₦airaland Forum

My world, the damage patriarchy is doing to the minds of teenagers!

I just had an interesting detour in conversation in my SS 1 physics class. I mentioned that in some cultures in India the woman pays the dowry and you should see the look of shock in the eyes of my students, especially the boys.

A boy quickly asked me, “So who will be the man?”

Really? Does the bride price make you a man? Are you presently a goat?

They all laughed. But I had his attention now. A nerve had been hit, a bubble punctured.

To read the complete piece, kindly follow the link below.

http://www.pencillite.com/2017/03/diary-of-nigerian-teacher-episode-one.html?m=0

After the doctor in white scrubs had confirmed the virility of his stethoscope on papa’s naked chest and a pretty orderly had tested her own aptitude in bookkeeping - then calling out the time of death - I thought about papa’s last wish, even though he had been too weak and weary to make it audible. The message became overwhelmingly palpable afterwards, in my self-allotted recess in Manner Falling from Heaven orphanage home, when I sat by the window to study the glow of the moon and how the night clouds rolled beneath it, and the dazzling collection of stars around it. I felt it along the lines of my palm as I clasped the window pane, and in my ears, too; and in the pregnant space between me and all that the galaxy held. And no matter how many times I tried, I could only comprehend papa’s last message in these five words:

“Love God. Love His creations.”

To read the complete piece, kindly follow the link below.

http://www.pencillite.com/2017/04/creations-of-god-short-stories-iwundu.html?m=0

A date is something you pluck out from the calendar of your heart not the vanity of your head like I did when Alero’s feet touched the country after a long-long time.

We were plastic lovers in secondary school. It was not something to be envious of. I was a live-in student, stayed in one of the dormitories while she took the monstrous school bus home and followed it back.

Like most boys, I was too big to play on the field and too unserious to be caught looking at book pages in the library. I was in the Arts, she was in the Sciences. So, we saw only in a derelict lab full of spider webs.

To read the complete piece, kindly follow the link below.

http://www.pencillite.com/2017/04/haplessly-ever-after-short-stories-tega.html?m=0

You sit there looking at your watch, seeing people hurry past. No one talks to you so you feel invisible. You listen to the shuffling of uneven footsteps, the sound of car engines and conversations retreating, moving away from you. You realise that that is all things seem to do these days; move away from you.


A glassy drop spatters on your watch as you stare unseeingly, then another. You start and look up. She will come out soon. It starts drizzling, making wet spots on your white shirt. The sky is bleeding like your heart, but that is not true, is it? Still isn't that why you're sitting outside her lecture hall waiting to watch her again? You sigh.

To read the complete piece, kindly follow the link below.

http://www.pencillite.com/2017/04/rita-flash-fiction-samuel-ogechukwu.html?m=0