₦airaland Forum

Congratulations. . .getting published is a big accomplishment. Unfortunately, you will have a hard trying to market this type of subject matter to Nigerians. We just don't "roll like that".

One rule both writing and marketing have in common. . .KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.

Wish you nothing but the best.

Hand on Chest. . .in shock

Mi-ster Ariblaze are you asking me to have great sex with you. . .online? Why I never!


Hey, all credit goes to you. I was just following your lead. . .after your rubbished my Chimpanzee Researcher in Congo storyline. _{which I spent all freaking night writing only to have you unceremoniously dismiss it with a quick flick of your wrist. . .pen. . .keyboard}

Sexuality you say. . .hmmm, it's been awhile for me. Oh alright, I'll be honest, I've never gone that route. . .not sure how well I'll fare in that department but I am a willing student. Teach me the ways of the world sensei!

"Here, I made you some T, " she'd barely fisnished her sentence when Henry grabbed her and held her close"

"Sweetie, what is, "

"Sheeeshh. Please let me just hold you" he said almost pleadingly as he buried his face in her neck.

"Okay, why are you shivering?"

"The Harmattan" he whispered.

Even he didn't believe that flimsy excuse but there was no way he was telling her about his dreams. . .nightmares.

He could still feel her neck in his hands as he slowly tries to take her life. Henry shut his eyes tightly, he didn't know he was cry until he felt tears streaming down his face.

He tried to wipe it off before Angela noticed but it was too late. She pulled back and looked at him. Confusion written all over her face. She'd never seen Henry cry. . .even when his parents had died, he had watched stonefaced as the put them in the ground.

"Henry?" she touched his cheeks tenderly, wiping the tears he made no attempt to hide "Talk to me. . .please"

"It's nothing" Henry sniffeed trying to regain his composure "Just a nightmare. Nothing I promise you"

"Ok"

That's what he love about her. . .she never pushed or nagged him. She knew he'd eventually tell her and she let him do it in his own time.

How could he think of taking the life of this beautiful creature. . .His Angel. He tried to banish those nightmares

Angela sleeping with his brother,
A baby that wasn't his,
A bus ride with Twi
A Researcher in Congo
A Visa to the United States
Henry Awo,

God! It had all felt so real. Looking into Angela's big brown eyes. . .he was glad it wasn't. This was his reality. . .living in a one bedroom flat in his brothers boysquaters with the woman he loved by his side.

"Angela" he started "I don't have much. . .you know that right? This, " his arms sweeping across the room "This is all I have. . ."

"Oh Henry sto, "

"No, let me finish. This is all I have. . .for now but I know this isn't all I'll ever have. I just need you to promise me something. . ."

"Anything."

"Be Patient"

"Henry, "

"No, No just listen to me okay? Promise me you won't let anything or anyone come between us. Promise me"

Angela had questions but she knew they could wait. Somehow she knew her answer was important to him this very moment.

"I'll always be here Henry. . .always. You know I love you with every fiber of my being" Angela told him gently yet firmly.

Henry felt the tension he didn't know he had in him slowly fade away. Angela had never made it a secret how she loved him. She'd even left her parents modest accomadation to live in a one bedroom apartment with him.

Yes, He knew she loved him and would never betray him but the dream. . .the endless, disjointed nightmare had scared the living daylights out of him.

He sat back in the bed and pulled her close to him. She hesistaed,

"What about your tea? You said you were cold earlier"

"Not anymore. . .I have you to keep me warm" he said grinning wildly.

"You, " she began but Henry leaned in and kissed her.

"I love you too" he said in between kisses.

Later that evening, Henry quitely eased out of bed so as not to disturb a sleeping Angela. He went to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. . .an unbroken mirror. He recognized the face looking back at him and this time he also knew who he was.

Henry Akpar. . .Henry Akpar.

With a sigh of relief, he walked back to the bedroom and joined Angela on the bed, he was about to turn the lights from the nightstand off when it saw it. A newspaper he'd been reading before falling alseep. The front Page headline read. . .

[B]American Researchers, Henry Awo and his Pregnant wife Twi find a new link between Man and Chimpanzees in Congo"[/b]

Henry could not stop the laughter bubbling in him. He want from a small chuckle to roaring laugh. Angela, who had woken up the moment he'd gotten out of bed, raise her head. Even though she didn't know he was laughing. . .she couldn't help herself from joining in

"What. . .Why are you laughing?" she asked

Henry Shook his head and drew her close,

"One day Angela. . .remind me to tell you what a powerful thing the mind is and how it can take us places we never dreamed or imagined"

"Fine" she said and rested her head on his chest "I hope you don't mind me saying this. . . You've been acting very weird today"

Henry didn't mind. He would take weird over madness anyday.

Congratulations! Your Visa to the united States of America has been approved. Please visit the closest US consulate in your area within 30 days of the receipt of this letter for further processing.

Henry read the words again and again until they became blurry. He shook his head as if too clear his mind. This had to be a joke, he thought or maybe he had taken one of his flights of fancy. Yeah, good things only happened to him in his daydreams, his reality was a nightmare. . .so this wasn’t happening.

“Henry? You alright baby?” That voice. Her voice. . .how he loved it and hated it. It was a sharp reminder of everything that was wrong in his life.

“Yeah” he began and cleared his throat “Yeah, I’m fine. Just give me a minute will you”

“What’s in the envelope?”

“ I said give me a minute. . .God! Can’t a man ease himself in private without having to answer unnecessary questions” he snapped.

“I’m sorry” he heard her say in a small voice.

He felt bad for snapping at her and then felt worse for feeling bad. He owed her nothing. . .he had been good to her, treated her like a queen, she was the one who had ruined everything, she was the who slept with his brother. His own brother. . .the pain he felt every time he thought of he two f them wrapped in each other’s arms hit him like a bolt of lightening. He had to hold on to the sink to keep from keeling over.

How could they?

Did he even want to know?

Yes. . . He wanted to know. How could the two people he loved betray him?

No. . .He didn’t. Whatever had led Angela into Kunle’s bed was something he never wanted to find out.

Confusion and pain threatened to swallow him. He needed out. . .and fast or he would lose his mind.

“Congratulations! Your Visa to the united States of America has been approved. Please visit the closest US consulate in your area within 30 days of the receipt of this letter for further processing”

He read for the sixth time and for the first time in two months, Henry smiled. 

This was his chance to leave it all behind, this was his chance for a new beginning. No more Mr. nice guy, screw her! Screw him! Screw ‘em both! He was done being grateful for scraps handed down to him.

He felt his bravado building up only to come crashing down when he read three words he had somehow missed.

“Dear Henry Awo”

He mumbled something about easing himself to Angela and with the white envelop in hand, he headed for the bathroom and shut the door over her demands to know what was wrong. Yep, there was no denying that something was wrong. . .very wrong he thought as he leaned over the sink, his heart racing.

The face looking back at him in the mirror was his… that he knew for sure but everything else. . .he wasn't so sure.

He put the toilet cover down and sat on it. He looked at the envelope. Henry Awo. That wasn’t his name. . .or was it?

Nothing made sense anymore. Who was he?  What kind of life did he live?

Was he a half-dead researcher with a loving girlfriend and brother at his side?

Or was he an out of work graduate with a girlfriend who was pregnant with his brother’s child?

Henry remembered the bus ride with Twi but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember where he had gone.

And Angela. . .how did something that started out so right, so beautiful go wrong? Did he still love her? Surely he must. . .why else would she still be living in his house when he knew it was his brother's baby not his growing inside her. Wait. . .was that real?

He groaned out loud. . . he had heard poverty and desperation can make a man lose his mind but this. . .what was happening to him was beyond madness. His mind felt like a beggar’s pan, where people from all walks of life added their own little bit with little or no regards on how it affected him, resulting to the person he was right now. . .

A thoroughly confused man with disjointed memories.

He read the name on the envelope again. . .Henry Awo? Who was that?

“Henry please. . .!”

Henry heard the whispered words of the woman he loved and his heart ached. Why did life have to be so unfair? He had done everything right, he’d never lied, he had never cheated, he had respected his parents when they were alive and he had never used the Lord‘s name in vain. He had been good person, gaddamit! There should be a reward for that. . .shouldn’t there? 

Angela. Even her name said it all. . . His Angel! She was supposed to be his reward for living a life on the straight and narrow. God!  He remembered the first time he saw her. . .it was like time ad stood still and the first time they had kissed, he thought he had died and gone to heaven and when they had finally made love. . .he couldn’t allow himself to think about it. . . for fear his already weakened heart might explode out of his chest. Angela. . .his Angel or so he had thought. . .

“How’s he doing” another voice interrupted his thoughts. Kunle. . .older his brother, his mentor. . .his only living relative and the only person he would give his life for.

“He’s still running a fever. I tried talking to him . . .”

“Still no response.” Kunle finished. It had be 4 days of the same routine.

“He. . .well, he responded. . .”  Angela paused and folded her arms across her chest.

“He did? What did he say?” Kunle asked. Angela shook her head in a dismissive fashion.

“It’s nothing. . .nonsense. . .I. . .I think the fever is causing him to hallucinate”

“What did he say?” Kunle asked again

In his semi conscious state Henry willed himself to get up and walk out. He couldn’t bear to be in the same room with them, with these two…the two people he love most! The two people he now hated. Betrayal. . .it was a bitter pill to swallow.

“Tell me?” Kunle snapped and immediately regretted it when Angela jerked back. He cursed himself silently, he should know better. From the moment his brother had introduced Angela to him, Kunle noticed she tended to be skittish around him and even more so now that she didn’t have Henry acting as a buffer.

He willed himself to be patient, the last thing he wanted to do was scare her off. Right now, she was the only one keeping his brother from succumbing to the illness he had contracted while doing his field research on Chimpanzees in Congo. Oh he knew that type of thinking was not scientifically sound but what other explanation was there for Henry to be lying in that bed, still breathing. . .albeit with difficulty, when all the doctors who consulted on his case had all but called him a dead man? It had to be Angela. She was the one who had spent all her waking hours at his bed side from the moment they brought Henry home.  Everyday, he’d hear her talking to him, singing  his favorite songs but most of all. . .just being there.

Angela tried to hide her nervousness by reaching for the cup of Lipton tea she had made for Henry earlier. It was cold. He had only taken a sip of it before slipping back into his feverish coma. Maybe she should make another one. . . just in case in woke up again, she thought absently. Hopefully, this time his mind would be clearer. . .Goodness,  she thought as she moved to the bed, she couldn’t allow herself to think of the nasty accusations he had flung at her in that brief moment when he opened his eyes. She had gone from extreme elation to shock and confusion in a second flat.

Kunle watched her touched his brother’s cheek tenderly and his impatience fade away. No matter what happened to Henry, he knew he’d forever be grateful to her for making his brother’s last days. . . He stopped, no he couldn’t think that way. He was not losing his brother, he wouldn’t allow it!

“Angela?” he said with a softness in his voice

“He thinks we’re having an affair. He thinks I’m pregnant and the baby is yours!” Angela blurted.

There was a dead silence in the room.  Even the chickens in the backyard knew to keep their clucking a pitch lower than usual. 

Something was wrong. . .very wrong.



Back on Track? And Yes I know it's more than little bit but I couldn't help myself

What other people say about me is not my business. Unknown

Real Dialogue between Winston Churchill and Nancy Astor

Astor – 'Mr. Churchill, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea!
Churchill - And if you were my wife, I would drink it!


Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member. Groucho Marx

Sidney Sheldon's
Rage of Angels - My first Sidney Sheldon Book
Memories of Midnight
The Other Side of Midnight
Dooms day conspiracy
Best Laid Plans.


Nora Robert's
Public Secrets
Cardinal Sin
Sweet Revenge

Enid Blyton.
Mallory Towers
St. Clair's
Famous Five
Secrete Seven
The Naughtiest Girl Series.

Anything By Judith McNaught
I know it says Novels but I can't get enough of Wole Soyinka's[b] Trials of Brother Jero[/b]. In my opinion, that was comedy before comedy was comedy