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Alone is what nobody wants to feel, but alone has never been an enemy. Alone has made men great yet a man always do not want to feel alone. Alone in the dark, great things spring up. Alone with my pen, I could only scratch out my best.
This is the thought of the heart. The thought that remains of what everyone had thought about. The thought that comes around when the world is near yet space is plenty.

Ever since I was ten, most of my tiny prayers right from our local Assemblies of God church were that the sad crimes and ordeal that happen to people never befall me. I wished for times of merry and togetherness. But, to think of it, am I not being lopsided? My mother cut me off; she said I was being too optimistic.

Then I was ten. Now, I am 20 laying happily on a bed measured to be my size in my hostel without enough clothes. It has been a normal custom for same sexes to feel comfortably nude in their hostels and also a normal activity for some hoodlums to make away with one’s takings whenever they deemed fit. In my little mind, I have come to irrationally conclude that the latter only happens in my school, in the University. An institution of tensions and strikes, welts and kisses, lions and mice and cuckoo birds that hatch in other birds’ nest and then push the other birds out violently. An institution where our teachers have become our debit cards. You won’t believe that most of our doors in school are without locks and we use buckets of water to at least make the door close. Believe it now!

Thieving boys were hard by during the day light or the dark night. Either way, I had acted smartly by returning early to my room. To me one can make loads of A studying in the room without going for night classes.

That night, I was reading a novel, upholding my joy that Port Harcourt my city had been enunciated as the World Book Capital and reading other books after lecture notes became a great solitary enjoyment that began to incubate a wealth of knowledge. I read few more pages and checked the time. It was 12:30am. I couldn’t stop reading but I had to for respite’s sake. So I closed the novel, neatly placed it by my side, said a short silent prayer and journeyed from slumber to sleep.

Few hours later…
What woke me was a hard blow on the door and I screamed at the top of my voice quickly reaching out to one of my roommates who was already trembling beside me. Everything was appearing so fast like 9D roller-coaster. Shocked was an understatement to what I was when it became clear to me that humans like us have broken into our room or put it better, they strolled into the room splashing the buckets of water that we used as locks. How ridiculous.
I do not know what to call them but they were bullies, male bullies and they bullied us till they got the last naira in our bags and fled for other rooms. I felt that sharp pain on my face when one of them descended on me to bring my own money wherever I kept it. I wholeheartedly demonstrated like a puppet unaware that I have just my panty on. Damn! The idiots saw my eve nature. Thomas Hobbes said that man was brutish and cruel during the early life but I bet he will suffer a dearth of words to describe the world now. I have read and heard stories of sadness that I never dreamt I would be a victim of. In the journey of life, what happens to others will start being a portion of yours someday.

When they fled for other rooms, I was not too surprised to see myself folding into three blankets at a time, I had become suddenly elastic. I refused to believe that they have already seen us naked. We kept hearing noise of plea from other rooms as all five of us squeezed ourselves into one bed. Ordinarily, my roommate Gift wouldn’t have allowed either of us to share her bed, but there she was doing it generously, her head was harbouring in my armpit.

Soon we heard some chatters and presumed they have left. You can imagine the screams from the girls, one of the things women are good at. We’ve been robbed. It doesn’t make any difference from other stories heard but that day was our first day to see them guns in the hands of robbers. The guns were black, ugly, strong and wickedly pointing at me, just me.

As the girls kept shouting out, ‘ help o, help, our phones, my money, our laptops’ guess where I was? You might want to laugh – I was still squeezed into the same position I had been with my eyes tightly shut. The firewood of this world is not for everybody and first experience can embarrass even a giant.

I felt nonchalant about whatever was taken before I gently opened my eyes and found myself alone. The room was in shambles. Buckets, books, bags, slips, panties, clothes, fans all torn apart. That my beautiful eyeglass was stolen too. How fast evil comes but refuses to quell. It should have been a dream at least in my dream; I would have grown wings and apprehended them all. Till now, it is very difficult to say that life is not a dream.

Source:
http://egbechofaith.com/friends-with-the-pen/

One of those days when after school, no food seemed to be at home came.
The little boy angrily kicked his school bag. He was farmished on a high scale. All the pots were clean of nothing but water. Few times it happened was because his family was less buoyant but that day he knew there was money around home.
He moped around the whole house again searching, touching and seeking but found nothing for the mouth.
It could only mean one thing. Mother had wash everything clean and departed to the market to get food stuff.
But he was starving. To think of how he stayed back in school and finished his home work so that he could eat well at home then rush out to play.
If he had come home earlier, maybe he would have met her.
He sobbed.
No strength to play either.

He slowly gulped down a small cup of water and went to sit on the verandah. Few of his play mates were chatting from the opposite flat. He silently went to them as usual but his lips were not strong enough to partake in the football argument.
He pursed and retracted trying to only listen.

His stomach roared just after he yawned, throwing his face to a corner.
Shortly, the boys left for the field. He was alone again since he refused to follow.
There he was kicking the air in ennui, regretting why he wasted another hour in school doing home works. Maybe mother waited and waited.

A tiny female voice called his name. He looked right, it was the yard prostitute.
Or that’s what people in the neighborhood called her. Often she wore very skimpy skirts no matter where she was going but he never joined little boys to jeer at her any day.

The only thing that could make her call him was errand and he was right.
Under that circumstance, he moved his weak bones to her door.
‘Go to that front shop and buy me one indomie and one egg’ she ordered and gave him 200 naira note. She added ‘thank you’ later.

He wasn’t pleased at all. Buying food for a skinny looking half-dressed woman in his moment of hunger. He thought of running away with the money but that would please the devil not God.

He adjusted his boxer short and fled to the shop.

When he got back he knocked on the door and gave her the small black back and her change but she took the bag and left him with the money.
He furrowed in amazement.

She really left him with the money and a warm smile.

Placidly, she shut her door in front of his growing excitement.

As though she knew what 100 naira could do in his life at that moment. In the midst of dried waters, she was the bomb!

He became strong instantly, to run, to jump and to fly.
Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry again. He spent the whole of 30minutes laughing and thinking of what to buy with the jackpot he just won.

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His gaze on the board was intense. Eyes almost folding in permanently due to so much imaginative realities. He didn’t want to be misunderstood even if his intensions were true. The drawing board could also feel the romance. Painting someone right from the sight of the heart needed soft strokes.

In between changing pen, he danced and laughed alone.
‘I’m sure you were created on a Sunday that’s why I’m painting you on Sunday.. I can’t eat. I gat to finish up… Almost doooone’
he was on the hair at that moment.
‘Uuuuhm. I love girls with long hair. Brazilian abi Peruvian..abi Jamaica..’ He laughed again.
His friend walked in. He saw him coming though.
“Oboy this one you dey laugh dey paint like this..? Hope say you no sell your last painting to native doctor o”

“Oboy. No. No. No. I dey paint my woman. I’m painting my lady” he gladly answered.

“How?” His friend questioned starring at the almost-ready beautiful art work.

“In church today, my pastor said we should paint our dreams and thank God I am an artist. I’m ready to settle down so let me paint her so that I can identify her once I jam her. I don tire for inside fornication…”
His friend broke into laughter more then ever before.

“How? I’m serious!”
He was still laughing.

“How do you see it Piro?”
He was still laughing, leaning on the nearest wall for support.

He contiued with his work while his friend began another round of laugh. Wondering what was really amusing him about the matter, his pen stroke curly lines at the edges of the hair.

“Seriously. Do you know you are funny? How can you paint your life?”

“It’s possible besides, this is a drawing of faith”

“Just because you try go church early today. You wan form faith and repentance. Oboy.. But even if you want to paint your woman. Is this your woman that you want? It’s… It’s..”

“It’s how?” He stepped back a little looking at the board with his friend.

“It’s somehow. It’s beautiful but not perfect. You suppose make am excellent. Your own woman.”

“Perfect? She is not a celebrity besides celebrities aren’t perfect either.”

His friend wasn’t still getting his point. He pressed on with criticisms, “The painting is just fine. Cute but flawed as if..I mean this painting has no good nose..shape…eh..”

“Oh. What did I tell you earlier. It is the real painting of my woman. It doesn’t have to be perfect or impeccable. Guy. I gave her flat nose because.....
see source;
http://egbechofaith.com/the-painted-error/

We were roasting little yams inside the burning fire my mother had set up in the farm. I and Sorochi, my younger brother. Mother has been working in the sun tirelessly. She stood from her digging spot and smiled at the way we giggled and raised local fireworks. She was not angry with us even though we did not even dig up to ten cassava round-beds before getting tired. It was planting season. Schools closed in April and mother journeyed to Port Harcourt to pick Sorochi and me. I sensed that it was not our help that she needed. She valued our company. “You children have been with your teachers and city neighbours, let us go to the village so that you can stay with me, visit my sisters and know your cousins… fish ponds are there in the village too.” She said when she came to pick us. My younger brother became very excited when he heard fish ponds. Same as me. He was seven years-old at that time and I was eleven but we didn’t often visit our village unlike our older ones.

The ponds were where we fetched drinking water during farm work. They were of different sizes and had different colours of water in them. We took our bath with other children when the sun was very hot in some of the large ponds. The ones we drank from, mother said was very healthy no matter the colour of the water. “Most of the leaves that fall into the ponds from surrounding trees are medicines.” She explained. Later, I joined her to cut long dried woods into twos and pack them tightly on the bicycle carriage before we started going home. We were happily tired and dark of charcoal.

My father came back home while we were taking our bath. He was coming from the Chiefs meeting with the King of my place. He walked very fast with a red cap on his head and a walking-stick going up and down many times. As we prepared egusi soup for dinner, he told my mother to hurry so that they can eat and rest before going to the wake-keep of one dead woman. The foo-foo was ready from yesterday, mother just had to warm it in a hot water and squeeze it till it becomes very soft before serving. I was not always able to learn the making of foo-foo since I might be sleeping after farm work. But my mother never gets tired. Farming and cooking of three-square meal a day was the villagers’ way of life. No fridge to store anything. Every food was cooked and eaten there and then or within two nights. While I was giving her things she needed in the kitchen from the room, I asked her about the wake-keep.

‘Mummy so you and Daddy will not sleep till tomorrow morning, how will you cope? You are tired.’

‘It is not a problem. I will be awake because of the noise.’ She answered.

‘What noise? Crying kind of noise?’

‘Yes. A lot of crying, our native songs will be raised by women but the youths and children can set up disco music somewhere for fun. There are even more wake-keep coming up before the Oha chief priests close the year.’

‘What is Oha and how can they close the year. How?’ I asked seriously.

‘They are few selected old chief priests that guide the customs of our village and lead the way during the worship of the gods. Once they close the year in August, no one will hold burial, wedding or any other kind of ceremony till they open it in October.’

‘Hmmm. That is serious Mummy.’ I commented before going to serve my father’s food in two stainless plates on a stainless tray.

Later, as we ate, I heard, “So you two have not learnt how to swallow foo-foo?” My father bemoaned from the verandah where he was eating. Sorochi was with him. Immediately, he called on me. ‘Oluchi! Oluchi come here1’ I rushed to him. We had already eaten the yam my mother boiled for us earlier. We were used to rice and bread and everything chewable in town. We didn’t know how to enjoy soup and garri or foo-foo, matte-of-factly. My father moulded a ball of foo-foo and dipped it into the thick egusi soup.

“Thank God you came for this holiday; you must learn how to swallow before you go back to your brothers and sisters. They have raised you in that city so wrongly. Open your mouth Sorochi!” He ordered. Sorochi did but could not swallow so he vomited it. I chuckled. Then Daddy said, “You are my son, swallow I will give you big meat.” He dipped another foo-foo ball into the soup and landed it in his mouth. Sorochi swallowed with a struggle. He swallowed up to five balls before Daddy gave him a good lump of meat and sent him to Mummy to eat more.

It was my turn. I feared how to....
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ACT i, SCENE i

WENENDAH: I am walking on a bush path leading to the farm, I surfaced on the farm plucking some of the seeds from an esahra plant while my good matchet cling on me from aside . Four of my maidens wait on me graciously in wonder as of my humility till Anuka rushed to me. Chei!

ANUKA: Hei! Princess Wenendah. My Princess …sorry Wenendah!



WENENDAH: Anuka, Wenendah is my name. What a stutter you have become. Speak! What is your race about?

ANUKA: (panting) Wenendah yes… Wenendahya . It is your mother, you know that she is pregnant and your sister has gone to Rumuola to meet the women who sell urii…

WENENDAH: You have said nothing Anuka. Is there any problem between our people and the Igala traders?

ANUKA: No! But it is your mother, she is in pain and wanted you to be there with the midwives.

WENENDAH: (interrupts) Oh! She is in labour you jester, let us go. Now! We are running to the Obiri, the palace of the Nyewele eli.



ACT i, SCENE ii

WENENDAH: Ahead of my followers I run home to help my mother and my people, she might bear a son to own and rule the land, a son to be built by me. Ovundah annoys me again.

OVUNDAH: Wenendah, the eagle of her people, Wenendah wait please, wait! what is the matter?

WENENDAH: Ovundah I warn you for the last time to let me be before I slaughter you with my matchet. I am running to the Obiri. Be more of a man and go tie your crawling yams or I might need to teach you how to be a man. (She leaves him standing there startled.)

OVUNDAH: (talking alone): Of course I am a man Wenendah, I am a mighty man of Rumualogu and my yam barn is in abundance. Thanks to the gods more the day you will let me be your friend, just your hunting friend. For you to be my wife is what I cannot tell your stubborn ears.

ACT i ,SCENE iii

WENENDAH: My mother lay on fresh banana leaves, legs spread widely and as I come in just to hold her, the child jumps out to the midwives.

ALEKIRI: Look! A son, a prince of Rumualogu, Wenendah you have a brother!

KENWO: Oh praise is to our ancestors, finally a son. Wenendah go and reach your father at ogbeni farm land where he is blessing our gods with other chiefs.

WENENDAH: I am so delighted but Kenwo you go and reach my father, I cannot leave my mother and brother alone with no other of my blood here. I am the only one present, so go reach the King while I watch them with Alekiri. (Kenwo furrows but flees to the errand.)

ALEKIRI: Watch them while I get a royal lapper to bound his young body. (Alekiri exits)

WENENDAH: We now celebrate a throne of daughters and sons. Mama, Mama look at your son. (Uriinma is not saying a word.) Mama! Mama! Look at my brother, your child, your son. (She says nothing again, Wenendah lifts her head to her lap touching her chest with her left hand even as she rocks her brother in her left arm.)

ALEKIRI: (rushing in) Here is the lapper your mother has kept for this day. Wait! Why the sadness around here?

WENENDAH: My mother is saying nothing after bearing her own son.

ALEKIRI: (screaming) The gods. Eli Rumualogu o!

WENENDAH: Do not alarm my people, check her eyes and give her the lizard soup.

KENWO: (rushing in) Chei! Wenendah! Wenendahya o! Alekiri the worst is here.

WENENDAH: What now! Where is my father?

KENWO: Come and see. Come and see your father on ….( They exit)



ACT i, SCENE vi

WENENDAH: I am standing in front of the Obiri with my brother in my arm, my mother lay helpless there and here my father, Nyewe eli rocks on the head of his guards, the chiefs follow them, some villagers wail and shout. I stand there petting the hot tears in my eyes. Ola my sister run into the calamity, she screams and embraces our father as the stalwarts settle him in the Obiri. I am...
Read the full drama here
http://egbechofaith.com/king-elizabeth-new-dramayourlibraryforreals/