made life as comfortable as he could, if she had asked for the eye of a dragon Caesar was willing to go to ends of the world to get it, if that would put a smile on her face.

Eight years after they promised enternity to each other, the marriage now like sour agbalumo to both parties, he reminisced on the good old days when he would take wifey shopping, dinners at the best hotels, got her a Mercedes Benz E350 for her 30th birthday which was just 2 years ago, but now he sleeps next to a woman he barely recognize, a woman can't have a decent conversation, they have been to counseling at a doctors place and also in church, but nothin seems to be working, this is the lady he loves, at a point he was the source of her joy but now he is the source of her misery,

One evening he took a stroll around the town, contemplating about existence in itself, he realised he has totally forgotten who he is, existence doesn't taste and smell as it used to, he knew he was close to his own damnation , walking on 3rd mainland bridge, he looked across in to the vast body of water, he had passed that way for more than 10years, that was the first time he saw the colossal beauty in nature, he stood at the edge of the irons that stood as a fence to the body of water, with tears in his heart he whispered " heaven knows I loved her dearly"

Small Girl With a Big God

Maman chat is a popular akara seller close to where I reside, a very industrous lady, presumably in her late forties, you could tell by her facial lines how beautiful she is regardless of what cituation has turn her to be, she use to be the belle of the town, during her golden days, every dick and Harry wanted to be friends or have something to do with her, but she was as virtuous as the virgin mother, she married her high school sweetheart, a boy she met in a government school she attended, she loved him with all her heart and at a point Was willing to give up all she had to run away with him, she was head strong determine to marry the one she loved, her mum was never in support of her marrying Swanta but that was the man she wanted, regardless she had other suitors that asked for her hand in marriage she never wanted to marry for money but for love,

Now she lives with the love of her life in a face me I face you compound, having just a room and a palour, leather carpets on the floor, bought since Italy won the World Cup in 2006, the curtains have seen it all, from oil stains too mucous and holes in them, they still manage to retain the 16 inch television they got from their wedding day, brought as a gift by one of her suitors who loved her till hell and back, the happily married couple manage to stay in their humble abode with 4 kids and couple of rats, rats that got so comfortable in the house , they now no longer run when they see humans.

Maman chat has 3 sons and one daughter chat obviously, who happens to be the second child and the only daughter, chat is now 21, with a body to kill for, a face that melts all hearts, a chest that keeps all men drooling and back that makes a man squeeze his face and scream damnnnnn. She is well aware of her features and she knows she took after her mum, chat was loved by all, she was a bright student back then In primary school and even her Secondary school days chat was not left behind. She was also the champion of the memory verse competition held in her church and she won it three times consequetively, she now attends the state polytechnic which is not too far from home but she insist on staying off campus at a place that is relatively not close to her school, in a well furnished apartment with a plasma TV and and a split Air conditioning system, she now goes by the name Chanel in her school environment, she has the latest iPhone X and wears only the best designers, she even got the new Fendi sweat pant that goes for 92k, doesn't wear a cologne that that cost less than 50k

She comes home only once in a while, her dad never cared too ask where she is staying, how she gets the clothes she is wearing or who pays for her tuition fees and up keep, she comes home and gives what she can and goes till another time, deep down the dad is glad that his child is doing good, because of her contribution to the family, he quits the guard Job he does at night at a school. And also stopped going for the labourer job he has done for years at construction sites, a job that pays him 1200 or 1500 depending on how kind the contractor is.

Baban chat goes to his normal joint at night to take one or two bottles of his favorite beer "sarzenbrau" As he likes to pronounce it. He likes it cause it's really cheap and gives him d feeling he needs to sleep, on this day he decided to switch It up to "African special" because his beloved daughter came home earlier on and gave him some money for the week end, he was so glad that he even bought free beer for his friends they thanked him for the kind gesture and he told them that his beloved daughter gave him the cash for all this expenses they were all amazed on how well she is doing for her self, they ask him what work she is into, he couldn't reply, he took a sip of his drink, with a grin on his face all he could say was, chat is a small Girl with a big God.

I miss my grand dad a lot.as I get older memories of him seeps out of my sweat pours, but one thing for sure is that I will forever love him, Pa was a good man, he was a man of letters and as we say in contemporary times, Pa can play for africa,, he tells us stories, a lot of them, I can't recall most of them, but I remember once when he came from the village I and my siblings were all over him, you could see that Pa was exhausted but he still had time to play with his grand kids,,later that night after a warm birth we would go outside the house and Pa will tell us stories, this faithful night, he told us of his time during the war, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Great War he use to call it, he mentioned how people starved to death and many families where displaced, people got missing like it was rapture and if one should search for a loved one for more than 48 hours they will grieve for they know in their heart that the person was long gone, he would always tell us of how an Igbo man saved his life when he almost got killed.they both ran into the bush and stumbled on a man called kolawole ... I never got to meet kola ,he died 2years before I was born, but their time in the bush was amazing. this 3 looked after each other as if they were brothers from the same mum.

They ate the little ration of food that Mazi okoro had with him in his little Versace bag pack. After they finished the rations,the got really hungry for the next two days to the point of hallucination.they got lost and could only find their way back to the city with the help of the google map app That kola had on his Samsung fone..crazy write?? Pa will always tell us of the dreadfull dance of the Chinese army during World War II called the alligator dance. He gave us real horrific images of that type of dance as if he was in Vietnam. But he later confessed to us that he saw it on YouTube. Ahh oldmen ehn. Later on,he told us of one particular dance that we should be mindful of, if memories serves me well he called it the python dance. He said beware. For the python dances only when he is thirsty for blood.
Habila muazu Shammah

The evening couldn't had got any better, Infact I deem that week the best week so far in my existence thus far on earth. Not for the fact that I was surrounded by friends or for the fact that I had load of paper to spend, it was my first time of leaving the north, apart from what was obtainable in this part of the country, I had no idea of what the the southwest holds. It will also surprise you to know that while at Lagos I went to the cinema for the first time to see a movie, that's totally not my fault or doing, we don't have a proper cinema in kaduna.

But here I am the in the city that has it all, cinema, clubs, ocean and beauty itself. But the beauty of Lagos was never revealed to me at first sight, when we got to Redeem most people where like "we don enter Lagos" some where of the opinion that "noooooo we still dey Ogun" the debate went on and on but I was tired and everyone around me was smelling, from body odor to mouth odor, Someone might say the same of me. felt like dying. It was a hectic journey, we spent almost 24hrs on the road but all I wanted was to have a bath and lay on a bed.

I said to my self "na the Lagos be dis" e nor fine sef" hehehehe some one said. Na mainland we dey, wait till we enter V.high. Trust Yoruba people, I thought it was just the hype.. We stayed in an accommodation In Bariga, the birth place of the popular musician YCee.You see BAriga was a total mess, a ghetto for short. But having very nice inhabitants, cheap food, but no much electricity.

Fast forward everything that happened from arrival. This whole piece was never about the whole trip. This is about a moment in time. When I could say that We froze time for an hour, I wish I could go back to that moment and feel all what I felt. It was like a reenactment of a romantic movie in real life. Of course I was the Romeo, Drogo, Diego, which ever you deem feet to call me.

They say when you fall in love, you heart skips a beat,, you get butterflies and that tingling feeling when you see the person..mine was different, totally I could swear that I lost touch with reality, felt everything was possible when we held hands together, Bonny and Clyde are no match to us, love truly is the strongest narcotic known to mankind.

Before Cupid shot me with his arrow again for the fourth time, we had not been on speaking terms for about a month or so. We would occasionally say hello, she would walk by me and I would feel like pulling her back my way. On several occasions in the library I would raise my head up and catch her gazing at me. But the funny thing was that we were literally dying inside, Longing for each other but pride was the death of us.

There we were.. Right on the beach, Adrenaline popping out, we were agog by the the feeling and sure We were on that good stuff. Music playing in the background, the waves now stronger than it has ever been that day, the tide were also rising,but still we played in the water, I for the first time swam the ocean. Nothing could have gone wrong that day. I could have been with anyone, but you know that feeling when you just don't want anyone else but that special person. the feeling was mutual. I have been on my high horse for about a month and it's time to get of it. I had to come down and face reality. I searched for her in the crowd for sometime, asked her friends but to no avail. Got scared that she had gone, my heart ached like I had holes in it, but I kept faith.

When I finally saw her, I got tongue tied, couldn't utter a word, my cardiac rhythm changed. She had a smile on her face when she saw me coming her way, the image in my head worths more than the Monalisa itself,it's invaluable,the smile thaw all form of congnition in my head, we locked eyes together, a moment of awkward silence. Right on that spot we were in sync mode, we necessarily didn't have to speak much, I gave her my hands without hesitation she stretched hers and we walked on the beach.

We got away from the crowd, found a nice deserted spot on the beach to sit, were we could perfectly see the waves.Every thing at that moment made sense to us. The Stars became more beautiful and brighter, the waves were stronger and I think that signifies the strength of our love at that moment. I felt like I was on NZT, every feeling was magnified. I laid on the sand and her head rested on my chest. We talked about things, we talked about us, we talked about love.


Muazu Shammah