HATCHED 3

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It’s been a week since Osas died......committed suicide.  I’ve been steadily having nightmares; the same one every night. In my dream, I am having sex with Chudi and Osas bleeding away, is staring at us but I can’t stop, I keep going.

I am stretched to the limit with apprehension. There is mention of a suicide note but the family are keeping the contents to themselves. I never got close to his brother/manager Henry. I have called him twice this week but he has neither taken my calls nor acknowledged them. I can’t bear it anymore I need to see Chudi. I need to let off some of this tension.  

Chudi is at the perfect age of pleasing a woman. His skills must have now been fine tuned as against the sheer force and frenzy of Osa’s twenty two adrenalin pumping years. I miss Osas and I am worried that my name is going to pop up somewhere soon.  I had been supremely cautious with cleaning up my tracks, I just didn’t figure in emotional tracks or psychological tracks and cracks. 

I quickly find the flower pot with Chudi’s spare keys. He didn’t hesitate a bit when I suggested we meet. Instead he took over the reins of the planning.  I like men eager. When Julius and I first met, I thought he was a gentleman. I realised later that shifting the responsibility of any joint endeavours between he and I to me was just Julius being Julius, noncommittal.  Yup, an individual could be married and non committal. When you live with someone like that, over time, he rewires your emotions. You become a complete mess with suspicions and negative self image as constant companions. He is with me but apart from word of mouth, he doesn’t try very much to validate me or my existence in his life. Sometimes I wish he is deliberately cruel, but he isn’t. Julius just doesn’t care beyond what he desires out of life per time. See my predicament?

HATCHED 2

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If I just sit back and react to Julius, I’ll die before my time.  I have two beautiful children that I should concentrate on. I’m thirty four years old, but I feel fifty. I’m so bloody  tired of the way my life is going. Sometimes I find myself willing my body to fail in some way so that Julius will have no choice but to be with me. Pathetic, how have i become such a mess?

There is that boy again. Ok, well of course I knew he’d be here. I’ve driven by here three times this week. I know he sees me but I never stop. So why am I stopping now? Too late, he is here already. I pop the lock, he gets in.

“Hi”. His voice is like a caress.  He must have seen the hunger in my eyes. He leans forward and kisses me. Really, really kisses me. That is it. This boy is having me here and now in this car, if my phone would stop ringing. The night is quiet, the ringing is jarring.

Sigh.

It is my husband.  Why of all nights does he choose to be home early tonight? Maybe because God doesn’t want me to defile my marriage; hahaha my marriage is already defiled. Not once or twice or even three times, and not by me.  I have to go though. Even though my heart is beating and I would rather do this quick so I don't lose my nerve. I can count on my husband to deprive me of one thing or the other. Or maybe I need time to think it through. Or maybe I am not meant to do this. I try to get Julius to make love to me and he seems ready to go but his southerner member says no. This is not the first time this is happening. He is feeding me the usual "got stuff on my mind" yarns. Wow, my husband cant get it up with me.

These past three weeks have been hectic. I hadn't had much time to think about Osas until last week when I got a text message from an unknown number, requesting for my bb pin, signed Osas. I didn’t even ask how he got my number, I just sent it. I am so sure of what I want from this boy.  Julius has pushed me too far. I need this for my sanity. I need it to bear the sight of my husband. I need it to be a good mother to my children. If I'm going to survive this hell called marriage, I need it.

I like that Osas really seems smitten.  Maybe he needs a friend. We’ve never talked personal but I glean that he seems to hate his famous sibling. Or maybe he wants to see what it’s like with someone older, or......who cares.

He has pinged me every day since then. I am not complaining, the attention keeps me determined and thirsty for him. Like a parched throat needs a long cold drink. A long cold drink from a strapping, gorgeous twenty two year old.

HATCHED

Sigh. 

I switch off as Julius my husband of three years prattles on about some cocktail with the boss and something, something, something. He just got the information today, he knows I’ll never go out looking less than perfect.....I don’t want to hear his rubbish stories, all lies.  He cast a look at his reflection in the mirror as he exits the room with a spring in his step.

Hahaha.

There is a spring in my husband’s step and three years of defeat and loneliness on mine. Oh and neglect, monotony and a husband who is mostly away even when he is physically around. He says it is the kids and my responsibilities as a mum. I try to make him see that the finality of that statement unsettles me but he hears complaining. He used to share my dream or so he said. He said he believed in me. He used to brag about it to his friends. So how is it that three years down the line, I am still running my salon? I’m getting by but I am on the far side of the disgruntled scale. I want to run a spa that is what I spent my youth preparing myself for. I thought they said opportunity comes to those who are prepared. At the time we met, I had concluded arrangements to sign a distributorship deal with a spa care range.

As he leaves, my shoulders slump; I hate him......I think I do.  There is such a wedged between us; each time we try to talk we end up in an altercation. I don’t mind quarrelling as I know that it is healthy but this total acrimony is death warmed and served up on a daily. We are both dreadfully unhappy.  

GOD NA OYIBO 2

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According to "The Historic Implications of the Kebra Nagast" in the book "The Kebra Nagast" edited by Gerald Hausman, the authorized King James Bible, which first appeared in 1611, was  going to include the Kebra Nagast, however, the editors were told, presumably by the clergy - although it came down by royal decree - to excise the chapters which included the Kebra Nagast....".

Why?

My conviction of the rationality and order of the universe is deep and I yearn to understand this denigration of the ancient African religion and wisdom, I ask again God na oyibo?

I have been researching early eighteenth century Yoruba culture for a historic movie script I'm working on (have been for seven years now). In the course of my research, I have come upon a ton of the most fascinating historical evidence of a far more superior people than we have been lead to believe.

As  a child when my imagination sought for adventure in the tale of the discovery of "The dark continent", I was always disappointed.  Most of what I glimmered (from the scanty research material on pre-colonial Africa that was/is available to African children)resonated with the Oyibo being awed by Africa but underwhelmed by the African. 

We were suspicious and hostile to their overtures but were won over by their baubles.....hmmmm.

Cool story, they were so underwhelmed that if it were possible to cart the whole continent back to their land, they would have.

GOD NA OYIBO? 1

This is a re-write of a note I posted on Facebook a couple of years ago. I recently revisited it because I got on that bus again.

Does God have a preference for Caucasians? God na oyibo? See, this really bugs me.
How did my ancestors commune with God before the missionaries?
Were they really the pagan savages the whiteman tells us they were?
Could my ancestors have known God?
Why does Christianity make you doubt that?
Could God have sent the white man to save us or did the white man see a means to exploit us and used it?

I am a convicted Christian and happy to remain so, but I wonder at the denigration of all things pre-colonial African e.g our spirituality.
It is saying a whole lot if we could not have seen the light but for the oyibo man (pun intended).

INDULGENCE 3

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Ene’s dry spell didn’t last. Exactly six weeks in, five weeks after they moved in together his alarm bells went off.

Ene suddenly developed a thing for mouth rinse. On closer observation, Tonye realized that it was a bad sign. Empty bottles of Listerine fluoride rinse littered the bin. He didn’t need to ask. He took a swig from the almost odorless content of the mouth rinse bottle, Vodka. The roller coaster that had stood still whirled back to life. Even her parents sympathized with him. He held on strong though. He loved Ene, through thick or thin.

Most nights Tonye fell in bed bone tired. Why was he coping with this? They were not even married. She hurtled through life like she had a demon on her heels. 
On those torturous nights when he had to nurse her, his heart broke. And when hangover set in he felt her pain. At those times she’d swear off alcohol, a vow she never kept. She chewed whole peppers, sometimes she insisted on sleeping in the bath tub. On the bath tub nights Tonye’s next working day was hell.

Every day dawned with Ene in stupored slumber. Tonye had the permanent job of hunting and fishing her out of joints (he made her make out a list of her hang outs). Throw in the Lagos traffic and you can only imagine the nightmare that it was.

She’d made friends with a decrepit drunk, Akpan.

Akpan was an alcoholic, a street drunk. He was the type, who got fished out of gutters by good Samaritans, because his family (if he had one) had given up on him. Their friendship was conducted over the phone and in beer parlors. Akpan stuck to Ene like a leech. Free booze.

INDULGENCE 2

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Many a family meeting had convened over Ene’s issue. Tonye had become a fixture at these meetings.  Ene remained adamant. He couldn't help but blame her parents; they should have been more attentive. 


He would come back from the meetings brimming with resentment but almost certainly Miss "Life is one big party" had something up her sleeves that triggered his insatiable hunger for her. 
One time it was absinthe. He had never had it and wasn't particularly eager to find out exactly why it had such a bad reputation. Tonye is naturally cautious....but she was wearing the tinniest edible gummy panty. Tonye had been ordered to take a bite as soon as he walked in. From then on, he was a goner. He watched trance-like as she knelt before the coffee table, where her paraphernalia was assembled. He remembered wondering if the edible underwear would hold up. Well, It did until the absinthe was drunk.
She put a special perforated table spoon across a wine glass with the green liquid in it. On the spoon, she put a cube of sugar over which she slowly drizzled cold water. The sparkling green liquid turned opalescent milky green. All of this he observed from the effect of the caress of her voice; "As the water liberates the essences of absinthe, so will it liberate your mind, Tonye". The atmosphere had an unnatural charge like she was putting a voodoo spell on him..She didn't need to. She handed him the milky green drink. It was bitter at the first taste but more herby with subsequent sips and quite refreshing too. He suddenly felt super alive. All his senses were on super charge. How is it that he heard for the first time the exquisite composition of the drawn out guitar riffs of Bon Jovi's "Bed Of Roses"?  Eating the alcohol infused edible underwear afterwards was erotica in more ways than one, the tips of his tongue tingled as he took bites off her and shared with her. Her hands on him was spine tingling, his hands on her, spine tingling; the sexual charge was on a stratospheric level. Wow, no wonder. Absinthe equals magic. Ene equals magic. Tonye was lost. 

On this night of profound feelings and sensations, she gave him the only explanation that she ever would about her distillery dream. She was challenged by absinthe. That was it. 


Mrs. Oga’s love for Tonye knew no bounds. She’d given up on her wild, weird child’s chances of ever meeting a man brave enough to cope with her eccentricity or even that Ene herself would ever be interested in settling down.

She pleaded with Tonye to make her see reason about the distillery idea. It really riled her father up. When Tonye could think rationally, it riled him up too. He tried to appeal to Ene’s better judgment but she remained adamant. He insisted that she at least clue him in on her business plan. She insisted, he wouldn’t understand. He lost his temper and gave her an ultimatum, she begged him to have patience. “The end product will justify me”. 
He succeeded however in getting her to dry up. This was good for his ego. Poor Tonye always felt that as far as they had come, Ene would still heed the call of excitement and leave him without much thought at any time. Her agreeing to dry-up seemed to him a positive statement. Dele, his psychotherapist friend guided her through clearing the common societal misconception that an alcohol problem is a sign of moral weakness. “As a result people feel that to seek help is to admit some type of shameful defect in their nature. While in fact, alcoholism is a disease that is no more a sign of weakness than is asthma.”

The sessions were good for her. She appeared more stable and was keeping clean. The sessions were confidential so all he knew was that she was responding well. As part of her therapy, she "shared" with me how she started drinking. She had started drinking actively at thirteen years old. Being an only child of filthy rich and equally busy parents, she’d been left very much to her own devices. The Oga household was a full one with servants, relatives and all. Despite this everyone pretty much left Ene on her own.

In the past, alcohol abstinence to him, made no sense. Jesus turned water into wine after all, why did he, if we were not meant to enjoy it? He’d been a social drinker, who could hold his drink pretty well. He was a larger man and on a good day could do five to six bottles of beer and still drive home safely. He enjoyed his beer really good. Ene had cured him of that. She’d woken him up to the reality of alcohol. He’d seen all too clearly the dangers, to underestimate its stealthy approach and possession.

Tonye found Ene eerily sophisticated and blasé for a twenty four year old. Her adventures were often over the top, involving globe trotting types. 

She’d recounted the final ritual of the Bacchanalian initiation process in Las Vegas.  The three day celebration and thanksgiving to Bacchus the god of wine. The last day fell on the 14th of June (the anniversary of the lift of the ban on absinthe). This day was chosen for the final initiation rites.

The bacchanalian’s believed that the spirit of the god Bacchus was in essence all about youth, vitality and power. On the third and last day of the frenetic celebration, the six new Bacchanalian’s were blessed and commanded to go forth and excel. That night was the feast of the Bacchanalian. She never really said what they did but later, the younger set had an after party.  Ali brought forth bottles of a 70 percent proof, $2,500 per bottle, ninety two year old herbal liqueur; the Pernod Fils. Ene and Ali would have been the death of each other. According to her, they drank till six am the next day, doing the rounds of clubs and casinos. These people believe that honouring Bacchus releases abundance on  every aspect of a persons life. Honouring Bacchus is revelry.
Tonye never could shake off the feeling that there was a part of the story missing. The original Bacchanalian festivals were not just about alcohol, they were orgies, yes with a lot of sex....., but that was all the information she volunteered about her creed.

TO BE CONTINUED.....