For You-yes you-suffering from any infirmity or addiction.
"I want a jug of ruby wine and a book of
poems
There must be something to stop my
breath from departing, and a half loaf of bread
Then you and I sitting in some deserted ruin
Would be sweeter than the realm of a sultan."
Rubai,Omar Khayyam

15 YEARS A SLAVE
by Juwon

A fix, A fix,I must have a fix.I must or I'll die or go raving,stark mad.I might hurt someone on earth or climb up to heaven to hurt God.My lips were quaving whilst my body-my skin-joined them in there macabre dance of shivering. I felt like hell and looked liked the devil.I know how I look because I'm currently fumbling through the cabinet drawers, near my mirror.And then I found it;I found the elixir of life, my own very alchemist stone and the solution to the very cumbersome equation pummeling my life.It was an eureka moment and I felt happy that I still had a little stock left after that son of a LovePeddler, Amadi, refused to advance me.I still owe him #85000 and I'll be damned if I know how I'll pay on God's motherfucking earth.I felt cool as the dose sinked in.I was Christopher Columbus and Jack Sparrow all rolled into one as the daredevil tune of Hans Zimmerman's he's the pirate wafted into my senses and I hummed along.On top , on top.That is how I feel-for some time.Very little time.

DAWN.
I woke up feeling like a man brutally rammed into by an heavy duty Mack truck.I was battered and my head hurt terribly.My body, soul and spirit all sank into a terrible chasm of sorryness and sorrow.I felt like ending it all.I want to die and I don't want to die.It dawned on me that dying was easier witnessed, said,and read of than done. All humans have always felt the strong desire to keep on living even in the face of extreme sorrow , and perhaps there was an even worse judgement awaiting me after suicidal death. I have heard the mad man of a preacher bellow that at his bovine congregation on one Sunday morning while preparing my daily dose.I chuckled as I realized that I would make hell either way; Whether he was right or not is not my business, a crack junkie is doomed anyway.

THE ROOT
I had just realized that I had failed Biochem 504 again.I stared at the evil board, a brown dirty thing that bore the reward of my smartness in clubbing while my mates, the buzzkills, fought it out with their books.I looked again to see, very carefully, if I had not misread 37 as 57.Yees, such things happen every once in a while , you know:The anxiety could force one into seeing the shape of a circle where there's actually a square.I traced with my finger again and read out: Chima Obutte,141650MC, 37,F.I quietly moved away to see other results before the "efikos" came.I can't afford to have them see Mr.Bigboy cry-It would be apocalyptic.I moved on to see the next results.The child had the same head placement in Physio, Surgery,Dentistry and Pharmacology:I was beaten and I Knew it.


THE STORM.
The effects of my very bad results were still percolating into my already depressed body when I got the call:Father was dead. He had been killed at the bank he managed when some James Bondlike robbers turned their attention to the vault.They made off with a large sum and My father's life.Life was over for me and I was over for life.
……….
.
After the burial, we discovered we had nothing. Dad had invested a lot into a new company and it was almost bankrupt. He too had been, like me, living a life of quiet desperation.A month after his death, his financier came over to take over our house.Same thing happened to the cars and every other asset he owned.They were to be auctioned off as soon as possible .

Mother, the comforter, metamorphosed into the comforted...

I dropped out of med school and moved to Lagos where I rented a small apartment and met hell-spawn Tony .Tony was the street bad boy.He swapped girls like UK used phones and smoked like a Sumal factory's generating unit.He was bad boy par excellence and in no time,I joined his teeming fan base and became a follower.I, a medical student,became co-follower with the neighbourhood rapscallions and ragamuffins. I began sagging and beardganging with my beard overgrowing so much that it could tie a goat and make Bin Laden jealous.It was under Tony's tutelage that I was introduced to my new master:Heroin.

THE SLAVING.
Depressed and beaten,thoroughly beaten, I welcomed my new saviour.Heroin was it.It solved all my problems and I was the happiest man in the world.Gone were the days of sulking and thinking about my calamities:A little pinch and Boom! :was a king again. Heroin transported me into the realm of possible impossibilities where I ruled my subjects with an iron fist.I was Ghenghis Khan .I defeated kingdoms and became the scourge of Sudan.Impossible was nothing.


ENLIGHTENMENT
At first, I noticed nothing until I saw a little girl , maybe 5, staring at me at Mama Raji's kiosk as I downed a big tumbler of "sekpe" alloyed with ogogoro.It was a strong mixture and only a great man can bear the power that courses through the veins upon ingesting the liquid. Really Strong.Well , this girl continued her mouth-agape stare and I bellowed at her in irritation:

"Kilo n lo n wo ,Iwo omo eleyin kika yi!"

The little girl ,scared , ran up to her mother who chided her,but something strange happened:Everybody was looking at me-I don't know why but they were.I dashed off in irritation and ran all the way to my room and my mirror.What I saw was beyond comprehension:I had this ghostly gaunt face like a Somali refugee."God be praised", I gasped ,as I further saw that not only had I lost weight but also looked like a mad man.My hands were vibrating like a cheap Nokia phone and my hair was in a bedlam.The heroin had been sneakily eating away my life, like carcinoma, and I never knew.All my factory wages and Surebet earnings were wasted on my addiction and I cared not what I ate or wore.

That was what the girl saw and she stared.


EMANCIPATION.
I hated Jehovah witnesses and it therefore follows that I hated Brother Chuks.He was a stubborn intruder who dared to disturb my Sunday rite of Getting high on Booze, heroin and Rastafarian music.He bought this evil looking tract one day that discussed paradise and all that balderdash they fed Christians with.I was annoyed but stomached his impudence, like maggots they always left when there's no rot to feed on,I thought.He left.I don't know what spirit led me but I stumbled on the tract one day and I read it all.


THE NEW BORN
I smiled as I reminisced on my travails.I recall how I had called Brother Chuks after weeping till my already inelastic singlet got drenched.The story in the tract changed my life and I saw the rainbow of hope.Chuks checked me into a health institution , the crack crackers, that dealt with cases of heroin addicts, went through my cold turkeys and six months later, I was free as air. I registered at the National Open university and bagged a degree in Economics at the age of 38-I had been enslaved for 15 sorrowful years and wasted a good portion of my primetime.I smiled,again:I used to be scared of what my future holds but now I'm glad because I know God holds that for me.Therefore,let it be known that if any man or woman,girl or boy ,be in Christ,old things are gone for ever and,mind you,all things are bright new!.
Selah!
Sparrowhawk.

If you enjoyed this, drop your critiques and comments.Add also @Olagunju Juwon Abraham on fb.Thanks.



Cc
Lalasticlala
Ishilove
Semid4lyfe
Obinoscopy

coming back

Juininho, it's nice, although there's room for improvement.

I saw a lot of tautology, wrong grammatical arrangement, wrong usage of verbs and adjectives and your work needs to be thoroughly edited...and what is Hookes Law? You should have given a hint for non-science students.

You said the drugs had been destroying you 'subliminally'. That's wrong. It had been ravaging you from both inside and outside. That's one example.

There are so many others, but I like the pace and you have strong narrative skills. I also like the story line.

Like I said it's a good effort but there's room for improvement.

Ishilove:
Juininho, it's nice, although there's room for improvement.

I saw a lot of tautology, wrong grammatical arrangement, wrong usage of verbs and adjectives and your work needs to be thoroughly edited...and what is Hookes Law? You should have given a hint for non-science students.

You said the drugs had been destroying you 'subliminally'. That's wrong. It had been ravaging you from both inside and outside. That's one example.

There are so many others, but I like the pace and you have strong narrative skills. I also like the story line.

Like I said it's a good effort but there's room for improvement.

Dear Ishilove,

Thanks for critiquing my story and I must tell you I agree on all your points.I have just begun story writing and I hope to improve as times goes on.I added some adjectives and verbs for stylistic effects but will modify them.The typos too.I agree about the arrangement too.I fear I was a little bit hasty in sharing this. Anyways,I'll do my best to edit and I hope you will find some improvements.Someone also complained about the Hooke's thingy.I'll correct it.


Thanks.