₦airaland Forum

Later that week, I passed by South street I heard a voice in a strong Irish accent call
"Oi Ronny lad, over here!"
I looked around, it was Mr Bucks the fat salesman this time he was alone. A beautiful black tropical bird sat on his shoulder, it had a very large rainbow beak. Mr Bucks was at an outdoor restaurant devouring a plate of roast pork and a whiskey.
"Hi there Mr Bucks" I greeted
"Meet Berry" he turned to the bird
"say hello to Ronald, my first customer"
Berry stared at me and chirped "double or nothing". We both laughed.
" Oi she's no parrot " he beckoned me closer and whispered
"she's a phoenix" I didn't understand.

"So how's studies" he shoved a chunk of pork into his mouth and flushed it with a whiskey.
"cool" I lied
he continued "The Feelgood's doing ya well?" he asked.
I scratched my head and confessed
"It was... sorry... but it was broken by a jerk at school"
Mr Bucks continued chewing and said
"Kids these days. Ya know what? Come and see me on the festival day and I'll give ya a replacement"

"For free?" my eyes widened
"Double or nothing" chirped Berry again and we laughed. As I was about to leave he called and whispered to me sounding serious,
"Not suppose to tell ya, but I've not been the only stranger in town lately. If ya see a man in a golden mask... flee!"

Two weeks later, I hadn't seen Mr Bucks . The basketball match ended in a draw and Gabe was still the hero. The town was preparing for the annual harvest festival which was in August,cornfields will bring out fruits of labour that many months, it was an old tradition since the 18th century when the founders of Pueblo made a truce with the Sawak Indian tribe. The new generation of inhabitants saw the festival as time of partying and free sex. Some native Indians like Mr Emilio disapproved of the festival because they believed it angered a deity known as the Thunder Stallion. I once heard of Mr Emilio talk of an ancient prophecy:
"The moon shall vanish and deep black pit shall open in the sky from whence the Thunder Stallion shall ride and gallop upon his enemies with wrath".
Today I got a D+ in History Studies. I hated history. I didn't feel good so I decided to try on the Feelgood . It was sport time and my class went to the school gym, since my feet were large I never wore shoes so I went barefooted in my gym clothes.
I sat alone peering at the Feelgood, no computer could record the speed at which a basketball flew to my face knocking me square. "ow" I groaned slowly and stood up while seeing stars
"Oh my gosh Bigfoot, I hope the wildlife control doesn't arrest me. He's a national asset" everyone laughed at the joke.I knew it was Danny Coleman, he was my longtime bully he picked on me since elementary school for his own amusement. He walked to me and picked up the Feelgood fingering it
"I bet this must be souvenir from a circus you performed at" everyone laughed again, I swear I wanted to punch him but I remembered Mr Emilio's words "Anger is a wind that blows of the candle of the mind". Besides there was no way I could beat him I was short and skinny while Danny like Gabe was an alpha male: Handsome, athletic, cool, well built, sleek dark hair, charming blue eyes, and a smile that could blow girls away.
He wore the glasses, I was afraid the Feelgood was going to activate but Danny pretended to be Cyclops shooting heat vision from his eyes then he removed it " man this is priceless junk" he smiled
I summed up courage and demanded "give me back!" I didn't want to tell anyone that it was a magic glasses.
"Give him back Dan, if Bigfoot flattens you with his feet you'll become history" his friend Bill warned mockingly. Danny extended his arm to give me back the glasses as I reached out mine his threw it to Bill who caught it , I ran to get from him and he threw back to Danny who repeated it again as I ran towards him. This mean exercise continued between three of us and everyone laughed at me. Suddenly the gym teacher Mrs Kayse stormed in furiously
"what's going on? I'm gone for 10 minutes and everyone's behaving like drunk cowboys"
Danny dropped the glasses and stepped on it with his snickers mistakingly. The Feelgood shattered.
"Oopsie" was all he could say and he left. I bent down alone and picked up the pieces of Feelgood left.

It was a Saturday evening while the basketball game was still going. I stayed at the candy booth, actually it was owned by Mr Emilio a native American , he was kind enough to give me a job. Due to the absence of customers I busied myself by reading an X-men comic book. Comic books were the only thing that drove me far from the world. Looking at the sky I saw no stars suddenly I saw a black crescent moon. My attention was disturbed by a loud sneeze, I turned around and dropped my comic.
On the bench where customers sat to eat their candy and ice cream a fat man in his mid-thirties dressed in an Hawaiian tee-shirt sat alone reading a newspaper, he smoked a large cigar which boldly inscribed the word BOSS... a closer look, though he was with a newspaper but he wasn't reading it- it was used to hide the porn magazine he was reading. The man knew I had seen the dirty magazine and he commented without looking "well these days you can't find girls, the streets of America is crawling with feminists"
"sure thing, really painful" i replied
He looked at me and said "Ol get me a scotch will ya" he had a strong Irish accent.
I shook my head "sorry sir we don't sell scotch but we have the sweetest candies and ice creams of any flavour"
He laughed "the warm love of gin and whiskey can melt the chilled heart of ice cream" Chilled heart of ice cream... he must have gotten fat from drinking.
"You must be new in town" i started. The man took a long drag from his cigar and puffed out the letter Y,E,S he stood up and fished out a business card which read BUCKS AND BERRY LTD. I stared at the card trying to remember what LTD meant. He removed his cigar and spoke
"I'm Mr Bucks, a salesman by doing" he extended his arm for a shake and returned it saying "I'm Roland Hills... welcome to Pueblo" I believed he had come to town to sell his goods because of the coming harvest festival.
Mr Bucks got down to business "Oi Ronny boy I have a merchandise that will change your life" All salesmen told lies, he brought out a briefcase and unlocked it
"you're lucky to be the first buyer lad. So I'll give ya a discount" Mr Bucks opened the briefcase a brought out a pair of glasses, it was ridiculous. The frames of the glasses were of different shapes; the right frame was rectangular and yellow while the left frame was round and pink, by the side I saw a tiny propeller.
"what's this?'" I asked disappointed
"Oi they aren't party things lad I call them Feelgoods. Try it on and I'll show you that it's not only nerds that wear glasses"
Due to the man's persistence I reluctantly wore the stupid glasses but I decided I was not going to buy it.
As I wore it the propeller began to spin and suddenly I saw Roxanne kissing me, then I found myself in a basketball court in a cool jersey and everyone cheering me on including my parents- suddenly I was at a graduation ceremony at Harvard university where I was given an award for best graduating student, everyone gave me standing ovation, I and Roxanne kissed passionately and I was back to the real world.
"crazy!" I exclaimed.
I removed the glasses and looked at it "this is magic!" Mr Bucks laughed "the magic comes from within you,Feelgoods have a special ability to make one see his dreams as if they are real"
"how's that possible" I asked
"The Feelgoods can only be activated when one is sad or depressed" Was I really sad ? I wondered, Mr Bucks continued "the world is full of sad people, if they can see how real their dreams can be they'll be motivated"
I opened my wallet "how much"
"just thirty dollars" he smiled and I gave him his change.
"are they made in America?" I asked
"must all damn good thing be made in America?"
The black crescent moon stared at us from the night developing into what would be later called Chaos.

nice poetry. thumbs up

This is my first. Please enjoy...
Synopsis:
Ronald a troubled youth embarks on a journey with a mystereous salesman to heaven...
"Why the world full of evil? Why is there murder, poverty, sickness, sorrow, hunger... war?" I asked. He laughed and said "there is a spiral tower where the the brightest star sits, it is so mighty that no one has seen it's head because that tower is in heaven. Those who find it shall climb to heaven."

Volume 1: Waking Up
This is Pueblo county, New Mexico, an agricultural village located in one of the native american territories.
In Pueblo corn cereals are grown for commercial and subsistence purposes. Here people boasted of the best corns in the south reasons being that the practice had been going on for generations since the civil war. There were no natural resources in Pueblo but every household had a cornfield, there were few ills like shoplifting but everyone was safe and so were the native Indians who lived here.
My name is Ronald Hills, I live in Pueblo with my family which consists of my Mom, Dad and brother Gabriel, I'm eighteen but I'm in fifth grade in highschool. My parents say they adopted me and I had dyslexia, my dad was furious because he always had to spend money on my special condition while my junior brother Gabe who was sixteen had already applied for a scholarship into university. Anytime my Dad wanted to lash at me he would compare Gabe and I "Ron look at Gabriel he's younger than you yet he's a champ at school. While you bring only to me C's and D's as if I were a disk- jockey!" He was right Gabe was smarter than me , he was also handsome like dad and had a blonde hair like mom while being an adopted child I had a rough brown hair, a freckled face and very large feet's which no shoe could fit.
As a child I started talking at the age of six and I could only read and write well at the age of eleven, learning was difficult for me because I was dyslexic. My dad spent his hard money to pay for private tutors. Due to my awkward nature and strange appearance I made no friend talk less a girlfriend instead I was picked on and nicknamed Bigfoot, even my parents resented me. Gabriel made our parents proud he was an all rounder student, a bright student, good sportsman, popular with girls, cool and handsome- girls pretty and ugly blushed anytime they saw his abs, he was tall and had muscles. Just recently he had been qualified for a scholarship from the Yale university sport team The Bulldogs who were impressed with his academic success and talent in basketball. Dad was so proud of Gabe that he wanted him to study medicine.
Today was going to be the basketball match between Pueblo highschool and Wilson highschool, Gabe was captain of our basketball team and our parent were coming to watch I could imagine my brother on his jersey being pecked on the cheek by Roxanne his pretty girlfriend. I wished him luck that was if I had any. Since I wasn't good at sport I didn't bother to come.
I worked at a mini candy shop during my spare time, it was Saturday evening 9.00pm while sitting at the candy booth I saw a black moon appear... I knew something wasn't right.