Chapter Two

The house on Mountford Hall was beautiful every time of the year. But it was especially beautiful in summer when the canna lilies and chrysanthemums as well as the dahlia and cosmos.  The blend of colours from green to red to purple and blue blended together and gave the house an ethereal look. A look she loved to savour during the afternoons of the sunny summer days.

She stood there taking in the colours and the scents. The beauty and the contrast, created by nature and flowers. She watched as the summer breeze made the flowers dance. The heat of the sun at 29º was scorching, and she longed to go for a walk in the park or to sit by the beach dressed only in bikini. She looked on, seeing beyond the flowers and plants and the beauty.

A tear dropped down her left eye, and she slowly brushed it off as she heard a distinct footstep approaching the garden. She planted a smile on her face, and focussed on the beautiful flowers before her. She counted in her head.

Five…four…three…two…one.

“Here you are girl.”

Sidi turned to face a beautiful petite woman with long red hair and a tight expression. She smiled, as Sidi gave her a hug, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Hello Aunt Bree.” Sidi greeted.

“Hello Lesley….Hello Connor.” She said to the youngsters standing behind Bree.

“Have you being standing out here for long?” Bree asked.

“Not so long, no.”

“Well then, come on in. I didn’t know you would be home this early or I would have left the key for you.”

“Neither did I.”

She followed Bree wordlessly, with Connor and Lesley lagging slowly behind.

Chapter One

Sidi smiled.

That was all that mattered at that point, Sidi’s smile. When Sidi smiled, the world seemed to simply stop and stare. Nature paused to savour the beauty of her heart warming smile. Her smile revealed deep dimples on both cheeks, standing out like stars in the sky on a dark night. Huge brown eyes closed slightly when she smiled and her features softened. Her nose stood up straighter and accentuated the perfect curve of her face. Her mouth opened slightly to reveal her white set of teeth. Small child-like teeth which filled her mouth and made her seem younger when they showed.

Sidi’s smile made the biggest problems melt away and seem like naught. She smiled with every core of her being and according to Lesley, Sidi’s smile was like medicine to the soul. Saying that made Sidi actually laugh.

Sidi’s laughter was like that of a three year old who had just received a pack of her favourite chocolate candy. As Wallace would say, Sidi’s laughter was refreshing to watch.

She smiled, at Katherine who everyone called Kat, and then at Liz.

“Your smile makes me wonder what you want.” Kat said, giving Sidi her full attention.

“Nothing really, just to take the Mickey.”

Sidi quickly grabbed the pack of skittles from her friend’s hand and ran as fast as she could. Kat followed on her heels, as angry as a bull. She was yelling and swearing as she ran in pursuit. The others in the park watched with delight, knowing the chase won’t be for long.

With Sidi panting and gasping for breath, she slowed down just in time for Kat to catch up with her and grab her size 18 jogger pants. They both came to a sudden halt, as Kath retrieved her chocolate from Sidi.

“Ah……that was hot race. Bet I’ve lost a few pounds from that.” Sidi noted, as she sat heavily on the green grass.

“You wish.” Said Kat.

“Hey Fatty, it’s not easy being a size zero.” Connor chipped in, laughing.

The others joined in, laughing hard as Sidi stood angrily and went for a walk around.

“You didn’t have to say that to your cousin.” Kat said to Connor.

“Yeah right. Makes no difference though, she is fat.”

Kath shook her head and went away in search of her friend.

A  Nokia 3310 handset vibrated vigorously in a brown leather handbag that had seen better days. The owner of the phone didn’t hear the sound from the vibration of the phone. She was busy attending to the customer before her.

“Mama Kati, gif me thirty naira fud.”

“Ehen….. Ha you wantam?”

“Gif me rice twenty naira and ten naira fish.”

“Ok… Wey your plate?”

“Ahah, Mama Kati use your own plate na….”

Mama Kati rolled her eyes heavenward, offering a silent prayer in her heart.

Not again today!

“So dat yu no go bring d plate back abi? Abeg Tonero, cari your wahala commot for my shed. Na God I take beg yu. Abeg.”

“Mama Kati, sell me the fud now? Wetin be ya own. I no carry plate…. Na by force to carry plate com buy fud?”

The others on the queue began to murmur and quarrel.

“Tonero you carry yoursef commot for dere na? Shi no wan sel you the fud.” One of them said.

“Mama Kati, you too sell am so that im go commot dia na?” Another woman complained.

“This Tonero too like wahala, why im no wan commot for that front. She no won sell, no be by force.” A lady complained, looking at the girl behind her.

“But she for sell am too, to avoid im wahala.” The girl behind replied.

“But no be by force to sell.”

“As no be by force, you no see as all of us dey here dey wait?” The girl hissed, and adjusted the wrapper tied tightly to her waistline.

“Come, you this gal, na me you dey hiss for? A be ya mate?” The woman replied, taking offence.

“Wetin come bring mate enta this talk. Abeg, leave me jor.”

The woman slapped the girl across her face and a serious argument ensued. At the front of the queue, Tonero smiled at Mama Kati as she asked for the money for his food. She knew what that smile meant. He held the plastic plate of food under his armpit and held his stick with his right hand. He slowly throttled as Mama Kati eyed his angrily. She took the next customer’s plate, and took the order.

Back in her handbag, the phone kept vibrating. No one could have noticed it, since her hand bag was locked in one of the cupboards of her shop. It was locked because, as usual, she had to hurry and attend to her morning customers. She didn’t want any distractions, not from her little daughters, or from her house girl who loved to play with her phone when she wasn’t looking. So she preferred to lock her phone in her shop.

It was just 6:30am, but most of the food for the morning was sold to her ever loyal customers. She had started cooking by 3am, and with the help of Ekaete her fifteen year old house girl she had finished the cooking by 6:00am. She had quickly set out her food on a rickety but wheel barrow, and gone to the bathroom to have a quick wash and change of clothes. That was how a typical day for Katherine Ofori began.

She wondered lovingly as she slowly and gently rubbed over her flat stomach. She smiled an inward smile of joy, pride, and happiness… all the wonderful feelings rolled in one. That is how she felt at this exact moment in time. She wished she could shout it out loud to the world that she was happy. She wished she could dance for joy, and scream to the top of her lungs about how happy she was. But she couldn’t. It was ….. Oh no her life is complicated.

Sandra was a beautiful, twenty-six years old banker. She was born Sandra Uju Ogbuji to her wretched parents in a little town in delta state called Ekuinu. Her father was the headmaster of the village school and her mother a petty trader. They had being married for two years and  the in-laws where getting impatient with the delay in producing offspring that they had begun the usual rituals of marrying a new wife for Mazi Eke on an Affor market day in the Egbuna family compound. Akunna- Mazi Eke’s wife suddenly began feeling dizzy in the heat of the occasion. She rushed over to the back of the house and began puking profusely and retching as well. She puked for hours on and off, and by the time it was over, she was done, she was exhausted and could hardly stand. She rushed into the small part of the family house she shared with her husband through the back door, what her in-laws and some of the guests at the wedding saw as rudeness.

However, when Ngozika, Akunna’s sister-in-law went into the room to confront her she was shocked at the shape Akunna was in. but when Akunna rushed out to puke for the umpteenth time, Ngozika knew that she had made the wrong decision by getting her brother a new wife. Now, that decision had to be undone. That was how the new marriage was nipped in the bud right before it blossomed into a plant. Nonetheless, Akunna’s problems weren’t ending. Her problems were beginning.

She gave birth to a chubby and beautiful little girl nine months later, to the dismay of her in-laws. In the tradition of the people of Ekwuni, a man’s first child being a girl was seen as a taboo and as such was not treated lightly. According to their native laws, the child had to be sent to her mother’s family until a son is born into the household. Thus, once Sandra was born her fate was already sealed.

The problem in this case was that Akunna had no relatives. She was an only child to parents who were only children as well. Thus, there was no relative for her little unnamed daughter to be taken to, but tradition had to be followed. Akunna cried and begged her husband and in-laws to take the baby in, but they totally refused. About a month after the birth of the baby, the child was charted away by the female members of the Egbunu family in the dead of a cold rainy night and taken to Late Mazi Nnadi’s empty weed overgrown compound.

The helpless baby was left out in the cold night crying and wailing for her mother’s gentle touch, and several miles away, her mother sat on the bare floor of her mud and thatch house crying and wailing as well as she felt her breasts heavy with breast milk meant for her suckling baby. She had no friends to console her save her equally grieving husband. So she wept and grieved for days and nights on end. She stayed indoors for months and didn’t eat any food during this time. She wept for the innocent little child she had brought into the world to suffer at the hands of fate and tradition.

Patience is a virtue, only few people on the face of the earth have. Love is a feeling and an emotion, anyone could feel it. Happiness is a state of mind that can easily be induced by all sorts of forces; everyone gets a shot at happiness several times in their lives. Peace is also a state of mind, but more comprehensive than happiness. Fear? Fear is a burden, a phase of a person’s life, a force on its own, something tangible.

Many things could be born out of fear. Love and hate, passion and the lack of it, pain and joy, shame and the lack of it as well. Many genuine evils are borne out of fear. Fear of the now, or fear of the future, fear of being discovered, fear of dying, fear of living, fear of loving, fear of life and existence in itself. The fear of anything and everything. Fear is a force that has shaped the lives of many a man.  Fear could be productive as well, not just counterproductive. For instance the fear of being poor could spur a man on to hard work and consequently to immense wealth and affluence.

Annabel Yeboa continued typing frantically on her office desktop computer. She didn’t pause in between. Not for a break, for air or anything else. In fact, she badly needed not to get air. She wished at this moment in her life that she would run out of air and be unable to breathe and bang she would be dead. At least being dead will be a better feeling (well, death is not entirely a feeling) than what she was feeling now.

Maybe she could try shedding tears; it may give her release from the terrible pain she was feeling. Jossy had suggested that to her and she had tried, but the tears wouldn’t come, try as hard as she may. So, yeah she had done everything she could do.

“Hi girl…..” A voice rang out suddenly out of the blues, startling Annabel in no small way.

Oh God, who could this be….

Annabel looked up from the desktop, and looked into the eyes of her boss.

Oh God, not now, pleaseeeee

Annabel tried to force a smile onto her oval shaped face, and she tried the most effective trick she knew how to use. She flashed her white teeth, and her dimples on both cheeks showed.

Please, get this going and over with…. Pleaseeee

“Hey Lily, how you doing?” She Replied

“Am Alright.” Lily said, running her eyes over Annabel in her characteristic saucy way.

Why could she be looking at me like this, could it be that she is about to…..?

“Do you know how long I have being standing and watching you type like a maniac?” Lily asked, with a smile.

“I have no idea, how long.” Annabel replied.

“Well, long enough to appreciate that you are a beautiful workaholic who needs to stop trying to impress our slave driver boss and relax.”

Come on, cut to the chase… am running on a short clock here.

“oh really” Annabel replied

“yes…, anyway…….”

Oh here it comes……

“……. Just wanted to tell you that the boss does not need those documents anymore. We found the previous one you prepared, and yes, you are getting a promotion and a raise”

I can’t believe am hearing this….

“Are you sure about all these, especially about the promotion and raise bit?”

“Yes darling, I couldn’t be more serious.” She started to walk away but stops for a minute and stares back at Annabel.

“…..Take a break dear and let’s go for lunch. I will meet you in a few minutes.”

Potraits and Letters

This is the first chapter of  a book  I am working on. Feel free to read, critic and share your thoughts .........

Life is a big maze which we sometimes cannot understand. The comings, the goings, the happiness, the sadness, the loss and the love, all these are part of this beautiful maze called life. However, there are cycles that define our lives. The cycle of life and death. It’s an unpredictable and interesting cycle that happens every day. In a way it was a miracle.

A lady paced the corridors of the waiting room. She prayed inwardly as she walked the halls. The lady didn’t look at any of the people sitting in the room. She stood for a minute and prayed again. One of the five people waiting with her was starting to worry about his dear friend. She has being pacing the hall for almost two hours and hadn’t sat down. He walked over to where she was temporarily standing and stood beside her. He gently placed an arm on her shoulder.

“Vicky, you need to calm down and sit down.” He spoke gently and in a low tone.

“Am fine Chris, thank you.”

“Look, you have being standing and pacing on and off for almost three hours now. You need to calm down.”

Another woman walked over to her from the small waiting group.

“Vick, please come and sit down. You need to rest.”

Victoria Kofo allowed her friends to lead her to an empty seat. They started a discussion with her as a ploy to distract her. But, her heart wasn’t in the discussion, so she stood up a few times as the wait continued. The solemn party continued until two hours later when a female doctor clad in surgical clothes came out of the theatre.

She came to the centre of the small gathering and stood, slowly adjusting her spectacle.

“Please can I speak to the patient’s mother?”

Vicky stood quickly and went to the doctor.

“I am the patient’s mother. How is she? How did the operation go?”

“It went well.” Dr. Jones spoke hesitantly.

“So, how are my daughter and the new baby?”

Five pairs of ears eagerly awaited the doctor’s reply. Their eyes were also glued to her face. The doctor didn’t speak for the first few minutes, as a nurse came to her side and whispered something to her. She nodded, and looked up as the nurse left her side.

“The baby is fine, hale and heart. A baby girl.”
“Ah…..Olorun eshe ooo….Eshegon….” Victoria chanted, performing a quick dance, without music.

The others waiting chatted among themselves with faces beaming with smiles.

“And the mother?” The matriarch enquired.

“Well, she insisted that we take care of her baby first.”

“And?”

“We did our best, but we lost her.”

Victoria screamed, and Stephanie came to her friend’s side, holding her as she cried out.

“No…. Not my daughter.” Victoria sobbed as the doctor walked away.