Am as confused as Aishat.. Larrysun, congratulations for successfully messing with my head..

LarrySun:
ROOOOOYYYYYYYYY! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN

Wow! It's been such a long time. How are you doing?

I'm fine bro
I've been buried in my academic pursuits. Ended a while ago praise God. Decided to come and see how the old crew was doing. Not bad from what I can see

Ok then who really is the ghost? Larry you can't mess with my head joor

Truth be told, I am more confused tha Aishat. Thanks LarrySun for making me more confused.

Confusion! Everywhere!

Mr Larry, thank you o you have completely scater my head with this Aisha ghost story I had to read again still don't know what to believe. hmmmmm ghost everywhere.

Vulcanheph:
Flash 19 spiral.

Here's my theory, the Narrator's older self succeeded in time travel, but he knew that killing his childhood friend would be the movitation he would need to accomplish the time travel, since he knew that his teeenage friend would do everything to know why he would kill his best friend...

Dear mr Larrysun, My theory of spiral 1 was partly correct , although the Narrator killed his friend unknowingly not purposely as i theorized,
For a story writer your knowledge of physics is Breathtaking......

Finally the last flash concerning aishat the Ghost girl really caused my brain to go Haywire......

THE JOURNEY TO A THOUSAND FLASH

Flash 25: Kingdom

Specially dedicated to a wonderful friend - Gabriel Eigbe.

Many years ago, a certain family was massacred, but the child survived. He was taken in by a lineage of slaves.

***

A long standing rift had existed between two royal families for generations. Nobody could really tell which family was next to ascend the throne of Kachi Kingdom - the Akenzuas had claimed to be the next in line, the Gazis insisted that it was their turn to climb the throne. These two royal families were desperate to wear the crown, and they were determined to do anything to win the royal race.

Chief Alooma, however, was not only the kingmaker, he was also the town's peacemaker - and he was also the richest man in the whole of Kachiland; he had donated a fortune to medical research in the land. His job was to mend the rift between the two families; but all his effort to restore peace was disavailed - neither of the families was willing to compromise. Because of the disagreement going on between the Akenzua Family and the Gazi Family, Kachiland had no king for a long time after the death of the last king.

And so when it was clear that neither family would ascend the throne except one gave in to another, the two families started plotting attacks against each other.

The Ghazis, realising that the first to take the offensive would most likely ascend the throne, threw the first stone. While the family was still deciding on a way to attack, the heir of the Gazi family, Rilwan Gazi, hired an assassin to kill the heir of the Akenzuas - Fifi Akenzua.

"Kill him and get rid of his body," Idris had told Ekong, the killer.

The killer had nodded in understanding.

"If they don't have an heir," Rilwan had explained further, "they won't lay claim to the throne. When I become the king, you'll be my chief of security."

Ekong had been flattered. He had always been fascinated by royalty but he was from the lineage of slaves - he knew he would never become king even though he knew about the history of his existence. The closest he could get to the throne was to become the bodyguard of the king. He was also a eunuch; he would never father a child. He decided that if he couldn't bring a soul to the world, then it was only right for him to take as many away from the world as possible - so he became a killer.

Early the following morning, Ekong sought out Prince Fifi Akenzua. Keeping his gun close by his side, Ekong had located the target. The prince was just driving out of his family compound when Ekong appeared in his own car. The killer decided to tail the target to a better location.

After about thirty minutes of following behind the target, he suddenly overtook the car and stepped out with his gun drawn. The road was quiet. It was the perfect spot. Ekong quickly got out of the car, walked over to Fifi who was still behind the wheel, and shot him squarely in the face. Fifi died immediately.

Ekong was meticulous. He calmly lifted the corpse from the driver's seat and placed him in the booth of the car. The killer parked his car at the side of the road and drove the victim's car away - the owner of the car was lying dead in the booth.

The killer had his plan. He would throw the corpse over the city bridge into the river below and then drive back to where he parked his own car. He would leave the victim's car there at the roadside and drive off in his own car. It would be perfect. The corpse would never be discovered; the fishes would devour it.

Everything worked according to how Ekong planned it. He had thrown the corpse into the river and was driving back to his car when a truck suddenly appeared. It was too late for him to react as he drove head-on towards the truck. There was a loud crash. The car Ekong drove somersaulted three times before it rested on its side.

The truck, apparently undamaged, was driven away as Ekong struggled for his life. He was trying to get out of the car but was trapped by the seatbelt. He was uninjured save for the deep gash on his right temple. The fuel tank had been punctured and petrol was beginning to leak out.

For over ten minutes, Ekong was still trying to free himself. Petrol was now all around him and a little spark was beginning to ignite. While Ekong was struggling to break free, one vehicle drove by since the accident happened.

It was Chief Alooma - the peacemaker. Just as he stepped out of his car, the spark caught the petrol and caused a great fire. At this moment, Ekong had broken free of his entrapment but he was not very lucky. His clothes had been soaked with the petrol. As he tried to run off, the fire engulfed him.

Chief Alooma saw someone on fire. The person was screaming and running around blindly. The peacemaker quite took of his coat and covered up the burning man with it, dousing the fire in the process. But the damage had already been done. The fire had burned off Ekong's skin; he was barely alive.

The chief quickly carried the victim into his own car. As he was about to get behind the wheel, he noticed a driver's licence on the floor. On picking it up, he saw that it belonged to Prince Fifi Akenzua. It was the prince's car that was burning.

As he sat behind the wheel and turned the ignition, he said to himself:

"That's Prince Fifi in the backseat. I must save him. He must not die."

As he drove away, Ekong lost consciousness in the backseat.

***

On getting to the hospital, Chief Alooma thought the accident victim was dead but the doctor confirmed that he was still alive. Ekong was quickly rushed to ICU.

“Doctor, you must save him,” Alooma told the doctor, “He must not die – he’s Prince Fifi Akenzua.”

“He’s badly burnt,” replied the doctor, “His skin is totally peeled off.”

“Can you restore his body back to its original state?”

The doctor thought deeply about the question before replying. “To be able to do that, I’d need a picture of him.”

The chief quickly produced the driver’s license he had found at the crash site. “Can this do?” he asked anxiously.

“It’s a start but I’ll need a complete picture of him.”

And so while the doctors began to work on restoring the victim’s body, Chief Alooma visited the Akenzuas and related the bad news. Prince Fifi had been in a ghastly accident and was being treated by the doctors. He requested for the prince’s sharper picture and took it to the doctors.

The surgery spanned three months; and when Ekong was released from the hospital, he had the body of Fifi.

“He suffered amnesia due to the impact of the accident,” the presiding doctor informed the family, “He doesn’t remember anything. His memory is totally blank. It will take a while before his memory returns. You have a lot of work to do in helping him through this recovery process.

The family took Ekong home and shared details about Fifi to him.

You are the heir of the throne of Kachiland.

You have a pregnant wife. She’ll soon put to bed.

You must fight for what’s rightly yours.

It was another three months before Ekong learnt everything he needed to know. In the absence of Fifi, Rilwan Gazi had been elected as the next king of the land, and his coronation was getting close.

Two weeks before the ceremony, Ekong, now Fifi Akenzua, invaded the Gazi home and killed everyone, including Rilwan – the man who had sent him to kill the prince of the rival family.
No one suspected Ekong of carrying out the killings. And since the Gazi family had been wiped out, Ekong was crowned the king of Kachiland a fortnight later.

But as soon as Ekong was crowned king by the kingmaker, he secretly ordered the execution of all Akenzuas. He didn't suffer any amnesia after all. He was out for revenge. The two families, the Akenzuas and the Gazis, had been responsible for the massacre of his family when he was a child.

However, because he knew he would never father a child, he spared Fifi’s pregnant wife and made her his queen in the palace.

Nobody knew who he truly was.

Who is this man called LarrySun,
Who dazzles like the sun.

tunjilomo:
Who is this man called LarrySun,
Who dazzles like the sun.

I'm not impressed

LarrySun:
***

"I saw Rikat again last night," Aishat told Doctor Hassan again.

"Oh come on, Aishat! Are the drugs I've been giving not working?"

"I'm telling you! I saw her."

"Ghosts don't exist. They've never been! All you've been seeing are simply illusions. They're not real."

"You see them only when you don't know they are dead," Aishat murmured.

"What did you say?"

"Oh, never mind. I just remember what a woman told me in the market."

"I think you need to return to your room."

Aishat looked sad. "I just want to be believed. I want someone to know that it's not hallucinations. Ghosts really exist."

"I can't believe what's not real."

"I want you to follow me to my room," she said, "If you still don't believe me, I'll agree that I've been hallucinating."

"What's in your room?"

"Just follow me. It'll only take a few seconds."

Aishat led the way. The doctor followed reluctantly. "This better be worth my time."

They walked through the corridor. When they arrived at the door of her room, Aishat asked the doctor to open the door.

"What's behind the door?"

"Just open, Doctor. You'll find out."

Doctor Hassan slowly turned the knob and pushed the door in. He shrank back in horror at what he saw.

Aishat smiled and said, "Do you believe me now?"

"This is impossible!" He was slowly backing away from the room, and also away from Aishat.

He wanted to look away, but he could not. He was staring into the room. Aishat was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, her head was rested on the table. There was blood oozing from her temple where she had shot herself. The gun was lying on the floor and her dead eyes stared at the entrance.

"You - you are a ghost!" Doctor Hassan said in shaky voice.

"Yes, I am, Doctor. Unfortunately, I had to kill myself to make you believe."

"You're a ghost, Aishat! You killed yourself!"

He collapsed to the ground.

"I told you ghosts exist but you didn't believe me. Now that I have convinced you, I need to go and visit my family for the last time, before they hear the news about my death."

"Your family?" Hassan asked, his face registered further surprise.

"Yes, my parents and my two kids. I told you about my husband. I told you he died."

"But your parents are dead, Aishat. They've been dead for long. And you are not married. You have no husband, no kids."

"What are you talking about?"

"You've been in this hospital for two years. We've been taking care of you."

"You're saying nonsense, Doctor. I only came here a couple of weeks ago."

"No, that's the drugs. The drugs made you think you walked in here on your own, but you didn't. You've been here for years. The drugs reshaped your mind, Aishat. You were the first test subject for the drugs. Apparently, they've been putting various ideas in your head."

"I don't believe you! That's a lie!"

"You killed yourself, Aishat! You killed yourself!"

Then suddenly, the main door of the hospital burst open and Aishat saw her mother and father rush in, they were each carrying her kids.

"Mama! Papa!" Aishat called.

Her father walked towards her. "We've been searching around for you for days, Aishat. What are you doing here?"

"He told me you're dead."

Her father frowned. "Dead? Who has been telling you that nonsense?"

"Him, Doctor Hassan," she pointed at the man lying on the floor.

Her father's eyes followed her gaze. "I'm not seeing anyone there."

"There he is - he lying down there!" Aishat pointed again.

"There's no one there, my daughter," Aishat's mother said.

Aishat was confused.

"Who are you talking to, Aishat?" Doctor Hassan asked.

"My parents," she replied him.

"Where are they?"

"They're standing here! Can't you see them?"

The doctor sat erect. "Aishat, there's no one there."

"Here they are! My mom and dad! They're carrying my kids!"

"I told you. Your parents are dead. You never had any kid. You were never married."

"Aishat, who are you talking to?" her father asked.

"The doctor! Doctor Hassan! There he is!" She was weeping now. "Can't you see him?"

"There's no one here. There's no one in this hospital, Aishat! This building is deserted. It has been deserted for three years. Something happened in this hospital three years ago. Someone with a strange virus was brought in. Her virus killed everyone in the hospital. All the doctors, nurses and patients died. This building is haunted, it's haunted by their ghosts."

"That's impossible!"

"It's the truth, my daughter. We have to get out of here now. This place is evil."

"I thought you don't believe in ghosts," Aishat said.

"That's the rumour. If there are really ghosts here, then you must be seeing them. Only you see ghosts."

Aishat turned to the doctor. "You're a ghost, aren't you?"

"Me? Ghost? Who is telling you that? Aishat, don't believe whatever they're telling you! They're the ghosts, your parents. If they're not ghosts, they're not supposed to see you. You're now a ghost, remember? You killed yourself. They are dead, that's why they could see you. They've been dead for long. It's the drugs messing with your head."

She was very confused. She didn't know who to believe.

"Papa, mama! I'm a ghost."

Her parents stared at each other. "Ghost? How come? Is it the doctor that told you that? Don't believe him! He's lying to you! You're not a ghost! You're a living human being!"

"Look at the room," she said.

Her parents peeked into the room.

"What are we supposed to see?" her father asked.

"Are you not seeing who is in the room?"

"There's no one in the room, Aishat," her mother said.

"My daughter, we have to leave now," said her father, "Your husband is waiting."

Aishat frowned. "My husband?"

"Yes, he's waiting for you at home."

"Abdul is alive?"

"He's alive and well," said her mother.

Aishat shook her head. "That's not true. Abdul died in a car accident two years ago."

"Of course not! You were both together living happily until you suddenly left home. You left him and your kids. We'd been searching for you for over two weeks. Oh! Look at how thin you are!" Her mother started weeping. To Aishat, she sounded like the weeping Rikat.

"Whatever they may be telling you is a lie," said Doctor Hassan. "Do not listen to them. You have no parents. No family."

Aishat walked towards the doctor and bent before him. "You may be right. I don't know who to believe anymore. Maybe it's really the drugs messing with my head. Maybe not. I find it hard to believe you just like I'm finding it hard to believe them too. But most importantly, I can't believe myself anymore. To them, I'm a living person. To you, I'm a ghost. To me, I don't know who I am anymore. I remember shooting myself in the head. You can see my corpse. I can see my corpse, but they can't. Maybe they're really not ghosts, but then again, they say Abdul is alive. I know for a fact that my husband is dead. Maybe they're really ghosts. They can't see you, and you can't see them either. They tell me you're dead, you tell me they're dead. A ghost I met in the market sometimes ago told me that living people could only see ghosts if they don't know they are dead. If they do, the living will never see the dead. They know you're dead, that's why they can't see you. You know they're dead, that's why you can't see them. Maybe I never met any ghost at the market. Maybe it's all the drugs. Maybe both of you are ghosts, maybe that's why you can both communicate with me. Maybe Rikat didn't shoot herself. Maybe she really brought a virus into this hospital. Maybe all the nurses, doctors and patients of this hospital are ghosts. There are a lot of maybes. I wish this was just a bad dream. I wish to wake up right now from this nightmare. Unfortunately, it's not a dream. It's my reality. Am I a ghost or not? I can't even tell.

"I must pick a side. I choose to pick my family. Even in death, family is everything. If it's the drug messing with my mind, at least I won't be taking them again. Eventually, their effects will wear off and I'd know the truth. For now, I go with my family."

She stood up and said,"Goodbye, Doctor Hassan."

The doctor watched her as she stepped out of the door. She was walking out alone.

The End

©Larry Sun, September 2020

Apologies for quoting it all, but wow!

LarrySun:
THE JOURNEY TO A THOUSAND FLASH

Flash 25: Kingdom

Specially dedicated to a wonderful friend - Gabriel Eigbe.

Many years ago, a certain family was massacred, but the child survived. He was taken in by a lineage of slaves.

***

A long standing rift had existed between two royal families for generations. Nobody could really tell which family was next to ascend the throne of Kachi Kingdom - the Akenzuas had claimed to be the next in line, the Gazis insisted that it was their turn to climb the throne. These two royal families were desperate to wear the crown, and they were determined to do anything to win the royal race.

Chief Alooma, however, was not only the kingmaker, he was also the town's peacemaker - and he was also the richest man in the whole of Kachiland; he had donated a fortune to medical research in the land. His job was to mend the rift between the two families; but all his effort to restore peace was disavailed - neither of the families was willing to compromise. Because of the disagreement going on between the Akenzua Family and the Gazi Family, Kachiland had no king for a long time after the death of the last king.

And so when it was clear that neither family would ascend the throne except one gave in to another, the two families started plotting attacks against each other.

The Ghazis, realising that the first to take the offensive would most likely ascend the throne, threw the first stone. While the family was still deciding on a way to attack, the heir of the Gazi family, Rilwan Gazi, hired an assassin to kill the heir of the Akenzuas - Fifi Akenzua.

"Kill him and get rid of his body," Idris had told Ekong, the killer.

The killer had nodded in understanding.

"If they don't have an heir," Rilwan had explained further, "they won't lay claim to the throne. When I become the king, you'll be my chief of security."

Ekong had been flattered. He had always been fascinated by royalty but he was from the lineage of slaves - he knew he would never become king even though he knew about the history of his existence. The closest he could get to the throne was to become the bodyguard of the king. He was also a eunuch; he would never father a child. He decided that if he couldn't bring a soul to the world, then it was only right for him to take as many away from the world as possible - so he became a killer.

Early the following morning, Ekong sought out Prince Fifi Akenzua. Keeping his gun close by his side, Ekong had located the target. The prince was just driving out of his family compound when Ekong appeared in his own car. The killer decided to tail the target to a better location.

After about thirty minutes of following behind the target, he suddenly overtook the car and stepped out with his gun drawn. The road was quiet. It was the perfect spot. Ekong quickly got out of the car, walked over to Fifi who was still behind the wheel, and shot his squarely in the face. Fifi died immediately.

Ekong was meticulous. He calmly lifted the corpse from the driver's seat and placed him in the booth of the car. The killer parked his car at the side of the road and drove the victim's car away - the owner of the car was lying dead in the booth.

The killer had his plan. He would throw the corpse over the city bridge into the river below and then drive back to where he parked his own car. He would leave the victim's car there at the roadside and drive off in his own car. It would be perfect. The corpse would never be discovered; the fishes would devour it.

Everything worked according to how Ekong planned it. He had thrown the corpse into the river and was driving back to his car when a truck suddenly appeared. It was too late for him to react as he drove head-on towards the truck. There was a loud crash. The car Ekong drove somersaulted three times before it rested on its side.

The truck, apparently undamaged, was driven away as Ekong struggled for his life. He was trying to get out of the car but was trapped by the seatbelt. He was uninjured save for the deep gash on his right temple. The fuel tank had been punctured and petrol was beginning to leak out.

For over ten minutes, Ekong was still trying to free himself. Petrol was now all around him and a little spark was beginning to ignite. While Ekong was struggling to break free, one vehicle drove by since the accident happened.

It was Chief Alooma - the peacemaker. Just as he stepped out of his car, the spark caught the petrol and caused a great fire. At this moment, Ekong had broken free of his entrapment but he was not very lucky. His clothes had been soaked with the petrol. As he tried to run off, the fire engulfed him.

Chief Alooma saw someone on fire. The person was screaming and running around blindly. The peacemaker quite took of his coat and covered up the burning man with it, dousing the fire in the process. But the damage had already been done. The fire had burned off Ekong's skin; he was barely alive.

The chief quickly carried the victim into his own car. As he was about to get behind the wheel, he noticed a driver's licence on the floor. On picking it up, he saw that it belonged to Prince Fifi Akenzua. It was the prince's car that was burning.

As he sat behind the wheel and turned the ignition, he said to himself:

"That's Prince Fifi in the backseat. I must save him. He must not die."

As he drove away, Ekong lost consciousness in the backseat.

***

On getting to the hospital, Chief Alooma thought the accident victim was dead but the doctor confirmed that he was still alive. Ekong was quickly rushed to ICU.

“Doctor, you must save him,” Alooma told the doctor, “He must not die – he’s Prince Fifi Akenzua.”

“He’s badly burnt,” replied the doctor, “His skin is totally peeled off.”

“Can you restore his body back to its original state?”

The doctor thought deeply about the question before replying. “To be able to do that, I’d need a picture of him.”

The chief quickly produced the driver’s license he had found at the crash site. “Can this do?” he asked anxiously.

“It’s a start but I’ll need a complete picture of him.”

And so while the doctors began to work on restoring the victim’s body, Chief Alooma visited the Akenzuas and related the bad news. Prince Fifi had been in a ghastly accident and was being treated by the doctors. He requested for the prince’s sharper picture and took it to the doctors.

The surgery spanned three months; and when Ekong was released from the hospital, he had the body of Fifi.

“He suffered amnesia due to the impact of the accident,” the presiding doctor informed the family, “He doesn’t remember anything. His memory is totally blank. It will take a while before his memory returns. You have a lot of work to do in helping him through this recovery process.

The family took Ekong home and shared details about Fifi to him.

You are the heir of the throne of Kachiland.

You have a pregnant wife. She’ll soon put to bed.

You must fight for what’s rightly yours.

It was another three months before Ekong learnt everything he needed to know. In the absence of Fifi, Rilwan Gazi had been elected as the next king of the land, and his coronation was getting close.

Two weeks before the ceremony, Ekong, now Fifi Akenzua, invaded the Gazi home and killed everyone, including Rilwan – the man who had sent him to kill the prince of the rival family.
No one suspected Ekong of carrying out the killings. And since the Gazi family had been wiped out, Ekong was crowned the king of Kachiland a fortnight later.

But as soon as Ekong was crowned king by the kingmaker, he secretly ordered the execution of all Akenzuas. He didn't suffer any amnesia after all. He was out for revenge. The two families, the Akenzuas and the Gazis, had been responsible for the massacre of his family when he was a child.

However, because he knew he would never father a child, he spared Fifi’s pregnant wife and made her his queen in the palace.

Nobody knew who he truly was.

brilliant larry,these are the kind of story Africa magic epic will be looking for

thanks again, you are really good in this.

collins1895:


brilliant larry,these are the kind of story Africa magic epic will be looking for

no they are looking for Crappy stories

Bukolaberry:
thanks again, you are really good in thuis.

tanks.. anyways am a music video directors & I work wit puffy daddy, davido, beyansi, ritana, wisskid& others. I all so right literature books please can u kindly quickly send me yor full size naaaaked picture so I can look it to invite u for audition & for literature book. Please hurry kindly

Weldone. Larrysun.

You are doing well

THE JOURNEY TO A THOUSAND FLASH

Flash 26: The Figure

This is for you, Horpsyjay - you requested for it.

When I was a child, I would sometimes sleep off on the floor but always found myself waking up on the bed. Of course, my parents were always the guardian angels whenever I slept like that. Either my dad or mum would carry me while I slept and gently lay me down on my bed.

But twenty years later, now that I was a grownup, I would sleep on the bed and when I woke up, I often found myself on the floor. Many adults have experienced this; it is simple - we wake up on the floor because we roll off the bed during sleep.

But if my situation had been as simple as that, I wouldn't have worried; the truth is that 'simple' can no way describe my experience - I believe the best term, in this regard, is 'mysterious'.

Sometimes, my situation would go beyond just waking up on the floor. In some cases, I would wake up wearing a different pair of clothes from the one I slept in. In other cases, I would feel strangely full - an indication that I had recently eaten, the food was always different from the supper I took the night before. And whenever I checked my pantry, I would discover that a certain quantity of food had been taken. The kitchen would reveal that a meal had recently been prepared.

The only logical explanation was that I had done all these in a complete state of fugue. That, of course, would explain why I never had any recollection of the events that happened in this state.

And yet, deep within me, I felt something a lot more mysterious than that had happened. Each time I woke up, I always felt something had been taken from me. The feeling of strange incompleteness would overwhelm me every time I opened my eyes. If I was a lady, I would have thought someone always stole into my room in the middle of the night to violate my body - but that was not the case. In fact, the possibility of such happening was highly unlikely; because, besides the fact that I was a man and had never noticed any residual effect of unbridled sexual regatta, I always bolted my door from behind. And whenever I woke up, I always found the bolts particularly intact - no indication of any form of foul-play could be established.

At some point, I imagined that an intruder might have gained entry into my room via the ceiling; but then again, that was ruled out. The asbestos didn't appear to be tampered with. Besides, my room was, to some extent, burglary-proof; a strong iron bar had been professionally laid behind the ceiling during construction. It was a precaution against any form of intrusion. So, the idea that someone had stolen into my room should not hold water.

Therefore, after considering every angle, the only logical explanation was the fugue state. Even if I had consulted a shrink about this matter, there was no doubt that we would arrive at the same obvious conclusion. But like I already hinted, something eerie sufficed.

One night, I decided to carry out a personal investigation. When it was time for me to sleep I first firmly bolted my door, then I brought out my phone, activated its night vision and set the video recorder in motion. I hid the phone in a spot where the camera directly captured my bed and the majority of the room; and I made the phone as inconspicuous as possible. I knew I was only reaching, since there was no way an uninvited guest could have gained access to the room.

I soon dozed off and, hours later, opened my eyes to the rays of the morning sun that came through the window. When I checked the time on my bedside clock, it was already past 8. I sat up groggily; at least I hadn't woken up on the floor this time around. I was grateful. I looked at the door, it was just as I had left it before I slept. Then I suddenly remembered the phone. I quickly jumped out of bed and located it from where I had hidden it.

To my surprise, the video was still recording. It had been recording for the past ten hours. I was impressed. I pressed the 'STOP' key and returned to my bed to watch everything from the beginning. I was hoping that this would provide the answers I sought.

And it did - but it was not the answer I was prepared for.

For the first two hours, I was staring at myself sleeping. I didn't want to fast-forward because I was afraid of missing anything. It was like watching a dry wall. Occasionally, I would toss and turn but nothing significant happened.

Then it happened!

It was an intruder after all. How the figure entered the room is still a mystery to me. I watched in horror as the intruder hovered before me on the bed. It was like I was staring at an apparition. I couldn't catch his face. It seemed like the figure knew where the camera was and he was intentionally shielding his face away from it. To be quite frank, I couldn't even tell if the figure was a male or female.

Then I saw the figure produce a dagger. First, he slit my throat - I watched in horror as I gurgled; blood rushed to my mouth and I began to spasm violently. Then the intruder raised the dagger up and brought it down hard on my chest. The spasm stopped immediately and I laid there still - very much dead. I could see my dead eyes staring at the ceiling. There was blood everywhere - the ceiling, the walls, the floor, the bedsheet - my room was like an abattoir.

The killer dug out the dagger from my chest and kept it away. Then he dragged my body off the bed and out of the room. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Blood trail followed as he dragged me out of my fortress. After a while, the figure returned and took my position on the bed. He didn't even bother to wipe off the blood. His face was still shielded from the camera.

My hands shook violently as I watched the intruder sleep in my bed. For the next six hours, the figure slept peacefully in my bed. I couldn't stop the video. It was like I was in a trance. I watched as dawn approached. The figure didn't rise from the bed within all these hours. The sun shone into the room and I watched as he turned around to the complete view of the camera and rose from bed.

I was staring at myself.

I sat groggily on the bed, in the puddle of my own blood. Then I remembered the camera and jumped to my feet. I saw myself walk towards the phone, pick it from where I had hidden it the night before, and press 'STOP'.

The video ended.

I looked around the room. Nothing seemed out of place. There was no blood anywhere.

And, I am alive!

©Larry Sun
November, 2020

Larry larry. Oshheey. Thanks for making my brain go 360. I had to read over again just to be sure i missed nothing out. So you're telling me, He is the figure or the figure is in him?

LarrySun:
THE JOURNEY TO A THOUSAND FLASH

Flash 26: The Figure

This is for you, Horpsyjay - you requested for it.

When I was a child, I would sometimes sleep off on the floor but always found myself waking up on the bed. Of course, my parents were always the guardian angels whenever I slept like that. Either my dad or mum would carry me while I slept and gently lay me down on my bed.

But twenty years later, now that I was a grownup, I would sleep on the bed and when I woke up, I often found myself on the floor. Many adults have experienced this; it is simple - we wake up on the floor because we roll off the bed during sleep.

But if my situation had been as simple as that, I wouldn't have worried; the truth is that 'simple' can no way describe my experience - I believe the best term, in this regard, is 'mysterious'.

Sometimes, my situation would go beyond just waking up on the floor. In some cases, I would wake up wearing a different pair of clothes from the one I slept in. In other cases, I would feel strangely full - an indication that I had recently eaten, the food was always different from the supper I took the night before. And whenever I checked my pantry, I would discover that a certain quantity of food had been taken. The kitchen would reveal that a meal had recently been prepared.

The only logical explanation was that I had done all these in a complete state of fugue. That, of course, would explain why I never had any recollection of the events that happened in this state.

And yet, deep within me, I felt something a lot more mysterious than that had happened. Each time I woke up, I always felt something had been taken from me. The feeling of strange incompleteness would overwhelm me every time I opened my eyes. If I was a lady, I would have thought someone always stole into my room in the middle of the night to violate my body - but that was not the case. In fact, the possibility of such happening was highly unlikely; because, besides the fact that I was a man and had never noticed any residual effect of unbridled sexual regatta, I always bolted my door from behind. And whenever I woke up, I always found the bolts particularly intact - no indication of any form of foul-play could be established.

At some point, I imagined that an intruder might have gained entry into my room via the ceiling; but then again, that was ruled out. The asbestos didn't appear to be tampered with. Besides, my room was, to some extent, burglary-proof; a strong iron bar had been professionally laid behind the ceiling during construction. It was a precaution against any form of intrusion. So, the idea that someone had stolen into my room should not hold water.

Therefore, after considering every angle, the only logical explanation was the fugue state. Even if I had consulted a shrink about this matter, there was no doubt that we would arrive at the same obvious conclusion. But like I already hinted, something eerie sufficed.

One night, I decided to carry out a personal investigation. When it was time for me to sleep I first firmly bolted my door, then I brought out my phone, activated its night vision and set the video recorder in motion. I hid the phone in a spot where the camera directly captured my bed and the majority of the room; and I made the phone as inconspicuous as possible. I knew I was only reaching, since there was no way an uninvited guest could have gained access to the room.

I soon dozed off and, hours later, opened my eyes to the rays of the morning sun that came through the window. When I checked the time on my bedside clock, it was already past 8. I sat up groggily; at least I hadn't woken up on the floor this time around. I was grateful. I looked at the door, it was just as I had left it before I slept. Then I suddenly remembered the phone. I quickly jumped out of bed and located it from where I had hidden it.

To my surprise, the video was still recording. It had been recording for the past ten hours. I was impressed. I pressed the 'STOP' key and returned to my bed to watch everything from the beginning. I was hoping that this would provide the answers I sought.

And it did - but it was not the answer I was prepared for.

For the first two hours, I was staring at myself sleeping. I didn't want to fast-forward because I was afraid of missing anything. It was like watching a dry wall. Occasionally, I would toss and turn but nothing significant happened.

Then it happened!

It was an intruder after all. How the figure entered the room is still a mystery to me. I watched in horror as the intruder hovered before me on the bed. It was like I was staring at an apparition. I couldn't catch his face. It seemed like the figure knew where the camera was and he was intentionally shielding his face away from it. To be quite frank, I couldn't even tell if the figure was a male or female.

Then I saw the figure produce a dagger. First, he slit my throat - I watched in horror as I gurgled; blood rushed to my mouth and I began to spasm violently. Then the intruder raised the dagger up and brought it down hard on my chest. The spasm stopped immediately and I laid there still - very much dead. I could see my dead eyes staring at the ceiling. There was blood everywhere - the ceiling, the walls, the floor, the bedsheet - my room was like an abattoir.

The killer dug out the dagger from my chest and kept it away. Then he dragged my body off the bed and out of the room. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Blood trail followed as he dragged me out of my fortress. After a while, the figure returned and took my position on the bed. He didn't even bother to wipe off the blood. His face was still shielded from the camera.

My hands shook violently as I watched the intruder sleep in my bed. For the next six hours, the figure slept peacefully in my bed. I couldn't stop the video. It was like I was in a trance. I watched as dawn approached. The figure didn't rise from the bed within all these hours. The sun shone into the room and I watched as he turned around to the complete view of the camera and rose from bed.

I was staring at myself.

I sat groggily on the bed, in the puddle of my own blood. Then I remembered the camera and jumped to my feet. I saw myself walk towards the phone, pick it from where I had hidden it the night before, and press 'STOP'.

The video ended.

I looked around the room. Nothing seemed out of place. There was no blood anywhere.

And, I am alive!

©Larry Sun
November, 2020

I Have been trying to understand,but I give up

Its been so long I used nairaland. Gosh I've missed so much. Hi Larry

thanks again, but seriously I don't understand , i had to read all over again still the same, I tried to picture still same , thank you I for stressing my brain again after the ghost story.

THE JOURNEY TO A THOUSAND FLASH

Flash 27: The Full Moon

For Akintayo Akinjide (Divepen)

I lived in a small village in the south-western part of the country. After careful thoughts, I have chosen to keep my name and that of my village to myself. The singular reason for jumping on this wagon of personal discretion is simply because the village is now nonexistent, yet it exists; I am dead, yet I still live.

The absurdity and horror began after the New Yam festival. There were about a thousand of us in the village, but one by one we all fell when it appeared - it was the full moon.

The first set of people who saw it were initially fascinated by its beauty. The full moon had always come out in its time for hundreds of years in the village, but there was something incredibly unique about this particular one. Besides the fact that it seemed about close enough to be touched, it was a ball of horror that, at first, shimmered through cumulus blue clouds scattered like popsicles across the blanketing spectral yonder, then finally luminous against our tormented little village. It is quite remarkable how nature of such magnificence could arouse such terror.

Those who saw it and marvelled at its beauty were deep-sixed into a brief phase of hypnosis before they started to go mad one after the other. Obviously, the moon had something to do with their insanity; its sight messed with their heads - their sense of reason, their rationality.

The first incident of the horror was that of the oldest man in the village who easily lifted a grinding stone too heavy for even young able-bodied men of the village to carry. The source of the old man's incredible power must have been the moon - that was the only credible explanation for the sheer stupefaction. The old man, who had seen four score and ten rainy seasons, lifted the stone high above his own head and then released his grip on it. We watched in horror as the huge rock crashed into the man's skull and shattered it against the hard ground. He died instantly, bits of his manipulated brain could be seen as it popped from the head already knocked horribly askew.

It turned out that only a handful of us felt revulsion at the suicide we just witnessed - only a handful of those with their rationality still intact, those of us who were yet to look up at the sky and admire the beauty of the full moon. Those who had seen the moon showed no emotion whatsoever; instead, they went ahead to end their own lives in their own singular unique manners. A teenage boy produced a knife from the kitchen and drove it through his own throat in one swift motion. The knife was driven so deep that it's pointed end came out the back of his neck.

It seemed like they were all under a trance. They didn't kill themselves simultaneously, they rather did it in turns. One would wait for the other to die before going ahead to take their own life. A hunter had put the barrel of his shotgun between his mouth and pulled the trigger. A palm-wine tapper had seppukued himself with his own dagger. His bowels had flooded out of his stomach into his hands as he cut himself almost in half. Mysteriously, none of them cried out as they took their own lives. One even doused himself in paraffin oil and set himself ablaze - there was no cry of agony. A fisherman trying his luck at late night fishery heard the cawing of a crow and had looked up to the sky by reflex. He jumped from his canoe into the body of dark water, drowning himself.

There was a pattern to this visceral of horror. Besides the fact that these felos-de-se took turns in killing themselves, they posed no danger to other people. None of them attacked any one of us; even when some of us who hadn't gone mad attempted to stop some of them from committing suicide, they didn't attack us, they instead shook us off with unbelievable strength - both old and young alike. We couldn't stop them from carrying out the acts. In the end, we could do nothing but watch the horror. The gods had cursed us, and so they sent the evil moon to damn us one after the other. None of our traditional priests could ascertain the cause of this madness, this terror - we were on our own. If you wanted to stay alive, you must not look at the moon. But even with this realisation, some of us were not so lucky. A pregnant woman saw the reflection of the moon from the water she had fetched in a bowl and she joined the queue of the suicides. When it was her turn, she climbed a high hill and threw herself off of it.

All night long, we watched as people killed themselves in their own unique ways. They were our children, parents, siblings, friends, neighbours, acquaintances - we watched them go and we couldn't do anything to stop them. Even when dawn finally approached, those who had seen the moon continued to kill themselves. We prayed that such evil moon never revealed itself again, but it did. The following night, it appeared again, and, of course, the ignorant fell victim. Some fell by sheer accident. Every night, the moon appeared. It was clear that it wouldn't stop until every living soul of my village was claimed by the evil surrounding the moon.

By the end of the first week, my village became a necropolis. The rest of us, a few dozens of us, couldn't bury enough corpses. We were soon running out of graves to dig, or the will to dig them. Eventually, having lost all hopes of salvation, we let the corpses rot in the streets, in every dark alley, every canal, gutter, swamp - vultures had every day feast, termites rejoiced, earthworms slithered in jubilation.

In the second week, we were less than a dozen. At this point, some of us didn't have to stare at the moon before losing their senses. Trying to escape was fruitless; wherever you went, the moon would follow you; and in some cases, you didn't even have to look in the sky before seeing the moon. One of us had seen it in the dead eyes of a corpse - he ended up becoming a corpse too. There was a no succour anywhere - annihilation was our fate.

A man about my age had had enough. Situation had gone beyond redemption. He took a rope one morning and went to the back of his house. He was later found dangling lifelessly from the branch of the mango tree he hanged himself. The incredible thing about his death was that he wasn't a victim of the moon per se. He just had had enough and chose to take his own life. I had seen him take the rope, I knew that he was going to hang himself, but I didn't stop him - that was because I thought he had seen the moon too. How could I have known that his suicide was a result of frustration? That, indeed, is the absurdity of suicide. People who kill themselves have a personal adjudgement that life is not worth living - it is now therefore a topic of great argument to determine whether to praise them for their courage, or condemn them for their cowardice. I'll leave the judgement to your personal philosophy. Now if I was surmoned to the desk of adjudication, I wouldn't strike my gavel in indignation. It's a conundrum of logic, really, but I believe it is better to go down with all your senses still intact, just like my little friend did with his rope. However, if permitted to advocate for Lucifer, I'd surmise that taking your own life under the evil influence of the moon was easier. At this point, you wouldn't feel any pain - you were basically already dead before killing yourself. So, arguably, it is easier than the terrible agony you would feel as you watched your life slip away from you.

In the fourth week, I was the only living person left. This was a battle I wasn't going to win, I knew it. I had come so far all for nothing. It seemed like I was the only survivor in an apocalyptic world. I couldn't go on this way, I would run mad. I knew that at this point I had only two choices; I must either submit to the power of the evil moon or just take my own life like my friend did. No matter how many times I calculated the odds, no matter the formula I used, no matter the evaluation, the method - the answer was always 0. Either way, I was going to die. No matter how long I tried to stay alive, I wasn't going to win this one. I must make a choice now. Solitude was already messing with my psyche. I might be many things but I know that I'm not a hypocrite. I know who I am - a coward, a cow-freaking-ard! I couldn't take my own life like my friend did, even though that was what I wanted, I just couldn't bear going through that kind of agony. Yet, I didn't want the evil moon to claim my soul. If I gave in to evil, my soul would be forever damned, just like a thousand of the other people from my village. But by taking my own life on my own terms, my soul would be free. This was a philosophy I must allow myself to believe in - that's the only thing left that's giving me a semblance of rationality. My belief, on this note, is symbolically stuck between that of an atheist and a fanatic. With much thoughts and rigmarole of the mind, I settled upon the coward's way. I damned my soul.

When the moon appeared again that night, I stood in the village square, spread my hands and looked into the sky, welcoming the madness.

For the briefest moment, it seemed like I had stopped existing. I could feel it from the depth of my soul. Something in me was gone. I can't say it because I don't know, but I felt it. Perhaps it's a part of my soul. And then again, I felt something new. I can't say it because I don't know, but I felt it. It was as if something had been taken away and had been replaced by another.

Now here is the shock; that not unlike a rookie chess player experiencing en passant for the first time. I still haven't recovered. I had been taken to the moment when the moon first appeared. This time around, nobody was killing themselves. Everyone who had died was here, except my friend who took his own life. It was as if he never existed. When I asked about him, no one confessed to ever seeing him. Life continued as if nothing had happened. I was the only person in possession of the knowledge.

If my friend wasn't here, then where was he? Heaven or hell? And the more pertinent question: Where was I now? Was this the damnation I feared, or was this a sick idea of paradise?

Whatever it is, I know that in a certain place in the south western part of this country, there's a village filled with dead people - a place where I was the last to die. How I died, however, would remain a mystery forever unsolved.

©Larry Sun
January 2021

Kimmiebabie:
Its been so long I used nairaland. Gosh I've missed so much. Hi Larry

Hi Kimmie.

finally you confused me, thanks the greatest of all time,its in you, the legend .

Thanks for this Larry. Nice flash here.

LarrySun:
THE JOURNEY TO A THOUSAND FLASH
Flash 27: The Full Moon
For Akintayo Akinjide (Divepen)

Thanks a lot. I feel really really honoured.

LarrySun:
THE JOURNEY TO A THOUSAND FLASH

Flash 25: Kingdom

Specially dedicated to a wonderful friend - Gabriel Eigbe.

Many years ago, a certain family was massacred, but the child survived. He was taken in by a lineage of slaves.

***

A long standing rift had existed between two royal families for generations. Nobody could really tell which family was next to ascend the throne of Kachi Kingdom - the Akenzuas had claimed to be the next in line, the Gazis insisted that it was their turn to climb the throne. These two royal families were desperate to wear the crown, and they were determined to do anything to win the royal race.

Chief Alooma, however, was not only the kingmaker, he was also the town's peacemaker - and he was also the richest man in the whole of Kachiland; he had donated a fortune to medical research in the land. His job was to mend the rift between the two families; but all his effort to restore peace was disavailed - neither of the families was willing to compromise. Because of the disagreement going on between the Akenzua Family and the Gazi Family, Kachiland had no king for a long time after the death of the last king.

And so when it was clear that neither family would ascend the throne except one gave in to another, the two families started plotting attacks against each other.

The Ghazis, realising that the first to take the offensive would most likely ascend the throne, threw the first stone. While the family was still deciding on a way to attack, the heir of the Gazi family, Rilwan Gazi, hired an assassin to kill the heir of the Akenzuas - Fifi Akenzua.

"Kill him and get rid of his body," Idris had told Ekong, the killer.

The killer had nodded in understanding.

"If they don't have an heir," Rilwan had explained further, "they won't lay claim to the throne. When I become the king, you'll be my chief of security."

Ekong had been flattered. He had always been fascinated by royalty but he was from the lineage of slaves - he knew he would never become king even though he knew about the history of his existence. The closest he could get to the throne was to become the bodyguard of the king. He was also a eunuch; he would never father a child. He decided that if he couldn't bring a soul to the world, then it was only right for him to take as many away from the world as possible - so he became a killer.

Early the following morning, Ekong sought out Prince Fifi Akenzua. Keeping his gun close by his side, Ekong had located the target. The prince was just driving out of his family compound when Ekong appeared in his own car. The killer decided to tail the target to a better location.

After about thirty minutes of following behind the target, he suddenly overtook the car and stepped out with his gun drawn. The road was quiet. It was the perfect spot. Ekong quickly got out of the car, walked over to Fifi who was still behind the wheel, and shot him squarely in the face. Fifi died immediately.

Ekong was meticulous. He calmly lifted the corpse from the driver's seat and placed him in the booth of the car. The killer parked his car at the side of the road and drove the victim's car away - the owner of the car was lying dead in the booth.

The killer had his plan. He would throw the corpse over the city bridge into the river below and then drive back to where he parked his own car. He would leave the victim's car there at the roadside and drive off in his own car. It would be perfect. The corpse would never be discovered; the fishes would devour it.

Everything worked according to how Ekong planned it. He had thrown the corpse into the river and was driving back to his car when a truck suddenly appeared. It was too late for him to react as he drove head-on towards the truck. There was a loud crash. The car Ekong drove somersaulted three times before it rested on its side.

The truck, apparently undamaged, was driven away as Ekong struggled for his life. He was trying to get out of the car but was trapped by the seatbelt. He was uninjured save for the deep gash on his right temple. The fuel tank had been punctured and petrol was beginning to leak out.

For over ten minutes, Ekong was still trying to free himself. Petrol was now all around him and a little spark was beginning to ignite. While Ekong was struggling to break free, one vehicle drove by since the accident happened.

It was Chief Alooma - the peacemaker. Just as he stepped out of his car, the spark caught the petrol and caused a great fire. At this moment, Ekong had broken free of his entrapment but he was not very lucky. His clothes had been soaked with the petrol. As he tried to run off, the fire engulfed him.

Chief Alooma saw someone on fire. The person was screaming and running around blindly. The peacemaker quite took of his coat and covered up the burning man with it, dousing the fire in the process. But the damage had already been done. The fire had burned off Ekong's skin; he was barely alive.

The chief quickly carried the victim into his own car. As he was about to get behind the wheel, he noticed a driver's licence on the floor. On picking it up, he saw that it belonged to Prince Fifi Akenzua. It was the prince's car that was burning.

As he sat behind the wheel and turned the ignition, he said to himself:

"That's Prince Fifi in the backseat. I must save him. He must not die."

As he drove away, Ekong lost consciousness in the backseat.

***

On getting to the hospital, Chief Alooma thought the accident victim was dead but the doctor confirmed that he was still alive. Ekong was quickly rushed to ICU.

“Doctor, you must save him,” Alooma told the doctor, “He must not die – he’s Prince Fifi Akenzua.”

“He’s badly burnt,” replied the doctor, “His skin is totally peeled off.”

“Can you restore his body back to its original state?”

The doctor thought deeply about the question before replying. “To be able to do that, I’d need a picture of him.”

The chief quickly produced the driver’s license he had found at the crash site. “Can this do?” he asked anxiously.

“It’s a start but I’ll need a complete picture of him.”

And so while the doctors began to work on restoring the victim’s body, Chief Alooma visited the Akenzuas and related the bad news. Prince Fifi had been in a ghastly accident and was being treated by the doctors. He requested for the prince’s sharper picture and took it to the doctors.

The surgery spanned three months; and when Ekong was released from the hospital, he had the body of Fifi.

“He suffered amnesia due to the impact of the accident,” the presiding doctor informed the family, “He doesn’t remember anything. His memory is totally blank. It will take a while before his memory returns. You have a lot of work to do in helping him through this recovery process.

The family took Ekong home and shared details about Fifi to him.

You are the heir of the throne of Kachiland.

You have a pregnant wife. She’ll soon put to bed.

You must fight for what’s rightly yours.

It was another three months before Ekong learnt everything he needed to know. In the absence of Fifi, Rilwan Gazi had been elected as the next king of the land, and his coronation was getting close.

Two weeks before the ceremony, Ekong, now Fifi Akenzua, invaded the Gazi home and killed everyone, including Rilwan – the man who had sent him to kill the prince of the rival family.
No one suspected Ekong of carrying out the killings. And since the Gazi family had been wiped out, Ekong was crowned the king of Kachiland a fortnight later.

But as soon as Ekong was crowned king by the kingmaker, he secretly ordered the execution of all Akenzuas. He didn't suffer any amnesia after all. He was out for revenge. The two families, the Akenzuas and the Gazis, had been responsible for the massacre of his family when he was a child.

However, because he knew he would never father a child, he spared Fifi’s pregnant wife and made her his queen in the palace.

Nobody knew who he truly was.

Thanks bro

No update

So Larrysun this is it? You started this without telling me.

You thought I stopped coming to Nairaland or what?

Truly, this forum has changed, the old hands are not here anymore

LarrySun:
THE JOURNEY TO A THOUSAND FLASH

Flash 27: The Full Moon

For Akintayo Akinjide (Divepen)

I lived in a small village in the south-western part of the country. After careful thoughts, I have chosen to keep my name and that of my village to myself. The singular reason for jumping on this wagon of personal discretion is simply because the village is now nonexistent, yet it exists; I am dead, yet I still live.

The absurdity and horror began after the New Yam festival. There were about a thousand of us in the village, but one by one we all fell when it appeared - it was the full moon.

The first set of people who saw it were initially fascinated by its beauty. The full moon had always come out in its time for hundreds of years in the village, but there was something incredibly unique about this particular one. Besides the fact that it seemed about close enough to be touched, it was a ball of horror that, at first, shimmered through cumulus blue clouds scattered like popsicles across the blanketing spectral yonder, then finally luminous against our tormented little village. It is quite remarkable how nature of such magnificence could arouse such terror.

Those who saw it and marvelled at its beauty were deep-sixed into a brief phase of hypnosis before they started to go mad one after the other. Obviously, the moon had something to do with their insanity; its sight messed with their heads - their sense of reason, their rationality.

The first incident of the horror was that of the oldest man in the village who easily lifted a grinding stone too heavy for even young able-bodied men of the village to carry. The source of the old man's incredible power must have been the moon - that was the only credible explanation for the sheer stupefaction. The old man, who had seen four score and ten rainy seasons, lifted the stone high above his own head and then released his grip on it. We watched in horror as the huge rock crashed into the man's skull and shattered it against the hard ground. He died instantly, bits of his manipulated brain could be seen as it popped from the head already knocked horribly askew.

It turned out that only a handful of us felt revulsion at the suicide we just witnessed - only a handful of those with their rationality still intact, those of us who were yet to look up at the sky and admire the beauty of the full moon. Those who had seen the moon showed no emotion whatsoever; instead, they went ahead to end their own lives in their own singular unique manners. A teenage boy produced a knife from the kitchen and drove it through his own throat in one swift motion. The knife was driven so deep that it's pointed end came out the back of his neck.

It seemed like they were all under a trance. They didn't kill themselves simultaneously, they rather did it in turns. One would wait for the other to die before going ahead to take their own life. A hunter had put the barrel of his shotgun between his mouth and pulled the trigger. A palm-wine tapper had seppukued himself with his own dagger. His bowels had flooded out of his stomach into his hands as he cut himself almost in half. Mysteriously, none of them cried out as they took their own lives. One even doused himself in paraffin oil and set himself ablaze - there was no cry of agony. A fisherman trying his luck at late night fishery heard the cawing of a crow and had looked up to the sky by reflex. He jumped from his canoe into the body of dark water, drowning himself.

There was a pattern to this visceral of horror. Besides the fact that these felos-de-se took turns in killing themselves, they posed no danger to other people. None of them attacked any one of us; even when some of us who hadn't gone mad attempted to stop some of them from committing suicide, they didn't attack us, they instead shook us off with unbelievable strength - both old and young alike. We couldn't stop them from carrying out the acts. In the end, we could do nothing but watch the horror. The gods had cursed us, and so they sent the evil moon to damn us one after the other. None of our traditional priests could ascertain the cause of this madness, this terror - we were on our own. If you wanted to stay alive, you must not look at the moon. But even with this realisation, some of us were not so lucky. A pregnant woman saw the reflection of the moon from the water she had fetched in a bowl and she joined the queue of the suicides. When it was her turn, she climbed a high hill and threw herself off of it.

All night long, we watched as people killed themselves in their own unique ways. They were our children, parents, siblings, friends, neighbours, acquaintances - we watched them go and we couldn't do anything to stop them. Even when dawn finally approached, those who had seen the moon continued to kill themselves. We prayed that such evil moon never revealed itself again, but it did. The following night, it appeared again, and, of course, the ignorant fell victim. Some fell by sheer accident. Every night, the moon appeared. It was clear that it wouldn't stop until every living soul of my village was claimed by the evil surrounding the moon.

By the end of the first week, my village became a necropolis. The rest of us, a few dozens of us, couldn't bury enough corpses. We were soon running out of graves to dig, or the will to dig them. Eventually, having lost all hopes of salvation, we let the corpses rot in the streets, in every dark alley, every canal, gutter, swamp - vultures had every day feast, termites rejoiced, earthworms slithered in jubilation.

In the second week, we were less than a dozen. At this point, some of us didn't have to stare at the moon before losing their senses. Trying to escape was fruitless; wherever you went, the moon would follow you; and in some cases, you didn't even have to look in the sky before seeing the moon. One of us had seen it in the dead eyes of a corpse - he ended up becoming a corpse too. There was a no succour anywhere - annihilation was our fate.

A man about my age had had enough. Situation had gone beyond redemption. He took a rope one morning and went to the back of his house. He was later found dangling lifelessly from the branch of the mango tree he hanged himself. The incredible thing about his death was that he wasn't a victim of the moon per se. He just had had enough and chose to take his own life. I had seen him take the rope, I knew that he was going to hang himself, but I didn't stop him - that was because I thought he had seen the moon too. How could I have known that his suicide was a result of frustration? That, indeed, is the absurdity of suicide. People who kill themselves have a personal adjudgement that life is not worth living - it is now therefore a topic of great argument to determine whether to praise them for their courage, or condemn them for their cowardice. I'll leave the judgement to your personal philosophy. Now if I was surmoned to the desk of adjudication, I wouldn't strike my gavel in indignation. It's a conundrum of logic, really, but I believe it is better to go down with all your senses still intact, just like my little friend did with his rope. However, if permitted to advocate for Lucifer, I'd surmise that taking your own life under the evil influence of the moon was easier. At this point, you wouldn't feel any pain - you were basically already dead before killing yourself. So, arguably, it is easier than the terrible agony you would feel as you watched your life slip away from you.

In the fourth week, I was the only living person left. This was a battle I wasn't going to win, I knew it. I had come so far all for nothing. It seemed like I was the only survivor in an apocalyptic world. I couldn't go on this way, I would run mad. I knew that at this point I had only two choices; I must either submit to the power of the evil moon or just take my own life like my friend did. No matter how many times I calculated the odds, no matter the formula I used, no matter the evaluation, the method - the answer was always 0. Either way, I was going to die. No matter how long I tried to stay alive, I wasn't going to win this one. I must make a choice now. Solitude was already messing with my psyche. I might be many things but I know that I'm not a hypocrite. I know who I am - a coward, a cow-freaking-ard! I couldn't take my own life like my friend did, even though that was what I wanted, I just couldn't bear going through that kind of agony. Yet, I didn't want the evil moon to claim my soul. If I gave in to evil, my soul would be forever damned, just like a thousand of the other people from my village. But by taking my own life on my own terms, my soul would be free. This was a philosophy I must allow myself to believe in - that's the only thing left that's giving me a semblance of rationality. My belief, on this note, is symbolically stuck between that of an atheist and a fanatic. With much thoughts and rigmarole of the mind, I settled upon the coward's way. I damned my soul.

When the moon appeared again that night, I stood in the village square, spread my hands and looked into the sky, welcoming the madness.

For the briefest moment, it seemed like I had stopped existing. I could feel it from the depth of my soul. Something in me was gone. I can't say it because I don't know, but I felt it. Perhaps it's a part of my soul. And then again, I felt something new. I can't say it because I don't know, but I felt it. It was as if something had been taken away and had been replaced by another.

Now here is the shock; that not unlike a rookie chess player experiencing en passant for the first time. I still haven't recovered. I had been taken to the moment when the moon first appeared. This time around, nobody was killing themselves. Everyone who had died was here, except my friend who took his own life. It was as if he never existed. When I asked about him, no one confessed to ever seeing him. Life continued as if nothing had happened. I was the only person in possession of the knowledge.

If my friend wasn't here, then where was he? Heaven or hell? And the more pertinent question: Where was I now? Was this the damnation I feared, or was this a sick idea of paradise?

Whatever it is, I know that in a certain place in the south western part of this country, there's a village filled with dead people - a place where I was the last to die. How I died, however, would remain a mystery forever unsolved.

©Larry Sun
January 2021

Flash 28: The Chronicle of Gbenga

Gbenga and I have had many adventures in our early days, particularly in our '-teens'. Some of these adventures - no, most of these adventures -, I admit, were not only silly, foolhardy or incredibly stupid, they were also downright immoral. Any narrative associated with my friend, Gbenga, should not be suitable to the knowledge of the unsullied, damsels who have taken domiciliation in the convent, or generally people whose philosophies bordered on the theological.

Think about any naughty deed some two exuberant boys could pull and it would check out in our has-been-done list. There was Martina who claimed to have been pregnant for me after using just my fingers on her. Trust Gbenga to come along with his ludicrous suggestion of abortion. Such was often the moment of madness with Gbenga who believed that the index and the middle fingers could put a woman in the family way. Although later revelations showed that the girl - as ridiculous as it seemed - was only trying to test how much I liked her by claiming pregnant. Even to this day, I rejoice for failing such a test.

Hardly had the Martina situation arrived at a definite conclusion when my dear friend invited me to a bar. Indeed, that was not my first introduction to the rotgut, but such narrative was a rather embarrassing elaboration for another moment.

We were consuming some cheap liquours and debating with each other about who is more powerful between the man who has practised one kick ten thousand times and the man who has practiced ten thousand different kicks once - well, do not blame us, for we had recently been fascinated by a Jet Li movie. And as the effect of the alcohol began to manifest in our systems, our arguement was veering from the controversial to utter balderdash - but to either of us, we were making perfect sense, at least from the perspective of boys in pleasant bacchanal revelry. In all honesty, we had not totally fallen off the metaphorical wagon; as a matter of fact, we were still in possession of a significant part of our senses, at least the better part of five percent, the remaining ninety-five might just be swimming in a cesspool of intoxication.

It took me a while to realise, however, that my rather mischievous buddy had not brought us here to down alcoholic drinks alone. He had a personal plan of his own, a deed that was not totally foreign to his personality. We were now at a point of vulgarism and singing songs with particularly lewd lyrics - and we were singing at the top of our voices, drawing the attention of passers-by who would stare at us for a moment, shake their heads and continue their journeys.

We placed tired arms across each other's shoulders as we wobbled out of the bar. My initial thought was that we were going home, but we only crossed the road and landed ourselves in the parlour of a rather cheap brothel. Apparently, Gbenga had made arrangements with two tarts, for as soon as we stepped in, the ladies were all over us like bees to nectar. We were blessed with provocative kisses and the deliberate compression of their ample bosoms against our bodies. Had I not been so inebriated, I might have politely excused myself from engaging in such bawdiness; but the spirit in my stomach had robbed my head of its capacity - so I played along.

We each took the ladies. I got the fairer one. In that drunk state, fairness constituted beauty. I couldn't notice that my paramour was overly bleached and resembled a grunter. To me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

The ladies took us to their rooms. While the other lady led my friend into an inner room, I followed my sweet angel into a rather dark room. The only thing that was visible to me in the room was a rather flattened bed that had known a lot of backs in its prime. We both landed on the bed and continued the kiss again. Although the memory of that day is not entirely clear now, but one thing I know is that the kissing was not a pleasant sight to behold. It was like we were both threatening to tear off each other's lips and tongues. By the time the kiss ended, my mouth was swollen. Anyone who didn't know better would think I had boasted before Mike Tyson.

We fondled each other's bodies for a moment before I finally climbed on top of her. I was nothing but a naïve boy who wasn't really enjoying what was happening but only wanted to impress his friend and himself. He wanted to be able to explain his sexcapade to his classmates and feel good about himself. And so when the hooker opened the door, I simply stepped into the room with my walking stick.

I didn’t know if it was the result of the alcohol in me, all I knew was that I didn't feel anything during the intercourse. While she was moaning, calling me all sorts of names I wasn't christened, and speaking gibberish, I was simply looking forward to the end of the prurient conversation.

Then suddenly, something utterly unexpected happened. It scared the bejezuz out of me. I was obediently pumping the lady when a hand suddenly grabbed my right ankle.

You see, at this moment, even the bravest of us would freak out. Where did the hand come from when you knew that only you and the lady were alone in the room? When I felt that cold hand on my leg, I damn near got a stroke. I wanted to scream but even voice eluded me. I couldn't pump the hooker anymore, and at the same time couldn't rise from the bed. It was like I was in a trance. I remained frozen on top of her for about thirty seconds, the drunkenness in me had totally evaporated.

"Something just grabbed my leg," I told the lady, but she didn't seem to have heard me, for she continued chanting her gibberish like someone possessed by a metaphysical force. This even made me more terrified. I thought she was chanting some form of incantation and draining the good luck from my poor phallus.

Finally, I was able to look down at what was grabbing my ankle. It was a little devil. The child was about three or four years old. Apparently, he was in the room when we came in but the darkness had prevented me from noticing him. He was grabbing my ankle with his two hands and glaring viciously at me.

"Leave my mommy alone," he said to me, his eyes buried in a deep frown that assumed his face.

This was when I finally found my voice. I screamed at the top of my voice and jumped out of the bed. Now the hooker was conscious of her surroundings. The gibberish had stopped, and in place of it were questions about why I wanted to leave. I couldn't reply her as I buckled up my belt. My finger kept jerking towards the little devil in the room - the child was still glaring at me. To the little boy, I was using my walking stick to harm his mother, and the only way he could come to her rescue was by grabbing my ankle, putting me at risk of either a stroke or heart attack.

I ran out of the room like I had just escaped hell. I searched the other rooms for my friend and located him and his hooker deeply asleep on a mattress. They were both naked and snoring loudly. I knew that trying to wake him would be futile, for Gbenga could sleep in a tsunami when not drunk. Now that he was drunk, not even the apocalypse would wake him.

I trekked home all alone. We would have a long debate in school tomorrow.

©Larry Sun
May, 2021

Flash 29: The Journalist

"Fred, I got a job for you," My boss, Albert Njoku told me as I stepped into his office. He was the editor-in-chief of the newspaper company I worked for.

I had been working in this firm for about three months now and I had never been given an opportunity to cover anything serious. Sometimes, I would get a few scoops and would rush to my boss in excitement, but none of them ever made the front page; the best any of my 'exclusives' had ever made was the middle page, not even the first ten pages. Now I didn't know what to make of this summon to his office. The 'I-got-a-job-for-you' would have filled any other journalist with great excitement - especially my colleagues in this business - but to me, the six words filled me with dread. I had never been Mr Njoku's favourite person since the first day I got my job. Well, I wouldn't blame him much. You see, I had the knack for saying the wrongest things at the wrongest times. Because of the dark glasses my boss was fond of wearing, it took me a long time to realise that Mr Njoku was blind in one eye - and this ignorance, of course, caused me to make the statement 'blind interview' in one of the meetings presided by Mr Njoku himself. The terminology was simply a journalism lingo, but it was a phrase I would have refrained from using had I known my boss's disability. Since that moment, therefore, I had never been in Mr Njoku's good grace. About two weeks after that, I had alluded a robust woman's ample bosoms to a watermelon - the woman turned out to be Mrs Njoku, and she had caught the word in my tongue. I found it even surprising that he had not decided to fire me so far. He hated my guts and he didn't hide that fact from me, but somehow he couldn't sack me.

It was only natural that I grew wary of the job he had for me. I was sure the job he was offering me had already been rejected by the rest of my colleagues, and he was most probably hoping that I would reject it too so that he could have a good reason to terminate my appointment. My mind told me, as I stood politely before him, that my relationship with the firm was over. Mr Njoku would be giving me such impossible tasks like going into the wild and trying to put a ring in a lion's paw, or getting the panties of the wife of the country's president - or jumping off a high cliff and landing on my feet without a scratch on me.

"What job is that, sir?"

Mr Njoku grinned broadly. All his intentions could be understood from that grin. He knew he had had me by the sac and there was nothing I could do about it than pray he didn't yank it off. It was obvious that he had been waiting for a moment like this.

"You're leaving for Matata Village first thing tomorrow morning."

I stared blankly at him. It took a while for the message to register itself in my head, and when it did, my stare became even blanker. I knew Mr Njoku hated me, but I didn't imagine that he hated me this much. How could he - how could he tell me to visit Matata of all places? Every journalist worth his salt knew that Matata Village was a dreaded place. It was a kingdom dominated by a mad king and equally mad happenings. This was not an exaggeration; the king of the village was actually a madman. According to the longstanding rumours, after the death of the previous king twenty years ago, the oracles of the village had rejected the heir presented to be the king. Instead, the gods had chosen a roving madman to assume the throne. Nobody really knew what caused the man's madness, or why the oracle had chosen him over someone mentally complete. The only rumour that was flying about was that he ran mad when he returned from London twenty-five years ago. He had been mad for five years before the gods chose him. Many of the villagers said he ran mad from reading too many books.

And since the past twenty years that he had been the king of Matata Village, he had given a lot of crazy orders. Anyone who desired to speak to him in the palace must stand naked before him. No village man must shave his beards or cut his hair. A woman could marry as many husbands as he wanted. He turned culture and tradition upside down. And nobody could question the mad king because Matata Village was a sovereign kingdom. As a matter of fact, it wasn't anywhere on the map of the country, so the government left this place to be ruled as the king desired. And the mad King Kuku himself did not request for anything from the government. The kingdom was generally self-sufficient.

This was a place my boss wanted me to go. I knew he hadn't really expected me to accept the mission. Like I already explained, he was hoping that I would refuse so that he could have a good reason to kick me out of the firm. Looking back at him, I decided that I wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. I smiled ruefully at him and said, "Okay."

He seemed taken aback by my response. Even from the dark glasses he wore, I could feel his good eye narrowing at me.

"Did you hear what I just said?" he asked, his voice registering surprise.

"You want me to visit Matata Village and interview the king. Is that not it?"

"It is."

I shrugged in nonchalance and said, "Then I'm willing to go."

"You will really interview the mad king?"

"Isn't that what you want?"

"Do you realise that the king could simply have you cooked or fried? I heard he enjoys eating human beings."

I shrugged again. "Then this is my opportunity to die for what I love doing."

Even though it was highly unlikely that I would return alive, however, if by some divine providence I returned alive, my article was definitely going to make the front page; it was something I had always been looking forward to for years, and Mr Njoku had been denying me that pleasure. To me, anything less than the first five pages is meant for losers, and I had been a loser for far too long.

The following Monday, I was on my way to Matata Village. The journey was the longest road trip I ever took. At one point, it began to seem like we were driving to the end of the earth. It seemed like the kingdom was moving away from us as we approached. After ten hours, the driver dropped me at a junction and told me I would have to trek the rest of the road to the village. The road was clearly motorable but the driver would not drive into the village, not even the entire herd of Adam's cows would make him do it. In fact, he already surmised that I must be sharing in the king's madness to have left the city for Matata Village.

I trekked for another two hours before finally arriving in the village. I had taken the night bus from the city. We left at around 9pm and the driver dropped me off at around 7 the following morning. It was almost 10 am when I stepped into Matata Village. I was immediately surrounded at the market square by some heavily built men. I was a stranger; my appearance alone made me stand out like a sore thumb. As the men grabbed me, I quickly requested to see the king. Whether they heard or understood my words, I didn't know. I was taken away and put in a ditch that had been built for prisoners. Escape was out of it. The only way I could come out of the ditch was if a ladder was passed.

I remained there for almost four hours before I was finally taken out of it and led to the palace. I was stripped down to my birthday suit before I was presented before the king; even those who stripped me went naked. King Kuku was already waiting for me. He was seated majestically in his throne that sat on a high platform. He stared at me with curiosity and I returned the gesture. I knew it was wrong to stare back directly at a king but I figured I would be killed anyway, it was only proper that I registered the face of the king who was going to condemn me to death.

King Kuku really looked like a madman. I knew I was coming to interview the mad king but I had no idea that he would actually appear mad. White beards covered his face so much that all I could see were too blinking eyes behind a bushel of grey follicular germination. The hair on his head was so thick and dirty that the shiny crown only laid smugly atop the mountain of unkempt hair. And to top it off, he was wearing a rag. This was unlike anything anyone had ever seen or experienced - a madman on the throne. The rumours we had been hearing almost seemed like myth, but seeing it with my two eyes, all the rumours seemed like understatements. I would never have believed this if I hadn't witnessed it myself. It suddenly occurred to me that my editor-in-chief might also have a hard time believing it when I finally wrote the article. Everything was simply unbelievable.

"I heard you've been requesting to see me," he spoke. His statement didn't sound mad at all; which was another great surprise. It was like the universe was playing a kind of cosmic joke, using the kingdom of Matata and the people in it as its tool. How could someone who looked clearly mad speak so articulately? Maybe he wasn't mentally mad - perhaps he was only mad in appearance; he probably chose to make people think he was mad. I began to hope that I would be able to negotiate my release with him. If he was not mad as the rumours about him were, then he could be reasoned with.

"Yes, your highness," I quickly replied, bowing my head.

He waved his hand in disapproval. "Just call me Kuku."

My jaw almost fell to the ground. "But-but you're the king." I stuttered.

King Kuku spread his hands and said, "What if I am? Nobody should call me by a name I wasn't given when I was born. I am not a highness or a king, I am simply Kuku, and you will address me by that, stranger."

I bowed my head in respect. "Okay, Kuku."

Another evidence of his madness. How could a king refuse to be addressed by his title?

He shifted his bulk in his throne and asked, "So what have you come to do in my village, stranger?"

I smiled and said, "I have come to interview you, Kuku?" This was going more smoothly than I thought.

The king frowned. "Interview me? For what purpose?"

I was happy to answer that question. "I'm a journalist working for a prominent media firm. We will publish articles about you and your kingdom in our newspaper."

"What benefit is that going to bring me or my people?"

"It's going to bring you exposure. A lot of people do not know that a kingdom like yours exists. After we publish about this kingdom, a lot of people would want to visit. Your village will become a tourist attraction and from that you will generate a lot of revenue that will help in developing the kingdom. "

The king sighed and said, "First and foremost, we are self-sufficient. We don't need any revenue. We are a lot richer than the world thinks. We don't need assistance from anyone. Secondly, even if I choose to be curious, I don't think all you mentioned are going to happen simply because you published articles about us in your paper."

I smiled proudly and responded equally proudly." Do not underestimate the power of the media. The pen is mightier than the sword."

The king suddenly became silent. He was staring intently at me as soon as I made that statement. Finally, he said, "Wrong choice of words, stranger - wrong choice of words."

I didn’t understand what he was talking about. Unfortunately, I was soon to find out.

The king turned to his guards and said, "Where are his personal effects?"

"In the inner chamber, Kuku."

He returned his gaze to me, "Have you come to write about me? Do you have your pen among your effects?"

I didn’t understand what the king was driving at. It was hard trying to understand the clockwork of a madman's mind.

I nodded my head dumbly and said, "Yes."

The king laughed out heartily, slapping his own thighs. "Then it is settled."

I wondered what the hell he was talking about. My mind told me that whatever it was, it wasn't going to be anything nice. I might just have placed my inquisitive neck under the guillotine's blade.

Again, he turned to his guard and ordered them to bring my pen from my personal effects and hand it to me. Then he ordered for his personal weapon - a sword. I was horror-stricken.

"Now you are going to prove what you said," he said to me.

"Prove what?"

"That statement you made - the pen being mightier than the sword - you are going to prove it. You have your pen and I have my sword. With each of our weapons, you and I are going to fight to the death."

I was immediately drenched with sweat. The mad king had yet proved his lunacy.

"That was just a figure of speech," I said, trying to defend my statement, but I knew it was futile. "I didn't mean it literally."

I wasn't sure that he heard me. If he did, then he considered my defence insignificant.

"You and I will have our battle in the market square. In the presence of everyone. It's going to be a fair fight. Let's prove to the people which one is really mightier between your pen and my sword."

I looked down in dejection. My fate had just been stamped and sealed. I was going to die in this remote village with no one to care for me. Surely, Mr Njoku would not send people to come searching for me.

"I can't wait to taste your meat after I kill you," Kuku licked his lips.

There it was - the mad king was going to eat me.

"I'd like to make a request," I said solemnly.

"And what request might that be, stranger?"

"I don't want to fight naked in the market square. Can I at least wear my clothes when I face you?"

Kuku thought deeply about this and agreed to honour my request. "You're going to die anyway. It wouldn't hurt to grant you the request. So yes, you can wear your clothes."

I thought the fight was going to take some days to take place, but the king decided that it should occur immediately.

Kuku rode to the village square on a stallion decorated with gold and I was led there on foot, my hands and legs bound in chains, and armed with nothing but my pen. Villagers showed me love by peltering me with various fruits. By the time I finally arrived at the battleground, I was a pathetic canvas bearing a painting of various seeds and juices from different fruits.

I was ordered to be released from my shackles and the king posed for war. Someone beat a gong and the fight resumed.

Kuku came at me with his sword. He aimed for my neck. Luckily, I was able to duck in time to prevent a beheading. I was creating as much distance between myself and the king as I could. I kept running here and there. Sometimes I would run into the watching crowd and they would push me back onto the field. They were all thirsty for blood. Apparently, it had been a long time since they last witnessed such an exciting sport. I thought about submitting myself to the blade - it was an inevitable fate anyway, but my sheer instinct to live stopped me from giving in.

"Stop running!" roared Kuku, "Face me and fight!" He was getting frustrated by my desperate attempt at escaping.

I decided to face him. I held my pen forward before me and assumed a stance. The mad king came at me again. He was a lousy swordsman, and I would have killed him easily had I possessed the same weapon as him.

But as he came at me this time around, I didn't run. Instead, I ducked again, the swoosh of the sword flying over my head. As his momentum carried him a few steps forward, I pushed the pointed end of my pen into his gut. I knew my pen could not deliver anything fatal, but I would inflict an injury on him if I had the chance, and this moment was my chance. I stabbed him with the pen as hard as I could.

Then something happened. A great lightning came from the sky and struck the king. He was immediately blackened and fell to the ground. As his frame hit the earth, there came a very loud thunder - the loudest I had ever heard. Everyone screamed in fear and scattered for safety in different directions.

I remained in my position, dazed and wondering what had just happened. Kuku was lying on the ground, his dead eyes staring at the sky.

Then rain began to fall. It fell in heavy torrents. While everyone around me took to shelter, I remained in the rain. I didn't leave my position. The rain beat viciously on the corpse of the mad king. For three straight hours, the rain fell heavily, almost threatening to wash Kuku away in its flood. But I remained in my position, unmoving.

When it finally stopped, the villagers began to come out one after the other. I knew what was coming to me next. I was the stranger who had come into their village to kill their king - I was undeserving of anything but death.

The kingsmen grabbed me again and took me to the ditch I was kept in the first time, but the ditch was filled with water. And so I was kept in a room in the palace. I remained in this room for two days before I was finally brought to the palace yard. There was the chief priest of the village and the other chiefs.

The last thing I expected to happen sufficed. I was crowned the next king of Matata Village.

Apparently, the oracles had chosen me as the next king. The gods had struck down the mad king and had replaced him with me. The village had not had rain for many years, and so by killing Kuku I brought great blessing back to the village. The farmers were grateful. They called me the bringer of rain.

After my coronation, I was taken to the village reserve bank. Kuku had actually been saying the truth when he mentioned that Matata Village was self-sufficient. The reserve bank was filled with pure gold in heavy bars. And as a king, I could choose to do whatever I wanted with them.

The first thing I did was take one bar. Then I embarked on a trip to the city. I had an appointment to keep - my village was going to make the front page as I promised. Then I would purchase the media firm and make Mr Njoku work for me.

The next time I would be returning to my kingdom, I would not be returning with the gold bar I had taken. Instead, I would be returning with a private jet.

With the rich resources of the village, I intended to make Matata a paradise on earth. Gone would be the old ways of doing things.

Matata to the world.

Indeed, the pen is mightier than the sword.

©Larry Sun
May, 2021