Admitwithschola:


She is world class and she is Nigerian, and it's not out of place for Nigerians to celebrate her in a big way.

I myself when I went to Birmigham in 2016, I saw a bill board of her in one advert, maybe they were advertizing a book. She is not small oo, she is well known and respected world wide.

Be waiting for who will talk for you o. Don't use your own voice

Nigerian men hating on Chimamanda and her feminist cause can keep choking. Lady is making waves internationally. Y'all are on Nairaland demanding submission from women whose feet you're not fit to dust.

I yawned loudly and glanced around, attracting judgmental glares from a few pious faces. To say I was bored would have been stating the obvious. The preacher kept talking in his flat monotone and I couldn't help noticing that around the church auditorium, some heads were nodding - but not in agreement with what the preacher was saying. Some were leaning against the pew in front of them, huge Bible open as if they were intently reading scripture but they had gone far into sleep land. At least one one man threw caution to the wind, leaned back in his seat and snored softly while the slightest hint of drool peeked from the corners of his lips.

Even the evangelists in their exalted seats in front of the church weren't faring better. One particular evangelist leaned precariously at the edge of his seat and I was worried that at any moment, he would drop to the ground - not that I would complain because that would be hilarious.

However, some eyes were wide open. The usual suspects - Mrs. Eze and Mrs. Adebola, the fashion divas of the church were casting their gazes across the length and breadth of the auditorium to see if anybody had noticed their resplendent outfits. They always acted like they were friends - yet it seemed every Sunday, they dressed to upstage each other. Today, Mrs Eze's gold necklace looked so heavy I was wondering if air could pass through her windpipe. Mrs. Adebola, on the other hand, wore a gele that was so broad, it should serve as a satellite dish receiving signals from twelve different countries. I could see the man behind her craning his neck in an effort to get a view of the pastor and, just when he found a good view, she would move her head and render the preacher invisible again. He looked like the only thing stopping him from hurling insults was the fact that he was in the house of God. I sniggered.

Pastor Segun glanced at his watch and I could see him choke down a yawn. He cast his eyes around the auditorium - kind of like I was doing. Was he bored too? He clearly looked it. He also looked like he was regretting inviting the preacher to speak this particular Sunday - or any Sunday for that matter and was making a mental note never to invite him again. Besides, the preacher had been allocated one hour to speak; he had crossed an hour thirty minutes and was heading towards two hours with no sign of rounding up any time soon. He signaled to the assistant pastor and whispered something to him. I'm pretty sure he said "never invite this man to preach here again" but I could be wrong.

It seemed like after the better part of two hours, the preacher suddenly realized that he was boring the congregation. Either that or he heard the pastor's ban. Suddenly he kicked the things up a notch and started speaking fiercely in accusatory tones that could have risen the dead.

"..........it is a shame, I tell you. You people cannot listen to the word for two hours. Two hours! When I am at home, I listen to back-to-back messages from different pastors for seven hours straight....."

Pastor Segun couldn't stop his eye-roll and probably muttered something about our church not being where Guinness records for longest preaching are broken.

"...that is why I am filled with the spirit! Most of you come here just to show off your expensive watches..." He glanced meaningfully at pastor Segun's wrist. Pastor Segun raised an eyebrow. "....expensive necklaces...." Mrs. Eze clutched her gold necklace. "....tie gele like you are expecting a message from outer space...." Mrs. Adebola looked scandalized..."....and sleep like you don't have beds at home! When the man of God is talking! God's angels are watching, and taking notes o. At the end of today, they will report back to God. What do you want the report on you to say?"

A hubbub rose and died under two seconds.

"I've given the message I was sent to deliver. I hope it will not stand against you on the day of judgment."

Silence.

The preacher stepped off the pulpit, visibly annoyed and took his seat. The assistant pastor quickly got up and took his place on the pulpit.

"May the Lord bless his words in our heart. Amen. It's testimony time. If you have a testimony to share, if God has done...."

A shout cut him off from somewhere at the back of the church.

"Praaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaise the Lord!"

The church turned as one to look for where the shout came from and collectively groaned when they found out who it was. Madam Hope, giver of testimonies, testifier extraordinaire and the one person whose testimonies lasted long enough to qualify as a sermon. She also used her testimonies as an avenue to criticize those in the church she currently had issues with - which was almost always the pastor's wife - using comments that were so thinly veiled that if she had just said the person's name, it would have been less obvious. Most times, by the end of her testimonies, three quarters of the church wouldn't still be sure exactly what she was testifying about. I could see more than a few people pick up their Bibles and get up from their seats. The assistant pastor spotted her and looked alarmed.

"It appears we have no testimonies for today." He said, quickly. "Let us rise as we share the grace together."

Madam hope's scandalized expression was enough to erase the boredom of the past two hours.

Today was good.


https://vedacato./2018/07/14/church-observer-short-story/

I wrote this quite a while ago and it has just been sitting on my laptop all this while . Decided to post since, well, I don't think I have anything else to add to it. Enjoy!

A sudden sound jolted me and for a split second, my heart raced. I realized that it was my phone ringing and my heartbeat normalised. The phone was right beside me, vibrating....calling my attention that was present but distant. I glanced at the screen and, again, my heart raced. It was him. Again.

I felt like my limbs were frozen. A part of me wanted to pick the phone up....to listen to his voice again - that voice that had once made me smile each time I heard it. But the cold, rational side of me insisted that I remained stationary and leave him to call till he was exhausted.
I remember the first day we met. It wasn't exactly a love at first sight story because I honestly didn't think much of him at our first meeting - if I thought anything at all. It was at a small birthday soiree for a mutual friend and I remember at that point that I had been completely taken in by someone else, a dark charming young man named Uche whose wit and smile held the entire room in his thrall and, at a point, it began to feel like we were all there for him and not the celebrant. Mezie, on the other hand, was quiet and at the edge of everything. We barely even registered his presence and I would have completely forgotten he was at the get-together if he had not reminded me himself the next time we encountered each other - this time at the mall close to my father's house. Somehow, he remembered my name and smiled shyly when an embarassed me told him I couldn't remember his.

"Happens all the time", he said and I instantly felt worse.

The second meeting was more memorable though. He was a bit more conversational - even though his voice barely rose above a whisper and he seemed to blush on cue. Maybe I took better notice of him because Uche wasn't there, I teased him sometime after we had started dating to which he replied with silence and a tight-lipped smile and I had to wrap him in my arms and gave him a peck on his nose. The smile this time was genuine. I never teased him with that again.

A sudden silence brought me back to the present. The phone had stopped ringing but the locksreen notification told me I had ten missed calls. All from the same number. Calls I knew I wasn't going to return, though part of me wanted to one-up that by driving all the way back to his house and telling him I had forgiven him and we could just continue like nothing had happened.

Again.

The phone vibrated. This time, it was a text message. I unlocked the phone and the message, the latest in a long line of unreplied messages was there. Unlike the previous ones though, this one was only three short sentences long.

"Nnenna please, I beg you, come home. At least, let's talk. Please."

I could feel the tears begin to well up in my eyes.

I was beginning to second guess myself. Clearly he loves me, I told myself. Why then am I be putting him through this pain? I looked up from the phone to the mirror on the wall opposite my bed and my answer was there, on my face - a long scar that ran from just the corner of my left eye down to my cheek.

This wasn't love.

"But Nne, you know some men show their love in different ways," Mama had said when I had just been discharged from the hospital, still sporting the dressing on the wound on my face.

"Mama, is this what you call love?" I replied in a voice that was colder than steel on a harmattan morning. I pointed at the covered wound. "Is this what you call love? If I had died, would you have accepted that daft excuse from him - that he did this to me out of love?"

Mama sighed.

"I understand, Nne. He shouldn't have hit you - "

"Mama, this is not the first or second or third time. How many times have you and Nze come to see me in the hospital after being brutalized by that.....that animal. That inhuman being. How many?"

Mama was silent.

"Aren't you bothered, Mama, that I'm the only one of your daughters who has to run here after each disagreement with her husband because he always gets violent? Chioma is married, as are Adaku and Adanna. None of them have ever come to spend an unplanned vacation with you and Nze due to being battered by their husbands. Even your sons Obi and Emeka - have their wives ever come to complain to you that they have laid a finger on either of them?"

"Your father and I raised them well," Mama replied, the pride decipherable in her voice.

"Then why do I have to suffer Mama, because my husband's parent's probably didn't raise him well?"

Mama was silent for a few seconds.

"I understand how you feel, Nne. But you know how some people get when they are angry. They lose control and you'll just have to learn how to calm - "

"Lose control?" I hissed, my voice rising with each sentence. "Lose control? You and Nze have been married for close to fifty years. We know when you both argue or disagree or fight. Yet not once has either of you hit the other with their hand - not to talk of the metal buckle of a belt!" I didn't realize I was pointing at the wound again. "I warned you before we got married, Mama, that Mezie's temper is uncontrollable and I wanted to end things. But you pushed me to go ahead.....told me I could change him.....that I should just work on him and put the matter in my prayers. Now look at what that has gotten me! LOOK! Even though he saw the blood streaming from my head, he kept hitting me, kicking me while I was bleeding on the floor, begging him to stop and shouting for help. What if I had died, Mama? Would my death be worth it because someone lost control? WOULD IT?!

Mama sighed again and was silent for a few seconds.

"So what do you want to do now?" She asked finally.

My shoulders sagged and I sank back into the sofa, only just realizing that tears were falling freely from my eyes.

"I don't know, Mama."

We were silent for a few seconds, the silence only broken by the sound of the old clock ticking somewhere behind me.

" What I do know is that nothing....nothing on this earth or beyond will make me go back to that man. I will not be the latest casualty of men who can't control their temper. My kids will not grow up watching this man hit me each time he gets angry and think it is okay to hit people when they are angry. I won't go back, Mama."

"Well........it is your decision. I am just advising you because I know each marriage has its own challenges. Your children still need their father. Besides, you know how people look at divorcees..."

I fixed a cold, hard gaze on my mother.

"Mama, he called me a shameless LovePeddler right before my children. Beat me right in front of them repeatedly. God forbid that I would allow that man's toxic behaviour influence my kids. If you and Nze are tired of seeing my face here, I would take my things and my kids to a hotel right now and stay there till I find an apartment because it seems to me that you are on his side and not mine!"

"No o," Mama protested raising her hands and showing me her palms. "We are always on your side. No child of ours would live in a hotel when this house is here, empty, save for me and your father. We just want to be sure you know what you are doing. If this is your decision, I will support you and I am sure your father will too."

A sudden sound snapped me out of that memory. The phone was ringing again.

I glanced at the screen to check who was calling.

Picked up the phone.

And flung it at the wall as hard as I could.