CANDY FLOSS BOUDIOR 3

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Temporary reprieve came by way of her new neighbors.

A sour looking widow and her two pretty daughters, Chinelo and Ify.

Chinelo and Ify were just a couple of years younger than she was.

They’d come to live in Lagos after the old man died on top of his mistress.

They'd left Enugu to run away from the gossip.

Mother disapproved of Opeyemi and made no bones about it.

Chinelo adored Opeyemi and she sneaked over whenever mother wasn’t home.

Opeyemi tremendously enjoyed the company of this thoroughbred “aje butter” girl.

Chinelo spent hours trying on Opeyemi’s clothes and regaling her of her exploits in Enugu.

"You know I like boys" Chinelo would say giggling happily.

FRAILTY 3

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The day after the fight was a Saturday and Tayo woke up at seven am to sneak out for a smoke (the morning hit cast a rosy perspective on the rest of the day.) He’d be back home before eight when his mother usually came downstairs to prepare breakfast. He needed this high to face the “family breakfast.” As he approached the back door, stoned and ravenous (he’d smoke three wraps of grass) hoping to rush a bowl of cereal before sneaking up stairs, he heard his parents. They were at it again. Their angry words filtered down to Tayo who paused to listen. Dr. Omotayo accused his wife of neglecting her children. He called her a bad mother and blamed her for the accusations he’d heard their children fling at each other. She scoffed at him and told him, that if Tayo had become an “amugbo” (junky) then it was a result of a lack of male guidance in his life. “What about Timi?” He shot back at her. “Is she lacking male guidance?” Tayo moved away as the tempo of their voices increased. “What’s new?”

CANDY FLOSS BOUDOIR 4

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He cared enough the next day though.

She and Laja were locked in a heated embrace when her phone rang.

It was Waziri, He wanted to know where she was.

Before she could reply though, he asked her to look up. She sighted him coming out of a strange car.

All evidence of Laja’s machismo disappeared as he blended with the shadows to be seen no more.

Opeyemi woke up two days later in the hospital with a broken wrist and a body on fire with pain.

Waziri’s doctors treated her without asking any questions but she could sense their silent questions, how? Why? What?

CANDY FLOSS BOUDOIR 2

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True to his word, Waziri influences her posting to Lagos for N.Y.S.C.

“The man don fall pata pata” Halima gushed over the phone.

“Anyway sha you dey worth am, you be fine babe”.

Mama prayed for her, for Waziri’s continual generosity, advising her to ignore her father’s dire warnings. Baba watched, with what now seemed to be a perpetual frown on his lean face.

“Is it money from his tailoring that will set you up as you have finished school?” Mama questioned, pushing her face closer to Opeyemi’s for emphasis.

Her face deeply grooved in-between ridges of flesh  by hardship.

She was only forty-seven yet she looked sixty. Poverty has stamped its ugly footprints all over her once beautiful face.

FRAILTY 2

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As reggae music played in the background, the waiters bustled around but somehow managed to blend with the décor in their Dashiki’s and shorts, male and female.

Azeez served them himself. He served them first with fruit juice and “holy herb” he sat with them and led them through a prayer which he asked then to repeat after him. They were really supposed to say it in unison but it worked better this way, since they didn’t know it. “Glory be to the fathers and to the maker of creation as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end. Jah Rastafari: Eternal God Selassie I (To appreciate this benediction one must hear it spoken. The “I” in Rastafari, rhymes with the “I” in Selassie). He took several strong pulls of smoke and deeply inhaled then passed the spliff on to  Tayo on his right, Tayo did the same then passed it to Zauditu, who passed it to Laky who passed it to Taofeek, who passed it to Azeez until the end. The guys then lit up individual joints and they chatted as thy smoked. The girls giggled a lot.

FRAILTY

“What is ganja? We know it’s a plant created by God to fulfill men’s want. The powers that be, say man should not use. They use it in secret, yet show its abuse.

There is no comparison between ganja and rum. The former keeps you “cool” the latter makes you glum. Rum as we know is an agent of death with the using of   ganja you draw new breath.

The taking of rum has eaten out our head. They who continue to take it will wind up dead. Remember, one is created, the other manufactured. On the evils of men we have always lectured,

So cast not your verdict before making a test. True conscience in you will show you the best. For rum, as we know will pronounce your doom. All hail to great ganja, the solvent of gloom.”

                                                                                    Sam Brown

                                                                                    Rastafarian Poet.

Skinny and intense, Tayo walks down the street of the estate were he’s lived all his life. People stare at him from around. He could just bet they were thinking “crazy kid”. He knows they’d all been talking about him these past weeks. He didn’t blame them.