Then, when he did, he said he didn't want to play with us.
And then, he didn't want to talk to me.
Michael would still be alive if he had stayed back at the hostel. Or if he had come with us and just sat on the sand like he wanted to. But he didn't. Every time the ball bounced outside the line, Michael would jump up and chase after it.
Then, when he got the ball, usually from the river, he would throw it up and spike.
I wasn't looking. I had stubbed the big toe of my left foot and broken my toe nail. I was trying to peel off the broken nail which was still hanging from my toe when I heard my name.
I looked up and all the boys were running to the river bank.
I saw his back, I heard him scream, a watery gurgle more like, and then he was gone, the waves frothing where his red shirt billowed in the rushing water.

“When are we going to do it?” she asked.
“Do what?” I asked, lowering my gaze as my heart hammered in my chest.
“Do what? Ah ah. Sometimes, I feel that you are fearing woman.”
“But you are not even a woman,” I said.
“Who said? I am thirteen years and Janet is twelve but she is doing it with Michael.”
“Michael is older than me.”
“Ehen, it doesn't matter,” Flora said, and reached for me again.
This time, our kiss lingered and Flora was moaning and I was feeling her breast when someone slapped and punched me. We sprang apart and a huge man started punching and slapping Flora as she ran, and kept calling her a LovePeddler.
The next day, when I saw Flora she had a black eye and a cut above her upper lip.
“Na my auntie husband. He was angry because he wants to by-force me and I don't agree,” she told me that night as we sat at the back of the car park and kissed. This time our kisses were long and languorous and gentle because I was careful not to hurt her lips.
“God will punish him,” I said, with impotent rage.
Even though Flora wanted us to, I never summoned up enough courage, so we spent our times together kissing and sometimes, when no-one was nearby, she would lift her dress and let me handle and kiss her small breasts.
Then one day I waited and waited and she didn't come to the Marina. When I still didn't see her after three days, I sought out Janet and asked where Flora was.
“Why u dey ask me, no be u pregnant am?” she snapped at me. Flora was pregnant.
That was when I began to drink.
Without Flora, and with nothing to occupy me in the evenings, I started drowning my sorrows, sitting with other boys and men in front of the women who sold kai-kai, the local brew, drinking my life away.
I didn't smoke cigarettes or hemp because they made me light-headed so I sat there and drank shot after shot of kai-kai. But while everyone else got drunk, I would remain clear-eyed and sure-footed. Soon, my reputation spread and people came to see the eleven-year-old boy who could down a bottle of kai-kai and still walk straight.
Michael was the one who told Baba Ejiga and the one-eyed man, always eager to make a quick buck, began arranging drinking bouts for me with men who would square up against me and end up being carried away by friends, after they had lost their bearings and their bets.
I never found out what it was that made me incapable of getting drunk, but it made me popular, and the women who sold drinks would offer me free drinks because they knew that my presence at their stalls would attract customers.
But it all ended the day I stole a wallet. This wallet wasn't filled with money but with pictures and cards. A note, scrawled on the back of the picture of a smiling man, read:
‘Mummy Rose, you took me from the streets and gave me a new life at Sweet Home. Without you I would be dead now, burnt on the streets like a common thief. But today I am a doctor and even though I do not know what God looks like, when I close my eyes and think of God, I see your face. Love always, Keme.'
I would read the note, turn the picture over to look at the smiling face of Keme, and then read the note again. He was tall and big and dressed in convocation garb. Looking at him, I became suddenly dissatisfied with my life. I was like someone coming awake from a bad dream.
“Let's find this woman,” I said to Michael.
“How?” he asked, through a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“See this card. It says 'Rose McGowan, Founder, Sweet Home for Boys' and there's an address in Yaba.”
'So, how will you say you got her wallet?” Michael asked.
“I found it on the streets,” I said.
“And?” he asked.
“And I decided to return it to the owner.”
“Dis boy, kai-kai has turned your head. If that woman sees you, she will lock you up.”
“Michael, let's try. Our life can change and we can be like
Keme.”
Michael stood up, flung his half-smoked cigarette into the overflowing gutter and exhaled loudly.
“Daniel, too much hope is not good for people like us,” he said and walked away.
I left early the next morning, afraid that dallying would weaken my resolve. I took a bus to Sabo, then got on a bike that took me to Oyadiran estate.
When you pick a pocket or reach into a woman's bag and pick a naira note or wallet or mobile phone, your mind is focused on two things: filching what you can, and not getting caught. You usually don't know what your victim looks like. So when Rose McGowan came to the door after I'd spoken to the maid, I was surprised to see an ageing woman with an American accent.
“Yes, wetin I go do for you?” she asked in pidgin as she took in my shabby appearance.
I didn't speak. I reached into my back pocket and saw her flinch and take a step back. She relaxed as I pulled out the wallet and extended it to her.
“Where did you find that?” she asked, reaching out to take it.
“Mummy Rose, I am a street boy and I need your help,” I said and then burst into tears.
I wake up and the ceiling is white. There is a ceiling fan and it is whirring slowly. I am sweating and my heart is pounding, but it is not from fear but from excitement. I have been here for months but I still feel like a hungry man who has stumbled on a feast. I still cannot believe that it is all true and real.
I swing my legs off the bed. I find my slippers and walk outside. The sun is bright. It is a lazy Sunday afternoon and Michael is lying on his back under the almond tree behind the hostel and reading a novel. I sit on the grass beside him and knock the book out of his hands.
“Mikolo!” I say and Michael laughs.
“May his soul rest in peace,” Michael says.
Baba Ejiga died two weeks after I ran away. A jealous husband had surprised him atop his wife and pierced him through the heart with a rusty dagger. This was two months before I went back for Michael.
“After he died, I couldn't stop thinking of what he said when you left,” Michael told me on his first night at Sweet Home for Boys.
“What did he say?”
He said, 'That boy wasn't supposed to be here.' After we buried him, I sat in his shack and for the first time I wondered why I didn't leave with you.”
I am fourteen years old now and I am dying. My liver is ruined, eaten away by all that kai-kai I drank like water in the days when I lived rough.
Michael was supposed to take over my top bunk and the new canvas shoes I got for Christmas, when I die.
But my friend has beaten me to it. Two weeks ago, we buried Michael, the one with the healthy liver, the one who didn't have the angel of death hovering over him.
Now that he is dead, everyone says he knew he was going to die because of the things he did that Saturday afternoon when we all got up to go to the river.
“I'm not going,” Michael had said to me when I tapped him on the chest and roused him from the light sleep he had fallen into as he listened to music on his new MP3 player, the one he got as a prize for coming first in the spelling competition.
“Why?” I asked, pulling the wrapper off him.
“I want to sleep,” he said and tried to grab the wrapper from me, but I was holding on too tight and the wrapper tore.
“See, see. You tore it,” Michael said and jumped off the bed.
I ran but he didn't give chase. He just walked out of the hostel and sat on the dwarf fence that ringed the building, and stared out into the distance as if expecting somebody. I knew he wasn't expecting anybody because no-one ever comes to visit.
“Sorry,” I said, touching him, but he brushed off my hand.
“Leave me alone.”
Michael didn't talk to me until we left and he didn't even speak to me when he ran behind us and joined our group.
Once or twice on our walk, I would ask a question and look at him, but he would ignore me and stare straight ahead.
“See, the twins of Ikorodu, they are fighting,” someone said and the other boys sniggered.
Michael and I were the closest in the hostel and we never, ever, seemed to fight, so no-one could understand why we weren't talking.
When we got to the river and separated into two groups,
Michael said he wasn't going to play and just sat on the sand, watching.
When I think about it now, I guess that's why so many people say he knew he was going to die. Everything he did that day was strange. First, he said he didn't want to come.

That was how I came to live on Lagos Island under the protection of Baba Ejiga. We slept on the streets, usually outside Baba Ejiga's shack, while he frolicked inside with one of the many women who never seemed to tire of him.
In the day, Michael and I prowled the market looking for women to assist with their purchases. We were mules, young ala-barus who eked out a living from the pittance they let drop. Sometimes we stole from them, pilfering items from what they'd bought. Most times they never noticed, though sometimes an eagle-eyed woman would catch you and bitch slap you into the gutter.
We were children, so it was easy for people to forgive us, to put it down to hunger or the devil working overtime, as usual. There were many children living rough on the streets of Marina and we marked our turf, sometimes fighting battles for control. The adults let us bloody ourselves while they sat and watched, amused, as we morphed slowly into what they had long become, little devils with fangs for teeth and claws for fingers.
Once in a while, one of the older boys would be caught stealing: a radio from a parked car or a handbag from a woman exiting the bank. Many of us would give chase and when we caught up with the thief, we would descend on him, kicking and punching him until he was down. Then, someone would find a tyre, another would pour petrol and the hapless thief would go up in flames.
And every time I watched that senseless orgy of rage and violence, I would wonder why we were so quick to land that blow and kick out at one of our own, someone we knew and lived with. Was it out of a feeling of betrayal and anger that he'd let himself be caught, thus tarring all of us with the sludge of shame? Was that what fuelled our rage?
Often, we retired early, bathing in the park or running across to the old quayside where we washed in the briny waters of the Atlantic. It wasn't uncommon to come out of the sea and find your clothes gone, hidden away or cast into the sea by another boy you had offended without knowing.
While the other boys laughed, the unlucky one would walk back naked to wherever he kept his change of clothes. We didn't possess too many things. We were light travellers, unsure of what the next minute held, and that was why all we owned we hid in our stomachs. Our stomachs were our treasure houses because they were easy to transport and no one could steal the food you had eaten or the drink you had taken.
We ate well, saving only the little we needed to pay Baba Ejiga or entertain the young girls who flocked to us like flies to shit. I avoided them, but Flora would never let up, always coming to sit by me while I read old magazines I picked up from the streets or bought when I had extra cash. Of all the boys who lived with Baba Ejiga, Michael and I were the only ones who could read.
“You dey fear woman?” Flora would ask me every time I refused to accept the little things she brought me on her way home from hawking on the streets: a loaf of bread, a tin of sardines or condensed milk.
We became friends the day I took ill with malaria and she ran all the way to Obalende to buy me Fansidar and folic acid; and later in the evening, when I had stopped throwing up, she bought me jollof rice and dodo.
“I know you like jollof rice and dodo,” she said, wiping the sweat off my brow.
We talked. She was from Delta state, like me. Like me, she had never known her father and like me, her mother had left her at an early age, but hers had drowned.
“You know, when a woman drown she will lie face up, but a man will lie face down. That is how you know whether the dead person inside the water is a man or a woman,” she told me in her shaky English.
Once we became friends, Flora spoke English instead of pidgin to me. She lived with her aunt who was married to a warden at the prison quarters in Ikoyi and, once in a while, I would walk with her all the way to Ikoyi and then take a bike back to Marina.
One night as I saw her off to her own block, she pushed me against the wall and kissed me, surprising me by her impulsiveness.

When I woke, the sun was up. I was stretching and yawning when I realised that the bundle I had kept under my head was gone. I sprang up, crying in disbelief. I dipped my hands in my pocket. The one thousand naira had gone, too.
I started screaming, running into the early Sunday morning and looking for the thief who had stolen my shoes. I found him by the woman selling akara. He was one of the boys I had seen the night before and he was wearing one of my new shirts.
“Thief,” I screamed as I got to him. “Give me my shirt.”
I was reaching out to grab him when his fist connected with my left eye. I fell and then he was kicking and punching me until I was curled up in a ball and screaming at him to stop. He spat and walked away.
I lay there hurting, dusty and sobbing but nobody looked my way. They came, they bought their akara and they walked off, as if I were a piece of rubbish left by the roadside.
“Come,” someone was saying. “Stand up.”
I opened my right eye. There was a boy, dark, skinny, roughly my age. He was standing there with his arms outstretched. I took his arm and he pulled me up. Then he led me to a tap at the end of the park.
“Oya, wash your body,” he said, stepping out of his clothes as he spoke. I looked around first to see that no-one was looking. Then I did as he did. Scooping water with what was left of an old bucket, I had my first bath outside, right there in the park.
His name was Michael and, after we had showered, he asked me to go with him.
“Are we going to your house?” I asked, hoping to find an adult who would help make sense of all the madness.
“This is my house,” he said, waving expansively. “I dey live here for Marina.”
“Where your mama?” I asked, also switching to pidgin.
'I no sabi,” he said, stopping in front of a stall to buy a tin of Robb. “Rub am for your eye. It is swelling too much.”
I thanked him and applied the ointment to my swollen eye.
“See, first thing you must know be dis, this is Lagos and there is no paddy for jungle. You see, you be JJC and I want to take you to a man who will take care of you or else one day you go wake up and somebody don steal your head,” he said, and laughed. “You go dey pay the man o, but at least nobody go steal your thing again, you hear?”
He stopped so suddenly mid-stride that I bumped into him.
“So, who be dis man?” I asked, as we began walking again.
“Im name na Baba Ejiga and im na Area Father.”
The Area Father, Baba Ejiga had one eye and he was smoking Indian hemp when we got to his shack, nestled under the bridge at the crook where the sea lost the battle to the metal and concrete pillars which propped up the bridge.
“Mikolo, who be dat?” he asked, his one eye darting furiously from me to Michael. It moved so fast that I had difficulty looking away.
“Na JJC. The bobo just land and e never begin shine im eye.”
“Hey, wetin be your name?” Baba Ejiga asked me. “My name is Daniel,” I answered and he lowered his head and sighed.
“Na aje-butter you carry come meet,” he said and shook his head. Then he looked up at me and spoke fluent, un-accented English.
“How in God's holy name did you get here and where did that nasty bruise come from?”
Staring at him, at his itinerant eye, the matted hair, the ramshackle shack and the joint in his left hand, I couldn't reconcile the voice with the man.
After I told him I'd been abandoned and the victim of a robbery, Baba Ejiga was silent for a heartbeat. Then, he shook his head and said to Michael, “Mikolo, this one na bad market, o, very bad market,” he said, as if I was not there.
He raised his joint to his dark lips, drew long and hard, and then held it out to Michael who took it, sucked on it, inhaled, and handed the joint back. I watched in wonder, my mouth hanging open. Michael couldn't have been much older than me.
“Carry this JJC waka. Make you show am way. If anybody worry una, tell dem say this JJC na my person.”

People were milling about, rushing and hurrying in that relentless motion that defines Lagos, while I sat on the steps of the food seller's shop and cried, turning my head from left to right and back again, hoping to see my mother
materialise before me and ask why I was crying, before slapping my eyes dry of tears with a sharp: “You didn't see me and then you start crying? What's wrong with you? You think you are still a baby? Come on, wipe your tears, let's go.”
The way I was feeling then, I wouldn't have minded one of those slaps. A slap would have been far better than being alone in a busy street in Lagos.
But my mother did not appear, and when the shops began to close as darkness fell across the market, I began to shiver from cold and fear. What was I going to do when everyone left and darkness fell? I had no idea.
I pulled out the corduroy top and began to pull it on when, in a moment of startling clarity, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. “Take the long sleeves. You will need it when it gets cold at night.”
Had she planned it all the while? Had my mother decided, like a desperate goat, to gnaw off the rope that tethered her so she could roam free in Lagos?
I set the bag down and began to skim through its contents. Aside from my clothes and shoes, my mother had left me one thousand naira and a note that had only one word, the final piece of the puzzle: 'Sorry!'
That was when I stopped crying. I stood up, dusted the seat of my trousers and set out for the main road. I walked to the post office, crossed to the other side and joined a few men and boys waiting to buy akara.
While I waited for the bean cakes to turn brown, I worked out my plan. I would sleep, wake up the next day and go to Ojota, where I would take a bus home. Once my father saw me without my mother and once I told him the story of my misadventure in Lagos, he would do something. What it was he would do, I had no idea. I paid for my akara with the left over change from the food seller's. Then I bought a canned drink and found a spot in a dark part of a car park to eat.
As I ate, I saw a man chase a young girl past me. He pushed her against the wall and tugged at her wrapper, which unravelled like a loose bandage.
“Don't by-force me,” the girl said, laughing as he tried to take off her panties. Pushing him gently away, she stepped out of her panties, then turned her back to him.
The man bent her over as he let his trousers fall. I looked away as they became one, but I couldn't shut out the sounds the girl made.
I finished my food and walked up and down the street.
There were still cars around but by the time I made it back to the post office, the street was deserted and men and women, whom I suspected were mad, were lying in front of the building. There were a few children too, mostly boys, and they were huddled together and playing a game of Whot.
I found a space a few feet from them and sat down. I took a shoe lace from one of the new shoes my mother had bought me and tied up my clothes and shoes into a bundle.
Then I put it under my head and fell asleep.

Five years have gone by since I arrived in Lagos with my mother on a giddy Saturday afternoon, but I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I remember it the way I can taste the salt on my lips, residue from the corn I have just finished eating.
We got down at Obalende and my mother turned to me and said, “Hold my hand.”
She said it as if I had done something wrong, but I searched my head and couldn't remember what I could have done to make her angry, so I held her hand and walked beside her, breaking into a short run at intervals to keep up.
My mother had been to Lagos before. In fact, she had lived in the city for two full years with an uncle, but he died suddenly, knocked down by a truck as he tried to cross the expressway.
“It was bad luck. The devil really exists, you know. Paulina had made all the plans for us to go to Italy together, and then Uncle Stanley had to go and let a truck kill him. I came to the village with his wife. We were waiting for the mourning period to end when I got pregnant. How can you tell me the devil doesn't work overtime?”
I heard my mother tell this story once to a friend visiting from Jos. Her name was Justina and she had a limp that made it seem like one part of her bum was bigger than the other.
I was sitting behind the door and doing my homework while they spoke. If my mother had seen me, she would have chased me away. That night, after Justina left, I listened to my mother talking to my grandmother as they prepared dinner.
“Mama, see this world is not fair. See Justina with her short leg. When we were in school, nobody thought she would find a husband. See, now she is married with two children and her husband even bought her a car and sent her home with a driver.”
“The cow without a tail,” my grandmother said, turning to look at my mother, “it is God that chases the flies away on its behalf.”
Justina is dead now. She was killed when Muslims attacked Christians in Jos. They said she was pregnant when she was killed and that the attackers stopped her car, beheaded her driver, ripped her stomach open and kicked the foetus around like a football.
When my mother heard this, she sat down, rested her chin on her hand and stayed that way the whole day, muttering over and over again, “This devil knows how to work overtime.”
And that was the thought in my head, too, the day my world, as I knew it, came to an end.
The bus we were on got to Marina and my mother stepped down beside me. While we stood there, still trying to find our bearings, the bus roared off, leaving a cloud of acrid white smoke behind. I looked up and the sign atop the long building with fancy blocks in front of it said 'General Post Office'.
My mother and I crossed the street and, as I walked beside her, she said to me, “We'll go to Mandilas, so I can buy you some clothes.”
There were rows of shops selling clothes, shoes and belts and it seemed everyone was talking at the same time.
“Fine girl. Come buy jeans,” someone said, tugging at my mother's arm. I thought she would slap his hand away, but she smiled indulgently and kept walking.
“See. Fine blouse. Wear am go church na so so vision you
go dey see,” another man said.
It was a blue blouse with a dragon design embroidered across the front. My mother stopped and asked him how much it cost. I watched as she placed the blouse against her body to see whether it would fit and I wondered why she had stopped to haggle. Was it the promise of visions or the beautifully-rendered design?
My mother bought the blouse and we walked on, stopping at three other shops to buy three shirts, two pairs of jeans and a pair of canvas shoes for me.
“Take the long sleeves,” my mother said, urging me to take a blue, long-sleeved corduroy shirt the shop owner was offering me. “You will need it when it gets cold at night.”
We made a few other purchases, mostly bras and panties and frilly things for my mother. Then, finally, she asked me to go with her so we could find something to eat.
My mother ordered rice, beans and plantain for me.
Then, while I ate, she gave me some money.
“Hold this money for me,” she said. “I need to buy something. Wait for me when you finish eating.”
I took the money, nodded, and then went back to my food.
That was the last time I saw my mother.
Adapted from Tony Kan’s Night of a Creaking Bed.

My father smoked with his left hand, while his right hand gripped the steering wheel. My mother sat me in the middle and, all through the ride, stared fixedly out of the window.
My father did, at least, acknowledge my presence on the short ride to Asaba, where we were to board a bus for Lagos. When he finished smoking his second cigarette, he flicked it into the bushes and pulled out two tablets of tom-tom from his breast pocket. He popped one in his mouth and offered me the second. I was reaching out to accept it when my mother slapped it away. My eyes clouded with tears as I stared downwards, focusing on a hole in the floor of the car, through which I could see the road.
“This madness of yours, when will it stop?” my father asked her, before lighting another cigarette. The luxury bus smelled like new shoes. My mother and I sat in the middle. I had the window seat, from where I could watch the hawkers selling everything from biscuits to gin, wrapped up in sachets. There were very many people hurrying and trying to catch their buses.
A fat woman, who'd arrived late, ran after her bus, which was already leaving the park.
“I have paid. I have paid,” she cried, waving her ticket above her head with her free hand while the other hand dragged a travel bag along. The bus squealed to a halt; the conductor jumped down and, cursing her, pulled open the boot at the back. As he took the woman's bag, it snapped open and spilled its contents.
Falling on her hands and knees, the fat woman began to pick up her stuff, a bra here, a blouse there. Behind her, the conductor picked up the biggest pair of panties I have ever seen and was waving them above his head as people laughed.
“What's funny?” my mother asked, giving me the look, the one she gave me before she slapped me and made me see stars. This time she didn't slap me. She just looked at me, said something about my father, and hissed.
“I want water,” I said a few minutes later as our bus made its way out of the park, but my mother just glared.
“You want to piss inside the bus, abi?” she asked, but I was smart enough to say nothing. I looked out of the window as the bus hurtled on its way to Lagos, eating up the distance like a carnivorous monster.
My mother did not look at, nor speak to me. She stared straight ahead, her eyes unblinking. I ignored her, too, wishing my grandparents were still alive so I wouldn't have to make this trip.
“Take,” my mother said and gave me a sausage roll and a can of Coke. I said “Thank you” and ate, chewing on the stringy sausage roll and sipping the tepid drink.
As I ate, I did not tell her that what I really wanted to do was whip out my pingolo and piss, for fear that she would hiss and slap me. Instead, I held it in, sweating and moaning softly while my bladder threatened to burst.
Finally, we made a stop at a place called Ore and everyone got down so they could piss and stretch their legs. “Forty minutes! Forty minutes, o, or we go leave you for this place!” the conductor screamed, a vein standing out on his neck. I ran to a bush and pissed for almost twenty minutes, or so I thought, because the stream of urine seemed to go on forever in a warm fountain. I slept for the rest of the journey and only opened my eyes when my mother hit me and told me we were in Lagos.
Lagos was madness. Watching the crowds, the innumerable people stuck in what I supposed was perpetual motion, almost made me dizzy. Looking at the people in Lagos was like looking into a gigantic whirlwind, but instead of bits of rubbish, what we had inside was an eddy of human beings.
We got down from the bus at Ojota and, grabbing my hand while the other one held onto the new travel bag she'd bought the previous week, my mother led me a short distance to where we boarded another bus, a small yellow one. I sat in the middle with my mother, beside a fat woman who smelled of fish. Her bottom was so big it kept pushing me and whenever I wriggled to create space, she would look at me and hiss.
We drove onto a long bridge that snaked over a shimmering mass of water. Somebody behind me was telling a young woman with him that it was the 3 Mainland Bridge.
“It's the longest bridge in Africa,” the man said. “They say it takes four days to walk from one end to the other.”
When I looked up, my mother was peering at the man with an expression that said she didn't believe him. I knew that look. It was the look she had had on her face when her friend had come back from Italy and told us how she had married, and divorced, a white man.

My mother wanted to see the world, but I was like a noose around her neck, a piece of rope that tethered her to the village, a swollen foot that would not let her run with the wind and take flight.
She used to sit outside my grandparents' house, chin in palm, while her eyes stared into the distance wondering what could have been. I'd sit and watch, even though I pretended to be playing with stones. Most times, when I thought she had fallen asleep, but her long drawn-out sighs would remind me that she was not asleep, just lost inside her own head.
She was happiest and saddest when an old friend, who had left the village, returned with tales of the city and how wonderful things were there. My mother would be full of questions, the way a boil is full of pus, and when the friend left, my mother would lie on her bed and cry. My mother didn't speak much to me. She made sure I was clean and fed and out of the way. I didn't mind, until my grandparents both died two months apart. That was when I began to notice that my mother really didn't want me around.
My father lived two villages away. My mother said he was the devil's overtime, even though he never, ever, spoke to me, nor called me son.
“See, see your useless father,” my mother would say when she took me with her to the market to cut my hair.
But my father would laugh and say, “When will this your madness end?”
Whenever he said this, my mother would curse him and push me hard, urging me to move fast as if I was the one who made him refuse to acknowledge that I was his son, and while we stumbled along, the man she called my father would blow cigarette smoke into the air and laugh.
Everyone said he was my father because, according to them, we looked alike. He was dark like me and he had bow legs like mine. He also had ears like mine, the wide, open ears that made my classmates call me 'Batman'. I guess my mother had hopes that, one day, my father would finally take a good look at me and acknowledge that I was his son after all.
I was nine years old when my mother said we were going to Lagos.
“If you don't run, can you count the miles?” she asked me as she buttoned my shirt, and I shook my head. “You see? One day I will wake up and I will be sixty years old and I will ask myself, 'What have I done with my life?' Will I say, 'I had a baby boy whom his father rejected'? Is that what you want me to say?”
“No,” I said, and she sighed.
“It's not easy for me. If I was alone…” she said, and left it hanging.
I was getting used to it all now: her constant “If I was alone, life wouldn't be like this.”
When my grandmother was alive, my mother didn't bother me too much with what would have been if I hadn't been born, because every time she did, my grandmother would hiss and say to her, “Did anybody force you to spread your legs for that good-for-nothing?”
I didn't want to go to Lagos but I also wanted to, because the fact that I was going there had brought me new-found respect. My friends looked at me like I was going to the moon.
“You will see big bridges and houses taller than trees,” someone said.
“And the roads; they say you can't cross them because there are like a hundred cars passing at the same time,” said another.
“You will tell us about it when you come for Christmas, abi?” another asked.
I nodded and looked away. I had lied to them that we would be staying with my uncle, even though I had no idea where we were going to live. And I didn't know whether we would be coming back for Christmas.
It was my father who came to pick us up on the day we left for Lagos. My mother and I sat in front, while the market women sat at the back with basins stacked high with their purchases. We looked like a family taking a leisurely ride. That is, if you took a picture of us in front and cut off the women at the back

I managed to smile. ‘Yes, funny.’
‘Please sit.’
I did.
‘What would you like to take? I have Guinness.’
‘Oh no, I’m fine.’
‘You sure?’
‘Very sure.’
‘Okay.’ He went and sat on the other couch, yards across from me. His sitting room appeared wider than mine. I’ve heard the rooms downstairs were larger though. ‘So what do you need?’ he asked.
I momentarily blanked out. The question had come too unexpected. It never occurred to me that he would ask that. I didn’t know how Ghanaian men behaved. It was cold and a pretty girl is in your house, braless and pantless, completely vulnerable, and he was still asking questions. Bad idea, I concluded.
Very bad idea. ‘I don’t need anything, I just came to thank you,’ I said. ‘For helping me the other time.’
‘Oh that. It’s nothing.’
‘Can I ask you a question, Mr. Kwame?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Are you gay?’ Yes, I didn’t know what came over me.
He looked no offended. He’d smiled even. Then he stood and came to sit beside me. ‘No, I’m not gay,’ he said. He held my thigh. ‘Why would you even think that?’
‘I don’t know, maybe because—’
His lips cut off my speech. I felt this sudden rush of chilliness as I felt his fleshy lips in between mine. My body nearly spasmed.
He moved and scooped me into his arms, his big strong Ghana arms, and carried me into his bedroom.
He lowered me gently on his bed—it was high and soft. He came on top of me and locked his lips into mine again.
With the slow, absent way changes are made during sex, he slipped the slender hand of my gown downwards and then the other one. My breasts came into view. When he took one nipple into his mouth, I felt that sandy chill again, greater and more generalized. He moved from nipple to nipple in quick hungry bouts. Then he did something funny. He pressed my twoorangestogether so that my nipples came together and he sucked both at the same time. I gave out a thin shrieking sound I never heard myself make before.
Now he pulled off my gown entirely, rolled it up and threw it away. He spread my legs and began eating me. So badly he ate from my cookie pot that I was vibrating uncontrollably, panting and gasping for breath. That would be the first time someone would ever eat me like that. Segun, my last boyfriend had only tried, once, before he said he doesn’t like doing it, that it wasn’t healthy.
Microbiologists and their silly attitude of calling anything damp and genital unhealthy.
I looked down and saw the top of Kwame’s shaved moving round in between my legs. It seemed his tongue was larger than normal—it must have, or maybe he just knew how to use it. I went to the moon and then back.
Then he stopped. Moving on his knees on the bed he came to my face. Before he pulled down his boxers I had seen the protrusion and knew it was going to be a tough one. But when the massive organ came into view, I nearly drew back in startlement. It was the largest I’ve ever seen, both in movies and reality.
He took my hand and placed it on it. So large was it that my palm couldn’t go round the circumference.
‘Suck me, baby,’ he murmured, his voice cloaked with desire.
I held him with two hands and stretched my mouth to its widest limit. The cap was as far as I could go. But he put his hand to the back of my head and pushed me straight into the horse dick. I nearly choked and started to cough.
‘Is it big?’ he asked.
‘Very big.’
He used a special kind of condoms. It was that day that I knew special condoms were made for men who were horses.
It took quite a time to get him fully inside me. And you must know that I was no virgin.
Thankfully he didn’t last for too long. We were on the second position when he started to vibrate uncontrollably making this deep, beastlike sounds. Deep inside me, I felt his jerky deposition and a great feeling of reward flowed through me.
He pulled out from me and fell to the bed beside me. ‘Now how gay am I?’
he asked, in between heavy breaths.
I smiled and pressed myself into him.

His name was Kwame, the quiet dude that lived in the flat downstairs, just under mine.
He was tall and muscular with extremely dark skin. A dark skin that highlighted the whiteness of his dentition each time he smiled. It wasn’t often that he did but none ever went unnoticed. In those rare times he smiled, you would see just how handsome he was.
I usually notice him peeping at me, when I’m under the orange tree in the middle of the compound washing clothes or at a corner of the compound chatting with Nkechi, or any other of our neighbours.
Kwame was the neighbour that never talked to anyone. He never talked to me, never acknowledged any of my signals, however obvious I made them appear. One evening I came to meet him where he was washing his car and said good evening.
He asked how my day had gone barely with a hint of a smile.
I said fine and then the silence dragged so long I nearly felt stupid. I walked away wishing he would one day loosen up and talk to people more. Me especially. I thought that if we talked that I would learn more about him, if he was seeing someone or even married.
I liked him. Very much. It had been very surprising to me how you could feel so deeply into someone you’ve never even had a meaningful conversation with.
Something interesting happened one Tuesday evening.
It had rained so heavily the outside gutters got flooded. I returned from work that evening already wet. The bike man that stopped me in front of the gate barely waited for me to be fully on the ground before he turned and zoomed off.
In the wetness, I misjudged the aggression of the mud and just as I came across the gutter and stepped on the wet red earth around the gate, I slipped and fell.
Right there in front of the gate I struggled with the mud. My fingers were on the ground as I tried to rise, but the slipperiness couldn’t allow me. Anger and shame warred inside me. If only I could just reach the gates or anything strong enough to hold and then pull myself up.
Then suddenly the small gate swung back to open. It was Kwame. I wilted in shame.
‘Oh my God!’ He quickly bent and helped me up. ‘Are you hurt?’ he said, hishurtcoming out more likehatin his Ghanaian accent.
‘No, thank you,’ I said.
He guided me inside, up the stairs and then into my flat. He asked if I needed anything and I shook my head. My shirt and bag were stained heavily with red earth.
‘You need to have a bath,’ he said.
‘Yes, I will do that now.’
He nodded and left.
I got into the bathroom and kept thinking about him, the way he’d aided me upstairs, his muscular arms around me as I pretended to be really in need of his help to walk. He’d smelt nice too, of this heady, masculine fragrance. He was just perfect, perfect for me.
I finished my bath and changed into a short casual gown. I wore some deodorant, threw a lump of mint into my mouth and started toward the stairs.
Downstairs, I hesitated knocking on his door. I had raised a fist to knock but dithered. At one time I had wanted to turn back and leave but then I pulled myself together with foreign energy and pounded the door.
Nothing.
I hit the door again. Nothing.
Bad idea. Maybe he is not even home again. I had turned to walk away when I heard the sound of a door opening. I turned back and there he was, his huge frame obstructing the doorway. He was now shirtless, down only to his boxers.
My legs gelled to the ground.
‘Hi,’ he called. ‘I’m sorry I was in the room, has it been long you were knocking?’
‘Oh no.’ I tried to avoid looking at him. ‘I thought you wanted to go out before?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘I cancelled. It’s just too wet and cold.’
‘Cold, yea,’ I echoed.
‘Come in.’ He left the door open for me.
I dragged myself in, still fighting to avoid looking at him. This proved quite difficult, the way my curiosity and craving of him messed with my head.
He locked the door as I came through. ‘So, first time in my house huh,’ he said, turning to me, ‘—and we’ve been neighbours for months now.’

wao 9ice story op bt try to gv anoda tittle to this short beautiful story.but hope u took permission frm the person dat rightful own this story bfore pasting it here?

not really!

ndcide:
Bullsshit. All of it. Absolutely all

y don't u write urs...quit daydreaming kid

BlaqCoffee109:
well done @op...an interesting and humane read..the value of forgiveness and unconditional love, I learned

thabks bro

But then in those rare miraculous moments that it appeared the light at the end of the tunnel just flashed across your face, Grace saw the young intern coming towards her again, this time accompanied by an older, more doctor-looking man.
Their steps were hasty, silent on the gleaming tiles of the hall.
‘I’m sorry, Madam, are you the lady that brought in an overdosed patient?’ the older doctor asked.
Grace nodded, wiping at her runny nose.
‘We actually got a pulse, but he is still deeply unconscious.’
Grace didn’t understand.
The man tried to explain, something about how lack of oxygen to the brain had caused him anoxic brain injury.
Grace nodded readily to each statement but in the end all she had managed to grasp was that Alex was not dead yet, that there was still a chance of him waking up, holding her, kissing her.
She fought the urge to slap the boy doctor.
She asked the doctor if it was coma. He didn’t answer the question and only assured her that he would come around.
‘It will take some time, but he will make it. All chances are in his favor.’
Grace stared fixedly at the man.
‘Madam, do you believe?’
She nodded promptly. ‘I believe, Doctor, I believe.’
She has wiped her face when Dapo arrived the hospital.
He sighted her leaning on the short metal demarcation in front of the hospital.
He ran to her.
‘I got your message, what happened?’
Grace looked up at him with reddened eyes. ‘He tried to kill himself.’
Dapo turned away quietly, like a snail pulling back into its shell. An act that made Grace curious herself.
‘Please can you take me to him?’ he asked.
‘Not possible now. He is currently under intensive care and no one is allowed to see him.’
‘He told you, right?’
Grace looked at him and nodded.
‘I was the one that gave him the tablets.’
‘The abortion pills?’
He joined her in leaning on the metal demarcation. ‘Yes. I didn’t tell him dosage.’
Grace’s hands tightened round the metal bar.
Dapo shifted closer to her. He wiped off a trickle of tear that sped down his face. ‘He was a good boy, you know. Quiet, always reading, got wonderful grades in school, mum loved him best.’
Grace stared at him.
Dapo sniffled and continued. ‘He has always regretted it. It kept him sad for months. You should have seen.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because I’m truly sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘For being so mad with you, you both. For allowing your relationship to torment me.’
Something leaped off from Grace’s eyes and she blinked.
Dapo took her hand. ‘Please you have to forgive me. This situation wouldn’t have manifested had it not been me.’
Grace nodded and took back her hand. She straightened up and folded her arms on her chest.
‘So your wife left you?’ she asked.
‘She didn’t get home with me from the restaurant that day.’
‘I’m sorry I wrecked your marriage.’
‘It’s okay. It was meant to happen anyway.’
‘Why say that?’
‘We were married for the wrongest of reasons.’
‘Yea. I heard she was the one that set you up, gave you the big oil job and all that.’
‘Yes.’ He turned and extended a hand to her. ‘Friends?’
Grace took his hand. ‘Sure.’
Dapo nodded. ‘Thank you, Grace.’
Alex regained consciousness the following week.
...The END.

NINE
She found herself in a strange forest.
Strange but beautiful. Healthy trees were surrounded by a lush greenery. Sunlight flowed down in a gentle smoky gold. Whole white flowers filled everywhere with charm.
Grace looked round, relishing the beauty of nature.
But the moment was cut short by the disturbing screech of an unfamiliar bird. From the corner of her eyes she saw the black bird fly off from a nearby shrub.
Then there came the blood.
From above, it rained down the forest, staining everything that was in sight; the white roses, the green leaves, her cream-colored gown.
Drenched in red, she threw her lips open and screamed.
She came awake on her bed with a sudden start. She rose to a sitting position and tried to settle her breathing. The AC was on but she could feel the moisture on her forehead.
She turned, fumbling around the wall for the light switch. When she finally turned the light on, she saw that it was only 4 O’clock.
But she didn’t go back to sleep. No way she could have.
She entered the kitchen and poured herself a glass of cold juice. In the sitting room she reopened the book she was reading last night.
She tried to read but the letters appeared blurry.
It was a few minutes to Five when she drove out of the compound.
She parked some distance away from his house, the only space she could see on the car-lined street.
She entered the compound and hurried up the stairs.
She knocked at his door and waited. Nothing. She pressed the bell. She didn’t hear any sound.
She was about to knock again when she remembered she had her own key. She opened her bag, brought out the key and slotted it into the hole.
She entered the room and an unfamiliar smell greeted her. It was the pungent smell of alcohol mixed with something else, mildly irritating but not extremely unpleasant.
The TV was loud with sports noise. She picked the remote and turned down the volume.
‘Alex?’ she called out.
She dropped her bag on the blue sofa and walked into the room.
When she opened the door to his bedroom, the sight that greeted her froze her briefly.
‘Alex!’ She ran to the male body hanging down from the high bed. Two legs were on the bed while neck and hands hung loosely down. She held him up and tried to see if he was breathing.
It was all over his nose, his mouth, the bed, the white dust he’d taken. The transparent sachet beside him was nearly empty. Beside it was the note.
She picked the piece of paper and read the handwritten lines hastily.
It was love. I know it really was. I know you felt it too. Only I wasn’t clean enough for you and I apologize for that. Call it the other side of love but please don’t forget me. Alex.
‘Oh no, Alex, please don’t do this.’ She shook him. ‘Alex, don’t die on me please!’ Her heart was pounding.
She wiped at her eyes and ran out of the house. She returned shortly with two of his neighbors and they carried him to her car.
TEN
The doctors at All Saints Clinic were all professionals. Most of them were trained abroad.
But also in the big clinic were a few interns and residents who do not know what they are doing.
Most times, the licensed doctors are busy.
Sometimes they become too busy that these interns are given undue right to cater to a patient.
You can’t spot them easily, those ones. They usually don’t look any different. But there is one thing common among them –they broke bad news to people without any show of moderation.
And it was one of those kind of interns that informed Grace of her misfortune.
‘What do you mean you lost him?’ Grace screamed at the slim man.
‘It was a huge overdose, Madam,’ he told her.
In his blue coat, he looked mid-thirties, but he was obviously younger. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’
As Grace dropped to a nearby chair, her shoulders heaving violently up and down as she sobbed, the young intern shook his head and walked away.

EIGHT
Grace picked one of the cushions and pressed it into herself. ‘Who and who were aware of this relationship?’
‘Virtually nobody. We kept it entirely a secret.’
‘So what happened next?’
Alex’s chest rose and fell in a deep breath. ‘She refused to have the abortion.’
‘So? Why couldn’t you have allowed her keep the baby?’
‘I was eighteen. Mum was at the hospital for heart problems already. I was so scared.’
Grace inhaled deeply. ‘So what happened next?’
‘I put the tablets in her drink.’
A sudden gasp fell out from Grace. ‘Without her knowledge?’
Alex nodded, slowly, miserably. ‘Yes.’
‘Alex!’
He looked at Grace and looked away quickly. A drop of tear ran down his cheek and he quickly wiped it off.
‘Continue.’
‘She dra…she…she drank the juice. She started to ble…bleed an hour later. It continued and—’
‘And what?’
‘And...I was with her in the bathroom all along. She…she—’His shoulders heaved up and down. He looked at Grace. Tears were now flowing down his face. He shook his head. ‘She didn’t make it.’
Grace’s lips fell open.
Alex dropped his face into his hands and started to cry. Crying looked more pitiful when done by men.
Grace stared at him, her heart pounding from multiple emotions.
‘Dapo helped me cover it,’ Alex said under relentless sobbing sounds. ‘I was so scared.’ His tear-soaked face glistened under the light from the bulbs.
‘What exactly did you do?’
‘We drove out in the dead of the night in Dapo’s car. We…we threw the body into a river.’
‘Jesus Christ!’
Alex sniffled. A thread of saliva hung across his mouth when he opened it to speak again. ‘Her body was discovered in the morning. People called it an accident, that she drowned. Some mentioned suicide.’
Goose pimples walked round Grace’s skin. She covered her face with two hands and tried to breathe. She turned to Alex. ‘Wait, did this happen sometime in 2004?’
Alex nodded. ‘It was all over the news.’
Grace stood.
Alex’s eyes ran up to her. Deep remorse has reconfigured his features. ‘Baby, please.’ He held her hand. ‘Baby, please don’t leave me.’
Grace looked down at him and shook her head as if in pity.
‘Please.’
She pulled away from him and walked away.
The door banged shut behind her and Alex fell to the floor, croaking with tears.
***
Grace has worked in Communications long enough to know how both to initiate communication and hinder it. She was experienced in cutting off all unwanted interactions whenever she needed to.
He did all he could but no success. His calls were not answered. Emails were not replied. Online chats didn’t deliver.
Finally that evening, he summoned up courage and drove to her apartment.
He knocked and knocked but she didn’t open the door. Her car was parked in the compound and he also saw her clothes on the laundry line. He was sure that she was home.
But that evening, as she watched him totter away through her window, a small sense of forgiveness penetrated Grace’s heart. She remembered her promise – that she would stand by him through all times. Though she had made it without knowing what his crime was, but she couldn’t easily take it back now.
She dropped to the couch, folded herself up and began to think.
He was not a murderer, she reasoned. Just a scared teenager, with an evil elder brother. But a body was thrown into a river, a human body and for over eight years he kept quiet. Grace heaved a deep sigh.
Finally, she came to a conclusion. He would go and seek for atonement and she would stand by him all through it. And then when everything was settled, they would live together.
It was late already so she would visit him in the morning.
But that same evening, an evil thought crept into Alex’s mind and he started seeking alternative ways to find release for his torture. As he browsed the internet for the quickest way to end one’s life, Grace read a book on Brand Management.
As Alex drove out that night to go and look forjunk, Grace turned off the light in her room and lay down to sleep.
He was a Lagos boy, he knew where to go. He also knew how expensive those things could be so he went along with extra cash.
He also needed to buy enough stamps of thesmack. As the online article directed, if he took four to five stamps before morning, his body would even forget to breathe and it would all be over sooner than he’d realize it.
Best of it all, it’d be all smooth and painless. The much-desired relief.

Grace stared at the man Dapo had come with. The old man stared back at her, his lips hanging inactively open.
The two brothers watched them.
The old man took off his slantedfilacap and put it back again with two hands. ‘Ah! Madam, is this you?’
Grace still looked lost. She was sure she knew the man before but couldn’t recall where from.
‘Please remind me,’ she said.
‘It’s me na— Oga Keh, Access Bank, Ikeja.’
‘Oh.’ Grace smiled. ‘Mr. Kehinde, so you are related to the Adewunmis’.’
The man’s entire dentition showed in a large smile. ‘Yes. Their mother is my sister.’
‘Oh I see.’
‘Uncle, you know her before?’ Dapo’s disbelief was evident on his face.
The man turned to him. ‘Yes, my son. Wait, don’t tell me she is the witch you were talking about?’
Grace stilled.
Alex’s eyes ran up to his brother’s face.
Dapo was forced to blink in remorse. ‘Is she any less?’ he muttered.
‘No, my son,’ Mr. Keh said. ‘This one is good. Very good. She was the woman I was always telling you people about na, that I said I cried the day she was leaving our company. My fellow security guard, Obi, in fact everybody at the bank was sad the day she was leaving.’
He turned to Grace. ‘That was in 2005, right?’
Grace nodded.
He turned back to Dapo. ‘No, Oladapo. You are wrong this time.’ He took off his cap and put it back again.
He turned to Grace. ‘Eh, Madam, please forgive him, oh, please. You see he is just—’
‘Uncle you can go now.’
‘Eh?’
‘Yes.’ Dapo’s voice was even firmer.
‘Okay.’ He took off his cap and put it back again. ‘If you say so.’
‘Yes.’
He took a step forward and then turned back to him. ‘But didn’t we come together? Are we not supposed to be leaving together?’
‘Uncle the door!’
‘Dapo, don’t talk to him like that.’
Dapo glared at Alex.
When their uncle left, he turned to Grace. ‘Don’t think this is over yet.’
‘Actually, brother, it is.’ It was Alex that replied him.
Dapo turned suddenly to him. ‘What did you say?’
‘Yes. Grace and I are getting married soon. There is nothing you can do now.’
Dapo smiled his smile again. ‘So you think you are in love right? You are talking about marriage. You have forgotten that I know you too well. I know all your secrets, kid bro, and I tell you no marriage can work between you two.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you think she will still agree to marry you if she found out what you have done?’
Alex did not say a word. Grace sensed his vulnerability. She remembered the first time they met in front of her office building.
‘Yes, I will,’ she said.
Dapo’s brow rose. ‘What?’
‘I will stand by him through all times,’ Grace said again.
Dapo smiled. ‘Fine then. I wish you two a happy married life.’
When the door banged shut behind Dapo, the air in the room appeared to grow rigid, like it was going to impede movement if one wanted to move.
For many seconds they remained in silence.
‘Start talking, Alex,’ Grace finally threw out. ‘Now.’
Alex scratched at his head.

The weeks that followed were smooth, filled with love and its accompanying passion.
They spoke to each other on the phone every morning on their way to work.
They went out to lunch together sometimes and spent their weekends together.
On a rainy Saturday they visited the City Mall at Ikeja and saw a movie. She had told him she doesn’t like sci-fi movies but had ended up seeing Man of Steel with him. Persuading her was always a cinch for him.
She admitted to having liked the movie at the end though.
On Sunday they attended Harvesters International Church together. It was her church. After the service, as they drove back home, he asked her teasingly if people come to her church to party on Fridays.
She smiled and told him she approved of themodernizationof worship.
At home, she made stew and fried plantain. After they ate, they showered together in her bathroom. They made love afterwards.
She had tried out something she called crazy while they were in the bathroom.
She’d crouched down in front of him and taken his organ into her mouth. In the wetness provided by the sparkling shower waters, the pleasure seemed all heightened and he moaned out loudly.
He held her when she wanted to stop and urged her to continue. She liked that he reveled in the act and was ready to keep on pleasing him, but she had to stop when he half-consciously pushed himself deeper down her throat and she nearly choked. He apologized and they went into the bedroom together and he returned all the favor.
She offered to help him do laundry so they drove to his apartment together.
They were in front of the tall white machine in his balcony waiting to hear the click when the knock came on the door. She asked him to answer the door while she watched the clothes.
He was gone for so long and then she began hearing voices –unfamiliar voices of two men.
She removed the wet clothes from the machine, dropped them in a bucket and listened.
One of the voices spoke mostly in Yoruba and the few times he spoke English was with the characteristic word bending of Yoruba accent.
The other voice she was quick to pick. It belonged to Dapo, Alex’s elder brother.
She stepped closer, making sure she was concealed by the plush curtain.
She heard the brothers address the voice with thick Yoruba accent as uncle and she confirmed her fears.
She steeled herself on a deep breath and walked into the sitting room.

‘Are you insane?’ Dapo did not wait for Alex to get through the door.
Alex wondered why he asked him into the room if his voice was going to be so loud. He could as well have thrown the tantrums in the sitting room. In her front. But whatever he did would not matter.
His brother has lost the right to mentor him many months back when he found out what he did. That he still talked to him was just for same blood’s sake.
‘What’s that woman doing in your house, Ayo?’
‘That woman is my girlfriend, Brother. I introduced her.’
‘You are very silly.’ He said this Yoruba. ‘Do you not know who she is? Do you not know her? That woman destroyed my life.’
‘Nobody destroyed your life, Brother!’
Dapo pulled back in surprise.
‘Yes, you set the fire that burned your feet yourself.’
‘Ayodeji, so you can now insult me? Over some cheap omo-Igbo girl?’
‘No no, Dapo, I will not have you insult her like that.’
‘What? Are you— ’
The door suddenly burst open. Grace came through. ‘This meeting is over. Alex, I will like to see you in the kitchen.’ She did something with her eyes. ‘Right now.’
The air stilled with tension.
Grace walked out.
Alex ignored Dapo’s eyes and followed her.
In the kitchen, Grace waved at Alex to save the apology. She asked him to go downstairs and get him the money.
He obeyed and left.
Dapo was standing in the sitting room when Alex came back with the money.
Grace walked out of the kitchen.
Fury has tightened Dapo’s features that he was now difficult to recognize.
‘Here is the money.’ Ayo extended the bundle of N500 notes to him.
Dapo jerked the money from him and threw it back at him at the same time. ‘I don’t need your filthy money!’
He turned to Grace. ‘As for you…’ He produced a small smile filled with malice. ‘…by the time I’m done with you, you will know what it means to meddle into family matters.’
‘The empty threats of a sinking man.’ Grace threw this out with great aplomb. She read English, speaking was the least of her problems.
Dapo swerved back to her. He scowled briefly, did something like a nod and left.
‘Let’s pick the money,’ Grace said.
Alex nodded.

She stared.
‘I want you to marry me.’
A heavy feeling descended on her.
She got up quickly and straightened her gown. She ran her hand over her hair twice and picked her purse.
Without a word she walked out of the room, leaving him still, staring and lost.
He jerked when the door banged shut behind her.
In her apartment she dropped on the orange and black-colored couch and kicked off her shoes.
A big lump formed in her throat.
She felt insulted. It was the same tactic his brother had used. Quick, deceptive promise of marriage. It may be what they are experienced in.
She walked into her room and changed into a casual brown dress.
She so wanted to talk to someone. She had few friends, mostly colleagues from work. Her best friend, Bisola, has moved to Ibadan where she now stayed with her husband.
Her younger brother was far away in FUTO. She wanted to call her mother but thought better of it.
She was in the kitchen boiling water when she heard a knock on her door.
She opened the door at the same time she said 'Who?'
'Can I come in?' he asked.
'Come in,' she said quietly.
He stepped in and she shut the door.
The room smelt heavily flower and fruits.
'Why did you run off like that? Did I say anything to offend you?'
She stared at him.
He came a step closer. 'Talk to me.' He took her hand.
She felt the heavy lump of anger in her chest dissolve and flow away. His touch, his face, there was something so innocent about them.
'It's nothing,' she said. 'It's just your mention of marriage, it got me...got me...annoyed.'
'Really? Why?'
She signaled for them to sit.
They settled on the couch.
'Tell me,' he said.
'Your brother gave me a ring.'
'Dapo asked you to marry him?'
'Yes. Barely a week we met.'
'I didn't know.'
'That's okay.'
He pulled out of the chair to stare at her. 'I now understand your action. You see Dapo kept a lot of dishonest relationships way back. He yet still pays for it till this moment.'
‘Tell me more.'
He shifted nearer her and held her. 'You see, Grace, I'm not Dapo. I will never hurt you.'
He stared down at her till she moved her head in a nod.
'Thanks. If you can't marry me, will you accept to date me?' He extended an open palm. ‘At least?’
She smiled. 'That I can manage for now,' she said. She took his hand.
They hugged.
They hadn't completed the act when his phone rang.
He reached into his pocket and brought out a Samsung phone.
'One minute please.'
'Go ahead.'
He tapped at somewhere on the phone's screen and put the phone to his ear.
He spoke entirely in Yoruba. 'I'm in my girlfriend’s house, why?'
‘Yes, I now do.’
‘Since…’ He looked briefly at her. ‘…today.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Okay. Tell me.’
'Fifty thousand?'
'No. I can't raise that in so short a time.'
'What?'
'It has to be till Monday...that's what I'm saying.'
'Please, Brother, I will call you back.' He ended the call.
She noticed the lines on his face. 'Who is that?'
'It's Dapo.'
'Dapo? Your brother?'
'Yes. He said he needed 50k urgently now.'
'He is asking you for money? What happened to his Shell job?'
'He lost it. It was a long story. But I don't pity him. He is actually paying for his sins.'
She found some consolation in that. But she still would like him to help his brother, if he could. Grace may not be the softest of people but she is not stone.
She stood. 'Let me fix you something to eat.'
'Thanks,' he said.
FIVE
She laughed out loud and flashed a tongue at him.
In the screen facing them, she had just slaughtered him and he dropped to the ground with a near-human groan. Graphic blood stains splashed at the screen.
He looked at her and said nothing.
He couldn't believe that barely thirty minutes of teaching her the game, she was now beating him to it.
He somehow found satisfaction in her victory. He knew he would win her if he put in more effort, but he somehow was happy with her winning, smiling, flashing a clean, red tongue at him.
He restarted the game and chose another player. He was now a samurai warrior and she a white-topped bad ass bitch still.
Her player had let out a shrill growl to mean the game has started when the knock landed on the door.
'One minute.' Alex paused the game and stood.
The knock came again, twice, before he could get to the door.
Grace could sense the impatience. She wondered who it might be.
Perhaps his landlord? Is he owing rent? She has her chequebook. She wouldn't mind signing him a cheque if that was the case.
But it wasn't.
The face that met her eyes sent tiny sharp sands flying all around her. She stilled for a second. But she recovered quickly and turned her face away.
'Brother mi, ekabo,' Alex said.
Dapo nodded, his eyes down on Grace.
She knew he was staring at her. She could feel it. She didn't want to feel captured. She stood, threw out a flat hi at him and sat on the couch.
'That's my girlfriend, Dapo.'
'Oh,' Dapo said. 'Meet me in the room.'
'Actually, the money is downstairs in the car. Let's—'
'Ayodeji tele mi!' Dapo led the way into the room.

She passed the gate and headed toward the stairs. The house was considerably neat and from the cluster of big generators she’d seen at a corner of the compound, she’d reasoned it wasn’t a place so many could afford to live in.
It might as well have been the most expensive house on the street.
She got to the second floor and saw the door at once. It was just as he’d described it for him. She put back her phone which she had brought out to call him inside her bag.
She dithered a second before knocking.
She inhaled deeply and knocked. She looked around, there was no bell box.
She knocked again.
She has raised her hand to knock again when she heard the sound of unbolting. The door moved inwards to reveal a happy young man.
He revealed so many teeth while smiling and strangely, she found it attractive. He was wearing his glasses and a black stay-at-home shirt with white shorts.
Either he had large thighs or the shorts were too tight. Either way Grace wouldn’t want to look down at him again. Looking up at his muscular arms, square shoulders and well-cut lips wasn’t that easy either.
‘Please sit,’ he said.
‘Actually, I’ve not come to sit.’
Something leapt off his eyes.
She was not happy that her statement had taken away so much light from his face.
He stared at her. ‘What’s the matter? We had a deal, didn’t we? We were supposed to spend time together.’
She quietly dropped her purse on the couch. It was black, bound with loose shiny stones that sparkled in the dull blue light of the room.
She joined her two hands together, in her mind, searching for the perfect way to start.
He watched her with near pleading eyes.
‘Alex, this will not work.’
His lips came apart.
‘I mean I like you, really, but you are…you are…I’m 32.’ She moved her hand through the air in disorganized demonstration. ‘You are only 27. I…’ She looked at his face and the words sank further back.
She didn’t even know why she was talking about age now. Though she had thought about it during her deliberation but the decision was to base all reason on her past relationship with his elder brother.
He inhaled audibly. ‘So the issue now is my age?’
‘No, not just your age. You are younger than I am and your brother and I didn’t…Alex just…’ With over 10-years’ experience in communications she never knew that she would one day find speech so taxing.
‘Alex, please, you have to—’
He threw his arms around her and enclosed her. She was startled.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please don't say that to me. Don’t leave me.’
He smelt chokingly of masculinity. He must have used one of those perfumes made by combining scents with marijuana.
She tried to pull herself out but he held on, tight enough to make sure she doesn’t slip away yet loose enough to ensure she was comfortable and getting air.
He made a sniffling sound and she wondered if he was crying. ‘Please stay with me,’ he said. ‘Tell me that you will stay.’
‘Alex.’
‘Please, Grace. Please. This is more than you can ever imagine. Please.’
She was curious.
He moved his hand and held her face up so that their eyes met and held. His eyes appeared cloudy.
She was able to perceive the intensity of whatever it was he felt for her in his eyes.
Slowly he lowered his face to hers and planted his lips between hers.
She hesitated but he was sweet. Everything about him.
In a moment they were kissing. He pulled her close and secured her to himself.
She felt loose, feathery. Sucking sounds of affection filled the air.
Slowly her subconscious felt him rising. She needed not see it to know how blessed he was. He was Dapo’s brother, after all.
Hot emotions whirled inside her.
Mechanically he drew her this way and that till they landed on the couch. He released her lips and held his shirt. As he pulled it off, she wished he hadn’t, that she had stopped him.
She became helpless.
The chest concealed under that shirt all the while was the perfect-built chest of male magazine models. She ran her fingers down the hard lumps on his belly. He let her.
A great feeling of ownership sprang up inside her.
He lowered down to her, kissed her lips for a while and then her neck, her ears. Anything he did made her shiver.
With chivalrous gentleness, he slipped one arm of her gown down and then the other.
She helped him unstrap her bra and her breasts came to view. They were of adequate size and strength so she had no reason to panic.
In her mind, she has decided go through with it to the end.
It was something close to that feeling of courage you have when standing in front of a big lump of delicious chocolate and you decide to eat it all and savor the sweetness and worry about the calories later.
FOUR
They lay side by side on the lush rug.
Her eyes were fixed at the ceiling fan. In the speed, the brown blades had meshed into a consistent circle.
In her mind she tried not to think about what just happened some minutes ago.
But it proved hard. Very hard.
The images kept coming back. They were not ordinary pictures one could see, she felt them instead. The sweetness and all. She was nearly consumed in the pleasure.
Some of it still lingered, as if she could taste it on her tongue if she wanted to.
But a part of her was not very at home with the great feeling of pleasance. The part that blamed her for loosening it all up again.
She pondered on it for a while before she blew the thought away and rested her mind on the more pleasurable feelings.
She remembered how she had moaned, screamed, groaned under him. She resisted the urge to smile.
She turned to him.
She met his eyes suddenly and was nearly startled by them. He'd been staring at her all along.
She smiled at him and he returned it.
He was really cute. Way cuter than his brother. She inhaled deeply, as if to be sure it hadn’t all been a dream.
His stare deepened.
Her eyes went narrow.
He took her hand with his free hand. His other hand held his head up at an angle that set his eyes straight at her face.
He folded her hand inside his.
A peculiar feeling of security settled on her.
'Marry me,' he said in a tiny whisper
She pretended not to hear.
'Will you?' he said again, in same quiet, serious tone.
'Will you like me to make something?' she said instead. Cooking was like a passion to her.
'I'm not hungry,' he said. His hand tightened around hers. 'Grace,' he called.
She stared at him, not knowing what to feel.
'I love you,' he said.

Did he lose someone? She tried hard to make sure her face was soft enough.
He was taking so long to speak.
‘Alex? Are you okay?’ she asked. They had promised to refer to each other by their English names on the phone— he would call her Grace and she would call him Alex.
He blinked but not a word still.
‘Alex?’ She prayed his lips doesn’t burst open and he would begin to wail.
But he didn’t. He pushed his chair back and stood. He walked across the table and took her hand. He guided her up and took her other hand so that they now faced each other.
Her mind went blank.
‘I love you, Grace.’
She jerked her hands away from him in reflex. ‘Alex, what are you saying?’
‘Ever since that day at the garden, I’ve been in love with you.’
‘What are you talking about? Which garden?’
‘GV. Palm Estate.’
Her eyes went narrow. She was at GV Gardens two years ago or so. With Ireti. It was their usual hang-out place.
‘Alex, the last time I was at GV Gardens was two or so years ago, so what are you saying?’
‘Yes. May 12. You wore a purple gown.’
Her eyes ran wide.
‘You were there with my brother. I came to drop his dry cleaning. You called me the dark version of Lynx.’
Awareness hit her. ‘Yes, yes. You were the young graduate that was supposed to travel to London the next day for a training.’
He smiled. ‘Yes.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out his glasses. He wore it. ‘Remember me now?’ He touched his shaved head. ‘The hair is gone—I took your advice and got rid of it, but this is how I looked that day. Remember?’
She smiled. ‘You were so young then. And it was just two years, how come—’
He chuckled. ‘I was never that young. Dapo was only two years older than me.’
‘Dapo?’
‘My brother.’
‘Oh. He told me his name was Ireti.’
His face dulled. ‘He did?’
‘Yes. Your brother is a crook.’
He quickly took her hand. ‘Forget my brother. I learnt everything but I’m here for you now.’ He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers.
The act was over before she could pull off a protest.
THREE
She had rehearsed her lines well. Once she entered she was going recite them all and leave immediately.
'I'm so sorry, Alex, but this won't work.'
'You see, I had a very horrible experience with your brother and I'm not ready to go down that lane again.'
Of course she knew he will put up persuasion but she would be gone before he'd even start.
She had it all well planned.
She picked the phone and dialed his number. She told him she was on her way and he said ok.
She saw No. 12 and slowed the car. She waved at a lanky young man standing in front of a provisions' kiosk. The tall boy raised a finger to mean ‘just a minute.’
She watched him dip his hand into his pocket and pay the store owner, a heavily-built middle-aged lady with the mean face of women who are experienced in beating their husbands.
The boy had leaned over to listen to her when the store owner called out. ‘Oga! This money wey gimme no good o.’
‘Madam I no get another one o.’ He turned back to Grace. ‘Ehe, Madam, ema binu, continue.’
‘Is this Iseyin Street? I’m looking for—’
Someone pulled the man from behind. Grace’s eyes ran up and she saw it was the fat store owner.
‘Take your torn money.’ She threw the note at him. ‘Pay me or give me back my detergent.’ Her Yoruba accent was thick. Grace understood little of Yoruba but she picked nothing from what the woman said.
The tall boy put the green sachet of detergent into his pocket. ‘Madam, I no get another fifty-naira. If I get I go give—’
He hadn’t finished when the woman grabbed him. ‘Give me back my A-li-al. I no sell again.’
‘Madam, take.’ Grace extended a clean N200 note to the woman. ‘Please leave him.’
The woman gave the man one last glare before releasing him. But it was the tall boy that got to the money first. He gave it to the woman. ‘Oya bring change.’
The woman scowled at him. She took the money and opened the purse hanging round her waist. She gave him N150.
The boy returned the change to Grace. ‘Thank you, ma.’
‘You can keep that,’ Grace said.
‘Ma?’
‘You can keep it. Please tell me how to get to No. 34.’
‘Thank you, ma. Eshe.’
Grace smiled.
‘No. 34, you said?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. Just follow me.’
Grace wanted to tell him to just show her the direction but the boy has walked off. She started the engine and followed him slowly.
The boy showed her No. 34 and helped her park the car. The street was narrow and lined at both sides with cars, some of them so dusty one needn’t think twice to know that they hadn’t been moved in years.
She stepped down and slammed the door shut. She saw her reflection in the car window glass and suddenly felt the urge to use a mirror.
She wasn’t one of those women that owned a mini make-up house at home. She only had the few very-needed ones. The second man she dated had said his reason for breaking up with her was because she didn’t take care of herself as a woman should.
After the ordeal, she spent a portion of her school fees on make-up items but she dumped them aside only after some weeks. She has once said to a girlfriend that covering her face in make-up after a bath made her feel dirty.
God’s blessing abound, she has smooth dark skin. She only wished she was taller and her nose longer.
She ran her hand down her hair and clutched her purse in her front. In her fitted, blue gown she looked every inch what she is. A thirty-two year old working class woman.

This is not my story, just felt like sharing so u could learn from it
She thought it'd be nice if she made something 'local'. Egwusi soup perhaps.
But she hasn't seen him eat that before. She hasn't even seen him eat anything. Before that Friday of last week she never could have imagined there was still a possibility for her to feel this way again.
Every heartbreak came with a different kind of torture, and its accompanying decision. Ujunwa has had them enough to be sure she was never going to feel anything for any man again.
The last one had been two years ago. It might as well be the worst. He had come with a refreshing sugariness at the start, a deep promise of hope. His name had been Ireti, something alike, something that had ‘hope’ in its meaning.
He told her that he was going to replenish all the love she has lost in the past. And she so believed him. So she had given it her all, as she always did.
She had always told herself, 'Uju, you are not that tall or beautiful to be so choosy.' And so she returned love with immense gratitude. She always obeyed, endured, whatever it required to make it last. Her dream was to finally one day become a wife. She would then know that she has finally won. She would call it her victory.
But Ujunwa was always defeated, sometimes even before the battle took off.
That day she discovered Ireti had been married, a beautiful wife and two lovely girls, she didn't cry as she did a year earlier when Ikenna disappeared to Malaysia with all her money.
She gently pulled off the ring he had engaged her with and dropped it on the table before him, his wife and kids. The whole staff of Tantalizers was watching.
Without a word, to him or his wife, she walked back to the front and picked her order.
Inside her blue Corolla, she turned the player on and Beyonce's Halo started where it had stopped when she parked the car. She quickly changed the song.
She turned the volume high and sang along to the chorus as led by Pink, 'So, so what? I'm still a rock star, I got my rock moves...'
In her flat, she didn't cry either. It has always been the ritual whenever it happened, but that day she was feeling different. An overwhelming sense of control engulfed her.
She poured herself a glass from the bottle she had bought earlier, the one she'd kept specially for their meeting that evening.
She poured a glassful into her mouth and poured out another which she drank up quickly again. She lifted the glass and hurled it at the wall above her TV. It shattered.
As she picked the tiny glass pieces, she envisioned them as the pieces of her heart so she picked them with delicate care.
That evening when she threw away the trash with the glass pieces inside, she was sure she had thrown away her heart. And she felt so good afterwards. The thought that 'it' would never happen again.
It had ever worked so because since the morning that followed that day, she saw men differently. The cuter they appear, the more nauseating they made her feel. And when they try to be nice, she only felt pity for them.
But the Friday of last week has changed something, if not everything. She was surprised. The harder she tried putting on the barricading thoughts, the more he crumbled them. Without effort.
'I'm so sorry, my dear, I wasn't looking,' he'd said to her as he bent to pick her papers which he'd knocked off.
'Please, don't be so mad at me, you see--'
She jerked the papers and cards from him. She raised a wary eye at him. 'Thanks,' she said, ever so grudgingly. She started to rearrange her file.
'Can I help you with that?'
She gave him another look and walked off. She was already at the gate of her office building when he called, 'Miss?'
She turned, doing nothing to mask her impatience.
'Please can I get your card?'
Her brows came together. 'What for?'
'Well, you see, I just started with the Green--' He pointed at the next building. '...apparently we are neighbors. I mean since you work with Armac's, we...we can...it'd just be nice if we connect.'
She noticed he was tense. His forehead had grown sweaty. It might have been this feeble show of vulnerability that got her interested. She wondered if men blush so visibly. But then she also noticed that he was good-looking. She ridded herself of the thought quickly.
She was surprised at herself that she didn't feel nauseated.
'Well, I don't work here,' she said.
'Oh, you don't?'
'I work with Armac's, yes, but not this branch. I'm only here to--' She remembered she doesn't have much time. She opened her purse and handed him a white card.
He looked at it. Ujunwa Okolo. Head, Corporate Communications.
He nodded. He raised his face and saw that she was gone. He half smiled.
When he called that evening, she was quick to notice he's got back his cool. He sounded so in control, so a man.
‘Helo.’ He had to say this a few times.
‘Who’s this?’
‘My name is Ayo. I’d like to speak to Miss O-ju-n-wa please.’ She felt slightly amused at the way he called her name.
She had guessed but she still asked, ‘May I know who Ayo is?’ She had put on her ‘edited’ voice, the one she used to talk to clients at work.
‘I was the guy that knocked off your papers in front of your Armac’s building.’
‘The blind guy, I see.’
She heard an appropriate chuckle. ‘I’d have to say that I’m sorry again.’
She hummed. ‘It’s ok. So why are you calling me?’
‘Oh, I’m just calling to say hi.’
She was surprised he replied so fast.
‘Okay. I’d say thanks then.’
‘You need not to.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a delight hearing from you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Bye, angel.’
He ended the call before she could do it herself. She felt beaten.
He called her every day after that till finally they were laughing and arguing on the phone.
The last time they spent over an hour on the phone. She was cooking but she had had to turn off the gas and walk out to the sitting room.
After they shared a bout of laughter he made about his white boss, his voice turned serious as he told her he needed to see her, that he has something to tell her. She tried but he insisted it wasn’t something they’d talk about on the phone.
Finally the Saturday of their meeting had come. An unusual feeling had been with her all day. Something close to excitement, laced with apprehension.
Two
She waited for the knock to come again.
She opened the door. As surprising as interesting as it is, he was dressed rather sporty, in a white and black striped Polo shirt and dark grey chinos. With his blue Vans trainers, he created the impression of a UNILAG student.
'Good evening.' They said this together.
She smiled and he chuckled, revealing sparkling, well-set teeth. 'Can I come in?' he said.
'Of course.' She showed him in.
He looked round the room. 'Beautiful place.'
'Thank you.'
He moved close to a painting of her on the wall. 'Your mum?'
Her eyes got wide. 'That's me.'
'Oh. The painter should refund you then.'
Interest flickered in her eyes. 'You think it's not nice?'
He said nothing. Then he gave a tiny shrug. ‘Not done well.’
‘What?’
He turned back to her. ‘I see beauty not fully represented.’
She couldn’t help but pull down her eyes. She’d felt a discomforting rush of emotion. Something she hadn’t felt for so long a time, never knew she could still feel. She nearly became angry with herself.
Matters worsening, he took her hand. His palm was soft and warm, almost feminine. 'I'll paint you finer,' he said.
'If I let you.' She took back her hand, hoping he hadn’t noticed they’d grown sweaty in his touch.
'Of course,' he said. ‘I will beg if need be.’
Change the topic now, a voice said in her head. 'I made stew,' she said
'What?'
'I made stew in case you are hungry.'
'Oh I am.'
At the table, his eyes lingered on her all the while they ate.
She felt so weak under his stare. She couldn’t describe how she was feeling. There was just too many emotions whirling up inside her. She thought of herself stupid for allowing the situation in the first place.
‘So what is it that you have to tell me that can’t be said over the phone?’
He dropped his fork suddenly, as if startled. She guessed her voice had come out a little too harsh.
He stared at her.
She watched him. She could have sworn his eyes were growing watery.

kclein:
Brotherly,VERY NICE ONE..U r too talented that ur seasonal movies wil give u cash that wil be enuff for ur grandchildren.

lol, tnks 4 the support

sseunth:
Lesson of ur story:



Never take a girl out when you don't have any money in ur acct as backup


Always let girls know you worth. Don't over do

I will tel him that..tnks

dangote7510:
copy and paste

its so obvious it is and I neva said its mine, I just shared....so y is it ur own headache...shoro niyen?

I guess her ass is acidic and he suld tank God he didn't get his mouth burnt..wait a min' but shoro niye?

I guess her ass is acidic and he sukd tank God he didn't get his mouth burnt..wait a min' but shoro niye?

Tuesday morning,
Shodeinde back then in Year 1..
Yuk I was in the toilet *winks* that morning smiling and
rapping some lines of my song... "Lobatan" in jumbles
"Even when I drop sh*** it still smells right
Ma Flows don't sag, lyrically am uptight
If rap was a church my lines would be Deeper
Though am Off KEYS I still sing better than ALICIA ..."
Wheeeeew!!
Today was going good at least not to mention the usual
"aroma* (lol) of shodeinde's Toilets and environs. My classes
would be rounded up by 12... I smiled, I remembered Topsy
the diploma babe I was currently chykin.., She had this slim
figure like a broom I don't even know what I saw in her
then... it was after today's episode I started to Comfort
myself she ain't good enough for me (˘̯˘ )
Okay we had planned to go and see a movie... On monday
but we couldn't go due to my heavy schedule of lectures...
So my pal, Slamnizzle told me 2 chill till Wednesday that I
could take her then... But to make up for the disappointment
the previous day I refused and decided to take her on that
Tuesday...
I was in year 1 and most times I had been 2 E-Centre 4
movies was on Wednesday when we had free popcorn and
drinks... God blesh wednesdays!!
But without checking ma pocket I carried my big head and
withdrew ma last 4k from the ATM that morning believing it
should be enough for today. So When Topsy called, I told her
2 dress up. While I went 2 treat myself to a sumptuous meal
inside Huski cafteria consuming out of the 4k I had
withdrawn earlier in the day.. She came down around 6pm
looking all dressed and beautiful... In my mind am thinking
"owww so na bcoz of me dis gal make up like dis... Well she's
feeling the boy oo"
So we started moving,
She asked me how we were to move.... I told her "we'll take
a bus from gate 2 sabo... Then trek to e-centre" wallahi d
diploma babe no gree at all oo she talk say "I can't be
climbing bus nor okada at this kinda time for the type of
place we are going"" hmmm... I just checked my pocket...
Mehn my money was now like 3300... Okay Leggo!!
We con reach gate she say make we take CAB!! So I still dey
price with one baba make ihn take 500.. Naso d binsh con
shook mouth and said "pay the 800 naaaw hun so we won't
be late" I open mouth for inside my mind, I no wan expreSs
am for outside coz I dey form big boy... We entered the Cab
and gisted till we got there...
Now inside Ozone... I paid for our movie tickets; 2k... I was
now left with about 6H after paying for cab and Tickets..
Hmmmmm.. Gobe!! In my mind I was thinking..; "Yeeey!!
Temi ti ba mi..ooo... If she like make she no enta bus as we
dey go bak I go just leave am for there ... Ha make she no go
request 4 somefin wey I no fit buy oo""" my mind wasn't
settled.. We waited a little till the movie was about
starting.. As we were moving to the theatre she drew me
back and said... "Won't we get drinks and popcorn?" I smiled
in pains... Errr I said "why not"...
Na so we con approach the counter.. The babe collect one
bag of popcorn and one can drink... Grrrr, Please Note at this
point, I don't even know how to think anymore coz I knew I
was gonna pay for that... So I Collected only popcorn, no
drink... Believing that it should cost less than a drink a
normal person would collect the drink and leave popcorn out
naaaa... I told Topsy "I am watching ma Sugar intake".
Wallahi I abnormal small that day.. So na ihn I ask the fine
babe wey dey counter say how much na the two popcorn
and drink... She said something like 1300naira... Wait!! E be
like say I no hear well... Haa... And I had only 6H in ma pocket,
I just wish say make Trumpet just sound make I disappear
go heaven leave that babe for there (˘̯˘ )
Pause......................... Guys, If na you be me wetin you go do at
this point.. Well am a christian and u see am very humble...
Lolzz. naso I tell the babe say change no dey oo say make
she bring 1K say d
1K wey I get, e No good.. I could feel the Binsh staring at the
side of my face but I couldn't look her in the face I sha add
500 from the 600 wey dey ma hand 2 d babe 1K... Collect 200
change... I con keep d last 300 for ma pocket... And I
DETERMINED Like Kanu Nwankwo that na danfo we go
enter back to Unilag..
We watched the stupid movie... Ihn con even be Nigerian
movie " last flight to abuja or so" my mind No even dey
there... I no even touch ma popcorn.. I just dey reason say I
don fall ma hand Bad bad..
After the movie things were awkward between us. Talk no
just dey flow well when we reached down to go back to
school... Guess wetin the babe talk
You guessed Right.. The babe say make we carry CAB again..
Yepa!! By this time I no fit panic again... JESUS TAKE THE
WHEEL!! D babe just stand 4 one side.
So I follow one cab man negotiate beg am say make ihn take
6H say the babe wey I dey carry na mental patient, make ihn
help us.. Ihn con agree....
inside the cab we didn't say anything to each other she must
be thinking "hmm this guy no sure oo... Ihn be Eba boy" me
no mind coz I no say na only 3H even dey ma hand.. I just use
one calm voice tell d babe say "you know these ATMs could
be annoying, they'll be giving someone damaged money"
she just said "ok"... Na for there I know say I don fu*k up Big
time...
Wait Readers that's not all... When we reached unilag... Naso
I give the baba 3H.. The babe get down begin 2 make phone
call, the Cab man don dey para for me say make I balance
am ihn remaining 3H... As the gal call finish I just tell am say
the man money remain 3H... Naso She commot money pay
again...
Lol as we now entered school, I no even get single 30naira 4
school Cab reach New Hall, and since I don fall my hand bad
bad.. I no want make Topsy pay ma cab fare.. I no even wan
see the binsh again... I just form fake phone call like say
person dey call me. I now told her to be going that I'll meet
her in New hall.
I entered El-kanemi hall and narrated my Ordeal to my
bestie "Tyrant" a rapper like me... Omo d guy laugh me no be
small oo.. con escort me go new hall
Now in new hall I saw Jaybreeze another school artiste... He
consoled me when he heard about my ordeal he didn't laugh
at me at first though until the shock of the whole day
happend.
I was standing at that Suya junction Na ihn I see The Babe
Coming with two of her friends, she was in the middle na so
our eye jam with her two friends, I just waved timidly...
Guess what??,,,!!!! as her friends just sight me na ihn dey
Burst out in laughter.... Gawd!!! I have Never Felt More
Embarrased in my Whole life... Even Jaybreeze con dey laugh
me...
Stupid Binshes!!! Why she go tell her friends naaaa.... I just
Run upstairs enter ma room.. I no dey come outside anyhow
again... I really fall ma hand bad bad!!!
Its true I planned 2 take her out... But e be like say na she
take me out instead. Is dat bad?? (˘̯˘ ) mstcheeeew!! You
answer

This life ehn....new tinz dey always dey under heaven no mind dem

I’d like to share with you the most meaningful
experience I’ve had in my 2+ years of flying.
While boarding our flight from Nigeria last
night, the man you see in this picture was
seated in an aisle seat. As I walked by him, he
waived me down and after I approached, he
said “I must go to the toilet to relieve myself.”
I said “Ok, sir, the toilet is right behind you,”
pointing towards the bathrooms near the back
galley. He repeated his request, but this time
he was motioning both hands towards his lap
and politely said “but I need to go to the
toilet, please.”
I assumed he was just reiterating his need to
pee, so I again pointed towards the aft
bathroom. He continued to motion towards
his lap, but this time he grabbed his seat belt.
It hit me; he had placed his seat belt on, but
had no idea how to lift the buckle to release
the belt! I apologized for not having
understood, smiled, and showed him how to
release his seatbelt. I shared this story with
the crew shortly after and we were all humbled
by the experience. But the story doesn’t end
here.
Throughout the 12 hour flight, the man was as
nice and generous as could be. He was smiling,
enjoying the meals and entertainment, while
always offering a genuine “thank you.”
In the last hour of the flight, he came to the
back galley and was just looking around in
awe, fascinated by the plane. He and I began
to talk…
In his decades of living, today was this man’s
first time in an airplane, his first time seeing a
seatbelt, and his first time leaving his small
village. As a mathematics and geography
teacher, he’d always dreamed of visiting the
United States. So he saved money his entire
life so that one day he could purchase a flight,
a new suit, and a camera.
Today was that day, and today I had the
distinct honor of being able to serve him on
the first leg of that journey.
I’m moved to tears that I could be so lucky to
meet this man. Of the thousands of
passengers I’ve ever served, of the rich and
famous, successful and powerful, frequent
travelers and million milers, serving this one
man – in coach – was the greatest honor I’ve
had as a Flight Attendant.

Abayor7:

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U didn't even read the story from the begining, he told us it wasn't his story but would like us to learn from it.

I wonder ooo but anyway tanks bro...u got my bak!