

Table of Contents

  1. **LOST**
  2. **INTERLUDE**

  3. **DIVERSION \- Alaa M. Ali**

  4. **REVENGE \- Dolapo Hazeez**

  5. **GUILTY \- Taofik Soboyejo**

  6. **FINDING ME \- Sandy Om'Iniabohs**

  7. **TWENTY-SEVEN (27) - Nnadozie-Ononye Chukwuma.xhtml) - Nnadozie-Ononye Chukwuma**

  8. **TWENTY-EIGHT (28) - Ibukun Akeredolu.xhtml) \- Ibukun Akeredolu**

  9. **LOST BUT FOUND \- Sandy Om'Iniabohs**

  10. **FOUND \- Aisha Oredola**

  11. **LOST II \- Sofiyat Oyesanya**

  12. **LOST BUT NOT FORGOTTEN \- Sandy Om'Iniabohs**

  13. **HAT VALOREN \- Morenike Gbadamosi**

  14. **TWO ROADS.xhtml) - Sanni Hassan Oluwatobi (Don SHO)**

  15. **SOULS FOR SALE - Abdelkareem Kareemah**

  16. **LOST (or something like that) - Oluwatosin Gregory.xhtml) - Oluwatosin Gregory**

  17. **LISTEN, OLAOLUWA -  Adetona Mariam Omolayo**

  18. **NO PLACE LIKE PARADISE - Nnadozie-Ononye Chukwuma**

  19. **GONE \- Aisha Oredola**

  20. **FEAR \- Sandy Om'Iniabohs**

  21. **INTERLUDE II**

  22. **A DIFFERENT DREAM \- Dolapo Hazeez**

  23. **REBIRTH \- Olaolu Olowo**

  24. **LOST VIII \- Olanireti Igbekele**

  25. **LOVE LOST Sandy Om'Iniabohs**

  26. **THE PSYCHEDELIC NAMED VIVIAN \- Taofik Soboyejo**

  27. **INTERLUDE III**

  28. **LUCID DREAMS \- Aishat Adisa**

  29. **NEVERLAND, A TALE OF LOST BOY \- Laolu Olowo**

  30. **NEE IWEKA, A JOURNEY HOME - Nnadozie-Ononye Chukwuma**

  31. **Soul Repair \- Alaa M. Ali**

  32. **INSANITY - Abdelkareem Kareemah**

  33. **ACKNOWLEDGMENTS**

  34. **ABOUT THE AUTHORS**

  35. **ABOUT THE BOOK**

# LOST

# A Book Cracks Anthology

Book Cracks Book Club

Do not be fooled, might be a drug ring disguised as a book club.

P.S. Just kidding. Or am I? I guess we'll never know.

Enjoy the stories.

# INTERLUDE

_"I read somewhere once, that we are never really lost. Just drifting, searching, claiming new places to belong, but how can that be true if the only place I have ever belonged is home, with the lot of you."_

_-For everyone who is lost and is finding their way._

# DIVERSION

Alaa M. Ali

We used to camp out when I was little

I remember one time as my mom was

putting out the fire

and the flames were waning,

the moths buzz

and scatter into the the darkness.

I asked her

"won't they get cold?"

she explained to me

how the night moths

follow the stars to find home.

how humans created flames

moths can't help but

being drawn to,

we confused them

and they

forever

lost

their way.

she told me how

in doing what we did

we redirected them

back to the right path.

she said to me

'falling in love

will make you lose

yourself

and your way

home.

there is no escaping it.

I just wish that

when that happens,

you, too,

will have someone  to put the flames

                                                                                                        Alaa M. Ali

# REVENGE

Dolapo  Hazeez

Everyone heard a faint sound then they saw her stagger two steps backward. Her campaign team, her special security aides as well as the cheering crowd. A few seconds later, Barrister Caroline fell to the floor gasping helplessly for breath while trying hard to point towards the direction of the sniper. The shot was taken with such precision that perennial serial killers would be left trailing in his wake. She was hit in the left side of the chest, the part that houses a certain organ responsible for pumping blood throughout the body. She tried hard but couldn't lift her hands to the sniper's direction. Instinctively, three of her security aides swarmed her immediately, pulling her out of the open while the other five fanned out trying to locate the sniper. The cheering crowd had erupted, screaming and scrambling for safety as they watched the loveable politician go down during a peaceful campaign.

Looking on as the event unfolded from the middle of a high-rise building lies a smiling Anton. "How pathetic!" he thought to himself on seeing the strategic positioning of the special security aides. With minimal fuss, he dismantled his weapon, a Russian Chukavin sniper rifle, assembled it in its guitar backpack then strapped it tightly around his body like an up and coming guitarist. He stepped out of the building in no time, walked passed two security aides in typical schoolboy fashion, easily missed because of his innocent look while sporting a Mohawk haircut. He smiled yet again as he walked past the security aides amidst other panicking members of the public scrambling for safety. You would be forgiven for expecting such an accomplished sniper to have a body frame of striking resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime with a terror-sewn looks of the legendary Undertaker. Nothing close, he's just a twenty year old lanky boy who has honed his skills over time. That's his 9th kill, he never shoots twice and he never misses. A sense of fulfillment hit him hard once again as he breezed past a couple of terrified people forcing a smile to appear on his face yet again. "Just one more name on the list," he mused.

The news of the aspiring Mayor's assassination spread like wildfire immediately. Not a surprise given the 21st social media frenzy and the popularity of Barrister Caroline. That makes it the nine public place assassinations in the past two years, such is the killer's expertise in public places. Nine bullets, nine shots, nine kills.

Four months later, a vibrant Barrister Nicholas stepped onto the podium to large cheers from a crowd full of teeming youth. Being a successful real estate tycoon, he would talk to his audience about basic smart tips to getting started in the highly profitable but tricky real estate industry. Yet another benevolent act by Barrister Nicholas to the crime-oriented youthful populace.

The killer was set in his lair, the seventh floor of a nearby hotel, watching on as Barrister Nicholas got started. He suddenly became nervous, this was going to be his final kill, the final name off his list and a fitting finale considering the major role played by Barrister Nicholas in his life-long pain.

Twelve years ago, his parents were murdered in cold blood. His father was part of a famed "League of eleven", a group of elite Barristers that became so powerful by learning top secrets of powerful men. No one knew who they were, the identities of all its members is another top secret. Some people actually doubt if they really existed calling it a fable just to make people scared. But the real powerful men whose secrets are held by the group do not doubt their authenticity. On that rather unfortunate night, Barrister Nicholas visited Anton's dad and shot him and his wife after they all had dinner with a silencer-enhanced pistol while saying the words "for all other members of the league of eleven, we're afraid you know too much". Anton was supposed to be in a summer camp but he fell ill and was sent back home on that very day, he watched in horror as his parents were cruelly murdered while fighting the urge to scream. Ever since then, he became lost in his emotions, anger, hate and contempt, he had only one ambition in life, to end the league of eleven once and for all even if he didn't know how. He found the list of their names in one of his father's safe and studied all the members carefully for seven years. They all had two things in common. They were all Barristers and they were all philanthropists.

When he was 15, he innocently clicked on a link on twitter which directed him to a page where questions about sorrow and revenge were asked. He got a mail the following day asking if he wants justice for all the pain he has suffered. He replied in the affirmative promptly signing up for a rogue military agency that trained him and four other boys on assassination for three years on a far off island. They were armed with heavy military weapons to suit all sort of operations they want to execute. There, a protocol was laid out, you don't shoot twice, regardless. That became their mantra, and they left the island upon completing training to fulfill their various quests, often getting in touch with their masters with information on their levels of progress.

He talked himself out of his current mini-crisis and focused on getting the job done. He placed his hand gently on his trigger while readying himself for his tenth and final shot. "Aye, all clear! In 5, 4, 3, 2...shit! What on planet earth is he doing there?" he grunted in disbelief. A kid of about seven had just stepped onto the podium just in time to obstruct his view of the target. By the time the coast became clear, Barrister Nicholas was going off stage to a large applause after delivering a morale-boosting speech. Just there and then, he staggered like he missed a step, or not, he had been shot in the shoulder but the killer won't take any chances so he broke all protocols. He shot again. For the first time in his illustrious career, that was the first time he shot twice, out of desperation and nervousness. The second bullet flew through Barrister Nicholas' head leaving him dead instantly. Mission accomplished, his tenth and final kill, the last name on the list. However, with high-level intelligence, the military personnel present at the occasion spread out immediately and apprehended the killer in no time. A fault of his own, he broke protocols, he shot twice, and he blew his cover.

Once again, the news about the public assassination of yet another influential figure broke out. This time, however, the killer would be brought to justice.

He appeared in court the following day and pleaded guilty to all ten high-profile public assassinations. His reasons unknown.

Anton was sentenced to death after the court found him guilty of all ten high-profile killings, taking law into his own hands. "Do you have any regrets that your life ends on such a bitter note at your tender age?" a reporter asked him after the court ruling. "Regrets? Hell No! I just found a lost part of myself, a life-long fulfilment. I've been soulless for too long and now I'm dying a hero...like Theon Greyjoy of the popular HBO blockbuster series."

# GUILTY

Taofik Soboyejo

"Guilty or not guilty?" The judge asked.

I know everyone expects me to say not guilty. I don't think I possess enough strength in me to keep up this charade. My supportive friends and the mental health awareness group I volunteered for are here, they've been with me through these trials. I know everyone outside thinks so little of me. The mobs of reporters, the patriarchal society, even my own diabolical polygamous family.

"Guilty but I'd like to say a few words since I'm my own counsel. Provided you'll be generous enough your honour seeing as I didn't waste so much time in prolonging the trial. I want my story, whatever convictions that come after I'm  entirely willing to bear the  consequences."

"Your Honour,  I come from a polygamous family of twenty kids. My late loving  father had 16 children, of which ten were females. There are  four dead at the moment. Three women and a boy that died at infancy. Those were the best  amongst my siblings.  The dead ones were from my  mother, they tried to kill me too but maybe I could chalk it to a clog in the wheel or a diabolical malfunction. For reasons unknown, I survived, my survival was most likely a spite to them because my late mother continually referred to me as the stubborn one.

Like my father too, she was a loving woman but she died shortly before my thirteenth birthday. The good ones almost never stay around. It's like an affliction, be good to me and be next in line.

You may find it hard to believe but I was a very outstanding student in school, the brightest but that's  debatable because the school always gives the overall best student to the head teacher's son.

Mother's death was the straw but in this instance it was not the camel's back that was breaking, it was mine. My financial backbone and emotional spine was shelved. There was no support left. I had to start washing dishes in restaurants and I ate the remnants of food, like other kids.

It was unbearable staying at home too because home was hell, it was in this moment of weakness I remembered Uncle Kayode.  My mother's only sibling who is a snake and makes me do things I don't want to but at least he feeds me and he gives me money.

When I was younger,  Uncle Kayode used to make me touch things on his body I had no idea what they were.  One time he tried to put it on my face, I ran away and he called me back and gave me  money  to never tell anyone. He also brought something that looked like a charm I had seen on my mother's big Television that made people vomit white things and said that if I should ever tell anyone about it, bad things will happen.

I told my mum,  we went to his place and they yelled at each other for a long time. It was not long after that mother died.

He got married. He does not  live far away, so I gathered a little money I had been keeping on the days when I used to go to school. I ran away from  home to the devil's incarnate.

His wife took me in. Like every good person, I bring them what I've always brought. One day Uncle Kayode was caught in bed with another woman, his wife's sister. She packed her bags and never came back.

I had to live alone with Uncle Kayode. Now I'm  fifteen years and older I thought, but that did not deter him. He crept into my room, overpowered me, choked me till there was so much tears coming out of my eyes that I thought I would drown, he put his elbow on my throat and his hand over my mouth, used his legs to pin me down. He performed this horrible act till I eventually passed out. He came again the next morning, I was still there helpless and with a very shallow breathing. He repeated the same in the evening.

I ran away, slept by the market side. It was there I met the mental health people, they had come to the market for awareness. I explained my predicament. I went with them and they took to me to a place where I could stay.

They said Uncle Kayode had to face the wrath of the law. Uncle Kayode was arrested and was bailed the next day, he knows powerful people and street thugs but his case was already in court and I was happy he was not going to get away with it.

Things were finally looking good, I had written WAEC and passed. I finally had dreams of becoming someone again. I was on my way to buying JAMB past questions when I was grabbed into a car by two unknown thugs. They took me back to Uncle Kayode's house. He had this very angry look on his face. At first, I was scared but remembered all the bad things he did to me.

 I felt rage in its rawness. I felt the need to destroy everyone who had destroyed me. I still do not know what prompted me but I took the bottle of  Trophy on the table swiftly. None of them expected what was coming. I smashed it on the thugs' faces. Stabbed both of them in the throat. While they were busy holding their gored throats to keep all the blood from flowing, I went over to  Uncle Kayode, bent over  him and stabbed him repeatedly in the abdomen while remembering all the horrors he committed.

I stood up, I'd never felt so powerful, so in control yet out of it but it felt good. It felt good to be powerful.

That my  honour was the beginning, the beginning of my killings. A quest for an insatiable thirsts against the men who  take advantage of girls like me.

That my honour was how I became LOST. 

# FINDING ME

On a road less travelled, I walk,

briars, thorns and thistles, I find.

This journey I must take, to find the person....

The person I am to become.

Here alone, dreams as bright as the stars up high,

Finding my way, while the bats cry.

Will I ever make it out whole?

Or find the part of me that I lost long before.

There's more to me than what you see.

As I journey, I leave marks and prints.

So, all who may come will know,

The human who walked this path,

And the ones that would follow,

Found a little bit of themselves with every step.

                                                                                    SANDY 

# TWENTY-SEVEN (27)

Nnadozie-Ononye Chukwuma

1

2016

27, twenty seven, it was unheard of in the small town of Okwere, a football stronghold, where the men worshiped three things, score lines, alcohol and the beautiful women the town was renowned for. It was unthinkable for them to lose to a rival in their own backyard, it was unthinkable to lose to them twice over the course of the season, it was unthinkable for them to go through a whole year and end up as anything but champions in any of the tournaments. But that was where they were, come this year. It was a difficult period of time for both the fans and the players alike, but for Stanley Okonkwo, a former star, who transformed into one of the greats in the game for his nation, and now their coach who had taken the team on an extraordinary journey because of his astute understanding of the game and his devotion to his hometown, had become part of the history the town was forged on. There was a split in the loyalty of the people from the southwest of Lagos, who had come to be irritated by their team's prolonged insipidity and quite frankly something had to change and when a recent poll went up on what had to, both in the media, and word on the streets from the vendor selling the morning papers, to rumors coming out of the bars, it was almost clear... the coach was to take the axe.

*******************************************************************

In all his experience playing football, Stanley was renowned for three things, his composure on the ball when under pressure in tight places, his ability to pick a pass, but what stood head and shoulder above the rest was his charm, Stanley was a crowd favorite!

Mr. Cool he had come to be known as, he drew comparisons with one of the all-time greats none other than the legendary Stanley Mathews, he was similar to him both in style, and of course the name.

Stanley started his football at the tender age of six, born to parents that married at a young age, it was one that was filled with misunderstandings, and by the age of ten, one morning his mother packed her bags and left him a note and a pair of boots, on it the note read,

for my dearest son, whom I have to leave, for reasons best kept to myself. Know that I would always love you unconditionally and sometimes grownups panic into making decisions that end up haunting us, know that your father and I love you very much, and this has nothing to do with you

- Love, your mother

Stanley remembered looking at his boots carefully and wondering how he was supposed to live his life knowing that his mother was never coming back. He didn't know where she went and she didn't want to be found apparently.

Jumping down the bed he left with the note in hand to show his father, as he opened the bedroom's door to check on his father, he found him with his head in his hands and his fingers slowly massaging the sides of his head, he also remembered the look on his father's face, he would later go on to see that look twice again later in his life, one was on hearing the news of the death of his mother, and the other when THE COASTERS lost their third game of the season in the WEST ELITE LEAGUE to their neighbors and fiercest rivals, FC MILLWELL, which was owned by one of the business men in the west, it was always going to be a feisty affair, especially as the team had just bought their best player for a huge sum of money the season before, and to lose for the third time in seven games, a record, to their ugly brothers at home, something that had never happened for the best part of thirty decades, tempers were always likely to flare and things were only likely to get out of hand. And get out of hand they did, fourteen arrests were made, the game had a controversial goal given, a player had a broken nose, there was the incident when a fan threw an object suspected to be plastic water bottle at a player and there was the biggest brawl at the end of half-time ever in a game between the two teams. But those who were diehard fans of the 'south coast blue boys' it was ominous a long time ago, many actually expected it

Twisting back the handle of the wooden door to close it, ten year old Stanley had made up his mind, he was going to become a footballer at all costs, and he was going to be better than his father whom he felt was at fault for their parents split, although he would have to set aside his resentments for most of his life, Stanley's father was a local legend in the game, and was also his coach, and when it came to his football, Stanley knew, in his father he had the best there was when it came to his education in the game.

Five years later, during a game that was deadlocked for the most parts of the ninety, Stanley dribbled all the way from the half way line, took on opponent after opponent on a mazy run, and with a slight drop of the shoulder and a feint in his shooting, he made a pass to the winger on the left, who delivered a cross for the towering centre forward to nod, from that angle, he made no mistake in his timing for the jump, 1-0 nil to the team from the south, and from there on, they went into defending and playing on the counter, Stanley almost made it  a two goal cushion, but fired just narrowly wide, the game ended with them pegged back into their own half, and the whistle from the referee was met with wild jubilations from the handful of people watching the game.

As Stanley was walking over to meet his father, who was beaming with joy amidst sweats because the weather was hot, he saw a man walk towards him and he stopped,

"Hey that was a good game today, you really played well"

"Thank you, football is a team's game"

"That attitude of yours would take you far in the game, I'm a scout of the south coast team, here is my official card, you would need an agent to represent you, and when you pass the trials you would also need a lawyer to help with the contracts, personally I could get you a good agent and also a good lawyer too" the man said with a twinkle in his eye that Stanley thought made him look distrustful.

And before he could say another word his father came up and spoke up,

"I think I'll handle it from here, I'm Okonkwo Thaddeus his father, and coach of this team, how may I be of help gentleman" his father was always so cool, Stanley thought.

"Thaddeus! The genius with a left boot, the wizard of the locusts in the 40's, remember our late goal against you people in the first half of extra-time, remember? I was the one who made a foul that cost us the penalty which you missed in the dying moments of the game, if you had scored that goal, we the terriers wouldn't have lifted that cup"

Of course the bug, with a smug face and eyes that were like the front headlamps of an ugly truck, sure he remembered the game that made him lose a house after betting he was going to score at least a goal in the match, if there was any weakness the great wizard of the game had, it was his love for gambling. And for an introvert, it was so unlike him.

"You know, I was promoted to the first team after that game. Destiny can be very funny" the man said

Of course it always was going to be thought Okonkwo, he lost a house that day and it also became a steady learning curve for him to take each match as it came although that was the only final the team made for the rest of his playing days, but that didn't stop him from winning individual accolades and his reputation grew as a sportsman with unrelenting loyalty, the wizard of the west was a man of uncompromising character, The Okwere News agency, the foremost news agency at that time ran a caption that read if only there are more men like "the wizard" in Nigeria  which was a publication made in 1969, of course there was going to be that magical season of '62' where they went nearly the whole season unbeaten and won their first trophy in nine years, it was a proud moment for the locusts, and after the war, which also took a beloved team mate of theirs, their captain Ifedinma Arnold, in 1971 Thaddeus called time on the game to focus on what was important, his son who was now on the verge of making something for himself

"Well I have told him about the need for an agent and of course a lawyer, because this boy of yours is well on his way to becoming a superstar, like the legend that his father is, or even one better in achievements too"

"Playing it for the love of the game should suffice for my boy, he knows that the game is a mental one, and the right mentality facilitates the right attitude, and the right attitude would help to see him do just fine"

"Well I see him doing better than just fine" the man said, staring at Thaddeus in what seemed like a mock laughter, before turning to stare at the lean dark stallion standing beside him. He made a mental note of him and when he described him to the club, his words were, "a boy whom has the composure of a panther, the mind of a fox, and the attitude of a soldier", he explained, "Attributes needed for the creation of a footballing nightmare to oppositions" he enthused.

Samuel Adekanji was a wily old man, but in truth, there was only one maestro when it came to spotting talents, Adekanji, was just the man. And at the age of 16, Stanley signed for the locusts with a beaming Adekanji and a poker faced Thaddeus as he became the youngest ever player to feature in the intra state tournament competition later that year, an achievement made by none other than 'the brick' Samuel Adekanji.

Word on the streets before the game was that the locusts had a new Pele on their hands, a sixteen year old footballer with the brains of an adult who had become seasoned over time, the southwest of Lagos was astir with expectations, their star midfielder had an injury and somehow the coach entrusted a sixteen year old to replace him, before a big game, against the mighty Catalyst FC, they were from the eastern part of the state, and they had a very mean defense, and the team were known to be generally rugged.

Before the game Thaddeus was skeptical about his son playing the game, and had a word or two with the manager.

"How can you thrust a sixteen year old into the fire for such a tough match? How do you expect that to turn out, he's going to be kicked about for the majority of the game, surely this was some kind of mistake"

The manager, a tall bulky mad with a wide forehead and nostrils that always looked like they were flaring up each time he spoke said

"I don't see any problems with the decision I made, he gets kicked about? Easy he stands right up, he gets shoved and hounded each time he's on the ball, he stands firm, he stands tall, it's the nature of the game' replied the manager.

"Look here, anything happens to my boy and I'll hold you responsible" Thaddeus was level with the manager, his eyes peeking deeply into the hollow retina of the manager

"Anything happens to your boy, then it's a blow to the team, he's ready, you can't fault a team for fielding their best players now, can you wizard? Such is the nature of the game, if you're not ready to see your son take the big leap, why don't you go outside and tell him now yourself.

There was a slight pause

"That's what I thought" the manager replied.

The match was to take place by 4pm, and by three, most of the shops were closing and people were heading towards the field to take their seats, bets were being made and there was an uproar from the fanatics in the stadium, but something about the star midfielder being replaced by the unknown teenager dominated the build up to the game, sixteen year old Stanley Okonkwo was about to make his debut in front of the demanding crowd that had come to watch him and the team in action.

 3:45pm and the teams were already on the field of play, and were going through the final drills, Stanley was feeling his hamstring out and there drops of perspiration on the faces of the players, such was the nature of the weather. It was going to be a tense game and both teams knew it, although the favorites were still the locusts, the scales had tipped massively in favor of an upset against them when word got out of the injury to their captain, and his replacement in an untried and untested teenager.

4:00pm, and the stage was set, the number 14 clung soaked with sweat to the back of Stanley.

Prttttt! The whistle went and the game began, already the visiting team FC Catalyst's game plan was clear, sit back and hit on the counter, and it was going to be a difficult match, and the teams looked up for it, Thaddeus was close to the bench and he clutched his bottle of water firmly, hoping and praying that his son at least left the field in good shape.

So the game went on, flurry after flurry of attacks from the locusts, were rampant, but the Catalyst's defense was a mean one, and held firm like bricks against rubber bullets, it was a colorful affair, red against black, a blend of terror and evil, the fans were chanting and the coaches were ramming out orders

"Defend!"

"Pass quickly!"

"That's a foul referee!"

Suddenly the Catalyst sprung a counterattack,  Stanley had a pass intercepted and the opposing fullback ran on a lung bursting speed, and made a cross to the target man in the locusts' box, the towering giant met the cross with his forehead, there was nothing the goalie could do to prevent that, 1-0 nil to the team in black.

It was a typical FC Catalyst goal, a sonic counterattack which was almost impossible to stop.

The home fans sank into silence, the coach was gesticulating towards Stanley,

"You should've passed to the nearest man"

The captain put his arms around Stanley and said

"Don't worry, it's the life of a player, sometimes we make mistakes that cost our team, other times the mistakes we make don't. It's up to you to atone for the mistakes, and a few times it's not, just play your game and keep doing what you did to make you earn your place in this team, alright?"

Stanley nodded.

An extra-time of two minutes was given in the first half, and as expected there was wall after wall of Catalyst players defending with such tenacity, that they could have passed for recruits in the military, and the attacks from the locusts was relentless, Stanley picked up the ball at the edge of the eighteen yard box, and quickly stepped past two players and sold the last one with a dummy, on getting into the box, made to shoot with his left, and with a swift drag of the ball to his right, the opposing defender didn't see that move coming, and so he followed through with the challenge... big mistake, as he completely mistimed it and down went Stanley... it was a no brainer. Penalty!

 A yellow card was given to the defender; much to the annoyance of the home crowd, as well as the players, with his whistle the referee summoned the captain of both sides to calm each other's team down. It was a way to get a grip on things before they spiraled out of control.

And so it was time to take the penalty, and up stepped the captain to take it and Stanley remembered his words to him... it's up to you to atone for the mistakes...

The crowd was shocked!

A sixteen year old gangly teenager walked to the captain and took the ball from him, and with a surprised look on the faces of both the captain, the manager screaming at the top of his lungs at the captain and matter of fact, the whole stadium, and the fans who were giving each other amused looks and Thaddeus wondering what the hell his son was thinking as well as the referee who gave a slight shake of his head, Stanley placed the ball on the part sand, part grass of the pitch and drew in deeply.

Face to face with the goalkeeper, Stanley looked at the leather projectile in front of him and his mind was made up, he knew where he was going to place it, and when the whistle came for him to take it, almost as soon as the ball left his boot, a finger grabbed him, and he felt a weight on his back, and he saw the keeper screaming at his defenders and the game was level going into half-time.

Parity!

The captain hugged Stanley tightly, as did other teammates, they were all happy, and as for the fans they saw a sixteen year old who was an embodiment of what the team had come to be known for, resilience, courage and heart. The crowd was buzzing, both sets of fans were chanting, club insignias and banners were waving, some artists in the crowds were painting the faces of some fans with their team's colors, alcohol was flowing, and new bets were being made. The evening sun had gone down, and the sunset could be seen far off in the sky, and an evening breeze cut across the stadium. The second half was going to be electric.

Thaddeus was beaming as he saw his son walk past him; he felt the nostalgia sweep through him as the hair on his skin stood as he remembered the days when he too was a player for the locusts, the wizard of the west. He didn't see her come, just before he could turn to see who had nudged him a voice that brought back the years asked

"How well is he playing?"

Thaddeus felt a lump in his throat, and a he struggled to a "fine' reply. Staring mortified, like he had just seen a ghost.

Back in the dressing room, the manager was ripping into Stanley for the mistake he made and for him going against what was the usual rule concerning penalty kick duties.

"Your name isn't even in the list of those to take a penalty!"

"Sir with all due respect it could have been worse, he made a mistake and he atoned for it, we are all happy to have equalized against a very stubborn defense, and as good as Johnnie was when he played the Advanced playmaker position, he didn't have the drive Stanley has, and for a sixteen year old he played with a maturity that defied his age, and his spot kick was a thing of beauty, I know I wouldn't have missed that, but I also know I wouldn't have done it as beautifully as he did, I mean coachie the goalie was rooted to a spot, he couldn't move"

"Johnnie was great and is a star and all, but sir, this kid's got something special" Flash the number 9 spoke up, usually a very reserved person.

Martin Oboh was a respected manager, an astute tactician who had coached three teams that had won the national trophy, THE CUP OF CHAMPIONS. It was what many dreamed of, the locusts had made it to the final once and had lost, and Thaddeus was nearing retirement when it happened. It was a sad day for the team, and since the closest they had come was the quarter-finals. So Martin, had been brought in because of his reputation, he coached the mighty FC Panthers, from Cross River, and they were the current reigning champions. He had won them that in his last season, and the fans were sad to see him go.

Martin was very peculiar about his player's well being as well as their knowledge of how the game should be played, a firm disciplinarian and a believer in hard work and honesty. He believed in combining beauty with grit. His famous words were "a house is beautiful no doubt, the marbles as well as the coat of painting and everything that sparkles, but what makes is stand is the ugly cement beneath mixed with gravels that hurt and would cut your feet if ever they're stepped on"

Married with three kids, Martin was very wary of how easily kids could get carried away. So he was always ready to cut them down with words he felt were necessary so as to caution them. In Stanley he saw a star, a very big one, the lad had immense talent, and skills that made one envy his creator, people didn't know he was the son of the legendary Thaddeus Okonkwo, it was discussed with 'the brick' to make it a secrecy, so as to protect him from the comparisons, also so that he would be judged based on merit solely and not because of his heritage.

The second-half was close and Martin dished out his final commands and just as everyone was leaving, he called out to Stanley

"Boy"

The number 14 turned to face his manager and then walked slowly towards his manager,

"Keep your head up, and get ready to be bloodied by those hounds, stand firm"

Stanley nodded

The lad was a quiet one, the manager observed. He also knew behind that lack of words, existed a mirage of thoughts that would make an avalanche of words. He knew he had on him a cerebral personality and he smiled.

As the second half was about to commence, Stanley looked up to the stands, which were made of wooden seats, he noticed a face, he couldn't quite recall, or maybe he did, he quickly shrugged it off, as the referee blew the whistle and they were underway once again, the game was pretty much a replica of the first half,  but the impetus were with the locusts and they swarmed all over the visitors for much of the game, and although the visitors were putting up a stern front with some impressive defending, it was only a matter of time before they cracked

And crack they did, it came in the 89th minute pretty much against the run of play, the visitors had a free kick awarded to them, and they took a risk by sending most of their players in an attempt to try and score, it all happened in a flash, in one breathtaking counter attack similar to the visitors goal, and it was led by the number 14, clearing the cross from the set-piece it found its way to the feet of Stanley, who went on a spur, flash was ahead of him, and the captain was by his right, it was a three against three counterattack, and Stanley could almost feel the goal in him, he took out the first player who advanced towards him, and flash got into position, as he approached the eighteen yard, the defender was in a dilemma to attack or defend, and Stanley made up his mind for him and ran at him, the defender lunged in a tackle and Stanley expertly tucked the ball under him, and jumped over the outstretched leg, the crowd were up on their feet, and Thaddeus was with them, Martin was uttering something inaudible, and so it was set, two defenders out of the way, and one torn between stopping either one of flash or the captain, it was a decoy as Stanley made to shoot, and with the outside of his boot flicked it to the captain who was in an advanced position and before the defender could react it was square played to flash who had the easy task of picking his spot, and he made no mistake, 2-1.

 Martin was jumping on the touchline, although it was flash who scored, but everyone ran towards the teenager who had made the difference, and they mobbed him, the look on the faces of the visitors was one of defeat, and the home fans were ecstatic. The atmosphere was immense, and some firecrackers could be heard, and the drums were being played.

As he was about to turn, now in much better view he saw close to his father, was his mother, looking at him and smiling while applauding, he couldn't quite believe it, it was as if an emotional firework had gone off in his heart and it was evident on the streaks of salt water that was cascading down his face. Life at that point made so much sense to him

Not long after the final whistle went and the game was over, and all over the field there was a chant going round, "we have a new hero, who do we have to fear, we have a new superstar who do we have to fear"

As the drama died down, whilst in the dressing room his father alongside his mother came to see him, she took him aside and she hugged him, crying and laughing at the same time, "you did great, you did really great, I'm so proud to be a mother" and she left him with a note and an address, and with that she left.

Thaddeus came over and looked at his son, there was something in his eyes that Stanley, hadn't seen in a very long time, and it was something close to happiness.

The sports column in the tabloids carried various headlines all relating to the events from yesterday. It was all very overwhelming for Stanley, but he was a cool head.

Aged 17years, six months, and 126 days Stanley lined up alongside his team-mates for the final of, THE CUP OF CHAMPIONS, he was sporting a black armband in tribute to his late mother who died in a car crash weeks before, after she promised to come see him play, and as he looked up to the skies, he saw amidst the blueness of it, a smile, her smile, a confirmation of what he had always known, that she was an angel, and for the rest of his life she would be with him, until they met again.

Thaddeus was applauding the crowd, word was already out that the legend was father to a rising star, a generation of gifts, and he was hugely cheered when he took his seat, there were tears in his eyes when he sat down, and he had gotten more wrinkles after the loss of Susan.

The game ended with Stanley scoring a hat trick, and in that moment, a star was on his way to cementing his name permanently alongside the greats of the game, as the locusts won their first national trophy, as they emerged victorious in a 4-1 rout of the defending champions.

Stanley went on to represent the national team, and he spent the rest of his playing career with the locusts before they were renamed to FC Coasters, otherwise known as THE COASTERS, and he won numerous individual awards as well as titles with the team.

 It spanned 25 years, and in 1999, he retired.

2016

Stanley could feel it in the air, his adventures with the boys from the blue was coming to an end, even the staunchest of his supporters knew it was coming, the legendary son of a legend, was at the end of what had been an illustrious career both as a player and a manager. He had his head placed at the chopping board, waiting for the executioner to receive his instructions.

It all started well for him as a manager, Stanley had always been a cerebral person, full of wisdom and intellect, his ability to influence people was second to none, and he did it with grace and charm. And so when the opportunity came for Stanley to be manager it was a no brainer for both the owners of the club, and the fans.

And so on October 2014, the media was abuzz with the appointment of Stanley Okonkwo as their manager. The team, had been struggling of late, and the local news had reported of unrest in the dressing room and a falling out with several of the big boys, and it was becoming clear that something had tom change.

In his first few weeks, at the club, all the players and staff showed deep respect and regard for the man, who was a local like them, and grew playing for the team he loved, and also showed loyalty to them by giving them the whole of his career. He also gave them their first national title with his infamous hat trick at the tournament. He immediately commanded the dressing room, and in his first full season at the club, they won the CUP OF CHAMPIONS.

In his second season, in charge, it was a clean sweep. They won everything and there was a momentum, with them and for long periods of time they were worshiped. But come the third season in charge of the team from the southwest of Lagos, things took a turn.

First there was talk of a recession which swept through the nation like seismic tremors. It made a lot of panic decisions amongst the people, stocks were generally unstable, and after the earlier Ponzi scheme, that rocked 2015, people were a lot wary pertaining to finance.

April 2016, the club was sold to investors who cared nothing about the team save for the financial side of it. It was just another enterprise to the new owners, and from then it was a downward spiral.

The first game of the season ended with the team recording a routine 3-0 victory. And things seemed to be Ok although there were contract issues with certain members of the team, and there was a need to make new signings as most of the squad was over the age of thirty and there was a need for young blood to provide a blend. Although there had been promotions to the youth team only a few had enough experience to compete for the entire season.

In the transfer window of that season, the club was to be thrown into further turmoil, as three of their best players were transferred to other teams, and an already depleted squad seemed scanty of any creativity. And the replacements brought in were panic buys, and no further additions were made. Winter was here, and even in the deafening heat, there were chills in the spines of both the supporters as well as the players, as everyone was always glued to the tabloids on their smart phones, the television, the radio and newspapers. The Coasters were in deep shit, and they sank further when Tajudeen Ibrahim, a centre defender of much promise rejected a contract and signed for FC Millwell, it was unheard of, and that caused n irreparable rift between the club, players, staff and fans. The community was forced to pick one side, and it was ugly. And the rivalry between the Coasters and Millwall became intensified.

By the tenth game the team had only recorded two victories and suffered a first defeat in their home for nearly eight years, it caused a commotion, not the defeat itself, but the manner of the defeat. A lethargic display, which culminated in a 4-1 hammering of the team from Okwere.

Rumors were beginning to circulate that the team, had lost their zeal to play, and that there was need for a change, and also that the manager needed to give the youth more chance and change formations as the ones he was using were outdated. The unrest was unreal, sports was the only thing that put Okwere on the map, and now it seemed the only thing responsible for them to be seen on Google Earth was gradually slipping away, the community wasn't going to give up without a fight. Shit just got real

Stanley's son, his lastborn just turned fourteen, and although was a high flying student at school, he also had interest in the game, he tried out for four academies and was accepted into all, although he was known to be grandson and son to the two legends in Okwere, he made it on merit as he was pretty decent for his age. But Stanley got the shock of his life when his son opted for The Stallions of East Lagos, usually a calm person; he tore into his son and questioned him about his sanity and thereby giving him a lecture on loyalty. That night, was the night before the big game, the night before the game of the season, it was the match against their bitterest rivals FC Millwell.

They lost 2-0, and by this time the town was already livid. And for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, the coasters were booed off the pitch at the end of the game.

The game was one very highly controversial and violent one, and the arrests were more on the side of the coasters, who were understandably annoyed at what they had just witnessed and if there was any evidence that the town upon which football was worshiped had been desecrated, his was it and no appeasement at that time would heal any of the wounds suffered. It was going to take a while to get past this, a long, long time.

Thaddeus passed away June 2016, his funeral was attended by more than half of the town, and it was a very colorful event. As players and coaches alike came and paid tribute, to the legend, he was buried according to the Christian rites as Thaddeus had been a devout catholic, so there was a mass for him afterwards. In the evening, the number 10 number went up across every street, balloons were let loose into the sky, visitors after visitors came to his apartment on the outskirts of town, and Stanley greeted guests warmly, as himself and his kids, alongside his wife welcomed them. Social media was abuzz on all platforms as the news spread quickly. Most had pictures uploaded of his moments with the locusts. Former teammates wore his jersey in honor of the man, and in the living room, his jersey and his boots were on display. Late into the night there was drinking and merriment as each man told a story about the life of the legend, and the next day Thaddeus Okonkwo became a folklore intertwined with the history of Okwere.

OKONKWO MUST GO; OKWERE NEEDS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR.

Reading the paper that morning, put Stanley in a reflective mood. He looked around his office and saw pictures of memories that would never be replaced, that magical goal in Asaba, the win in 2014, the infamous 36 pass goal, and so many others, cut out from various newspapers. He saw his coach of the year for 2015 award lying in a cardboard box as there was no place to keep it. In his mid-fifties, Stanley was balding a little, and he had just been diagnosed with cancer, there was talk of chemotherapy, but to him he felt I was just a painful prolongation of what was to come. He had told only his wife and eldest daughter, named Susan after his mother.

Standing up, he went to the window and stared out into the streets, his streets, his furnace where his football skills had been forged, his hometown, he cried. Tears dripping down his cheeks, he had carried the burden of being something close to superman for what had been an eternity to him. It was the end of the road for him, he was partly to blame, as his head had not been in the right place all season, noticeable in his team selections and tactics, but it was just one season in what was a bad year all round for everyone in the club. He took a deep breath and exhaled, sometimes it was easy to forget that people were human after all he thought.

Behind him the jersey number 14 stood proudly in a frame. OKONKWO JR. clearly written on its back. He smiled and thought about his father, he too like Stanley led a quiet lifestyle, the only problem was his gambling and his occasional drinking splurge, and in that moment Stanley realized how much of an influence his father was despite his shortcomings, he recognized how lonely he must have been when his mother left, although there were the occasional women his father brought, but none took much of an importance. He took all his responsibilities silently, even after his mother's return and her death, he took everything seamlessly. His father was not perfect, but he was a man's man, the man.

He thought about his son's decision and smiled a little, he thought about what his father would say if he was alive, and he also thought about what it would have been like to play for some other team, he closed his eyes, but what he saw was the number 14, crested on a red kit, blurry because of the speed it ran at, he smiled. And as he peeped out of his office, he recognized how a lot had changed from his time till now, and he smiled again. Changes were a constant, and his son was part of that change, so was his health too. It had been a year of losses. It had been an unwelcome change in the town of Okwere, and things had soured like never before and so an uncertain dawn awaited a town bedridden in sunset.

27 losses, represented the end of Stanley Okonkwo's tenure as manager, and he was sacked before the beginning on next season. The season had ended with the Coasters picking up a paltry seventeen wins, while managing just three clean sheets. They crashed out of both competitions, and in the league they barely escaped relegation.

2017

February 2017, Promise Okonkwo played in the u-17 for the stallions of the east as his father sometimes came to watch him in action. Stanley's condition had deteriorated a little bit and he hardly came out sometimes, but when he did it was extremely uncomfortable.

The Coasters signed another manager as it made desperate attempts to attain a semblance of control over what had become a chaotic period for the coasters.

The stallions ended up finishing fifth, their highest ever place in the competition, whilst in Okwere, Fc Coasters placed seventh, and went as far as the semi finals in the intra state competitions. It was better than last season but not quite, the team was a fast declining force of old. Their score lines had changed, although their alcohol and women remained the same, but the change was evident, and what they were renowned with, in the past for, was no longer there.

Stanley's son had made this debut for the stallion's senior team, and ended up making ten appearances in total, assisting two goals, scoring none. There was much room for improvement in the fifteen year old, and Stanley smiled as he remembered the past, as a sixteen year old.

He did from time, when he could, visit Okwere, he had a bar which also sold football jerseys there, and also had a foundation, that helped develop sporting talents from the grassroots. He would drive past the stadiums where his glory days had lived, and sometimes he would stop and enter the field late at night, the lights in the stadium was always on, and he would walk onto the fields sometimes with a can of beer, most times with cigarettes too, and as he drank and dragged at his cigarettes his mind would wander and his kin would be covered with goose bumps and tears would cave at the corners of his eyes. Okwere was everything to him. And sometimes he went to church, not a firm believer, but he went because his father loved the church, and he never understood why, maybe here was where he came to unload and find strength, but Stanley was here to observe and ask why, he never did get the answer.

On the 1st of September 2018, the town of Okwere gathered at the state cemetery to say goodbye to one of the greatest there was in the game. Everyone had on their jerseys, for the youths, they had on the more recent jerseys whilst the elderly present had with them the brick red color of the locusts. And after that the mass was held in the evening, and with a goodbye filled with hymns and prayers, the mass ended. And late into the night amidst torrents of rainfall everyone had on their lips, in their minds and in their hearts memories of the number 14, flying at a high speed at opponents, or as a coach screaming instructions at players.

November 2018, Promise Okonkwo decided to change from the number 35 which he always wore to number 14, and in his next game, if he scored he was going to hold up his jersey to the skies in honor of both his father and grandfather. 
I pray never to lose me,

In this battle of beliefs and morals,

Drowning in words unspoken,

And this need to never be a soul lost in wind.

# TWENTY-EIGHT (28)

Ibukun Akeredolu

I was 28 years old and I was having the best time of my life, at least I thought I was. The mornings were for work and the evenings for what I love doing the most and what everyone should be doing - drinking. I could never trust a man who says " I don't drink, I don't smoke and I'm very decent" - they are the most dangerous. I worked for the government and I loved the job. Okay, I lied, it's not that I loved the job, I just loved the freedom it gives. I would wake up by 8 AM- mostly due to the hangover from last night heavenly session, check my purse to see how much is left in there - I had a fast rule : I never take all of my cash to my sessions - and be rest assured that I still have enough sense left to follow my fast rule. I would then brush my teeth and take my bath as I wouldn't take my personal hygiene as a joke - nobody loves a man that smells like death, failure and disappointment. I worked at the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry where we did everything else except conserve the environment and give a hoot about the forests. In short, I do nothing and get paid well. How else do you think I fund all my sessions?

Anyway.

Fast forward to December 31st, 2002. I found myself in the Church. I know you are confused as to why I wasn't in my session?. I will explain.

I had been lonely for a week, I was in my room for a week - prior to December 31st. I ran out of money because we were paid December salary early and I squandered everything already. I'm sure you know where the money went to. I ran out of food and money. It was hell. I went to the Church in the hope that there would be food , boy was I wrong? It was all dancing and prayers - mostly prayers about how 2003 should be a better year. I'm sure it's the same thing they repeat every year. It was the dancing part that was stupid , I wanted to slap the daylight out of them all. The fools were dancing, jumping and screaming they won something . I was dying and they were dancing. They looked like imbeciles to me. The statement "when you're hungry, you're angry" is true. This woman was in my front - she was so fat that she looked like the marshmallow man from Ghostbusters.  Marshmallow man was dancing in my front and her dancing was a nightmare for me  many years after that. She left her purse on the chair while dancing like she got soldier ants in her underwear. I guess marshmallow man didn't know she wasn't supposed to do that, but I couldn't blame her because my friend used to say "You can't be fat and be sensible, if you were sensible, you wouldn't get  too much fat in the first place". I used to disagree with my friend but I kind of agreed with the statement in Marshmallow man's case. She kept screaming "I'm blessed". Yes, she was so blessed because I got out of the Church and found blessings in her pause. Enough blessings to get me through a week of drinking and eating, I thought. I entered this restaurant that I was chased out of 8 days ago. Why I was chased is a story for another day but It was my fault. I entered and tapped John on the shoulders, "You're a damn fool, John. Anyway, get me a plate of rice, one bottle of yoghurt plus two beers" I said, "pay before service" John said. I took out Marshmallow man's purse and gave him the money. "Keep the change" I said, "where did you get that purse with all these money" he asked. "None of your damn business, John. You're here to serve. To serve me. Do your job and stop poking your long nose into my business or I break them off" I replied. John laughed and his laughter sounded like a monkey's cry. He brought my order. I finished the meal and drinks in five minutes. I hadn't eaten for days. "Bring me this same order again" I told John, he obeyed. I finished it up in less than five. It seemed like I was competing with myself. "Give me this order one more time" I told John, "Get the fuck out of here, Phil or I ask people to beat you up" John replied. I looked at John and thought he was envious of a man with enough money having the time of his life. I paid envious John and walked out with my purse. I was out on the street again. "Where should I go now" I thought and I opened my purse to see how much is left in there. Enough. And then I noticed what was written on the purse - "Where you are today determines where you will be tomorrow". The quote didn't even make sense to me. The author of the quote tried so hard to make sense but sense wasn't his thing" I thought. I looked at the quote again- "Where am I today?", I pondered. I looked around the street and it was 6pm already. I wanted to answer the question on my mind so bad and only one word kept resonating with me - Lost.

I left Edinburgh to Lagos, a young red-faced priest, eager to use my gift; the ability to see and feel things from people's past by just touching them, eager to serve the world. That was until I touched her skin. I haven't been able to feel anything else ever since.

It was a fine Tuesday morning. I was jogging round the neighborhood when I saw her lying half-clad on the ground, her leg bent at an awkward angle. Feeling sorry for, I touch her and... I am transported.

Darkness wraps itself around the night, where I am transported to. A woman is being raped on the ground beside stagnant water, broken bottles and debris and her screams are muffled by the hand clasped firmly above her mouth.

I cannot shut it out. The vision spreads thick and dark, and heavy.

It was December 17, 1994. A crowd gathered to hear a healthcare official lecture about the benefits of immunizing their children to prevent polio. The crowd was filled with women in hijabs and they were holding babies. A man stormed into the gathering and pulled one of these women away, violently. His anger was a raging storm and the woman he dragged away shrank in fear of it. They would tell her that the man was her father and the woman stumbling behind him was her mother. She was the three month old baby strapped to her mother's back jostling around.

She fell ill when she was two years old, her body was burning up. Her mother muttered prayers and cried and fed her a brown liquid the local doctor had concocted. She survived but was forever changed. Polio

She learnt to make herself invisible, to avoid the mockery that always found her because one of her legs was a malformed small thing and nobody wanted to see that. She could not run like the other children could. Even at home, she seemed to be tolerated. She was the shriveled limb in their family. She embodied her disease.

She endured it all because she had, at least, a roof over her head and food in her plate. But things only worsened.

"Halima", her mother called from the tiny room she and her immediate elder sister shared.

"Na'am", she replied.

"Zo."

Halima hoisted herself with her walking stick and limped to her mother. The children in the courtyard paused the game they were playing to stare and at her and scoff. She made them feel better about themselves. She got into her mother's room. She sat on the bed and looked into the sad eyes of her mother.

"You will not be going to school. Your father says school is a waste for you".

She blinked back her tears and wondered why she had expected more from her father, the person who ignored her most of all. She wanted to go to school. She was fascinated by the uniforms and the books with pictures her siblings owned. She had hoped that schooling would give her access to a world she would never know if she stayed home and became a spectator while others truly lived. It was then she understood that there might be no redemption, no respite for the deformed.

But she had to know. She could not bear the pain she felt in her chest every time she saw other children trudging to school, reciting the multiplication table or fussing over if they would be whipped by a teacher for not doing an assignment. So she started sneaking out to the courtyard at night, armed with a kerosene lantern and her siblings' books. She taught herself to read, to write. She taught herself to think.

The thought came to her one night, two months after her eighteenth birthday, while she sat at the courtyard, reading. She could run away. She could register for GCE examinations and run away. She knew she needed money to send herself to the university but she was sure she would find a way. It was while daydreaming that her father who had stepped out to pee, noticed the light in the courtyard and caught her, a book before her, her eyes glazing over with hope for a future.

He gave her a good whipping; leaving a bloody tangle of whip marks on her back, yelling all through it. He told her that by the time he put her to some use. He did this out of spite but Halima saw a way. A means of paying for the exam had presented itself. She would beg and save little bits of the money to buy the form.

But then she was earning too little to save. People didn't seem to want to give as much as they used to give before. Also, the prizes of things doubled.

Then, she met him.

She was sitting on the floor at her spot, bearing a blue bowl. A vehicle stopped in front of her. A window rolled down to reveal a dark, handsome young man with a beautiful smile. He dropped money into her bowl, more money than she had ever made in a day, and drove off without saying a word. She had enough money to pay for GCE and to buy textbooks. Just like that. If the universe could take without remorse, it could most certainly give without holding back.

Every morning, she would hide anything she needed to read when she went out. She spent more time reading than bearing the blue bowl. The proceeds increased but she hardly saved any from it. The books were enough. The registration money and then, the young man.

He became a regular face and a friendship bloomed. He visited her without his big car. He began to take her away from her place of begging every morning, to a quiet spot where she could read. At night, he would return and walk her to within a short distance from home with money in her bowl.

Of course she had been lonely before him and so she shared her dreams with him. Dreams of studying medicine and surgery in University of Ibadan. He was Akin, son of someone that had money, a graduate of economics from University of Port Harcourt and a youth corps member in Kano state. He promised to take her to Lagos with him where there was a house and a job as a director of one of his father's companies waiting for him. He also promised to pay her tuition fees in University of Ibadan. He asked her to date him. She agreed. Anything to get out of where she was.

She passed her GCE. Two months later, Akin passed out of youth service. A week later, she left home.

Akin took her to Lagos and set up an apartment for her. Their first night together was not as special like she had thought it would be. It was just him thrusting in and out of her and she feeling thankful that someone found her attractive enough.

He refused to let her go to the University. He told her he only took her because she was beautiful and easy to control due to her deformity. She became the object for his sexual gratification and any refusal attracted beatings. She was the secret he kept wrapped up from his family and friends. At twenty one, she got pregnant. She hoped this would make him be kinder to her. She was wrong. He made her have an abortion.

She could bear it no longer so she ran into the night after he dropped her off at her apartment. That was how she got here.

Here in the lonely streets of a slum. Her muffled screams trapped beneath the big hand of the drunken man. Blood seeps from the back of her head that knocked against the edge of the gutter while struggling. Her eyes lose roll white into her head as blood empties out of her skull. Her body grows stiff and gradually loses warmth. The man is too drunk to notice.

There is a calm. There is a sheet of ice that spreads gently. It is erasing everything that was. It feels like heavy nothing, a discernible lack that starts to grow inside me.

It is all I can feel now.

# LOST BUT FOUND

  Sandy

Hello? can you hear me?

Can I trust you with a secret?

I lost myself once.

Its really hard to find yourself in this big world

To go left or to go right, to pause or to forge forward?

So many opinions, choices of decisions to be made,

But like a flower in bloom, I emerge, I transcend,

I am invincible

I am found. 

# FOUND

Aisha Oredola

I'm sneaking out tonight. I love how I tip toe slowly and make silent sounds in a universe of calmness. Everywhere is dark. Father always puts out the lights against mother's wishes. Who gives a shrug? I've my phone's flashlight guiding my footsteps down the stairs. I take a pause to listen around me. Good. Everyone's still asleep. Those freaking idiots. I don't mean everyone is an idiot, I freaking mean it.

Don't grow confused.

I made dinner tonight. I volunteered with a zeal that youths full of wisdom should've questioned but I guess granny's saying that 'wisdom comes at old age' is partly true.

Success!!! Oh... Shhh. I mean, s-u-c-c-e-s-s (silently...slowly). I'm now on the second floor. Grandpa was such a complicated man with complicated wealth. Who builds a house with ten floors for a family of six? His children, all scattered round the world now didn't want the house anyway. Except my father. My father's the last born, and only son and a petty gender biased sissy.

Grandpa had the money quite alright, and I possibly inherited this outstanding intellect from the dead man. Soon, his wealth. Don't ask me how nor should you doubt it because I'm just sixteen nor because I'm the third youngest but heck, I'm smart.

So, I made dinner tonight. I even set the table. Everyone's spot was on point. I served five different types of food for twelve people. I didn't eat, I was too excited to.

Grandma was next to mom, her medium sized bowl of brown pap carefully placed in front of her. Mom had spaghetti and chicken nuggets. Dad had pounded yam and efo riro. Others (all seven of them), had coconut rice and stew with beef or chicken, except the twins. They ate cereal. Who eats cereal for dinner? Those ones. The devils.

I'm on the ground floor now. My feet move, kissing the floors softly with expertise. My hands stick with me, except that my flashlight is pointing out a little, making my elbow point backwards.

I hear a sound.

I freeze.

It's definitely one of them. One of those twins.

I can't afford to be grounded again, I did my best. I drugged everyone's food. Don't look at me like that! Of course I was careful with the dosage I put in my grandma's pap. To be certain, I double drugged Niwa and Lewa's oatmeals very much. So how can they be awake? Unless...

"Did you think we ate the cereal you made?" Said Lewa. The most beautiful and attractive child out of the ten children mother had.

"She must think we're fools." Niwa replied, the one who behaves sweet in front of adults and changes to her demonic character in front of kids...and adults undeserving.

I shut my eyes. Not in my wildest dreams could I have thought I'd meet them standing by the entrance, in their matching night dresses, acting like police officers with their huge flashlights.

"Get out of my way." I said, firmly.

Lewa crossed her arms. "So that you can go meet that wretched boyfriend of yours eh? Never!"

"I can't believe you drugged everyone, Ara. No wonder you made dinner with enthusiasm." Niwa shook her head.

Don't lose hope in me. Like I said, I'm smart. Smart people always have a plan B. "Go ahead. Raise the alarms. No one will hear you. They're dead asleep."

Niwa and Lewa exchanged glances and panicked. That was my chance.

"You angels have forgotten I know you're the ones who gave grandma the wrong drugs that day hmm?"

"It was a honest mistake!" Niwa yelled, fuming.

"She had a heart attack but is not dead yet." Lewa said, rolling her eyes. "The benazipril was finished. I, because of my ebullience to become a medical doctor like daddy decided to carry out an experiment and try a stronger Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor. She had a heart attack, she didn't die."

"Wait until dad hears you almost killed his mother due to your ebullience." I smirked.

Niwa panted now. That one, she's the one with some conscience. "Enough! We won't let you ruin our reputation as innocent kids."

"Screw that reputation." Lewa's face was impassive. She was ruthless. "We have her now."

"What's this going to add to your points, Dr. Lewa?" I had to sound unmoved. I was getting afraid.

"Let her go." Niwa whispered to her nonidentical twin. "We'd find a way."

"No one will believe us, if we let her go!" Lewa cried. "She wiped out all the evidence! I couldn't even find the bottle of drug she used. All the plates are washed clean. Nothing is on her!"

"Let her go."

Mission accomplished. The girls moved away and I took a curtsey. "Of course, no one will ever believe you now." I laughed evilly as I stepped out of the house.

*******

The night is intense. 1am doesn't look good to be roaming about the streets but what can I do? He said to meet him around this time. Thank God he has a car. All I've to do is walk to that restaurant not too far from my estate, even though it's closed now, and wait.

He is already there.

"Ara." He calls casually. As if the night isn't cold, scary or dead silent.

"I did it. Now you'll have to pay for what you said." That's me. Always rushing into words.

"Get in the car first." He twisted his neck. "I'd like you to meet a few people."

He is driving in a manner that irks me. I want to pull out his eyeballs. How can he be so collected? I still have to get home before dawn yet he's been driving for hours! Maybe Niwa and Lewa will win...

"We're here." He parked the car under a large iroko tree and got down. I am stunned. My eyes are moving yet still. We are where? I don't understand this guy.

"Down, Ara."

I get down, trying to be brave. I stiffen my voice. "So what's up? Why here?"

"The meeting place is inside the tree. When you're ready, let me know."

Gulps travel down my throat as my palms sweat. What in the world?

Let me rewind my memory...

Idunnu and I have been neighbours when we moved to grandpa's house. Quite some years now. He's perfect. His teeth, eyes, looks. Perfect. Something about him always bothers me anyway. He barely smiles.

I wanted to be close to him, to understand this mystery, so I began to talk to him. In school, in the neighborhood, everywhere. He suddenly liked me. For years, he promised to tell me a secret and now...

"Ara, are you ready or not?"

"I am." I lied.

My head is on fire. Scratch that. All parts of me is burning with feelings I can't describe. The whole world is spinning and all I can see are green leaves hanging above, forming canopies. The sky is breaking apart and being engulfed by lands covered in sand. I'm dying. I swear, I'm dying...

"Welcome to the world of the lost ones. Here, you actually find yourself."

I enlarge my eyes at who is standing before me, dressed in gold. This place isn't even a tree or the inside, it is another dimension.

"Take my hand." The lady says. Her hair is covered in petals and pearls. I shake my head. I do not take her hand.

"Who are you? Where am I?" I scream, anger pressing inside of me.

"I am you Ara. And you're home."

"No!" I retort. "You are not me!"

But she is in fact a better version of me. Her eyes are huge and crystal clear. Lips red and thick like blood clots and skin brown like caramel sugar. Her gait attracts envy as she takes some steps away. "You've always been too slow to fathom incredible things, Ara. You think you're smart but you're a fool."

I can't believe she's talking to me. I can't believe I'm talking to me.

"You're the fool! Idunnu is the bigger fool for bringing me here! I want to go back home, now!"

She laughs and her castle shakes. "Take her to the dungeon."

"Yes, your majesty." Idunnu, who suddenly appeared from nowhere emerges. Together with two other men, I am being dragged to a place of no return.

"Let me go! Release me!" I scream to no avail.

*******

"You can't possibly still be crying." The voice says again.

"What do you care? You're useless."

"Not really." He says. "I just don't care anymore."

"You don't care if you perish right? Well I do! I had a life ahead of me."

"No you didn't. If you did, you wouldn't be here by choice. Look around you, no one else is here by choice except you."

For the first time after I was thrown into the dungeon, I scanned every corner. Males and females alike, soiled in dirt, looking pitiful and hungry. Their bodies, lean and malnourished.

"How many are we?" I ask, shivering and shaking. Shaking and shivering.

"How will I know?"

"Over a hundred." Whispers an old man behind me. "Nobody lasts here. Thousands have perished. We are this few because daily, people are thrown into the Queen's fire, for entertainment. More will come...the season for more prisoners is drawing near."

I can swear I almost vanished for fear. I wish Niwa and Lewa had stopped me. I wish I hadn't drugged the others. I wish I wasn't so desperate to know stuff. I wish I hadn't met Idunnu.

"I was brought in here yesterday. You'd get over the tears."

No wonder he looks so clean. He hasn't suffered much.

"I'm Akin, by the way. Please save your strength for tomorrow. Tomorrow would probably be your visit into your mind."

Akin faces the other wing and lays on his right side. I can't see his face. I really want to because his face looks so well carved, like, it does remind me of God's powers. Why is he here? He said I came here by choice...but I didn't know Idunnu was this dark. What about the others? Why are they here? All the questions weigh me down and I lay on the dusty ground too. Maybe this will be my last sleep...

*******

"Arggghhh!!!" I scream. My eyes are filled with chill water. What sort of awakening style is this?

"Wake up you fool. The queen wants you in the Mind Revelation room!" Says a guard who looks extraterrestrially ugly. None of his facial parts look well placed. His skin is sour grey and red. Never have I seen such ugliness.

He kicks me to stand on my shaky feet. I curse under my breath. Pain and grief have become my friends in this place. Within minutes, I'm in front of the Queen...this time, she looks exactly like the girl being dragged by...What is going on?

"Ara. How did you sleep?"

"Curse you, you evil piece of shit!"

"Okay. That went well." She smiles and swirls so that the silver stones on her ridiculously long dress can sparkle in my face, blind my eyes. I use both my palms to cover my poor peepers.

"Take her to the MR room."

At first I thought I'd be 'taken' there until I felt my body parts disjoin, diverge, before converging into another place.

The walls are white. No stains, nothing. My eyes are beguiling me, I think, until I sink into the ground and fall to glass floors.

"Where am I?"

No response.

My tears caress the glass floors and suddenly envelope me. Fear tickles me. I get so lost within my self that I curl up into a ball and rock my body system slowly. Whatever is going to happen, well...

Darkness.

"Who's there?" I can hear someone and it's not funny. "Who's there?"

No response.

Waters.

My feet grow wet as waters from nowhere travel up my sheen, hug my knees, climb my thighs. "No. No. No! Stop! I can't swim!"

Swim?

If it were swimming, it'd have been better, maybe. For now I am submerged in this water. Perhaps this is how I'll die. Death by drowning is not so...

Light.

Dryness.

A huge screen.

Me.

The house is full. My grandparents are to spend a week but something happens...I can see my ten year old self, running helter skelter, shouting that there's a fire. Everyone is running wild and out of the house. No one can see me. No one helps me. I even get knocked down by my father who almost steps on me as he leaps forward. My mother is outside the house. I almost burn to ashes until Grandpa yells my name and I knock on a glass window, clutching my barbie doll to my chest so hard. That is how I'm saved. We move to granpa's house. Father immediately inherits it, even as grandpa is still alive.

Him.

I can see him laughing with her. I go close wondering what's so funny. Gabriella holds up the answer - a portrait of me in a pink dress. And so what? How's that cracking them up? I grab the picture and look deeper. I see nothing. I turn the back and read the words in bold letters. YOU ARE A FATTY. NO ONE WILL LOVE YOU. NOT EVEN ME. It is his handwriting. The boy who said he loved me. I was twelve. He lied. He freaking lied. And he's still laughing with Gabriella, their tongues are sticking out. I'm shrinking into myself.

Me.

I learn from my father who is a medical doctor. He says a lot of terms. I'm not allowed to learn but I listen and eavesdrop all the time. After some months, I confirm what I've learnt from all his spilled out thoughts. Ever since I heard the topic he's to deliver on the day of his presentation, LOSING WEIGHT HAS NEVER BEEN EASIER FOR A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE, I've been listening. Google confirms my theories. Thirteen year old me works hard and smart. I purchase some drugs online. I register into a gym. Months later, I'm as skinny as a toothpick. Perfection maybe? Satisfaction? None. I'm still not happy.

Him.

I fall in love or similar to that. His name is Sky. I've never heard that one before. I ask him why they named him Sky. He said he doesn't know. He's Tiv, he's fine. But he obviously doesn't like me. I'm slimmer now? Why won't he? I'm lost and angry. I see him flirting with other girls. I get very angry. I take revenge on what was never even mine.

Him.

He's kicked out of school for vandalism. The evidences are too clear. He also is caught with letters of threat to a teacher for failing him and photos of half naked girls. He's expelled.

Me.

I'm happy. Very happy. Or so I think.

Mom.

She's laughing with him. She says he's handsome. She kisses him. She calls him her favourite child. Tamilore. Her favourite child? Who is always tops in class? Who won most skilled girl thrice in a row? Who is the best behaved? Who assists around the house? Me! All me! Yet I'm always cast aside. Mother never looks at me twice.

Grandma.

I am three here. Grandma pats my head. She says last borns are the luckiest. I still hope for the luck. I hope and hope. I hope this is certain. After all daddy and mommy buy me things than Shobola, Tamilore, Yewande, Ireti, Olamide, Tofarati and Ife. But months after, my status changes.

Them.

Maybe I can blame my being lost for the birth of Niwa and Lewa. But that's a lie. I never belonged here nor there nor anywhere. They're so smart, so pretty but I can always prove that I'm better. I think.

Him.

Idunnu is very secretive but he's unhappy. I'm unhappy but I want him to smile. His face will look a lot beamier if he smiles. I run and run and run towards him. Maybe I've over raced.

Grandpa.

I think of grandpa's death...I grow very sour. He's the only one who actually made me feel less lost.

Me.

I want to know at all costs. So I go extra, I don't care how I get my knowledge. I want to know. At least they'll save me from being lost. Knowledge is light.

The screen dims.

Darkness.

Waters.

Perhaps I'll die this way, by drowning.

"Enough." The queen says.

I'm disheveled and stressed out after the Mind realization room, I get taken back into the pit like dungeon.

"Welcome back." Says Akin who looks happy to see me for some unknown reason. "How was the MR?"

I don't respond. I lay on my side and cry myself to sleep.

I feel a warm touch on my shoulders. I turn to see who is touching me and why. It is Akin, he's smiling. "Get your hands off me!" I yell angrily.

"Why? You may never see me again."

"But you just got here." I soften. "Please don't say that."

"I noticed you grew weaker and silent after the MR session. That's okay. You'd be over it soon."

I sigh.

"Akin, how do we get out of this place?"

"Ssh! Don't ask such. Nobody knows."

"That's impossible! I must know! I need to get out of this place!"

"Ssh!" He insists.

I bury my head into my hands to cry some more. How lost can I be? How much time have I lost? Would anyone even be bothered about my disappearance?

"Ara." Akin calls gently. "I know a way but you've to swear to keep this between you and me."

My eyes glisten after Akin's confession. I nod.

*******

I have spent weeks here and I know some things clearly now.

1.) The queen has the face of a new prisoner every single time a new prisoner is brought in.

2.) The MR room is but a welcome to your soul, so you can see your weakness and realize how frail you are.

3.) There are tasks everyday. But more importantly, there are battles between prisoners. You snooze, you lose. You lose, you get burned in the queen's fire for entertainment.

4.) There's only one way out

5.) And that is to kill the queen.

Akin nudges me as we sneak out of the palace battleground. We have fought several other prisoners. Luck has been on our side because we are new and still strong to an extent. The little forsaken food crumbs they give us will soon bounce back if we don't act fast. Akin got all his facts about escaping here from an old prisoner who laughed at us and said we would fail. Maybe he's right, but we have to find out.

"Hey!" Akin calls. "Down here."

In his hand is a map of the whole castle sketched by some old prisoners who gave up their zeal to escape. Not me.

We are in the center of the castle. Everyone else is watching the battle but not us. The queen is probably entertaining herself and soon, the fire cages will be open for the losers to feed it. Guards are distracted by wine and dine. This is our chance to sneak into the queen's chambers to look for any weakness of hers...

Akin and I are in here now, searching frantically. I can see several crowns buried in several gems. Her walls are high and change into several colours. The ceiling is open to nothing, as if outerspace lives up there. I'm staring, lost in my thoughts.

"What are you doing here?" Idunnu barges in from the blues.

"Nothing." I summon courage and say. "And you're nothing but a traitor you bastard!"

"Leave now before she catches you. She already is suspicious."

Akin is frozen but I'm unmoved. "You're a treacherous soul Idunnu! All I wanted was to free you and you caged me. I wanted you to be happy, now look what you've done!"

"You never get the right answers, do you, Ara? You still don't know how to leave this place, right? You haven't figured out why you're here?"

He had me there.

"Leave now! Or face the consequences!"

"Let's go Ara. Please."

I give up and walk closely behind Akin. We find our way to the battle ground area and sit with other prisoners. "I just want to go home."

"Me too." Akin says and holds my arm. "But at least I found myself a friend."

I look at him with shaky eyes. I hope he's not going soft on me.

"I love you Ara. You're my hope. You're the reason I believe-"

"Quit it. It's hopeless, this feeling thing you speak of." I remove my hand and brace myself. The fire cages open and my iris beholds how humans are being engulfed into wild fire yet some guards bring in more prisoners yet he's speaking to me of love.

Soon, we too, shall be weak and probably drown in the fire.

*******

I can not sleep. Have I described this dungeon to you? We are beneath the castle. It's like being buried several feet under a castle. The base is sandy and stony at the same time. Dust pecks everywhere and blinds vulnerable eyes.

Never have I been so out of place. Certainly, I wasn't paid attention to back at home, but at least, I had hope of living.

I turn to my left and see Akin sleeping like a baby. Poor young man.

I feel like I'm being watched.

Before I say Jack, hands cover my mouth and drag me so close behind. I struggle in vain as fingers reduce my sight. My stomach is wrecking itself out of fear. How did this person even sneak in without being noticed. He probably didn't take a torch light and the dungeon is always dark after lights out.

"Idunnu?" I say horridly as I turn to see him after he frees me. "What-"

He moves close, his eyes plead. "Please Ara. Believe me. I'm not the bad guy."

"Are you crazy?" I shout-whisper. "You brought me here so your queen can cage me forever. I'm far away from home all because of you, you ingrate."

Idunnu sighs deeply. "I'll be in trouble my love, if I confess everything." His hand grabs a lock of my hair and traces it down like ancient art on an Egyptian wall. I wince. I'm afraid of him.

"Trust me."

But I can not, so I look away. He tries to kiss me but I duck. "Don't steal anything more Idunnu. You already stole my life."

*******

Akin has no idea what happened. His tiny light brown eyes open slowly. After he yawns, he says. "Another day."

"Another battle." I complete.

We both fall into line. I'm behind several short women. The queue for having a quick shower is long. Summary is we stink everyday. I've been putting on prisoner's black jumpsuit since the day I came here. Nobody wears another colour. We're all the same. To wash is a privilege we don't have, so sometimes we bath with the jumpsuit to stay clean as clean can be.

Today, is another battle day for me. I'm nervous but I've a plan.

The queen is wearing a new face, sitting pretty on her throne. I am called out to the battleground.

"Pick your contender!"

I'm used to this routine. The winner of the last match always gets the privilege of picking their contender.

I search faces for a while but I already know who I want to pick. "Your Highness! I pick you."

Chattering and noise follow.

"Objection!"

"Impossible!"

"Abomination!"

"What an absurdity!"

The queen clears her throat. "Why should a queen like me fight a prisoner like you?"

It's working, I tell myself. All I wanted was her attention. Now I have it.

Idunnu winks at me. Yesterday night, he had told me everything when he saw my trust in him was gone.

"Because you are me and I am you. Because this is all a mirage. This place is all an illusion and I'm lost to be found. I want to challenge you, my greatest fear in this world, to find myself."

The queen pauses and takes a deep breath. "You don't have to fight me now that you know these things. Just answer these questions."

I wait patiently, not caring who watches me. Everyone here is a figment of my mind.

"What's the secret to being found?"

"Love." I whisper. "Love in all its entirety. Love for one's self no matter the consequences. Love for others, even if they may be undeserving. Love radiating love."

"Good." She says. "Any other secrets?"

"Forgiveness. Love must come with forgiveness because in as much as we love ourselves and others, we get to hurt ourselves, and others. We must learn to forgive ourselves, and then, others."

The queen smiled brightly. "Have you forgiven yourself, Ara?"

"Yes. Yes I have."

Everywhere is shape-shifting somehow. My eyes are hurting as I see flashes of different sharp lights. Lights so intense dipped in loud colours that can consume one's sight.

I'm in my room now. I feel my body to understand what's going on. Confirmed. I'm me again. This is real. I'm home! I walk towards my window out of instinct and there he is! Idunnu. He's smiling to mark this victory.

"Thank you for saving me and us and everyone else." He yells.

"So, there really was no death by fire engulfing?" I yell back, unashamed. Passersby pause and frown but I don't care.

"None at all." He replied.

"How about Akin?" I raise my voice a lot.

"He's okay. He has found himself too. He's somewhere in his own home now...and because of you, we have found ourselves."

"Why me?"

"You're the chosen one. The one who chose to visit that realm."

I laugh and shake my head, draw the curtains.

It's morning. Every where is bright. Yet everyone is sleeping hard, except Niwa and Lewa, if I'm not mistaken. I can hear them arguing. My eyes quickly move to the wall clock. 8:30am. How long...or short did I stay in that place?

"You!" Lewa narrows her eyes as she fixes them on me.

"That's not how to knock." I say.

"Well good morning Miss sneaky." Niwa says as she folds her arms.

"Okay?" I tilt my head a little to the side.

"Where have you been? And how did you get here so easily? We locked all the doors!" Lewa fumed.

I laughed and faced the direction of the window. My room's on the fifth floor. The girls exchange glances and shake their heads.

"She climbed?" Niwa says.

"No way!" Lewa cries.

They both go to the window and look down. "How in the world?" They say in unison.

I chuckle so hard and run to hug my sisters so tight. "I was so lost girls. Now I'm found and I realize how much you mean to me. I love you! I love you so much!"

They were lost. 

# LOST II

Sofiyat Oyesanya

"If I were you Halima, I would calm down and not make myself feel worse, your tears would not solve nothing, and anyway, this wasn't anything strange or unexpected, I told you" Zaynab  said with a shrug, lifted her cup of steaming coffee and sat on the sofa adjacent where Halimah sat with tears in her eyes, staring into space like a mother mourning her two-year old.

-"Yeah, I expected this, I expected you to open your mouth and talk to me like your child. No, you're not me and you can't ever be anything other than my sister that's at my mercy. No, if I were you, I would work on making something out of my own life other than sitting around all day"    Halimah retorted back in a snow-laced tone, eyeing her sister just as icily before resuming her previous stance. Unexpected of anyone spoke to in that manner, Zaynab laughed genuinely and deeply, took a sip from her cup and moaned in satisfaction as the steam caressed her gut. She looked into her cup and took another sip before looking up at her sister again.

Studying her face, Zaynab arranged her words before speaking again, she knew what to say and just how to say it, but when you're dealing with a person like Halima, you should arrange your words carefully lest you make things worse.

In a way, her blood boiled whenever she thought of her sister, what makes it worse is the fact that Halimah seemed to not have learnt her lesson and still wants to blame someone for what she brought on herself. It annoyed her even more that halimah thought it right to blame her after everything she did to make her understand what she was doing and how awful it was. Oh Halimah! If only she had listened. Halimah was a gem, she truly was one, she was set for a bright future whether anyone liked it or not, Zaynab knew, their late parents did, anyonethat had ever read her works knew too, and failed to hide it. Halimah wrote the best horror stories Zaynab ever read. Forget the bestsellers, forget the books that got awarded, Zaynab read any and every book she could lay her hands on, so she knew that her sister's literary skills were exceptional and worthy envying, just like her own culinary and drawing skills were.

She looked into her sister's face and smiled as she remembered when they joked about how she would draw and paint book covers and illustrations for the many books that Halimah would write, or how Halimah would tell her the stories and she would make them into picture books- horror picture books were the unique ideas they had and wanted so badly to actualize. Sometimes they would share their plans with their parents who would often commend and encourage them.

-"it would do you some good to just ask me what you're so curious about, instead of staring at me like that-" Halimah said suddenly, startling Zaynab, who smiled before replying

-"I'm searching for something that I think you already know-"

Halimah's jaw tightened and she looked away from her sister in a bid to unsuccessfully hide the tears in her eyes. Of course she knew what Zaynab was searching for, she was searching for the Halimah that existed with passion and belief in her dreams before their parents died two years ago, while they were in school.

The two sisters dealt with grief, like every other thing in their lives very differently. While Zaynab struggled visibly to move on and live again, her sister swept all of hers under the rug almost immediately and started the next thing in her life – struggling to survive. Despite the fact that their parents left them money to last for a while and her sister's plead, Halimah got trained and became an erotic script writer for a popular filmhouse that produces pornography, giving the reason that she has to survive even if their parents were gone. Survive what? How?

In Zaynab's opinion, there were better offers in the horror genre world or even any other one asides the erotic genre that her sister once hated. She was obviously forcing herself to adapt to writing those scripts for reasons her sister could not discern. All of her pleads and disagreements with her sister fell on deaf ears, even when she reminded her that her parents wouldn't have been happy with her for her actions. Zaynab let go and stopped fighting her for a while and accepted that it was her sister's way of dealing with grief.

Halimah continued unperturbed, using her body and charms as a woman to get her works used for productions, and she soon became famous. Her amateur works were of course not what managers and producers were after, it was the things she had to offer, which she offered freely. Until the day before when her producer called her that they got someone to replace her, since her works weren't sound enough and they needed professionals. This annoyed Halimah to a great deal and after putting up all the feeble fight she could muster, resigned to fate and mourned the loss of her job.

'If you have to choose again Halimah, would you make the same choices again?: -"

After a long pause, she stood and left for her room, hoping that the delay in her saucy sister's response meant she reget her actions and was ready to find her dreams all over again. 

# LOST BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

Sandy

Have you ever lost someone before?

To the ugly darkness that is death.

When it rears its ugly head

Memories that will never be gone;

Yet unsatisfactory.

Wailing heart, pain so deep, it rattles your bones.

You lie and remember, how it felt

 to be wrapped in gentle caresses,

floating in the void of future times that would never be.

Leaving cracks that can never be fixed,

drowning in the storm of unsaid goodbyes

grasping air of unseen ghosts.

I tell you this,

You are stronger than the pain. 

# HAT VALOREN

Gbadamosi Morenike

I woke up to Bisola screaming.

"What? another one *sigh* this is becoming more rampant,

And I kept wondering why, why is this happening to us

I thought they all left

Bisola said I should escort her out. She was scared to go out on her own, the little brat, not as scared as I was though. The mere thought of it, Agony.

My name is Tolu, and the first thing you should know about me, I don't like the rain.

Whenever it rained, dark clouds would cover the sky, making the day seem dull, to me it means doom. Something is about to happen.

Bisola is my little sister. She's all I got in this world, she's so fearless, I worry for her all the time

"It's raining" I say "you know we are not meant to go out in the rain"

She gave me 'the look' as much as she understands my avoidance of  rain, I know there's a part of her that thinks I'm a coward.  She wants to know who's behind 'the disappearances' we all want to know

But nobody is ready to be a hero

That sudden thought made my insides mush

"Bisola  let's go out" she turned so fast, you could hear d air go woosh

I know she wasn't going to question me in case I changed my mind

"ok" she says.

" but you'll have to follow behind me and if I tell you to ru..." without letting me finish she says "I'll run,  I promise" .

"OK let's do this "

I opened the door ufff why did I decide to come out, I even forgot a coat

I'm never going to make a rash decision again

But we were already out

I could hear Bisola's gentle steps, what we were looking for, totally unknown to us

But we know we were looking for something, anything to make sense of the disappearances

Not more than 2 yards away I noticed someone

Looks like we're not the only ones that decided to come out, I thought.

Broad shoulders and a fine as on him "focus Tolu" I shook my head

I called out "hey"

He turned and all I could say was "RUN BISOLA RUN GO BACK TO THE HOUSE LOCK YOURSELF IN"

Bisola took off like a bullet. I ran after her and footsteps pounding the pavement behind me told me we were not alone. I could hear heavy breathing, and I knew he was gaining on us. There was only one thing to do. I took a different route, hoping he would follow. He did. At least Bisola would be safe.

I chased tonight's special down the leafy path. I could hear her heavy breathing, it sounded in my ears like a dinner bell. I so love it when dinner runs away. Eventually the fear and panic combined and she tripped and fell, like I knew she would. And when she fell it was all over.

I was on her in an instant.

Three mornings later, as I went to buy a loaf of bread, I saw a group of people milling about a poster, muttering. Someone said fearfully

"Again? When will it happened again? When?"

Not anytime soon, I thought to myself. My dinner cauldron was still full. Another night, another meal.

# TWO ROADS

Sanni Hassan Oluwatobi (Don SHO)

Today isn't a good day to die.

Today is a good day to go out for the usual Sunday morning strolls he told himself. He chose Sunday mornings 'cos of the eerie silence that accompanied such days in the woods. At least even the woods get to observe the Sabbath on such occasions. That was even if Sundays were the actual Sabbath days, but that was a headache for another time he placated himself. A boy of twelve, he grew up in this part of the countryside. With makeshift containers for homes, and badly connected electrical poles for electrical supply, which was usually tormented by howling winds as is common in hilly sides, there wasn't much life to begin with down here. Oh but the woods!, the woods held everything. They bequeathed a power to him unlike anything he had ever known before. Here, his imaginations ran wild, unfettered, unbroken. His mother had always told him "Harry, you could become anything you ever wanted to be", though within he would scoff at such delusions, seeing nothing but vast wastes of land, but he never failed to give his sweet naïve momma a boyish grin everytime she uttered those despicable words. The only similarity he saw in her, was how voracious a reader he was becoming also. His mother a junior grade school teacher familiarised him with the near empty county's library from a very early age, and so at twelve, it wasn't too bemusing that he had devoured all the books or whatever was left of the archives anyway. All he read in such confined space, the woods were his theatrical stage. Here he didn't just become anything like his mother chirped, he became everything.

He knew about love, even before telling a girl apart from a boy. He knew about wars, even before knowing what killed a man. The birds he saw in books, he saw ten folds in the woods, and the wolf hounds they vilified in tales, they didn't sound so bad from a hill top. It was while he sauntered along this fateful morning, his mother's usual skepticism about his safety thrown behind to the farthest recess of his thoughts, that he remembered the lines from the passage of a poem book he read not too long ago.  It was written by a Nigerian, not like he knew where in the world that was, but he very much enjoyed the narratives of that particular poem titled "Drunkard". It was also this fateful day he decided to take a path in the woods he had never tried before, the spirit of adventure ever calling out to him. He mumbled the poem lines without a single care in the world:

There lived a middle aged man named Fred,

If you knew him well, you would call him a very food friend,

Although enemies referred to him as a lousy bastard

I would simply call him one hell of a drunkard.

He was the very rich type,

You would see him always drinking and also smoking his pipe,

If he had any issues bothering on his mind,

It was always voiced out at the zone of "free your mind".

This was a place where drunkards alike met,

Some also holding a dice and anxious to bet,

Some issues were discussed out of foolishness,

But many others were as a result of wanton drunkenness.

The first drunkard to me that would ever make sense,

Was Fred, because that night he was very tense,

With his belly rumbling like a goat that was overfed,

This was just all what he said:

"I know I've lived a very wrong life,

A life filled with pains and strife,

I'm no better than the sands by the riverside,

Which is everyday washed off by the river's tide.

I have a beautiful wife...that I've always boasted,

And how unfaithful she is...that too I've always snorted,

For what use is it to have abundant riches,

And then still dug around your life are dreadful ditches.

I might have gained the world,

But I've also chewed the cud",

Those were the last words he ever said,

A painful reflection on the life of John Andrew Fred.

                                                            -Don SHO

The unaccustomed silence in these part of the woods made harry stop dead cold in his tracks. All his years of adventures and misadventures in the wood had not made him palpate fear as he did this moment. Could he have journeyed this far in the wood while soliloquizing poetry, he began chastising himself. Just as he was about making a u-turn to begin retracing his steps, he heard a deafening heart wrenching shriek, the likes he had never heard before since he was born.

In that defining moment, all he remembered was Robert Frost's words, but perhaps an edited version. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, he took the one less travelled by, and he got.... Lost. 

# SOULS FOR SALE

Abdelkareem Kareemah

Growing up in the village was a curse. There, I felt caged always and searched every day for an escape to the big city. Lagos beckoned to me in the flashy wears and shiny cars that my peers showed off every December at Christmas. I wondered how Joey made the money he kept lavishing, what kind of job Sandra had to buy such an expensive car. In my mind, Lagos was indeed where God had His throne and that only strengthened my resolve to break free of the yoke of poverty in my family. Father was a farm hand who broke his back daily for stipends. Mother had died from a bout of malaria as we could not afford a token to buy her drugs and the chemist would not give us more drugs on credit. My four younger siblings were much too young to help out. Ours was a sad life indeed.  One fine evening, my saviour came in the form of my best friend, Amaka, now rich and elegant. She offered to introduce  me to her booming business that would rake in a lot of money for me too and soon, I was in Lagos to make as much money as I could.

Father loves his new house and car. Now, he knows no lack. Daily, Amaka and I scour high-end locations in search of willing victims, wealthy sweaty potbellies who pummel our privates in exchange for money. In the village, our parents are happy. Little do they know that in the city of bright lights, we are lost in a maze and might never find our way back home.
I pray never to lose you,

As times weaves its intricate net

Creating yesterday, today and tomorrow.

# LOST  (or something like that)

Oluwatosin Gregory

Saturday

The house was parked on a moderate belt of grassland between endless rows of cypress trees, which when observed from the entrance at the gate gave a natural appeal to its beauty. It looked like a piece of painting that came alive during the day. Indeed the ochre-colored rays of the sun seemed to give it something much more than life. There was animation in its form, a real but unexplained mysteriousness that, I am sure, everyone who appeared before it felt almost threatened by. The driveway led to a miniature waterfall that contained a stature of a man on a horse, reading a scroll. The water appeared to be discharged from his mouth before flowing into the surrounding vessel. I parked in front of a small shed that was old from unuse.

Cobblestones led the way to the front porch where a brass knocker shaped in form of the head of a rhinoceros was attached to the arched door. There was probably no point in using it, the security at the gate would have informed the owners ahead of my entrance and if I would just stay still for a second or two the door might yield. But I had never touched a rhinoceros before and this one eyeballed me so that my hand fell upon it, caressed it, and gave it three firm knocks. The door opened and the wind that emerged was so cold I bunched my body together and plugged my hands into my pockets. A woman in working clothes appeared and produced a smile that seemed to come from memory rather than intent. She had big round eyes that gave her pupils enough space to roll over me. I introduced myself and told her who I was there to see, she asked if I had a card. Slightly bemused, I gave her one and she disappeared back into the house. She returned moments later and invited me in, handing my card back to me. The interior was lavishly decorated. There were plush carpets thrown everywhere, velvety red curtains hung over grilled windows, outlandish chandeliers burned with malice, electrifying the room. A spiral staircase curved out of view from the end of the room, the walls were fabulously decorated with pictures and paintings. I ignored the maid and walked to the wall that led to the dining room on which hung one of the most expensive paintings produced by a Nigerian, the beige bitch. She was as ugly as its reputation was unsurpassed, I was still scandalized by the acclaim the painting commanded. Olaolu Peters claimed to have been constantly haunted in his dreams by this woman for reasons beyond his knowledge, or anyone's wild guess for that matter. After taking pills to stave off sleep for days, a voice from somewhere compelled him to transfer her from memory to canvas before respite could come. And in a matter of weeks while himself staggering on the very cusp of his own sanity, the painting was born from his feverish hands. It was an instant success, everybody with at least one good eye wanted to see it, feel it and even own it. It was unprecedented in origin, controversy, and reputation. However even after Laolu's fame and talent was established and universally acknowledged he maintained that the woman continued to haunt him. This further burnished the significance of the painting and before long it became a national treasure. Laolu did not live to see the rest of it however, he blew a hole in his skull with a magnum revolver in the toilet at a conference held in a hotel in honour of his work. She made and unmade him.

"I bought that for a very steep price from a meat merchant in Kano," I turned around to meet a fat, bald man not taller than five inches. He was wearing a blue sweater, dark brown trousers, white tennis shoes that were doubtless custom-made and a regal smile. I nodded my head in acknowledgement and when he noticed I was shivering he went over to a small panel on the east side of the room and I felt the cold retreat immediately. We shook hands and I sat on the largest sofa I could find, he took his place on a lounge chair directly in front, "What would you like to drink, Mr Kayode?" "Tonic water will be fine please," I replied. I despised tonic water but that mattered little for now because I was only assessing his tastes, and after the maid presented me with a tray of three different flavors and a cup, I was humbled. He started, "I will go straight to the reason you are here for I have to be out of the country in a matter of hours from now. My wife is unfortunately not present, she is with her parents. My daughter is missing. She has been gone for a week and two days now. The police, being the formal establishment usually concerned with such matters, have been disappointing in their results so far. Initially they assured me that the abductors would reach out and, as in natural, name their price. But after five, six days and no word was heard, they revised their opinion and said maybe she walked out herself. They have been most unhelpful, and exceptionally incompetent. And before you bother to mention it, she did not walk out on the family. She can't. Not my daughter."

His voice was as iron hard as his character, he did not fail to leave the impression that he was a man long set in his ways and once he went with an unpopular opinion, the whole world would burn before he admits an error in judgment. By firmly stating that his daughter would never walk out on him, he already gave me enough motive for her absence, assuming she wasn't abducted. I would run away if I had such a father myself. Run away with lots of money. "I will need every information I can get about your daughter, the company she keeps and the ones she avoids, I will also need to examine her room." He stood and said, "Come, let me show you her room." We went up the staircase, turned left into a narrow chamber lined with polished wood paneling that smelled of pine. We went further into an anteroom from which a red rug led to the only room in that part of the building. Kiite's room was spare in adornments in comparison with the living room, there were no eye-gouging explosion of colours, no extra large bed with space to contain thirty elephants, or whatever her type was. There was a wardrobe next to the bed, a large table with two high-backed chairs. The table contained make-up kits, powders, lotions, skin-care ointments, three small boxes of jewelries, hair ointments, eye ointments, and even breath ointments, a mirror was attached to the wall above it. There were books arranged neatly in a large cabinet and a reading table next to it. Her father went to the cabinet and produced a large photo album, he withdrew a picture and placed it in my hands. He said it was her most recent picture, the occasion of her best friend's birthday. Two young women smiled into the camera, one dressed like a beauty queen, and the other, well, the runner-up. Kiite was exceedingly attractive, her eyes revealed bright sparks of seductive charm. She had a round jaw and dark full lips. Her hair was tied into a bun, she wore no earrings, yet she dwarfed her friend, who with a birthday crown on her head wasn't looking too bad herself. Nothing like being the second most attractive girl at your birthday party.

"Where was she last seen?"

"She went to church that evening, and told us she would spend the night with Deola, the other girl in the picture. However Deola says she never made it to her place. The church is one of these fancy shopping malls crawling out of the wood these days. It is on Johnson street, just before that government owned bakery."

"Boyfriends? Fiance maybe?"

"None. Her social circle outside her family consists solely of Deola and her church. And of course the beauty shop she manages."

"Her cell phone?"

"She took her phone with her. The number has been disconnected ever since"

"Does she have a car?"

"Yes she does, a prius. She did not go out with it though, it is parked in the garage out back."

I walked to the laundry basket at the corner next to the wardrobe.

"Were her used clothes searched?"

"Uh... I don't think so. I... This room hasn't been used since we brought in the police."

I cautiously picked my way through each item in search of clues and inhaling when necessary, to the obvious chagrin of her father who sat on the bed. All the clothes had the same smell, a delicate blend of jasmine and vanilla. I picked up a herringbone sweater, the pocket revealed a small white handkerchief and a ticket stub from a movie house a long way from here. From instinct I smelled the handkerchief. It had a faint peachy smell. It belonged to someone else. The details on the ticket stub indicated that she had company with her when she went to see the movie almost two weeks ago.

I held it out, "Do you know anything about this?"

He reached for it and examined it, then shook his head, "No. She probably went to watch a movie with Deola or something."

I disagreed. "That is an awfully long way to go to see a movie. There are at least three other places not quite as far and of standard repute she could have gone to."

He shrugged, "She must have had a reason."

I pulled out an invoice from inside my jacket and gave it to him. "I will take the case. Here is my bill."

He gave it a once-over, saying "Consider this tripled if you bring her back safely."

As I said, run away with lots of money.

Twenty-two year old Kiite, only child of Lanre and Betty Adewunmi-Tate, was declared missing by the police when, two days after she left for a church service on Johnson street, off the notorious airport road, she never returned home. Her friends had no idea where she was, for she shared no prior information about her church meeting with anyone except her parents. She studied business finance at the University of Abeokuta, was preparing for a professional examination, and during her spare time managed a beauty parlour in the business district of Allen Avenue, before her unexplained disappearance. After I left the fortress of her home, I decided to pay a visit to my mother. It had been a long time since we last spoke and I needed her doting now more than ever, considering that this was my first case working as a sleuth.

The groundskeeper was an old, frail man who had not more than five or six teeth left in his mouth, yet he had the anatomy of a twenty-five year old, for he was a smoker without equal. He was one of the rare kinds who blur the line between compulsive smoking and passionate smoking. He enjoyed his craft and did not seem to care that people spoke ill of him, since he was confident these same people revel in despicable things themselves. Hypocrites. At least he was proud of his own vice. The instant I parked in front of the gate, he tore out of his little office like a rabbit out of its hole and made straight for me. I caught him and in his embrace felt his spongy bones vibrate in their sockets.

"Baba Chimney! How you dey na?" Chimney looked like such a good name on account of his habit.

"Boy Boy! I am happy to see you. E don tey o. Weytin apun na?"

"Baba, e just get as tins be jarey. You sha sabi as e dey go"

"E go be. E go be. Well done my boy."

I reached into the car and presented him with a bag of fruits, and he held on to me for the half of eternity. Crows cried in the distance, the buzz from the inner city contributed its cacophony, little squirrels bounded about the graveyard, climbing trees and building holes. My mother sat atop her gravestone in a long, almost seamless yellow gown. She was not smiling.

"Mom..."

She raised a hand, "Why have you come?" The voice was stern.

"I have been busy lately, I'm sorry. E ma binu ma. I promise to make it up to you."

She was silent. Until now I had not noticed her arms, she was bleeding in a most curious fashion. It seemed the blood oozed from her pores to form tiny droplets on the skin, not unlike being poked by a billion needles. It was a disturbing sight.

"You....you are bleeding. What is the matter?"

"This is the reward of your neglect, Kayode. You always deny it but you are slowly inheriting your father's traits. I do not want that for you."

"Mom, I am sorry. I truly am. And now I need your help. I have gotten my first case and I don't even know how to start".

"Start from the most obvious place, the church. Then pick your trail from there. I am confident that you can do it. How is your brother?"

"Korede is still not talking to me. I don't have all the answers yet he blames me for it. It is not fair."

"Nothing is without consequence my dear, no matter how irrelevant. We only say things are irrelevant when we don't know why they happen, which is almost always the case. Only when we agree that we know nothing do we fully appreciate the events that take place in our lives, and so instead of trying to explain away the significance of each incident we lend ourselves to be transformed in bits by our experiences."

"Uh... run that by me again, Mom, you lost me there."

"What I am saying is, in your brother's case, you should not try to figure it out like it is a puzzle. You are a human being, so be human and relate with him. Show him you love him. And wait for his response but do not take it for granted. You see humanity has lost itself in this constant strive for perfection, and it is solely responsible for the ugliness that has taken over mankind. Your imperfections are part of who you are. Use it to connect with him."

"Okay, I will try."

She gestured with her hands, "Come, sit with me. I want to touch you."

This was the first time since we started meeting that such request would be made. Was it even possible? I paused, a big blue butterfly with patterned wings flew near and placed itself on her left shoulder, as if telling me to stop being a wimp and get on with it. I walked over, turned and sat on the flat top of the headstone. She reached with her bloodied hands and touched my face, and for a moment I thought I would die. Afterwards she gently took me in her arms and made cooing sounds to calm my nerves. I awoke to the voice of the old chimney asking me to wrap it up, a thin long cigar wedged between his lips. He had not seen my mother nor heard her speak, I was sure. Maybe I hadn't seen her either. Maybe not.

Sunday

I drove to the church. It was a modest building with bright colors and a huge parking space in front, and at nine in the morning, there was no space for a bird to park its poop. I went in, past the security at the entrance and once inside was directed to a seat in the front row by a tall, pale, shaggy-bearded youth in a bespoke suit, and lots of orange teeth. I chafed under my breath and obeyed. There could have easily been five hundred people in attendance, which isn't such a bad number if you consider the exponential growth rate of churches these days. The pastor, a man not more than forty, was true to type. Dapper, suave and articulate. He seemed to conjure charm from the air around him, and combine it with his masterful gift of the garb that literally rained on the congregation. The teflon preacher. This one would make a cagey conversationalist. At the end of the service I approached him, introduced myself and requested a brief meeting. Five minutes later I was seated in his office, a large room with a pile of dusty church manuals in one corner, a noisy air conditioner, a wooden office table with a leather top overloaded with stickers, stationery, a portable bible, a small but expensive-looking whatchamacallit, a plaque, and a small calendar. He grinned from the opposite side of the table.

"So, you are a private detective ehn?" A copy of my card was in his hand.

"Yes. Kiite's father has asked me to assist the police in their fervent search for his daughter."

"I didn't know the police were not good enough." He didn't waste time at all.

"Nobody said that, Pastor. Sometimes all it requires is a different perspective."

"A different perspective, nice! So how can I be useful to your perspective today?"

"I only have a few questions. The day she disappeared, this was the last place she was seen in public. Did she say anything or did you notice anything strange or different about her?"

"No, not at all. As I told the police, it was a single sister's programme, so only the women were invited. She sat in her usual space, and we greeted one another after it ended. She never told me anything out of the ordinary. Everything about her was normal."

"Well, what exactly did she tell you?" I wanted to shake him.

"Mr kayode, that is completely none of your business." he would not be shaken.

"I must insist, sir, if it helps this case. I--," he did not let me finish,

"People who care about her constantly pray for her safety as you must have noticed in today's service. We are all concerned. We are all praying. While you are asking pointless questions the rest of us are working," he glared at me, a million bits of stray saliva floated in the space between us. I had rattled him.

"Are we going to have a problem pastor?"

"You tell me. You are the detective," he said, throwing both hands into the air.

I brought out a notepad from my jacket pocket, unhinged the pen and went on as though I did not just survive a venomous avalanche of saliva from a bible-thumping marksman.

"All right, tell me about her relationship with other church members. Is there a circle of friends she keeps? One she avoids?"

He leaned forward, both hands pressed flat against the surface of the table, "This is a church Mr Kayode. We don't breed suspects here. Everybody is well accounted for, each person belongs to a support system that encourages mutual interaction particularly between both sexes. The ultimate goal is marriage which is beneficial to our overall vision as a church in raising saints for these end times. Tell me, are you a believer?"

I ignored the question, "So is it possible that some spurned lovemonger decided to pay her back by arranging for her abduction?"

He leveled his gaze at me, his adam's apple bobbed like a floating piece of rock and said coolly, "I shall not sit here and listen to an amateur paint my congregation in guilty colors," he crooked his finger at me, "This meeting is over. Good luck with your investigation, our prayers are with you."

I lingered a bit longer on my seat to watch his reaction, then I arose and left the office, making sure to bang the door.

I drove next to Deola's apartment, located in a flyspeck of an estate twenty minutes away from the church. Her initial reaction to my arrival was cold and hostile, but after I told her I wasn't with the police and worked independently, she warmed up a little. She had raw feline features, intense brown eyes, coal black hair that settled on her shoulders, a small mouth that wouldn't make a splash if it was kissed, and two neat rows of white teeth. She would make a fortune out of selling teeth for a living. She was wearing a light green blouse and tattered jeans, her feet looked nice. I groaned. She served me a cold can of fruit juice and some exotic biscuits.

"Kitty has been my best friend since primary school, we did almost everything together. We even liked and hated the same boys. The last time I saw her was Thursday, the day before she went missing. She was fine, nothing seemed unusual. I made my hair at her shop and she dropped me off here. I didn't know she intended to come here from her church, she didn't tell me."

"You don't attend the same church?"

"No we don't. I am catholic."

"Okay. In the days leading to the incident, did you notice anything strange about her? Or did she tell you anything at all that may be of help?"

"No, she didn't. I said the same thing to the police. Apart from one day a few weeks ago when she mentioned that she thought she was being followed at the market, nothing else."

That was odd, "She was being followed?", I arched my eye brows.

"Oh yes. At least that was what she thought before she concluded it was nothing. I mean this was almost four weeks ago. She wasn't sure herself."

"What was she doing in the market? She stays with her parents, they have a maid."

"She likes to cook what she eats, so she shops often."

"Do you know anything about a movie she went to see on Tuesday of the week she went missing?"

"No, I don't. Maybe she is finally seeing someone." There was something there but I could not tell it.

Her phone rang, she looked at the screen and excused herself away from the room. I drank my juice. When she returned, there was a certain hastiness to her voice, "I am sorry. I have been waiting for that call. I have to go out now, but I will give you my number so we can speak more. I am ready to assist you anyhow I can." You can start by stripping for me, I almost said. I took down her number and left with a promise to call her.

When I returned to my quarters, it was almost 3pm. I unlocked the door, sat on a couch and unwrapped the takeaway I brought with me. The rice was overcooked, there was little to chew, and the plantain and meat tasted like cardboard paper. I dropped it and moved to my laptop, googled her name and apart from a string of loosely related news associating her with her alma mater, nothing useful was found. Facebook had no idea who she was, neither did twitter. She was a hermit. There was a firm knock on the door, I opened it and a man with the body of a bulldozer glared at me. he stood at least six feet from the ground. He had a clean but mean jaw, beady eyeballs, a throat that seemed to be made out of brick, a hard, flat nose and dark brown hair. He had so much meat on his body he could have been wearing a meat suit. After giving me time to study his resume, he spoke, "Let me in. I want to play," rubbing his hands together. I closed the door a fraction while reaching for the metal tube placed behind the door for occasions like these.

"No kids allowed in here, meatface."

He stuck his jaw in my face, "You don't look smart. I have been following you. You need to keep off that family, and stop nosing around. E go be like play when everytin burst for your eye. The next time we meet I will be pulling out your teeth, and showing you the different parts. Call it Anatomy 101."

Meatface did not wait for me to reply, he shuffled off, got into a dark blue saloon car, and drove out. The car had no plates. Intriguing.

Monday

The beautiful thing about having an ex-con for a brother is that once it becomes public knowledge, nobody with half a brain cell would wish to cross you, or have you cross them, or cross swords with you because it was always possible that you were just as criminal-minded and given the opportunity, would waste no time nailing them to a wooden cross. This was the granite-faced affection with which people in my neighbourhood lavished their attention on me and my possessions, even the flies avoided my food. It was a blessing in disguise, and I couldn't be more grateful for it. I had scheduled a meeting with my brother at my place, and when he arrived with a face as sullen as the dark clouds in the sky, the little ray of excitement that I leveraged on for a pleasant meeting died instantly. He refused all offered refreshments, and avoiding my eyes, settled his gaze on the giant wallpaper in the living room, "You said this was urgent. What do you want?"

"Why are you making such a big deal out of this? I am your brother."

"Please don't start. Just tell me why I am here."

"I just-- I want us to settle this issue between us like men."

"Just listen to yourself man. Half the time you sound like dad throwing heavy words about when deep down you don't mean them. You want to settle this? How about you start by getting arrested for being at the wrong place at the wrong time because your idiot brother stood you up!" He was near-hysterical, his lips quivered with wicked energy, he was staring at me now and the pain in those eyes shed waves of emotion powerful enough stop a heartbeat.

I was beside myself too, the right words would not come out. "I didn't know. I had no idea that building was a crackhouse under surveillance for months. It was a cruel twist that you just happened to be there on the day it was raided. Look, as painful as it is to forget, I am asking you to please let it go. It is just the two of us now, we have nobody else. There is no point fighting the only family you have left in the world. Please let's do this for mum."

He flinched after the last sentence, I knew he had not gone to visit Mom's tombstone since he got out, and he felt guilty for this. It was a tactful, prize-winning speech that left him no choice.

He put his head down and began to sob. I drew closer, put one hand over his shoulder, "I'm sorry bro. I really am. Please forgive me."

He hugged me, "I forgave you a long time ago, I was just too proud to let you know. I am sorry too."

It was one of the most significant moments of my life. Perhaps what made it even more memorable was the heightened feeling of falseness that filled my stomach, and lungs, and blocked my capillaries. I was holding something back, something I could not bring myself to confess before my brother. It would send the demons back, and this time there would be no reunion, I was certain of this. On the day korede was arrested in the company of suspected drug dealers while he was waiting for his dutiful brother who, incidentally was running late, I was not held back because of work, as the narrative went. I was instead with Yemisi, his girlfriend. We all have certain misdeeds in our past that continue to haunt us in the present, this was mine. I guess it makes me human just like you.

Tuesday

I stopped for a cold drink at a bar along Governor's road, a long but narrow strip of street that funneled traffic from Yaba into the seedier parts of Lagos. Thirst had crawled its way into my oesophagus after two hours of questioning the staff who worked at Kiite's beauty parlor. The response was the same as the others before them, nobody suspected or saw anything out of the ordinary, she was her usual self whenever present and there was no reason to think she was pretending. But something still bothered me- she had no boyfriend. It was odd, considering she was a real catch. Boys were mostly incapable of discrimination when it came to girls, they would gladly go out with a pregnant, blind goat dressed as a woman, and probably would not mind if it had herpes. Kiite's case was indeed strange, unless...

I pulled out my phone, dialed Deola's number, she answered after the third ring.

"Hello Mr PI"

"PI? That's new"

She laughed, I almost cried. This girl would be the death of me.

"So what's up?"

I cleared my throat, "What about Kiite's boyfriend?"

Immediately she hesitated my fears were confirmed. She spoke, "Err..she doesn't really have one."

"What about an ex?"

"Nobody really stayed long enough to become an ex. She is quite choosy"

"You mean she is a lesbian, right?"

She inhaled loudly, murmuring under her breath. "She only ever kissed a girl once. She started to struggle afterwards. We don't speak much about it because it is not something she is proud of. And besides last time it came up she said she was doing something about it but she wouldn't reveal anything else, so I stopped bothering." There was a note of finality to her tone, she did not like to discuss it either. I thanked her and ended the call. I wondered if her parents, especially her blue-nosed father, knew about her preferences. What would I do if I found out my daughter preferred kissing girls to boys?

Imagine cinemas was the only film house located in Mawuko, a dingy suburb half a dozen miles away from Ikeja airport. The building enjoyed multiple visits each day from residents far and near, it did not matter that its location was home to one of the highest crime incidences in the country. In fact the company announced record ticket sales almost every month since they started showing movies. I arrived the premises late in the evening. The notorious disc in the sky had almost burned out all its anger on the poor inhabitants downstairs, refracted rays of monochrome light lingered like fine lasers over the top of buildings, casting half-formed shadows that melted into one another on natural canvas. I passed two guards at the entrance and a revolving door further down, before arriving at a brightly-lit hall with tiled floors with a formidable white pillar at its center, around which a receptionist was stationed. She had soft, dreamy eyes and a face that would be hard to forget. She wore a crimson-red coat with a thick, wide lapel and a name tag, Oluchi. Her mouth opened in a half-smile, "Hello handsome, how can I help you?" I folded my hands, placed them on the marble platform and giggled, "You are a peach. Have I met you before?"

A nail file appeared and began to work on her left index finger. "Yes but I am sure you don't remember. It was a long night, when I left the next morning you were half-dead. I was mildly disappointed."

"Oh. I think I remember now. You are the lady I keep seeing in my nightmares chasing me around with a wooden broomstick. Only difference now is you look uglier and fatter."

"Ouch. I will call security now." Her bronze hand reached for the telephone, I caught her by the wrist and removed the ticket stub from my jacket. "I need information about this customer."

She held it for a while in her other hand, "And why are you convinced I will give you any information?"

Her eyes flickered for a while and settled on my arm. The one that still held her hand. I withdrew, and stood straight, "That lady has gone missing. She also happens to have made away with a large sum of money, the staff of the ooni of ife, a five year old child's tooth, and the left kidney of an elderly man"

"And perhaps your heart too," she slyly added.

"No. My heart is too heavy. She wouldn't go far."

"Nothing can be more obvious," she worked her computer for a few seconds, "Uhh... I can see the  transaction details but there is nothing here that isn't on that ticket. I--" I reached over and placed the photo on her desk, "This is Kiite. The lady whose name appears on the ticket. She was charged the price for two people, with refreshments. I want to know who the other person was. And I am not leaving without an answer."

"Oh you remind me of my adorable little puppy."

"You don't remember do you? Do you have a surveillance video here or a camera that saves still shots or any electronic device that can be used to establish the identity of an individual who has been within this premises sometime in the past?"

She sighed, "We don't have a camera or anything that can help I am afraid. I can't help you either."

I was tired of this back and forth which was evidently leading nowhere. The dread of hauling myself on the road for another five hour journey crushed my mind, something broke inside me. I replaced the items in my jacket, whispered my thanks and turned to leave when she added conspiratorially, "I might remember something." I turned around with a blank expression, there was a drawl in her voice, "but it will not be free."

"Name your price."

"Name, number, and address."

"Deal," I brought out my notepad, tore a sheet, wrote on it, and passed it to her.

"She was here with a lady who did not talk much. In fact she said absolutely nothing while the tickets were purchased. If I remember quite well she was dark skinned, had this beautiful dreadlocks and she wore sunglasses. She was pretty solid too, if you know what I mean."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing else. Be seeing you," she winked. I dragged myself out left with not enough will to live.

Wednesday

Today Iya Tanwa's jollof rice and goat meat went down like a buttered slice of paradise with a cup of red wine. I was taking down notes, trying to gather anything that remotely looked like a clue to unravel the case. It was a good thing the cafeteria had space outside for customers who liked the taste of food and roadside noise. A scruffy man with a wide nose and a goatee dropped into a seat beside me. He looked familiar, reeking of alcohol and trouble. His voice was like knife on a stone.

"Hello Shamus."

I did not reply. This way they always go straight to the point.

He laughed. "I did not come here to waste my time. You should buy me something to eat, I have valuable news for you."

"Let's hear you first. I don't like to throw food away."

"I know you are working the case about that girl from the big church located on your way to the airport."

"And how do you know this?"

"I used to work as the night guard until I was fired. I once caught the Pastor soliciting someone who was not his wife in a very notorious part of the town."

"I won't find her with that piece of information."

"You are funny."

"So they tell me."

"I was in a bar a couple of blocks from the church that evening. It was almost dark. She was walking fast, she kept looking back behind her every minute or so. There were a lot of people on the road, obviously, but I noticed a large, tall man in a suit with sunglasses quite a distance behind her. Unlike her he wasn't in a hurry, but he kept on her tail. He was scary too. I did not see him grab her or anything like that. It was like this until they went out of view and I could not do anything because I wasn't even too sure of what I was seeing, I had been drinking for hours. It wasn't until days after when the news came up that she was missing that I started to take that scene serious."

It could be no one else. Meatface was the only person who fit that description.

"Did you go to the police with this news?"

"Yes I did. All I got was they were going to look into it. A few days later I was brought to the police station for questioning over an issue and as I walked through the entrance I almost collided with the guy. He was a big brute of a man. I assumed that maybe they had caught him or something, yet the girl is still missing till today. Something tells me they let him go, maybe he had some kind of protection or something."

Protection. Something was throwing itself at me from this narrative, begging me for my ears even if for just a minute. And although this man could have been lying through his teeth the whole time I owed it to myself to check it out. He placed his order like a king, ate like a thief, and I watched him roll off to the other side of the street like a lidless garbage can. So far I had only one chief suspect – the mysterious girl with dreadlocks who could be Pocahontas for all I knew. Now a different perspective featuring the pugnacious piece of meat who threatened to teach me dentistry had opened up, a man I had no wish to see again, not if I was sure I had a certain hold over him.

The decision to stake out the police station was inspired by an overpowering sense of tomfoolery that would not leave until I had carried it out, so I sat in the private library across the street, in a comfortable seat that enjoyed a broad view over the landscape through the window. It was a nutjob's work, sitting for hours in the hope that the subject of your trauma will bring himself, in spite of all the forces that existed against you, into your field of view. Maybe if I prayed more often as mother always instructed, it would have been a lot easier to expect God to drop lifelines my way. But I was cursed with a bleeding need to understand how things function, which sometimes slapped faith in the face in order to work. I would always identify as a conscious man who never doubted the existence of God, but that was only as far as I was willing to go, especially where the application of common sense was concerned. And worse these days, religious folks make it look like you don't need your brain when you are dealing with God. So why do I have one? The five hundredth groan in my stomach defeated my desire to continue the task at hand, I made my way out of the library, down the street, turned left into a busy road filled with workers rushing home. I walked further down to where my car was parked when I saw two gangly creatures lean against the bonnet. They moved like thugs yet I had never seen thugs dress so rakishly. One of them saw me and whistled. A car stood in the corner, almost out of view and it had no plates. Meathead emerged from inside, banged the door, and signaled his boys to sic me.

I immediately yelled across to him, "Call off your boys. I have been looking for you, we need to talk."

He called out but one of them was too eager, however the message was well received the moment he saw the stun gun I had pulled out. I walked over to their boss,

"You think you can scare me by dressing up a couple of patients and sending them to rough me up?"

He laughed, "Actually their orders were to seize you. I will do be the beating myself."

"You sound sure of yourself. Are you familiar with the story of David and Goliath?"

"God won't save you here, dick. And neither will that little toy of yours."

The irony hit me in the face when I realised that God could have as well sent him to me.

"Why do you want me out of your way so badly? Do my good looks threaten you that much?"

He grunted like a basset hound, rubbed his forehead with his right hand and said, "Your lines are starting to bore me. Shall we proceed with your beating now?"

"Why were you following her that night? And please don't tell me you weren't."

"Following who?"

He must have taken me for a fish. I poked a finger at him, "You know damn well who I'm talking about. The night Kiite Adewumni-Tate disappeared, you were following her. That makes you a prime suspect in this investigation, you just wait till the police hear about this. They will strip that thick hide of yours until you look like a hairy piece of spaghetti." I was speculating. I knew there was no touching him on this one if the story was true but I wanted to get his reaction.

"Hey hey hey, relax. I was her protection, I was watching over her. More or less. You can't threaten me with the police you ninny, I am the police!"

"Keep singing, I am not hearing anything I am supposed to be hearing"

He blinked and his brackish eyes flickered in a half-circle before settling on me.

"She came to the police about two weeks ago to complain about being followed. I was assigned as her protective detail. We followed her for a while but failed to notice anybody doing the same and so we stopped. We thought it was just a theory. Then she came again to repeat the same thing. Ordinarily this raised suspicions about her person, there had to be something she wasn't telling us. We asked her to come clean, she didn't and there was no deal. Meanwhile I had an itch about the whole thing so I took up the case personally, not bothering to inform her about it. I had been following her for hours that day, and when she came out of the church that evening and began to walk there was a small crowd of people, mostly women, on the road. I got out of the car and tried to follow without alerting her but I lost her."

He was doubtless what one could call field muscle- those responsible for every reprehensible act necessary for police work but not listed in the rule book. Due to the nature of their tasks they were extremely expendable, but this seldom happened because they were almost always ruthlessly dependable in discretion, organized in execution, and meticulous in planning. His role in the case had now been firmly established.

"You were sloppy," I chided him. He bristled at my remark, I continued, "If she did not vanish of her own desire whoever took her must have been there on that road and you cocked it up."

"Don't you think I have heard that enough times already?"

"Is that why you are giving me so much heat about the case? You don't want me to plant my career on the ruins of your own lack of competence." I was goading him now. He had to have realised I wasn't going to let it slip by.

He spoke with uncharacteristic calmness, "Since you figured out I was there that night. What else have you figured out? How close are you to solving the case?"

"Oh, are we comparing notes now?"

He bared his teeth at me. "if you want me out of your way as soon as possible you are going to have to share."

"You start."

"The surveillance operation yielded nothing useful, except for two occasions when we noticed a car, which we later connected to the pastor. Accordingly we checked him out, his home, office, and church. He was clean. It was just a coincidence. Your turn."

I was not too sure it was a coincidence, there was a whole universe of difference between coincidence and what I just heard and it lied in what I was going to do with the information. The teflon pastor had just risen to the top of my list of suspects, which was mildly amusing because up until that moment there had been no list, except for a vague description of a woman who had accompanied Kiite to the movie house. While holding his stare I turned the corners of my mouth. "I have nothing to share with a first-rate bungler," I spun on my heel and walked back to my car, got in and drove away.

Thursday

Deola called out from the kitchen when I let myself inside, "I will be with you in a minute, just finishing!" The room had a sense of style that had dramatically improved since the last time I was here, it could probably be just cupid's fart in my face or she was starting to feel like I was the type of man she had been waiting on all along, which to be honest, was a role I did not believe I was satisfactorily suited for, especially if it exceeded three days. She emerged from the kitchen wearing a thick, white bathrobe with flower prints that ended just above her knee, her legs were stately and firm. She sat and spoke, "Good to see you again, Pi." I nodded. My voice was far away from me, but I had to manage.

"I need your help," I sounded like my throat had been replaced with a straw, "I need you to go undercover for me at Kiite's church on Sunday."

Her face brightened up a little, "Really? Wow, that is interesting. Is it connected with the case?"

I swallowed hard, "Yes. The church operates a unit system composed of men and women. I want you to find Kiite's group. It will help greatly if you announced that you were single and have been quite unlucky with guys in the past."

"Wait, are you saying your prime suspect is in her church?"

"It is just a hunch I have. I will pick you up here in the morning."

She placed one leg over the other, fanned me with her eyes in a gesture that needed no explanation.

"You know you can spend the night here if you want instead of having to deal with getting up early to come and pick me up."

"I---I, uh..,"

She smiled, "You can think about it. Anyways I made porridge, I hope you are hungry."

Sunday

I drove from Korede's apartment to Deola's estate in the morning. In my defense I fed her some garbage news about my brother being ill and unresponsive. The plainness of her reaction was legendary, I almost would have been taken over by the act if I were not simultaneously feeling strange for refusing an offer most men would die to enjoy. The truth was since the reunion with my brother, the weight of my damning lack of ethics was bearing down on me daily, I was slowly becoming the very man I loathed the most- my father- and worse, it was blending so well with my personality I felt powerless to control myself. So I threw in a wrench to screw the whole thing. If the price was Deola's coldness, it was a fair loss. After I dropped her at church, I steered the car into a park fifty meters away and bought myself some few hours of sleep. I awoke when I heard a tap on the window, her maroon gown was wrapped with sequined snake skin that spiraled round the dress. She looked like a an exotic creature trapped inside a bottle. I unlocked the door and gestured for her to come in at the other side.

"The church isn't half bad," she said as she climbed in.

"It is bad if it isn't half-bad. Did you get anything?" I could not believe the animation in my voice.

"The lady you are most probably looking for is Juliet Balogun. She gave me a killer leer once the moment I mentioned my availability. It was uncomfortable the way she was staring at me, she took her place with me and we started to talk. She said she had only been there for a month, and was also available. We met a couple of guys and exchanged details. Is it possible that she abducted kiite?"

The trail had started to warm up. "That is what I shall try to find out. Describe her."

"Well she was pretty in a delicate way. She had soft brown eyes, a small chin, large bosoms and long, wavy hair. And she talked and behaved like she was reading from a script."

"No dreads?"

"No. Are you disappointed?"

It could still be the same person. "No, you have done very well." We picked our way back to the church, patiently observing for Janet, our suspected mystery woman. She came outside not long after, hand-in-hand with a large man with a box for head. They went into a light green sedan, and we followed them. The man got out at a junction a mile away, and she turned left heading towards the outskirts of the neighbourhood. Fourteen minutes later, she turned into a street, drove further down and parked in front of a large unpainted house.

After dropping Deola at her apartment, I returned to our mystery house. This time I parked the car away from view. I knocked and she came to the door. She was more striking than I imagined, her hands looked strong and firm. The nails were perfectly manicured and unpainted, and she smelled faintly of peach . She looked surprised to see me, giving a hint that she knew who I was.

"Good day miss," I greeted and showed her my card.

"Good day, how may I help you?"

"I am investigating the disappearance of Miss Kiite Adewunmi-Tate. I am sure you know her, don't you?"

There was something duplicitous in her eyes that trapped my attention and as she hesitated to answer me her eyes moved, before I could connect it to anything I felt a dull pain at the back of my head, and then I felt nothing. I awoke with some measure of difficulty, the thing that clubbed me from behind had caused a severe headache and my body had started to work up a fever. At first I felt numb, but as I slowly gained my senses my nose told me I was in a damp room that smelled of engine oil, chloroform, and rust. I was feeling dizzy, my legs felt far away from me, it was like they had left me. I looked around and saw nothing but darkness, I pushed the pain in my head into a corner to sort out my bearings first, and then slowly realized that I was hanging upside down from a rope tied to both legs. I felt gravity's pull on my blood, these people meant business. Someone flicked a switch and the lights came on, burning my eyes with great intensity. Two pairs of feet walked into the room. Before I could strain my eyes to see their faces something hit me in the face and I returned into that hole from where I had just come. Fifty years later I was stirred awake by an overpowering odour, my hands and legs were both tied and a man sat before me holding a blackjack. Some people called him Pastor Kingsley, his face bore the expression of a man who had finally captured the rat that had caused him sleepless nights in his home. The feeling of triumph was however not shared by his accomplice when she walked in.

She sounded scared. "I am not too sure about this," and then looking at me, "he cannot stay here."

The preacher did not reply her remark, he just kept staring at me. She came to his side and whispered, he shook his head, she glared at me and left the room. He cleared his throat but I interrupted him. "She is here in this house, isn't she? She is still alive." It was more a declaration than a question, he slowly nodded his head and smiled.

"Yes you are right. She is still alive although under constant sedation. You just had to come in and ruin everything. From the moment you came into my office I could perceive that you were trouble, but even I did not know it would go this far otherwise I would have arranged your demise swiftly and efficiently."

I was not going to make this easy for him. "Let me guess, you are into lesbians, right? Do they even have a name for that?"

"It doesn't matter, it's not like you would be around long enough to use it."

"So how do you do it? Do they make out first and you join or you start with one and move on the other or the three of you just improvise as you go?"

He sapped me across the face, blood began to trickle out. "You have a very big mouth," he spat out, "it is going to get you killed one day."

I smiled at the reference. He stood and began to undress, stopping at his boxers and then proceeded to fold each one. "So I have a type. I mean everyone has a type so it is a non-issue. Nothing seems abnormal these days, nothing is good, nothing is bad, everything is permissible. This is the state of humanity at the moment; we are tired of doing the same things over and over and so once in a while an insightful and daring person like me comes around, shows people the way, guides them, and secures his place in history. Long after I am gone my flock shall continue to flourish. These things are inevitable." I felt severely violated as he pranced around me and danced his fingers across my face, all in his underpants. Reflexively I flinched with each touch, "You are a sick psycho."

He struck me from behind. "I have had a boy or two in the past but my tastes disagreed. The male anatomy is not quite as tender or appealing as the woman's." I heard some movement behind me, then like a movie scene, felt his hands wrap a wire garrote across my neck and with insane energy began to pull. My legs kicked wildly, my eyes bulged out from the sockets, my head was an inch from exploding and then slowly, my eyes started to shut.

I first felt my hands, and then my stomach, and when I opened my eyes I discovered I was in a hospital. My eyes felt like they had gone through a blender, my neck was sore and it stung, my hands were a heavy as boulders, my legs were not even feeling anything, they could not make it to the emotion competition. There was a table across the room with a large basket of fruits, next to it were several food items. I sat upright, pushed the button that was attached to the bed, a nurse came in and rushed back out. Seconds after, the room was not large enough for everyone - Mr Adewumi-Tate and his wife, Deola, Korede, and, not surprisingly, Meathead. My undead mother stood in a corner away from them all eating a grape. I decided to open the floor, "Okay will someone please tell me what happened after I died?" They all laughed. "I barged in at the right moment to interrupt your execution," Meathead said with utmost superiority. "I had followed you that day to the church and then to the house of the suspect. I did not know you returned there until I paid a visit to Deola after I went to your house and did not meet you. I summoned my boys and together we made for the house, barged in, overcame the woman first and after a thorough search of the place, found the pantry where Kiite had been imprisoned. She had been stuffed with a horse dose of sedatives. Finding you was tougher, however it wasn't until we leaned on Janet that she produced your whereabouts. The pastor took one in the head after he refused to let go of strangling you. Further interrogation led to the arrest of other members of the cult. They operated using the church as a front. Members were either sex offenders or neophytes who had an appetite for excessive sexual desires. What those guys did among themselves will make Sodom look like a stain on a wall. Meanwhile You are one lucky sap to still be alive. For an amateur you did not do too bad."

I replied, "For a bungler, you did not do too bad. Do you have any idea what I call you in my head?"

"Doesn't matter because it can't be as bad as what I call you in mine," he fired back. Discreetly, he placed his card on the bed and left the room.

Mr Gbenga spoke next. "My wife and I are extremely grateful for your help, Mr Kayode. Kiite has been responding well to treatment. You just rest well. You have done a great job." His wife swelled with so much emotion I feared she would sneeze a gallon of it all over me. When they left, Deola kissed me on both sides of my face, and settled on my lips for last. It tasted like something I had never had before, something that was ready to be mine if I was willing. "Thank you for everything," she said tonelessly. Korede hit me softly on the shoulder, "Why didn't you tell me you had become a superhero?"

"Even I did not know I had become a superhero. Trust me if I had known it would include the occasional torture and near-death experience I would have chosen the job market. At the very least no employer wishes to kill his employee."

They both wished me well and, in compliance with the doctor's directive, left me alone to rest. I looked at the corner where my mother stood and she too had left. Or maybe she was never there to begin with.

END.

# LISTEN, OLAOLUWA

Adetona Mariam Omolayo

I lost my brother in a fatal car accident when I was five. Everybody said it was a miracle I survived. My grandfather died a day before my high school graduation. The next week, my favorite uncle went overseas and hasn't been back in over nine years. I am telling you this, Olaoluwa, so you would understand me when I say I understand and know too well the feeling of losing someone. Friends go in and out of my life so much I have learned to only give a small place in my heart while they are still around. I have always taken care not to lose my heart or get my heart broken in any relationship I have ever had because I am no stranger to loss and I would never put myself in the position of losing any part of myself; and I write to tell you, Olaoluwa, that in this aspect of my life I have been successful. Very successful, if I do say so myself.

Until recently.

I am certain am losing myself, Olaoluwa. Losing the essence of who I am so much that most days I don't know who I am, who I am supposed to be, or what I want out of life. I am lost. Totally.

Okay, so here's the story.

I resumed the fourth year of medical school four months ago. I was excited on resumption because I figured this was the start of Clinical sciences and I get to interact with real patients. I was giddy, despite the fact that this fourth year is known to be the toughest year in medical school, the year where you get bombarded with lots of knowledge – both needed information as well as junk knowledge. I figured it would be a breeze, considering my track record plus I was not scared of hard work. My parents also believed in me so much to a fault, what more do I need, I though in my naiveté.

I was so wrong. So wrong.

The first blow to my haven came when I had to clerk a patient. You see, this is a thing doctors do when a patient comes for medical help; they ask the patients myriads of seemingly disjointed questions (history taking) with the sole aim of getting a diagnosis. Most times, by the end of the clerking, a diagnosis is made in the doctor's mind, or at the very least, a couple of differential diagnosis, one of which is then confirmed by clinical examination of the body and certain laboratory investigations. So, I was to clerk a patient assigned to me – just to hone my skills history taking – and I had a full blown anxiety attack. Yeah, anxiety attack with breathlessness and severe chest pains while sweating buckets . Apparently, my skills at interacting with people on the basic level is not as honed as I thought, or maybe I just am not made up to be a doctor. You see, I have started taking these things as signs.

'I have never seen anything like this, this new generation is as soft as they come', I heard Dr. Olowokeere, my senior registrar, say to his colleague, who replied with, 'I know, right. He'd better find a new career, I doubt he can survive long enough to be a doctor'.

Hearing all these was crushing and it seemed I got two signs in one day.

I tried hard to block it from my consciousness, focusing a lot more on the theory aspect of clinicals, staying up all night reading despite attending each boring class after another. I slaved, Olaoluwa. I slaved for the books. I rarely slept on bed, except on some weekends. Remember I rarely am fazed by hard work? I was determined to prove myself and I didn't know no better way. Added to the fact that knowledge excites me, my intensive reading wasn't seen as a chore by me.

Remember the day we sneaked out of my parents' to walk the streets of the University of Ibadan? Remember our surprise and awe at witnessing an adult community of seemingly unfettered individuals, how we admired and envied their confidence exemplified in the gait and carriage? I wish you could see the shocked looks on our faces when we saw a couple kissing in the outdoors. I had a déjà vu moment of the surprised shock when I gazed at the scoreboard a month ago, stunned at realizing I didn't meet the pass mark of 50%. It was the third sign, Olaoluwa. After all my hard work, panic attacks and sleepless nights, the least the universe could have done was to allow me a pass.

There were tiny little bits of other signs I overlooked because I was in denial and I really could not afford to be distracted. The lecturer that sent me out of class because I could not repeat his last statement – in my defense, the class was boring and I had zone out for a bit; the colleague that once told me I was complacent only because I couldn't be bothered to contribute to discussions in class – what could I have done when I actually did not feel like I belonged in there with the others, my mind had me convinced my POV  and myself, actually, won't be welcome; and there was a time, Adebola, the girl I was seeing yelled at me to 'stop being a wuss and man up' just couple days before she broke up with me.

I am tired, Olaoluwa. I am losing myself in this pressure hole with overwhelming sadness accompanying me daily. I have been trying to boost my poor grades but I am at a loss as to what more to do. My greatest accomplishment – not losing myself – has been hacked, gutted and thrown at my face with me, my carefully stacked cards strewn across my face with me fraught with worry of which pack of cards would collapse next. I am almost certain I am not destined to be a doctor. I do not know what career would be best suited to me – although I fiddled with an online pop quiz which stated I am made to be a teacher. I am doubly certain my parents would be disappointed and confused at the current state of my grades and mind, even though they still would be supportive.

I am lost, flailing and helpless, Olaoluwa. I am sending you this so that you can, maybe, understand a bit of my current reality. 

# NO PLACE LIKE PARADISE

Nnadozie-Ononye Chukwuma

A man didn't need to consult a doctor when he knew there was no remedy to his condition. A man never outruns his demons, for they hunt, or dear lord they hunt in packs.

Simon Chukwudi, was a nobody to everyone he came across, tall and lanky with a forgettable face. He was a corpse with life in it, lurking the streets at night, swaggering with alcohol induced steps.

The lowest a man could descend was rock bottom, but with Chukwudi, he was down with a spade and rock bottom found itself a new explorer, the drums of death had been playing itself since Chukwudi, became this, a shadow laced with demons, of which on the sands of time, time itself was at a loss for words to tell death as to when Chukwudi would embrace it. He was never far from misfortune, who happened to be a bar, the bar of exquisite gentleman, where every syndicate, every high class gambler, every gun toting gangster, pimps, politicians, whores were. This was where Chukwudi, came to find his demons sitting with lipstick smeared across their faces, with legs crossed.

This was the devil watching him, his every move with scrutiny. He liked what he saw, and he had his grim reaper with him, watching waiting for the submission of the carcass.

 Chukwudi was a man after the devils heart, never in his debatable years of existence had he seen a man so intent on ruining himself, to the point of desolation, and Chukwudi did it in style.

Being a night monger, he had no issues with the perils that came with it, he had been held at gunpoint twice, he had a scar from a knife attack at the side of his left torso, he had been mobbed. Yet, it was all normal and thrilling to him.

It was supposed to be all good for Chukwudi, he was a straight A student from secondary school up until the university, where he graduated with a second class upper, he had a poor first semester in his first year.

Born into a middle class upper family, he had the most basic needs met, and at the age of twenty two a graduate and a working class young man, he had it going well, but a man never ran far from his shadows even in the darkness without no light. And when he turned twenty five, Chukwudi was a sickening sight to all who knew him, worse still, he kept finding new ways to damage himself, surprisingly everyone thought  he would be dead, but yet he managed to defy the expectations.

Fast forward to the present day at the age forty two, a drunk who had a twisted sense of humor that seemed to get him into more trouble with the elite underworld men at Haven's Hotel and Suites, and you had yourself an enigma to ponder about for ages.

He was a bloodshot eyed felon, who escaped the law more times than Anini did, he often boasted to be an offspring of the man. "My father was a pile of shit, but Anini adopted me." He always boasted.

Mary West was a Ugandan woman who was undercover in a city that was besieged by evil, she was recruited by the African Crime Syndicate Forces, the ACSF, a group mopping up what was becoming a scourge to the African continent, one word, drugs.

Drugs was the devil sitting across, Chukwudi in the bar room of the hotel. He had a black hat on, that shone in the bright lights, he had a cigar in his left hand, puffs of smoke surrounding his table, giving it a hazy glow as two hookers were at his side, he had the easiest of smiles, which seemed to make him more hideous, a mystery. A very appealing mystery.

Damian Onojedo, was God's refusal to do what was right, which was killing the thought of creating the devil then when he had the chance, now Damian had come to stay, a most ruthless cutthroat dealer in the metropolis.

Born on the day when angels had important things to do, growing up it was no surprise that he ran on the very hot coals, that hell ran on, and at the age of eighteen, the streets knew that there was a mess that had come go stay, and this mess came with blood, and this mess came with ambition, and this mess spelt danger regardless of what words you could come up with at your scrabble board. Narcos!

Chukwudi first dabble with drugs came at a party he was invited to, being an introvert, he had a sniff all in an attempt to please Ozioma, a girl he had admired since he set his eyes on her, but his inability to complete his sentences made for a bad conversation with her. She was a light skinned girl, with an oval face, and a very round ass. He had imagined what he was going to do with it if he ever got the chance anywhere near it.

"Quit staring, and walk up to her" a smallish bodied girl, whom he later found out to be an accountant at the firm he worked for.

She was drunk,and had a small plastic parcel containing a powdery white substance, which she passed to him.

"You might need a kick of this if you're too shy" she smiled at him while he handled the parcel

Pouring it out into his palm, he felt the leathery touch of the powder, he touched it with his index finger and put it into his mouth, it tasted funny.

Pouring it on the table before them, he bent with his nostrils toward the substance, and he inhaled...

The lights became part of him, he felt himself on fire and yet he was calm, everyone around him became small, he caught himself laughing.

And thus began the steady decline of Chukwudi into the abyss that was drugs, alcohol and women. It was the deadly trio, a triad of vices that spelled the words doom clearly, even in the light minded throes of cocaine.

Damian Onojedo, took on the name Lucifer, to inspire fear in the streets of Akwate, on the outskirts of the great metropolis of Uganda, he decided on the name as something of an irony as well as a paradox, Lucifer because he was a star, because his path had been dark, because he was here to rule, the underworld where all those on their way to hell stopped for a brief pause.

Mary West was watching keenly, the desire to get revenge at the man who played a part in the murder of her sister, was getting in the way of reason, she was here to observe the syndicates, as well as provide intels necessary for the organization's efficiency. Major strings had been pulled to get her in, and her two months in the underworld had been part productive, but with a little compromise, she had discovered the source of her sisters death, and for someone who was supposed to be focused, she had also allowed herself to be held captive by the tug of her heart towards a man destined for the jaws of death, the miracle corpse.

Chukwudi was on his fourth glass when she walked delicately towards him, her hips swaying with the seductiveness of a snake charmer. Mary West was a stunner when she decided to live up to her glory days as a former beauty queen, she was stunning when she accentuated those facts.

The devil was smiling, he would soon have his way with the goddess with the loser, a man he admired for his desire to score new lows but yet upbeat enough to live for a day more. A no gooder like him, but unlike him, he had ambition, and ambition was more powerful than power itself. And he had a lot, for a man whose dedication to evil was to desecrate any existence of sanctity in the purest of ways possible, corruption. And drugs was his currency, and in current conditions, rolled in his income with which infused with terror, his climate in the underworld thickened with power.

Mary West decided that a showdown would go down tonight with the devil, and as she left the company of a dozing Chukwudi, she went to her hotel room, to log in the details of the day, and then she made a call to the organization, and her orders were straight, it had been a productive stay, she was to come back. A team was on its way to invade the underworld, there would be a strike at the very heart of the organization, the agency had the call, to make an open fire in the premises, it was a place filled with hardcore criminals, there were no saints.

Her heart trembled at the end of the call....Chukwudi.

Onojedo, built his empire from scratch. A nothing, he had been, from nothing he had come. Being a religious man, he practiced Catholicism, he was baptized with the name Paul. But chose to answer the name Lucifer because of the appeal, "afterall, God made the name, and it was for a pristine purpose." He had said to the priest who asked him about his reasons for answering it.

A man who caused terror knew that terror itself was never far from his doorsteps, all his years in the underworld had developed his ability to predict fear like a rabbit, and he had made three hops. He had transferred his wealth to various accounts, even the church. He had moved his merchandise further South into neighbouring cities outside of the country. And he had increased his ammunition. If ever death came knocking, he would ensure that his paradise would live to see another day, even if his life was the ultimate price.

Eleven thirty pm, just at the tip of the night life, the team struck.

Mary West didn't see Chukwudi at the bar fifteen minutes before they came, and when the shooting went on, Damain, wasn't there. The snake, she knew they called the strike too early, and she had to follow orders, but deep down in her guts, something was off, Damian must have gotten a whiff of the attack, and she wasn't exactly sure how.

Chukwudi was calling, that was something like an anomaly, 'come to fifth avenue' he had said over the phone.

In her Brown Mercedes, she stepped on the gas, and maneuvered through the streets.

As she came out of the car, a figure behind her quickly dragged her into a corner of the street, and before she could scream, a palm cupped hee mouth and turned her around, it was Chukwudi.

"What the fuck?" She looked at him enquiringly, eyes flaming with so many emotions, and he looked back intensely, I know you're a cop, and I know why you're here, I'm the devils eyes and ears, but I'm no fool, I want his throne, and I want you to be my Queen.

"I should've known better" she spat in his face, drying the glob of saliva with the back of his hands, he kissed her and she hated the way her body reacted.

"I can deliver him into your hands, but in the city of sin there can be no angels, and this city is my home now, and my home is yours if you want it to be"

By now Mary West was silent, feelings of betrayal and anger was gnawing at her insides, but bizarrely there was something else, a willingness to go with a man she loved, her time at the organization was great but it wasn't fulfilling.

She wanted this man before her who had betrayed her, and she wanted the other man he sought to kill. He held the key to the paradise, and she smiled.

Kissing him back deeply, she cried.

Mary West at that point became two things, Chukwudi's Queen, and a rogue. And together, they set off, in the lost world of underground Uganda, roaming to and fro, seeking to lure out the devil in his own abode. 

# GONE

Aisha Oredola

TAIYE

I'm a fire breathing dragon. I'm the girl who evokes radiation with her eyes. I'm dark. I'm destructive. I'm a chaotic nemesis. I'm a gully. Never read my eyes. Never call my name twice. I'm an alley that leads to a place of no return. I'm an abyss. I'm a spell.

Everyone says the above about me. Ever since she came...

People can be dumb, because they take sand and sprinkle it in a pool of murky water then dive into the pool that is now transformed into an ocean, then try to collect the grains of sand yet can not swim.

What I'm saying is, people dive into complicated issues, made complex with their own hands and then try to come out of it or save themselves. I'm not saying I'm different. I mean, I was dumb too, else how did she take over my life? I can't come out of this murky water turned ocean.

On the second day of January 1995, I was born. Around 12:54 p.m. noon, according to my mother who made sure the nursing assistant took note. Mother's crazy with dates and time. My twin sister, came out 1:12 p.m. Yet according to Yoruba mythology, my twin sister is the first born because she told me to come out and prepare the way for her grand entrance into the world. So, I'm the younger one. She's Kehinde, I'm Taiye.

It's a bunch of nonsense. Scientists don't think like that. I came out first, I'm first. Taiye's are always first!

Clarissa just passed by. She stopped and glanced at me before shrugging. I'm sure the silence between what she thought and what she said ( which is a 'hello' ) meant she was thinking of how unfair life is because she knows I'd steal almost everything she has.

"It's not my fault I'm dropdead attractive." I smirk. I think of her. Of fire.

Maybe she, was right. Maybe this new red hair fits me and the chunky braids, burgundy lipstick, black top, black jeans, and red high-top sports footwear. She's good at fashion. I look wild, I love it.

First things first. I'm sitting next to the basketball court in the sports centre, writing this but I may shut my book anytime soon.

Back to Clarry...Clarissa's bad at hiding her thoughts, maybe. Or maybe I'm good at reading thoughts.

You see, people say a lot of things about me. Maybe they're right...Maybe they're wrong...You'd find out.

I've dropped my pen, shut my book. That feeling is here again. She's taking over. I don't want her to, but I can't help it...I can't.

-

INA

Taiye's soft. She's a diary girl. Always writing bullshit in her little book of secrets. I help her keep it because I love her and don't want these humans messing with her head. She's precious but should work on her confidence. Taiye doesn't know the tools she has.

Obviously, I know what Clarissa was thinking. She was being jealous as usual, the bitch. Taiye's a pretty good writer but me, I'm the blazing basketball player, club lover, man hunter, wild panther, fashionista. I dance well, run faster than shit. See, I'm not weak like y'all. I'm sick.

Clarissa is afraid of us. Slut has everything to lose - her status, reputation, boyfriend, success and life. She better not cross our lane.

How won't I introduce myself? I'm fire. My name is fire but Taiye named me in the Yoruba way. Fire is Ina in Yoruba. I know all languages, damn. To make things clear, I am the freaking sailor of this ship. Not going anywhere.

 I'm not human if you wish to know, and possessing Taiye tastes like fine wine. The world where I come from gets boring from time to time and seeing these humans, the ones who have abandoned God, get lost in their world gives people like us the edge. See ehn, I'm not to be classified under 'people' but whatever.

When music booms, when the night is fierce, when the darkness emerges, our type comes, we possess anyone. We possess anything. But I fell in love with Taiye because she has nerve. She abandoned her prayers, the mosque, Her Lord. She even has envy for her twin sister.  She's a weak one you know. She thinks she can live without God. Hahahaha. He was protecting her from the darkness but just because of a silly problem - jealousy and envy and lack of self worth - she left her faith. What's my own? I need to feel more alive. Her beauty is a plus. I can use it to my advantage to lure these male species. The more souls we wreck, the more happiness we get. Anyways, I'm walking to the basketball court.

-

TAIYE

She's messing with my head again. I can see blur images of tall guys. I hate basketball, why will I play basketball? I force myself to go back to my diary but she won't let me. I thought coming to the sports center was enough! What the heck does she want again?

-

INA

Trying to stop my fun? Is she mad?

"Are you mad?" I yell. Everyone looks at me but it's the norm. They think I'm talking to the guy standing in front of me.

"You better not mess with my game Taiye. After all I've done for you. Please behave." I whisper.

"Why will you call me mad?" The guy says.

"Are you mad hot?" I wink. "That's what I meant, Tiger."

The idiot melts and grins and wants to make a move. Fools, these men. This is how we take their fortunes. Do they feel every woman on earth is human? I and my mates do transform to the female specie or possess them, to get blood covenants from perverts like these ones. Ruining destinies and their eternities is the aim. They're too thirsty for sex and mess themselves up. It always opens doors for us. We, who need to see them burn.

"You don't look bad yourself " He mutters. "What's your name?"

"Screw you."

See, I'm not nice. I only wanted to save Taiye's reputation. I'm heading to the basketball court, suckers.

-

TAIYE

My whole body hurts. Everyone is whistling and yelling my name.

"Good game!"

"Whoo-hoo!"

"Never knew you could play so well."

"Making use of that height in good ways, girl."

"Your dribbles, passes, throws! Attagirl!"

Honestly, all I need is water now. I smile to each and every one of them and open my water bottle...Then, he walks up to me.

"Hey Taiye, I'm sorry I talked trash about you playing basketball with the guys yesterday when you sought permission...you played well. You lived up to your words. It seemed like you were...I don't know, sort of possessed. A good game though...I like your energy, never knew beautiful girls like you could be that energetic."

"Oh, thanks." I swallowed hard.

"If you don't mind...I'd like you to come for my birthday party toni-"

"Forget it. I'm not available."

"Uhm, it's understandable. I'd see you around."

I know she's angry with me for turning Clarissa's boyfriend down, but enough is enough. She has gone too far. She's slept with so many random guys ever since she came (she makes me forget these horrible things somehow but i feel it in my body) and now, she wants Clarissa's boyfriend? No. I should be in control.

-

INA

Taiye makes me laugh. When she turned down Paul's almost request, she thought she was in control. Sometimes Taiye, forgets things because I make her forget. After her three gulps of water, I took over and ran to Paul. I asked him to tell me the address and time. He did, happily.

Tonight I'm going. I don't care what Taiye thinks. Her body is mine now. We own it.

I glance at the wall clock, it's 11:35 p.m. The Idris family sleep early. Time to sneak out.

I take one of Taiye's funny leggins and let the scissors do the design. I grab her tube top and cut some holes in it.

Sneaking out is easy, I'd be back before dawn. This isn't the first time.

I'm a freaking fast driver. I would've "teleported", but being in this human body restricts me.

-

5:00 a.m. the next day.

It's almost time for Fajr, the dawn prayer muslims observe. Kehinde walks tiredly but determinedly to her sister's room to wake her up so they can pray together. Yes, Taiye has abandoned her prayers but she always tries not to let that discourage her from helping and reminding her sister.

"I'd always remind her, no matter what. Maybe one day, she'd come back to her senses. Oh, Allah please bring her back, she's far gone."

Kehinde meets the door wide open and walks to the well laid empty bed. Fear grips her soul. Where is Taiye? Where can she be?

She searches the whole house.

Nowhere to be found.

What will she tell her father? Mother? That Taiye isn't home?

Again?

This isn't the first time but now it's very scary.

Kehinde used to meet Taiye half drunk in bed every Friday night but she thought weekdays were an exception. She used to cover up for her sister a lot but some things were too obvious.

Her parents had sworn that if Taiye kept sneaking out, they'd send her out of the house.

"Kehinde!" Alhaji Idris called. "I'm off to the mosque. You, Taiye and your mother should observe Fajr. I'm running late..."

Kehinde nodded, relief filled her heart, after all, her father won't know that her sister wasn't home.

He was about leaving when a fully drunk Taiye walked in. Her attire, resembled rags. They were too tight, too body revealing, too torn. Something a girl from a religious home, should never be caught dead in.

"Alhaji! Alhaji!" Taiye shouts, belches in between the first Alhaji and the second. "Baba of life!" Her two hands rise up in the air. "You're almost late for Fajr Baba! Let me clear the way!" Her legs recklessly move away from the entrance in a nasty stagger.

Her father, who couldn't hold himself, grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her vigorously. "Taiye! AudhubiLlahi mina shaytani rajeem! Look at you, what's happened to you! You're not my daughter! This is a shadow of yourself."

-

INA

Okay Okay e don do. What's Alhaji thinking? That he's some saint? Abeg free me jare. I forced myself out of his hold and spat on his face.

"Free me jor! You think say you be saint abi? Which kind prayer you dey pray sef. The only good person wey dey this house na Kehinde. Abi you think say I no know say you they do shina."

"Taiye stop accusing our father of adultery to justify yourself. And since when did you start speaking this way?" Kehinde says with tears in her eyes.

I looked at Kehinde with disgust. That one is full of light. I and some of us have tried to possess or even whisper evil to her but her night prayers, obligatory prayers, abstinence from sin, quick repentance from minor sins, and reflections, were on point. She was strongly protected by God. I hate humans who strive to be pure. They are stronger than us. Anyway she has earned my respect so I'd talk to her.

"I'm not Taiye." I say with my real voice this time. A scary scream like echo.

"Who are you?" She freaks out. She pauses. Screams. "SubhanaLlah you're a jinn!"

Is this one acting a role in a movie. Ode. Before?

"Your father is a hypocrite and so is your mother." I add.

Alhaji seems perturbed. He tries to hide his guilt by reciting some Quranic verses but I'm unshaken. Those verses are from his tongue, not his heart.

"Stop it!" I push him with an extraterrestrial force. "You pervert! You dirty pig! You're not better than I. You're a hypocrite!"

Just then Alhaja came in.

Wait. Why do some Muslims think because they've been to Makkah, they're saints?

Only few of them are sincere with their Lord.

I hate this Alhaja the most. Ashewo.

"AudhubiLlah! I heard noise from upstairs. What's wrong?" She faces me. "Taiye! You again? Why do you want to kill us? At twenty two, you haven't learnt how to be like your sister! She's just perfect. Look at you-"

Kehinde held her mother's hands and pleaded with her eyes that the situation was more than what she thought but the shameless woman pressed on.

"Taiye, look at how you're covered in rags, why are you behaving like a prostitute? Where did you go last night ehn?" She faced her husband who was rising slowly from the fall. "Alhaji, what happened?"

"Ashewo." I shook my head. "You're a shameless slut Alhaja." I say with Taiye's voice.

"How dare you?"

Kehinde breaks out from her shock and starts reciting suratul-Jinn. I get so angry and choke her without using my hands but my eyes...it's just that my powers are incomparable to her beautiful Quranic recitation.

I must say what I must.

Even if I'd leave.

"Tell your husband who the real father of the twins are!" I say with my real voice.

Now Alhaja gets the drill. That I'm not her daughter is no brainer.

"And you, Alhaji, don't you already have other children outside your home? Don't you have illegal sexual intercourse with countless girls young enough to be your daughters? Humans!"

The couple exchange looks and begin to question one another with their eyes. Kehinde gets affected by my revelation and breaks down in tears.

Her recitation is altered.

Now's my chance to run away from this family forever. I run out of their home as fast as I can.

I'm never leaving this body. Never. Taiye won't get the chance, I've been too nice.  Her soul is forever lost.

-

3 years after

I don't know the whereabouts of my sister till date. I was weak the day I confronted the Jinn that possessed her. But I won't give up in searching for her. My family was a lie and Taiye wasn't shielded enough...she shouldn't have left God. I pray for her everyday. I pray Allah brings her back.

When I know her whereabouts, I'd give the Imaam i trust, a call. My husband knows him for ruqya. She needs intense ruqya (A spiritual cure ). They will cast away the Jinn...I hope. But for now, she's gone. Taiye's gone. 

#  FEAR

You held my hands while we walked the market square,

Air of innocence, laughter, love and happiness,

Perusing, buying, bargaining,

Sharing memories that will stand the test of time.

In that moment I wanted to remain a child forever

That's when it happens,

In all but a second, I stumble, my hands slips,

I lose you in the crowd of buyers and sellers,

Fear like nothing I have felt before.

Who said being lost is nothing to fear?

Palpitations, paralysis, anxiety, words that do no justice;

Tender steps that have led far from home,

How can I find you?

Where do I begin?

By losing you, I am lost.

 SANDY

# INTERLUDE II

I pray we never lose ourselves to the pressure society places on people,

Perfect appearances, picture goals

search for approval,

unrealistic expectations. 

# A DIFFERENT DREAM

Dolapo  Hazeez

Your luck index is on the high side if you find a bottled message.

For starters, a bottled message is an age-old tradition of sending messages to random beach-surfers by sea travelers. The message is crafted on a piece of paper, rolled and slipped into a bottle, the bottle is then tightly corked and thrown into the sea to be conveyed to the shores by the sea's rowdy waves.

That, exactly, is what I found on my vacation to a deserted beach in Jamaica as I strolled on a rather quiet morning. Its tip sprouted amidst a heap of sea-side dirt like any other bottle but my curiosity prevailed and I reached for it. There lies my treasure. From the Middle Ages maybe? Neolithic period?

 There's only one way to find out.

Well, I don't plan on ruining my already wonderful morning with details of how someone was cruelly murdered and thrown into the large water body on a windy night. Don't blame my imagination.

Odd as it sounds for my occupation; I've always been a pessimist or at best a realist. So, all I did was uncork the frail bottle cover, retrieve the paper and slipped it into the pocket of my denim jacket.

I needed this vacation badly as I had worked for the better part of the last three years without break, so it's not out of context to crave some alone time. One month in Jamaica. Away from the stress of the world, it would care for itself.

I got back to my hotel after a fulfilling day. It's magical, the massive lift a wonderful day can do to your psychology, especially if you cling onto a life that has a fixed routine.  As I reclined idly on my bed to get a rare night sleep, I remembered my mysterious message, flipped on the bed-side lamp and took out the paper. As I read, the content of the message was anything but mysterious. It's the kind of messages that do the rounds on social media. "Seriously? Who sends an everyday message in a bottle?" I thought to myself somewhat disappointed. That night I slept like a baby (but really, do babies really sleep like they make them to be? Those beautiful creatures cry every now and then. Arrrgh!) and until that moment, I don't remember the last time I had such peaceful rest.

Maybe that's the reason why I woke to the words of my favourite scientist and artist of all time resonate in my mind. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication," Leonardo Da Vinci. You see, I've always been a curious being and I once wondered why Rome is regarded a powerful and sacred empire that I started reading everything Roman.

You could only go as far until you stumble upon Leonardo Da Vinci. My God! He was a genius. I got the first real semblance to reality when I watched the blockbuster series 'Da Vinci Demons'. I would also read about his detailed intellect in Dan Brown's famous Robert Langdon's series especially the first book off the series, Angels and Demons (detractors would say it's a work of fiction, I don't care).

You want to know what fascinates me most about Leonardo?

No, you don't. His paintings.

He had this unrivaled ability to hide the faintest details in a simple painting, yet those details would forever be lost to the ordinary eyes. More often than not, they see it but they won't be able to make anything of it. Daring simplicity eh?

As those words filtered through my hollow mind that morning, I realized that there could be more to my mysterious message. I thought hard about it but nothing sprang to mind. As i was taking my coffee that morning an idea struck me like a bolt of lightning and it all made sense as I put my whole life into perspective.

I grew up in a family of medical professionals, Dad is a surgeon and Mom is a Dentist. Naturally you would expect my nucleotides to contain a lot of medical jargons right? Far from it in fact. They used to call me small doctor (why does this sound funny?) when I was little. Mom even bought me a couple of medical toy kits. I hardly touched them.

I've always had a profound interest in all things construction, from the designs of bungalows and duplexes to the beautiful sight of skyscrapers and bridges. They fascinate me. Once, when on a family vacation, I went missing. I saw a vehicle conveying a group of workers to a nearby building's construction, so I discreetly followed them and hid under a staircase. I was awestruck by the sight. Pure bliss. Standing for hours as a child, fatigue eventually set in and I slept off on the floor for hours only for a security personnel to wake me up late in the night. I still remember fondly the horror on my mom's face as she found me and held me tightly. None of that got to me. I was only setting myself up on a path to greatness, or so I thought. We had to cut our vacation short because of that occurrence. If that was all I achieved, it was worth it and I'll gladly do it again.

As I was growing up, my parents would often convince me to be a medical practitioner when I grow up. Equal pressure from both sides, like Andy Murray and Roger Federer exchanging pulsating strokes in a grand slam final. I was the unlucky ball. It never occurred to them that I wasn't built for it.

The pressure eventually got to me when I failed an entrance examination to study structural engineering in College (not that my parents fully agree). That was my only chance to live my dream and I botched it. Dad threatened not to sponsor my college education the following year if I don't choose to study a medical-related course. I complied and that was the start of my personal battles. I studied hard but it didn't come naturally. I passed examinations too, barely. Eventually, I graduated and started practicing to little fanfare. I bet I would top my class if I did engineering.

Today, like my dad, I'm a surgeon and I've been working in a state-owned hospital with amazing pay and wonderful retirement benefits. However, I still feel I'm missing out on something beautiful especially as I stare sorrowfully into my mysterious message that reads, "Nothing is as fulfilling as an amazing career that is deeply-rooted in natural passion."

I look back regretfully to the day I started my journey to becoming a surgeon and wish I could change some things. May be I could as I think about yet another jaw-dropping words by Leonardo Da Vinci. It says, "It had long occurred to me that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them, they went out and happened to things." I didn't happen to my life, it happened to me and the result? I've been lost in someone else's dream all my life.

# REBIRTH

Olaolu Olowo

Waves crash into the shoreline with a soft whoosh and reverse, teasing, into the depths. The saltwater spray touches my face, my clothes. I taste the droplets on my lips and smile. Overhead seagulls fly in lazy circles, calling greetings to one another. Underfoot is the gritty texture of pure white sand. I twiddle my toes a bit, enjoying the feel of it. I close my eyes and smile, inhaling deeply the rich fragrance of orange trees in full bloom. It is a slice of paradise.

Or at least it would be, but for the smouldering wreck of what was once our cruise ship.

Something hit our ship while we were cruising and we ran aground here. I remember the sailors frantic efforts and mutters about torpedoes as they tried to salvage the sinking ship. Out of nowhere, they saw this beautiful island and decided to beach the ship while they send a distress call to whoever could help.

I glance at the ship now and my brows furrow in thought. The ship doesn't look like it was torpedoed. It looks rather like something was hell-bent on ripping it apart from beneath. It's torn and squeezed and ruined in it's underbelly, much more damage than any torpedo can do.

A voice calls out softly

"That's no torpedo. That's a lie."

Get out of my head!

It's only KenKen, the pretty girl I met on the ship. She has the nicest chocolate skin you ever saw. Her hair hangs from her head in thick, glossy dreadlocks and her teeth are white and shiny. I think she bleached them. She walks over and I use the minute to appreciate fully, the pleasure that is the body of an African woman. Long shapely legs. Curves. Flesh in the right places. If I wasn't celibate, I would have shot my shot, as they say back in Nigeria.

She reaches me and gives me a quick peck, on the cheeks, and then before I can react, on the lips. She's fond of teasing me like this, especially since I told her about my celibacy streak over a glass of Citrus Night train express. Don't mind me. Secrets have a way of running from your lips when you're drunk. That's why I try to avoid getting drunk. Much better to some instead.

The next morning after our conversation, she came to my room and woke me up. After handing me a cup and two paracetamol tablets for the hangover, she leaned over and whispered in my ears.

"That celibacy streak of yours. I'm going to break it."

"This ship would break first."

That night, we ran aground. She has been teasing me about it ever since, saying the ship has broken, and asking if I'm ready yet.

Kind of hard to believe that was just five days ago. Feels like five years. I'm still wondering about the kiss and thinking perhaps I should go ahead and break that celibacy streak. I mean, who would care? I could start counting again afterwards. The sea draws my attention and I go back to watching the waves break on the seashore. It soothes me.

"You said it wasn't a torpedo."

"Hmm-m" she wraps her hands around me and rests her head on my shoulder with a satisfied sigh. I'm feeling very tempted right now. She has me in a weak spot. I like cuddling, so of course I pull her closer and she wriggles happily before pinching me on the butt. Flirt.

"Ow!"

"Oh be quiet. You like it. You enjoy it, you shameless old goat."

"I'll spank you "

"Go ahead. I'd enjoy it too."

As incorrigible as always. She gives me a squeeze, just for the heck of it.

"Hey. Anansiomi. Why do they call you that?"

"It's a nickname from my childhood days. I had long, gangly limbs growing up, and was quite mischievous. So my friends called me Anansi, after the Ghanaian trickster spider god. Then because of my love for water, they called me 'omo omi' that means child of the waters. One of my idiot friends put them together and declared that I was Anansiomi the long awaited spider god of the waters and the name stuck."

"Wow. Nice name. I wish I had a nice background story like that too."

"What's yours? Why do they call you Kenken?"

"Nothing as glamorous as yours, I'm afraid. It's because of my locks. My kid brother wanted to call me a kraken but he was too small to pronounce words properly, so he called me Kenken and so it stuck."

"Wanted to call you a kraken?"

"Yeah. We watched clash of the Titans a lot when we were younger, and I've had dreads for like forever."

"Kraken"

"Call me that one more time and I'll ravish you here."

"You wouldn't dare."

We wrestle playfully and get sand in our clothes and hair. We end up with her sitting on top of me, smiling. I'm breathing hard, she has barely broken a sweat. And she's smiling, and her dreads have somehow come loose and form a sort of canopy, covering my face, hiding us from the world.

She pulls back.

"Yeah. So I don't think its a torpedo that wrecked our ship." I think it's a kraken."

"Say what now?"

"There's a legend that every once in a while, a daughter of the sea god comes up to find a husband. And when she does, she begins the process of making him a god, after which she pulls him down with her to the ocean depths. The daughters of the sea god wear kraken forms. So I think one was with us on the ship."

"And you know this how?"

"By being a mythology freak. I don't know much about the story but I do know something about how the deification process ends" she says with a wink. I go for it

"How does it end Kenken?"

"They make sweet sweet love." She breaks into giggles and we start wrestling all over again. I like spending time with her, and I also like the fact that no one I know came with me on the cruise ship. I'd have been teased endlessly.

Soon afterwards, the disappearances begin.

We've made a sort of village in this place, as we wait to be rescued, with rudimentary shelters made out of branches and palm fronds, stacking our supplies which we managed to salvage from the ship. The cooks set up shop, making meals from provisions, the fruits and the animals that run around in the island and a few passengers volunteer with minor tasks. Slowly the line between passenger and crewmen blur and eventually vanish, and we have ourselves a merry little fishing village. It's a little community of about 209 people, men and women (it was a 'hook-up' cruise we went on) and everyone soon knows everyone else. So when the disappearances begin, they're noticed quickly.

First it's the captain. That throws us all into confusion. Then a handful of sailors go missing, and then some of the passengers and within three weeks, our population is reduced by half. The distress signals go unanswered, and people become more and more fearful with each disappearance. We clump together, suspicious of every sound, every shadow. Kenken takes to sharing the same bedspace with me, wrapping her limbs around me as if to protect me. I cling to her too. I can't bear it if she goes missing. We survivors go around in twos, but that doesn't stop the disappearances. And they always happen at night.

During the fourth week, I finally decide to get to the bottom of this. I spend all afternoon sleeping, pretending to be weak. Kenken runs herself ragged getting me food and water, boiling and making poultices to ward the fever off. I feel guilty but I don't want to tell her of my plans. Soon it's nightfall and everyone slowly drifts off to sleep. I pretend to be asleep too and Kenken takes her usual place beside me, clinging on tight. She sleeps off eventually.

I stay awake.

Late at night, a sudden drowsiness comes over me but I struggle to stay awake. The little light the moon gives is barely enough, but it would have to do. Today, I'm going to find out what exactly has been happening to people. I fight off the drowsiness and keep my vigil.

After a few minutes, the waters become agitated and a gigantic shape comes out, wading with purposeful strides to the beach. I open my mouth to say something but the words freeze in my throat as moonlight shines off the beast, a humanoid creature with long ropy tentacles dangling from its head, and six muscular hands. It stretches it's hands and picks off some of the people snoring away and swallows them one after the other with an audible gulp. It turns back and wades into the ocean. The whole thing took less than 2 minutes. I can't even scream, frozen stupid with fear. Slowly, I lose consciousness.

When I come to the following morning, it's to a worried Kenken who looks at the end of her wits. Her dreads are splayed about, her long flowery dress is rough and dirty, and her eyes are red

"You're awake! Thank the gods."

"What happened?"

"When I woke up this morning, you were cool to the touch, and barely breathing. I've been trying everything I can to wake you up but you did not. Eventually I just gave up and sat here to cry and here we are."

She sniffles and rubs her eyes. I pull her into a hug and rub her back. Even disheveled as she is, she's still beautiful. After assuring her that I'm alive and have no plans to die anytime soon, she stops the sobbing. We do a head count. About seven people went missing yesterday night. I remember the kraken and suppress a shudder.

"Kenken?"

"Yes?"

"What did the stories say about the kraken?"

"Which kraken?"

"You know, the ones the sea god's daughters turn into."

"Oh. They're big, have six hands, and tentacles attached to their heads. Kind of like my dreads. What about it?"

I shiver even though it's a hot afternoon. She just described the beast that has been eating people.

"Nothing, Kenken. Nothing."

The days go by and more people are lost to the beast. Every night, I jolt awake when it comes, and hold my  breath, grateful I'm not picked, feeling  like a coward for being unable to do anything. Miraculously, the disappearances stop. We heave a sigh of relief, me most of all.

After three days, one of the surviving sailors manage to get a reply to our SOS message. Coordinates are exchanged and we are told to sit tight and expect rescue in three days. The news drives us giddy with happiness, and we throw a small celebration on the beach, using the last of the drinks we rescued from drowning when the ship went down.

While the party is at its peak, Kenken grabs me by the hand and pulls me aside. There's a glint in her eye that tells me to hurry along. We find a nice secluded area and tear off each other's clothes. I'm pleased to find that she's a virgin. We have at it a few more times before drifting off to sleep in each other's arms.

Suddenly I'm jolted awake. That oppressive heaviness is everywhere again, and Kenken is gone.

"Oh God. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no." I'm fumbling for my clothes, frantic, pulling them on, not bothering to get them right, running, stumbling to the beach.

When I get there, everyone else is passed out, and Kenken is standing by the ocean. Waiting.

"Step back!" I shout. "It's not safe! The kraken, its real!"

As though I summoned it, the kraken emerges from the ocean depths, water streaming down it's oily skin, tentacles squirming, arms flexing. I reach Kenken and grab her, shrieking at the monstrosity.

"You can't have her! You can't!" Tearful now. "You've taken everyone else. You can't."

Kenken lifts my head up with a finger and smiles.

"Silly boy. That's my baby brother."

"What?!"

"I'm the sea god's youngest daughter, and you, my husband, are coming home with me." 

# LOST VIII

Olanireti Igbekele

And she stood there stranded at the bus station, jonathan he fiancé who she had called earlier before embarking on the journey has suddenly gone MIA(Missing in Action), his phone has been on voice mail, therefore the machine has been doing justice to monica's call. Monica who id pained because it her first time in the city and also couldn't bear the dark night since she's not nocturnal, she tried finding a motel where she can pass the night but to no avail, this makes her to be in distress, she suddenly felt like she was in the middle of no where. Still standing by the road side with her luggage, luck came by, a young man walked pass her "Excuse me" she said, the young man turned to see who seek his attention "yes how may I help you" he said, "where can I get a motel" with a broad smile on her face whilst asking, she continued " you see, I'm new here, came from a far city to visit my fiancé and ever since I got here, his number has not been reachable", he listened to her lament with rapt attention, at the mention of "fiancé", he squinted his face. Henry the young man replied "well, it quite late, getting a room in any motel in this environ will be hard due to so many promiscuous men in this city. He looked at her like a detective who is trying to catch a murderer in disguise, then he said "if you don't mind, you can pass the night at my place", she stared at hin for a while before answering "Are you for real?" " you don't expect me to accept the offer " raising one of her brows, he replied "why"? "you are a random stranger" and he replied "so, random stranger can't be of help to a stranded lady"? After a long deliberation, she agreed. "Well I'd like to have a stop by at the inn over there" he pointed to the direction where the inn is located. On getting to the inn, monica got the shock of her life as she saw Jonathan her fiancé proposing to another lady l, he didn't see her, she was dumbfounded, immediately she went for the door before it dawned on her that she came with someone " I'd like to leave right away" she said to henry(the stranger), he looked at her confused but did not get up from where his sit, she left eventually and he ran after her " what's the hell happened there"? he asked, "I just want to leave, that's all" she said, "you can't just feel like leaving, you just deprived me of two cups of beer" with his two hands in the air, "well, sorry about the beer, but i can't bear seeing him propose to another lady" she said with tears in her eyes, immediately he understood what she was talking about, "I'm sorry about that, would you like to have an ice-cream, there's a place I know where you can get a nice ice-cream" he said, she replied  amidst tears "I don't feel like having ice cream, I just want to get out of here" "so that means you're leaving tomorrow" he asked "yes" she replied. I just can't believe I was lied to, so I've been waiting for nothing, why was I so lost in love that I did not get to see the handwritings on the wall"............... 

# LOVE LOST

Wide smiles and crystal eyes,

Head thrown back, laughter like symphony arise.

I watch, God's heavenly gift to me,

Who would have thought this gift will cause my heart to break,

Forever seems like an infinite wish lost at sea.

Everything and more we are, yet here we stand

separated by a valley we can never cross

I was lost before I found you,

My missing piece that made me whole,

I wonder how we let go of what we had,

Love whispers, cuddles, kisses,

Promises and plans that never would be;

Fate has struck again, forever is on the run

This isn't goodbye, but I set you free.

SANDY 

# THE PSYCHEDELIC NAMED VIVIAN

Taofik Soboyejo

You know that phase where you are gallivanting between the "My life is a total mess" and the "I think I should end it right here galaxies"?

That's where my spaceship has been floating for quite a while now, and by a while I mean a total of 3 years, 8 months 2 days, 5 hours and a couple of minutes give or take a few. It was when I launched my first satellite into the orbit of illicit drug use. I made the first step, the first leap. A leap I wish I had never taken.

See, I'm some sort of genius -not being narcissistic- I know I am. There's no point in trying to tone down your intelligence just so you are perceived as humble. The adverse effects of my kind of intelligence are a series of conundrum.  A very sporadic and chaotic mind, a boring lifestyle as perceived by society, because you have a difference in the things that excites or interests you.

SOCIETY STINKS. It really does. Reminds me of my favourite movie series, Mr Robot and the hash tag, #FSOCIETY.

My Therapist interjected, "But we are not here to talk about movies and society, We are here to talk about you"

Oh sorry! Got carried away.

Back to script... See I'm the kinda guy you go through when it comes to Tech, I am technically, what you would tag as a wealthy person, in terms of wealth, but I was lacking in every other definition of what wealth stood for. What I had was money and maybe knowledge. Wealth covers a broader spectrum.

I didn't have a social life and I didn't mind either. Then Vivian came into my life.

Everything changed when I met Vivian, the catalyst to the spiral. See, I was the head of a group of companies under the Umbrella of Sybil, a company I own.

We used to be a service company for the hosting of servers until we broadened to creating learning centers across the country, we offered courses such as ICT digital literacy, Computer Engineering and Networking, IT Security, Web Design and development, Software development, Graphics and Multimedia and a host of other long things to learn when it came to computers and Oh we were making tonnes of money and names. We made a lot of it. It was an age where everyone was flocking to tech; it was almost a requirement for white collar jobs these days.

Everything was perfect, everything was good, Teetotaller, no drugs, no woman, more work and it felt like the world was perfect, till I met Vivian, the evil seductress.

Pause, she said...My Therapist that is, "The name Vivian keeps coming up but you've practically told me nothing about her apart from a few cryptic titles", care to elaborate, she asked?

I was getting there, I responded. Don't be in haste. I'll pay you for any excess hours, I'm rich. Remember?

She looked at me in despair and uttered, You know it's not about the money, it's about you getting well and making up for our past mistakes and moving beyond the past. Also, remember, no charges for you, you're an exception. You're dillydallying and i want you to stay on course.

Okay, Vivian first came to our head office at Ikeja, Lagos. She had just been assigned there to be the instructor on certified ethical hacking and hmnnn, she was beautiful and that was even an understatement. She was 5'6 with dark brown hair, a slightly curved body, a slightly round face, a pointed nose and the eyes, yes the eyes! Those hypnotic eyes were what got me into this mess.

On that fateful day, she casually walked into my office like she had been into a thousand offices; the composure was superb for someone coming from another location. When she spoke, she dominated every conversation. I was hoodwinked, fell for the outer composure and at that point in time I naively thought i was in love, I know better.

People like her are like Gases in a container taking whatever shape of the container they're compressed. On the inside, there's a whole lot of 'brownian motion' going on.

Outside work, she was the most spontaneous and volatile being ever to exist. Keep in mind that at the time I didn't know, she was different but you know the stereotype about people into computers being nerds, I fell for that because, at first she played the part.

One peculiar thing about her was her punctuality. As the undefeated King of punctuality, I was defeated not once, not twice.

 I was side footed for an entire week during her first week at work. At that moment I was already thinking of our cute our babies would be.

Of weddings and honeymoons.

 I finally thought to myself....This is it Chief.

Still, I wasn't the type to continue to concede defeat. So I set out to arrive earlier than she did to work the next day. Jackpot!, I got there before she did and I felt so victorious, though it was a one sided competition.

Approximately 3 minutes later, I noticed her at the entrance and was about to wave at her and give a mischievous grin with a smug look when i also noticed she was holding two cups of coffee. In that moment I knew I had lost again.

 I noticed her bag was already across her desk, she comes in and hands me a cup of coffee from my favourite place across the street.

She came closer and whispered softly, "YOU LOSE". Oh, she knew; that witch.

She always knew!!!

Everything that happened after was fast paced from work to dinner to dates, still we never had sex. It never came to the fore. We were completely okay with what we had or at least I was.

The real trouble started the day she indicated  I was less fun and I was the kind of guy who was so engrossed in work. The kind of guy who had no time for fun, she then hinted that we could lose our spark if we continued this way. Not wanting to lose 'my supposed future partner', I decided to ask what she would do for fun.

"Clubbing for starters, today is a Friday" she responded. Well, I yelled "let's get this party started".

Knowing fully well that the excessive stench of alcohol made me nauseated and the loud club music gave me multiple loads of migraines but I decided to go along anyways. The first step in the dominos of compromises I would make.

At the club, we danced. While she danced gracefully like an overpaid Diva, same could not be said for me. I was busy goofing, dancing like a twitching oversized malfunctioned robot.

We eventually stopped and rested at the Club lounge. She ordered drinks for us, vodka and a couple of exotic beers and she paid for them all. I was there thinking wow, she was not a money monger.

That was like +1000000 cool points for me, I decided she didn't want me for my money.

I was blatantly wrong, she was playing the long game.

She took few sips from the vodka, savouring the burning taste slowly, then gulping it down like it was a bottle of water. I was almost tempted to scream 'WOW' with my eyes bulging out.

 Not one to be outdone or thought of as uncool, I shrugged and pretended it wasn't anything.

I tried to do the same and well my chest felt like a hot rod was continually embedded in my chest and dragged back and forth. I coughed so hard and so much that I actually thought I would die, the people around us thought so too, but it subsided after a while.

Everybody laughed, she laughed the hardest. I joined in to laugh too, but my laugher was different, it was that kind of dark laughter of someone that just survived death.

We eventually downed so much alcohol that I didn't even know how I got home; I had a slight recollection though of being dragged up the stairs, my soiled clothes changed.

She called next day to check if I was okay, I told her I was perfectly fine, but I wasn't.

I wanted the adrenaline, I craved it. I wanted what I felt yesterday, the recklessness, an unplanned and undocumented adventure, not video games, real life.

So that was how it began, my therapist interjected 'The craving for recklessness she asked?'

Yes I responded, glad she was paying rapt attention to me.

No one does that these days.

.

Well, Vivian came over the next day. It was the first time we had sex, though it was ephemeral yet unreal. It was utopia, very unreal and gradually I became overwhelmed.

In a space of two days, I went from being a Catholic poster child to A Hollywood teenage, raunchy actor.

The rest is history; we went from club to clubs. I couldn't keep up with work but she could. She was a different person at work, coordinated and organized. She could separate her life from work, I could not. I could not keep up with running a company and having a supposed fun life, I wasn't wired that way.

 She told me not to panic that my company was safe in her hands, she took control of my part of the company. Took care of my tasks, I could not really care less. I was in love and having the time of my life.

Who cares right? Who does?

Apparently My Lawyering piece of scum friend did, he was behind it.

The sneaky devil, Vivian was a cactus with abundance of thorns planted in my life by him. The plan was to take everything from me. He always wanted what I had, from money to women to knowledge, pick any. He had always been that way.

At the time I had become a full blown thrill seeker. I pestered Vivian to introduce me to more fun stuff.

Vivian hooked me up with Weed of different stains, Arizona, Colorado; LSD and various other psychedelics.

I went from one pit hole to the other, always seeking more. An endless abyss of addictive substances and despite all these drugs, she managed to keep her cool. She was a highly normal and functioning human. I was reduced to a narcotic induced potato.

Then she introduced me to VVN, it was that moment I completely spiralled.

Till this very moment I had no idea how I signed off the company documents to Vivian.

Then she changed. Never visited, never checked up on me but I didn't care either. At least not at the time, I found love in this drug infused eco-system, it was utopia.

With the Company gone, Vivian gone, it was hard to keep up with the habits I had acquired.

I tried seeking out Vivian or going back to work, the very security men I had employed were told to usher me out like I was some rabid dog. Next I went to where she stayed, same treatment was meted out to me by the gateman.

A couple of months later, she married my friend. That Lawyering piece of backstabbing scum. It became clear, he had intended to ruin me from the onset. Screw them though I just wanted more drugs. I just need enough money to drown in them, that was what my life had been reduced to.

I set out to break into their home and rob them of their possession, the possessions that were rightfully mine. I was caught by a neighbour trying to sneak in and before I could open my mouth to utter any form of statement whatsoever, there was a mob.

 I was dazed with a couple of aimed punches at my face.

I was hit with various sorts of sticks and the air was perfectly knocked out of my windpipes.

I was on the verge of being burnt when Vivian and my lawyering piece of backstabbing scum of a friend came to my rescue. The dialogue with the mob was a loud one and even in my dazed, half between heaven and earth situation, I could make out a few words. She was explaining how I was a mentally ill relative who sometimes wandered into places.

Maybe I was mentally deranged, who wouldn't? A rumble in the ring with drugs and a head that has been creatively hammered with blows.

No one ever becomes normal after that. No one.

I was then lifted by a couple of men and dumped outside the estate gates...

I tried looking for jobs, that didn't help much either. For St. Pete's sake who would hire me?

I looked like a cross breed between an under the bridge beggar and a three year old professional lunatic.

Few minutes, hours, weeks, months or years was when your men in white uniforms bundled me into the back of their vans and here I am.

Wait, that is what I am? That is what I am? Where am I?

Where's my company? Who are you? Why am I restrained? I want my lawyer? Do you know how rich I am? Where's Vivian? I need to talk to her right now.

I'll sue you all for this...........

*******

Dr.  Ezoho walks out of patient A-124's room and scribbled some notes and handed them over to the new intern.

"Submit this at the reception; tell them to add to the files I sent yesterday".

The new intern bursting with enough energy and a superhero syndrome combination of "so much good is being done here and I'm so glad I am part of this good" walked diligently along the stairs heading to the reception.

Well this was a government owned rehabilitation centre for lunatics, she had heard so much about the place and had volunteered.  She had seen people get cured for no fee at all, she was glad to be part of this good, she was glad to be doing the good.

Curiosity got the best of her though, she opened patient A-124's files and the first thing she noticed was Dr Ezoho's notes.

#Session 10

Patient's story keeps changing. Drugs have been constant in every version.

Facts checked patient's story never checks out. No Existence of Company nor a Vivian.

Repetitive existence and mention of a Vivian.

Polished English and sign of affluence.

Patient may have suffered the loss of everything that ever mattered.

Patient acts delusional.

Patient thinks there is a conspiracy against him,

Patient is one of the group of patients suspected to be under the influence of VVN(Vaviarn), a long term-acting potent drug which induces a kind of long term amnesia which induces blurry vision, short bursts of aggression, unbury memories in fragments and victims may think there is a conspiracy against them.

Vivian may have been the psychedelic been referred to.

Patient seems to be at loss with reality, patient seems to have lost everything.

*******

The Intern feeling so bad for the patient dropped the files at the reception, something odd struck her, A woman fitting the descriptions of Patient A-124's Vivian was standing beside a man dressed in a dark coloured suit who looked pretty much like a lawyer were just signing off on some documents of consent of a particular patient.

She could almost swear it was her.

Maybe it was just sheer coincidence, perhaps she was getting delusional. Or she was only looking for an excuse for this man who had lost everything.

The man who had lost everything to a psychedelic named Vivian. 

# INTERLUDE III

I get lost in my head,

With no idea how to find my way back,

Sometimes I don't even notice,

But it's not a problem

Cause that's where true magic lives....

# LUCID DREAMS

Aishat Adisa

Dreamy eyed she let her gaze wander across the Savannah, she was at it again just as she has always been. Mama called her dreamer girl, father thought she was just a foolish child but as the months grew into years he knew she was gone, she was a lone dreamer with no hope he thought.

Fast forward to the present,

"Miss,"

"Miss..."

"Emm, miss"

"Huh", oh no she thought, I have missed a class again.

"Miss, could you move from the walkway you are causing traffic in the hall"

"Oh sorry " she whispered and adjusted her glasses for the umpteenth time today.

She sighted a few benches around the hallway and decided to make good use of them.

Willing her legs to move forward she grabbed her backpack that was long abandoned as she stared to the far beyond. She took her cuppa from her bag (her sweet, sweet strawberry tea) and with her tablet she continued reading the book that kept her awake the night before. One would think she was reading one of her numerous nutrition books. Rather, it was the book she had read before but couldn't get enough of, one could call it her favourite. It was titled "half of a yellow sun".

Engrossed in the pages of the book she could hear the screams of olanna and her professor as they scrambled for shelter in the bunker he built. Her book long forgotten she started to get lost in her thoughts once again, she imagined the civil war and how the Biafrans fought, how the people slept knowing their world could crumble at any time.

Loneliness her partner, writing was her saviour. After the long day of endless lectures she decided to write, she wrote her thoughts down in black and white so that those coming would learn from her.

"Alhaja"

"Madam Poet" her friend giggled

"You are lost again, why come to school to study and yet you keep writing. Just drop out and publish one of your numerous poems" Rakiyah her closest friend said.

She smiled like she always did whenever anyone made such statements.

"I wonder how you cope staying on top of the class; reading our never ending notes, your novels and writing poems" Rakiyah said.

"It's God's grace" She simply said.

She smiled knowing that these things gave her rest of mind. Though she seemed weird to others, she knew all her struggles would pay off one day.

 -The End,

I think..... 

# NEVERLAND, A TALE OF LOST BOY

Olaolu Olowo

My nose itches. I lift a finger to give it a good scratch but change my mind halfway and so it hangs, undecided. Then I use it to scratch my butt. Damn stalking. They make it look so easy in the movies but dang it's difficult. Stupid Hollywood.

Do you ever recognize just how much movement we make as the seconds tick past? We breathe, we dance, we jiggle. We're practically bumping and grinding our way through life to the beats of an invisible mad drummer.

And everyone knows the secret to a good stalk is staying still. Which means it's against our nature to stalk. So why am I stalking, and who am I stalking?

The answer is pretty simple. Peter bet me ₦1000 that I couldn't hit Bisi on the buttocks and get away with it. The truth of the matter is that I would not even have dared to dream of it but when Peter says you can't do something, there's just this urge to prove him wrong. I call him Pan, after the wild satyr god of the Greeks. Like Pan, he has a way of bringing out the wild in you.

And that is why at seven o'clock on a school night, I'm lurking outside Bisola's compound. Because Peter made me do it. He's in the bush next to me, smiling and chewing gum. It goes smack smack smack

I know he's chewing it to annoy me, but I can't say anything because the moment I decide to open my big mouth to chastise him, I'll get caught somehow and he would escape. He lives a charmed life, this friend of mine. With his baby face, innocent mien and puppy eyes, he easily gets out of trouble he more likely than not, instigated. Me? I bear the brunt of most of our escapades and can you blame them? With my oversize head, big lips, and spindly legs, I'm the poster child for trouble making.

He blows a bubble and it pops quite close to my ear. I jump and I'm scratched by a thorn.

"Peter!"

"Shhhh! She's coming."

Yes, he's right. Here comes Bisi, the apple of her mother's eyes. The truth of the matter is this, I feel very terrible for what I'm about to do, particularly because I really like Bisola. The very first day I saw her in class, when she joined us at the start of the term, I was a goner. I've tried everything I can to summon courage and talk to her but always failed, and now I'm about to slap her butt. She's never going to talk to me ever in her life. But ₦1000 is a nice consolation, especially when you think of it- I never stood a chance anyways.

She turns to open the gate and this is my chance. Like a mad hare, I dash out of my hiding place and covering the distance in a burst of speed, deliver a good smack to the world's most perfect derriere.

It lands with a satisfying THWACK! I turn to run, hoping to escape while she's still shocked, but of course I'm not that lucky. I stumble and fall.

"Joseph! How dare you!"

She's livid, dropping her bag and marching towards me with grim purpose. You don't have to tell a chicken you mean to eat it before it runs. I scramble to my feet and take off like the hounds of hell are after me. Didn't they say hell hath no fury like a woman smacked?

I turn a corner and top speed and take off, not daring to look back, not even once, just wanting to get away. This girl will eat me raw if she has the chance, and I'm not about to give it to her.

In the mad rush to get away, I'm not really looking out for the usual turns and directions so after ten minutes I realise I have ended up in a completely different part of town. I've never been here before. And to be sincere, I don't know anywhere here. It's time to retrace my steps. Only... Wait a minute? Which street did I come running from? Is it that one? Or this one?

They look alike. Damn. I'm lost.

"Hey you. Going somewhere? Or looking for someone perhaps? Looking for me?"

The person talking is a creepy looking stranger, long fingers and huge eyes. Something about him screams madness. And the way he's licking his lips is making me very uncomfortable. Suddenly it dawns on me that but for me and this weird toothpick guy, the street is totally empty. No kids. No adults. Not even a stray dog. If something where to happen to me, I don't think anyone would hear me scream.

"No sir. I live here, I'm just going home."

"Oh no my delicious. No one lives in the abandoned section of town. If they did, it wouldn't be so abandoned now, would it?"

Abandoned section? Oh my God! No wonder it's empty, we're truly alone. No one knows why it was abandoned, simply just that one day, there was nobody there. And nobody ever went there until now, when I came running in to escape Bisi's wrath. I'm starting to think that was a really bad idea. I should have waited and taken a slap like a man.

"Er... My mum knows I'm here! She's waiting for me in the next street."

"So she left you to roam unchecked in such a bad, bad place. I don't think she deserves you, my sweet."

"But-"

"Or maybe she's trying to get rid of you. Maybe you've been naughty!" He puts his hand in his pocket and when it comes out, he's holding a lump of charcoal. He drops it to the ground and marks his face with coal-stained fingers, grinning like a maniac all the while.

"You've been naughty my delicious. You've been naughty, YOU'VE BEEN NAUGHTY!!! COME HERE!"

That does it for me, and for the second time that night, I'm running for my life. Behind me I hear uneven footfalls and yells of

"NAUGHTY!" "DELICIOUS!" "CRUNCHY!"

If I get caught, terrible things will happen to me, I'm sure of it. I'm taking roads at a whim, jumping gutters and climbing fences, but if anything, the sounds are getting closer. Desperate, I arrive at a T-junction. Quickly, I take the left path. I'm gaining some distance, happy to be escaping when the path ends in a close. There's no way out and the wall is big and smooth, impossible to climb. I turn around, maybe I can run back the way I came, but then the crazy man enters from the other side, cutting me off.

"Looks like it's the end for you, my delicious. I haven't had a chase like that in centuries! Oh yum, I've worked up quite the appetite!"

"Please sir, let me go!"

"Oh I'll let you go alright, but there's only one place naughty kids can go to! So let's just get to the part where I eat you, shall we?"

EAT ME? I start to mumble prayers to all the deities I know, I think I even mumble a prayer to my friend Peter. Can you blame me? I'm about to get eaten by a maniac!

He's pulling something out of his pocket- it's a long knife. It shouldn't fit in there! Seeing an opening I try to run but suddenly I can't move. I can't even blink. I'm trapped in my own body.

"Frozen in place are we? Can't have you running off again, sweet morsel. It would be oh so very rude, especially seeing as I'm setting up the table. Oh a feast you are, a feast!"

He's pulling out impossible things from his pockets- long sticks that he makes into a crude table, a tablecloth with brown stains all over it, I don't want to think of what those brown stains are, a huge apron which he wears, and a crooked chef's hat. He gets another knife out and now holds two. He's done and now I'm next.

I'm trying to scream, but my voice isn't working. Again another fervent round of prayers. The man is changing, a beard growing out from his chin as I look helplessly on, it's red and white hair, his eyes change two, one becomes blue and the other a sickly yellow. His cheeks bulge and horror of horrors, is that horns sticking from the top of his head? What the hell have I gotten into this time?

Peter! If only you were here to save me! I immediately feel selfish for thinking this, because then he would be in trouble too.

"Hey! Krampus! Leave him be, this one's mine!"

What the- that's Peter's voice! Run away Peter, oh please run away. Escape while you can, this one is mad, we can't both get out of this.

"Pan, wilding god, I found me a naughty one, and all naughty ones are mine to do with as I please. Do not interfere, you insolent wretch!"

What's happening? Who is he arguing with and why does he sound a lot like Peter? I think I'm hallucinating. Maybe I'm already dead sef. Is this what death feels like?

"He has my blessing Krampus. To touch him is to touch me. I have warned you twice."

The crazy man-monster snarls. He's coming for me and I'm shaking, but he doesn't look like he plans to kill me just yet. He looks annoyed. He taps me lightly on the forehead.

"Dark sleep."

The last thing I hear before blacking out is a roar and a loud yell that sounds a lot like my friend Peter.

"He's awake!"

I'm pulled into a hug, and something wet drops on my head. Takes me a second to realise they're tears. Someone is hugging me and crying

"Don't ever do that to me, ever again."

"Mum?" She finally lets me go.

"Joseph! What happened to you? Where did you go to you silly child?"

"Mum! There was, there was a-" the stress of what has happened to me catches up with me and I start to cry. Now she's letting me, telling me I'm going to be fine. But I know I won't. I was almost murdered!

"Mum, who brought me home?"

"Peter. Your friend Peter. I have no idea how he managed to do it but he carried you all the way home, even to the gate."

"Peter?"

"I'm going to make something for you to eat, Joseph. I'll leave you two here. Don't ever do this to me again."

As she leaves the room, Peter sits on the bed, in the space she just vacated. He smells like strawberries and rain, a smell I suddenly realised he has always had. His eyes sparkle and shine, and suddenly turn pink, then normal. Then blue, then normal.

"Peter! What is happening to you?"

"Oh no Joseph. It's what is happening to you. Your mind has been through a lot. You're adapting. Tomorrow I will explain everything that happened to you."

"Peter. Who are you?"

"Me? I'm just Peter, son of the lost god Pan." 

# NEE IWEKA, A JOURNEY HOME

Nnadozie-Ononye Chukwuma

When Mama died, I heard for the first and the last time, a loud sound, an ear deafening shrill escape my mother's mouth and it settled untouched in the air. It was as if an invisible cloak had come to cover the happiness that existed before the news from my village came, our village.

I stared at the collapsed figure of my mother as my Aunt went to meet her to console her, she was the Ada. The first daughter. I could see the white streaks of old age which had been badly covered by dye, coming out like a sexual orientation that had had enough about stereotypes and so she started consoling with the ever familiar, almost pedantic line of "Everything happens for a reason, and God knows best", I was too stunned by the scenery and the news to react to what I felt was total B.S

Looking back now, I think that was one of the defining moments of me eventually becoming atheist.

Mama was seventy eight years old when she died, a couple of years more and she would have been an Ogbueshi, a coming of age for the age grade of eighty and above, the ceremony was one of the biggest in Igbo traditions, and in Umuota, Obosi in Anambara state it is known as the Itoo Ogbo.

The Itoo Ogbo ceremony held every two years, and before Mama's death, plans had been made concerning how we were to celebrate her coming of age, the archaic building back home was to be renovated, to a more modern style, and I was jumping for happiness as the thoughts of my previous encounters with the pit latrine was nothing to write home about.

There was talk of the twins coming back, and I was already thinking far ahead as to what it was like to have an Ogbueshi in the family -  the exclusive eighty and above clan.

But Mama joined Papa, and she joined him an Abadagu - his wife princess, who chose love over royalty. She died just two years short of being an Ogbueshi-Nwanyi. The family's first recorded Ogbueshi.

I remembered going to cut my hair that evening, in a personal tribute to one of the most important women in my life. I closed my eyes as the hair fell from my scalp against my face, my nose, eyelids and lips as I tried to process loss for the fifth time in my life. Another loss that would leave a memory behind, like a horcrux from the Harry Potter movie. And like Voldermot's it was dark, scary and it was around me like a dark cloud. And so my scalp was close to being totally exposed but for the barest of my DNA just about protecting it from the sun.

Gorimakpa. The word is a name of the last version of the hair cut I did. The hair cut would leave your scalp bare like an exposed thief in front of a village.

Mine was closest to it, I couldn't go with the full cut because I would look ridiculous.

So I went back home that evening feeling close to being ridiculous, and gorimakpa on the inside.

My mother was a little calmer when I saw her, but her eyes were sunken inside her skull, her freckled face looked worn, and weary, and her pupils looked fixated on a nothing that existed in the small moments that I got to notice her. Then I saw her, for what she was, what anyone my age was scared of becoming. She was an Orphan, a girl albeit an old one who had just lost her Mama. I could imagine her running home from school to show Mama her grades, I could imagine her calling Mama when she was scared to go in the dark, I could imagine her calling Mama when she was injured, I could see her now, how lonely it was a world without her Mama, her last parent had gone home. And now all she had left were a nothingness of a time that spilled past her in fast memories. And then for the fifth time I understood, the dynamics of grief, and concluded that grief was water, and grief took whichever form it was put in, and like a great flood it washes away remnants of happiness, leaves you bare, empty under the scorching sun. In that moment, I stood at the banks of grief and watched it submerge my mother in a silence besieged by small sobs and a loud lifeless silence.

My mother started placing calls, and before it was 6:30 p.m. the word had gone round, Mama was dead, and the seven children she left behind were left to their own memories of what Mama represented to them. Seven orphans, who were my Aunts and Uncles. I think the river of grief in my own heart, overflew as I was flooded with a variety of emotions I couldn't quite grasp. It was the year 2015, and the month was November. It was a defining moment in my life as teenager, and there my fears began to take the form of a man, running away from the truth, and somehow I began to establish a kind of bond, for Mama. It was as if her death brought me much closer than I had ever been to her when she was alive. It was as if her death was an awakening for me.

Nwaelumaka, that's my grandmother's name. I wouldn't want to call her by her colonial name. She was African, she is African. An Igbo princess who chose love over royalty. Who denied her bloodline a chance at the throne, by marrying a man without a noble blood. Mama before she died promised to take us, my cousin and I to the palace to meet with her family, she died before she could fulfill her promise.

I felt the blow of her loss in stages, it wasn't immediate, it came like the rain. First, a dark cloud. Second, a flash of lightning. Third, the smell of rain as it brings whiffs of the earth to our nostrils and then...rain.

Nwaelumaka. That's the name I'll give my daughter, if I happen to have one as a homage, to Mama.

My family doesn't talk much about Papa, but from the bits and scraps information I got to have, I realised that Papa wasn't much of a talker himself. He had the "get on with it" personality, calm and laid back. Must've been his charm on Mama. As she was often called agu-nwanyi, a lioness. And from her pictures she looked it, a determined woman who took her duties to her family by the scruff of the neck, she was short, but amongst women, she was one of the few who stood to be counted.

Mama came to Lagos when I was young, very young. I was still in Prime Montessori school, a school in Satellite town, Lagos. I think I was in primary four or five, I can't quite remember. She met my impulsive side, a dark past I try to submerge with my more relaxed and aloof conduct. I was a quiet fire, silent as the night when calm, then a dragon's exclamation when angered. She met the dragon's dialect when she came, and the relationship never quite worked.

She came again, this time was when I first experienced loss. My Aunt, lost my cousin, a boy. Her only child...merely moments after giving birth. It was a sad night for me, I was watching TV before they came in. NEPA fortunately left the light for a long period, so unlike them. Then came a knock, and my cousin, Gozie ran to open the door. Then Aunty Chinwe's sobs could be heard from the gate, as they entered through the passage into the parlour, and then Mama's tears too became noticeable.

It was a silent night that night, and for the first time, I understood that disaster is never far away as the news make  it seem. Sometimes disaster is the weed you often ignore in your garden, thinking it's harmless, until the weed suffocates your flowers. Sometimes disaster knocks and when no one answers, it returns for after a while and forcefully makes its way into your home. And the most dreaded of all calls, are the ones in the middle of the night, often accompanied by a howling sound, death has its own sound, its own diabolical beat, such that a smile could be banished from your face, and most times it only takes a phone call, which was how another death, occurred my third loss before the fifth, which was Mama's.

Mama and I share the same birth month, August. I was born on the 29th, she was born on the 16th. I didn't know this up until this year, about three years after her burial. I have always felt connected to her in many ways. It's like I sense her presence more, now that she's dead, than when she was alive. I live a charmed life, and somehow I feel like there's a higher presence responsible for that. Like my life is connected to something much beyond life itself, like I'm looking at something inside from the outside whilst I'm still in it. Each time I travel home, to the East and I'm in her room, which in the renovation is now a store for where Aunty Chinwe keeps her goods, I feel something.

When I see her pictures, I'm reminded of a woman who gave so much and lived to see her grandchildren. Sometimes I get emotional, and sometimes I get encouraged. There's a bond even in death that sometimes cannot be eliminated, and I stay a little longer in the room, and stare at her pictures before I leave.

Mama was once seen as a witch. For the life of me I never understood it, I never got it. Even when my mother seemed to be in agreement with it.

Africa is the most religious continent, spanning nearly ten million pastors a year. New churches always spring up, new doctrines, new cars, new millionaires, new spirits, new money. And Nigeria is one of the mainstays of religion in Africa. And so Mama being a witch... wasn't new to me. Someone is always a witch in Nigeria. The mistress of your fat wife is a witch, the Mama-put who cooks better than other Mama-puts is a witch, someone doing better than you must be doing so because he or she is a witch, an amosu, but what was new to me was a witch amongst us, Mama.

This was before her final visit to Lagos. This was before another pastor, told them it wasn't her, that Mama wasn't the witch. And right before my eyes, in one of my family's finest moments of hypocrisy, they called her, and then that was that. This was years before I became fully atheist.

I don't know what I would do if my child came home one day and called me an amosu. I can imagine the shock to hear it from someone I cherish, that I watched grow, like a little tendril about to sprout leaves, now a tree, rejecting the soil upon which its seed was sown.

Obosi, isn't like any other town, it is a soul. A communion of gods and kindred spirits. We are sons and daughters of Idemili, a manifestation of the blessings of our ancestors before us. Obosi isn't just a place, it is home.

The people here are proud. In the previous elections, it was the one town in the whole of Nigeria that refused to vote. During the civil war, it was one of the hotly contested zones, we would rather die protecting our values.

Mama was buried in 2016. I was in my third year at the University. I was in love with another girl, a Yoruba beauty, and I was with an off and on girlfriend, an Igbo scholar. I was in a mess, but sometimes a man knows only what he is given, and I was given a broom and no parker, so all I did was sweep the mess around.

The burial was a spectacle. Being the daughter of royalty, there were significant dignitaries around. I met a beautiful cousin of mine, with a skin like the rays of the sun, and then the Onowus, the Umuezechimes, and all who were supposed to be there were there, save for the twins, who were in the United Kingdom.

The sun was out in its full might, aggressive, unflinching, and energetic.

The priest came and did the usual talk about salvation, and righteousness and when he concluded it was time for a speech, and the closing prayers and the hymns were sang. It was an Anglican themed burial, we were Anglicans initially, and St Andrews Anglican church Umuota was where we attended.

At noon, Mama joined her husband to be united forever, where not even death had any power over them.

I watched my mother cry as the grave was covered with the fiery red soil, there were sobs and sniffs around us, as the last rites were performed, and Abadagu was finally laid to rest in a golden casket.

The evening continued with celebrations of a life well lived, as Umuota was alive, with activities, there was dancing, and drinking and laughter and food. Lots of it. The live band was in a frenzy and it fevered on until late at night. Mama passed on in peace, as one of Obosi's finest unsung heroes, a true daughter of Idemili went home.

It's 2019. As I watched the branches from the palm trees sway under the influence of the evening wind, a calm swooosh, and they bend their heads, modest yet proud. I think of when Mama came to Lagos, I think of how our relationships could have been better managed, I think of my cousin's death, I think of my Aunt's husband's death. I think of loneliness, my father's absence for the most parts of my life, I think of orphans, I think of my disaster, that is my relationships, I think of my importance, then the swoosh comes again, and I think they hear my thoughts, I am one with them, still here despite it all, despite the harsh realities that life has to paint, for a 23 year old in a world where the odds have been pitted against you from day one, they still stand under the scorching heat, to provide shade, risking being cut down any moment, but yet when the swoosh comes they dance, they engage the sweet percussion of the South Eastern breeze, speaking the gods' language of life and death, and I think of Love, for my grandmother, for my people, the 200,000 inhabitants of Obosi, a place, now sieged by crime and hoodlums, but Obosi's spirits can never die. We've survived the war. We survive whatever is thrown at us, and when people ask how? I'll smile and think of Mama, because a loving mother never leaves her children unprotected. 

#  Soul Repair

  Alaa M. Ali

Sadness is an underrated emotion. It's inspired the most beautiful powerful art. My personal sadness has given me the wisdom and knowledge, and has helped me grow. People are so afraid of being sad that they don't often appreciate the power that accompanies it. Think about a piece of art that has changed your life, what was the emotion behind it? Sadness creates empathy. Empathy changes the world.

Dear Dad,

I have been writing letters lately. As days turn into nights, I've been writing them to anyone "myself included" I've been confessing my yearning, my shattering, my grief. But I haven't been able to write about you. I haven't been able to write about you because I don't know how to. I don't know how to tell them how you often wore white and it contrasted with your rather dark skin, how you always called me doctor, as if by doing so I'd somehow be able to heal the scars your abandonment caused me. I don't know how to tell them you left the earth, and how I've been grieving you way before that.

They say there are five stages of grief:

Denial came earlier in my life in the way I brushed your leaving under the rug, never mentioning you in conversations, thinking that by not talking about it, it will somehow go away.

Bargaining for my 7 years old self manifested as working my hardest, doing my bestest, and excelling at school, believing that Karma would convince life to smile my direction and rectify things.

Conveniently Anger waited for my teens to come along hand-in-hand; first at my mother for moving on before I did, then at your other family for stealing you away, and finally at myself for not rolling with the punches fast enough and realizing that shit happens, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Depression sounds like a stagnant pond, but in reality it's a turmoil of staggering pains and a whirlpool of emotions that hit me the morning your heart stopped beating, making every stage that came before it feel really ashamed and very insignificant.

I have pictures of you but not a one with you, I look through that album of your photos when you were in the military, I combine those with the details I've been collecting throughout the years and try to imagine the person you must have been. I know you left my hemisphere but I still carry your number in my phone; I'd like to believe you'd be on the other side of it if I were to press that button. Because deleting it would sever the last connection I have with you and until I'm ready to do that I'll be stuck in the limbo between depression and Acceptance.

I thought writing about you would decrease you into the truth, I thought of how the world would skim through the words carry the metaphors in the cracks of their teeth, and how you would merely turn into a prose you could never read. But grief "I discovered" isn't as straightforward as they make it seem in textbooks. We might miss the people we loved, but we carry the people we lost for the rest of our lives.

So I just wanna say that I forgive you, in this and any other lifetime. I think of you, I hear your voice vividly in my head, I see you smiling, white thawb and prayer beads in hand. It's been almost two years, the world is changing, and I am changing, too, but I still close my eyes every night and wait for you to visit at the interface between heaven and earth, and no matter how many times you don't show up, my tunnel vision will remain focused on that horizon, I guess I will carry you for the rest of my life.

# INSANITY

Reemah Abdel

One day, I'll write of how much pain you caused me.

       I'll tell the tale of how

        you tied my troubled tongue in a tight twist and brutally bruised my bleeding heart.

       I'll write of all the times I folded myself  in a corner

 To make room for your large ego.

I bear witness.

     I'll narrate how my feet bled blood from walking on eggshells for so long,

      careful on tippy toes so I do not step on the tiger's tail.

        I'll tell the tale of the tiger's deafening roar and his deadly scratch.

          I'll write to reveal to the world the torrents that rained on me daily

             brutally stripping me of self confidence.

I'll recount how I died each time you turned my words against me,

                                    making me question the strength my sanity.

  How frantically I Googled a plethora of mind sicknesses every time you lashed out

  Wondering which was mine

                                          Wondering if truly any of your vile adjectives described me

Our children bear witness

   I'll relay the story of how I knew to leave

   But couldn't as my empty pockets tightly secured me to the tiger's claws

   Reminding me anew of my helplessness

   I'll write of how I cowered in the face of your ever rising temper laced with sharp invectives

   Anxious in words, in deeds and in thoughts

Our friends bear witness

       was it cowardice?  I wonder

       Was it strength?

       Or was it an instinct to survive?

 I'll tell of mama's endless warnings

         and how they fell like fluffy feathers on deafened ears

         Impactless

Of empty words that rolled off your lithe tongue-

dripping saccharine at your behest.

My mother bears witness

  I'll tell of all the times I clammed up to make you sound intelligent.

                -perhaps to pacify you

                -and put the next barrage of angry words at bay.

          I'll tell of how I loved and lost.

          Of lust. Of pain.

          Of need. Of lack.

          Of hope. Of hopelessness.

          Of fear. Of defeat.

Your family bear witness

  I'll relate how hurting me gave you  lasting erections.

         I'll write of the nightmares that dot my sleep still

            courtesy of your razor tongue and your heavy blind blows.

My body bears witness

     I'll describe how artful you are

     with whips of words that leave lasting welts and deep wounds

     My mind bears witness.

         I'll write of master and how unwittingly, I became his slave.

     I'll give account of my journey with you

 and the blessings carried by the lessons.

   One day, I'll spill all of the painful words lodged in my throat

       and tell the world of a beastly angel -

           A wolfish sheep

    My God bears witness.

 One day, I'll tell of how the Tigress became a kitten

 I'll disclose to the world the marks that scar me

 And she will know why my eyes are empty

She'll know why I roam the vast earth,

 Lost in the labyrinth of sanity

               \---Deranged--- 

# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

         If "Thank yous" were like Tattoos, I'd brazenly sculpt every iota of thanks on the most visible parts of skins.

A huge amount of thank yous to the writers who took their precious times, efforts, creativity and talents to dish out the beautiful and amazing stories that make up this journey-filled anthology.

Heart felt thanks to the Anthology team, Aisha Oredola, Chuma and Laolu for their ingenuity and insightful contributions in one capacity or the other.

A mini-thank you to Shammah for the discovery of Sigil.

To Laolu Olowo for the Book  Cover design and Book Cracks Logo. .

Thank you to every member of Book Cracks. You're more than a family.

To top it all off....... Thank you Dear Reader, For being a part of this journey. Treat this like a compass, a compass navigating different thoughts and oceans of stories.

I hope in one way or the other,

In one story or the other,

You find whatever or whoever it is you are searching for.

Be it another or your Dear Self. 

# ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Hazeez, Dolapo Mubarak is a passionate humanitarian, researcher, health and safety enthusiast and snail farmer. He writes for fun occasionally to cool off thereby expressing his views about certain issues in the process.

Taofik Soboyejo, a Microbiologist, Bibliophile and Tech Enthusiast. Tony Stark on his good days.

Aisha Oredola is an Author & poet who is a graduate of Cell biology & Genetics from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. She channels her energy into Literature & Art for it helps her express herself vividly.

Morenike Gbadamosi, a girl who reads more than she writes. Law Student.

Sandy Om'Iniabohs is a graduate of Chemical Engineering. She loves reading and writing short poems.

Sanni, Hassan Oluwatobi (Don SHO), is a physiotherapist from the college of medicine University of Lagos. In his spare time, he indulges in poetry and on rare occasions short stories. He sees poetry and story telling as an uncommon means of self expression, even while it requires little or no talent.

Laolu Olowo (The Spider), A prolific writer blessed with a twisted sense of humor and glass shattering handsomeness, he is the alpha and omega of writers and his stories are holy writ. Immerse yourselves in his wild fantasies and weep for joy for you are about to taste the elixir of eternal youth.

Olanireti Igbekele is a graduate of Computer Science from Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta(FUNAAB), Nigeria. She loves to read short stories at leisure.

Adisa Aishat Adenike an undergraduate student of Food Science from University of Ilorin, Nigeria. A food Enthusiast and a sleep addict who loves to read stories of war of wars, crimes and people from the past.

Ibukun Akeredolu is a Writer. Graduate of Economics. Lifestyle and stories influenced by Charles Bukowsi.

Alaa M. Ali, Gifted napper by day, glorified drug dealer by night. I go through life assuming everyone understands my "FRIENDS" references. I read to get lost and write to be found. Overthinking is my background music, and my life story is too mundane from where you are standing but a page turner where is see it.

Oluwatosin Gregory  is a graduate of Biochemistry from Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta(FUNAAB), Nigeria. Sherlock's Mentor.

Adetona Mariam Omolayo a Medical student of the  University of Ilorin, Nigeria.  Trailblazer.

Nnadozie-Ononye Chukwuma is a Writer & poet who is a graduate of Cell biology & Genetics from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. A Game of Thrones Fanatic.

Sofiyat Oyesanya  is a graduate of Biochemistry from  University of Lagos, Nigeria. She is also a Writer and a Poet.

Abdelkareem Kareemat ▪Grammarian ▪Poet ▪Foodie ▪Bibliophile ▪Photography-Arts-Travel-and-Nature Lover.

A writer who just wants to live, love and laugh while traveling the world on a never-ending vacation.

Instagram: @reemah_abdel 

# ABOUT THE BOOK

STORY SUMMARIES

***Revenge***

Anton is a young clinical killer on the prowl with a knack for eliminating only influential figures for no apparent reason. Another 'mentally deranged lone wolf' perhaps.

***A Different Dream*  **

An accomplished surgeon stumbled upon a mysterious message while on vacation. It proved too hard to decipher but he knows he has to figure it out to get some answers. Would he?

***Guilty*  **

From rape victim to serial killer, an unwinding tale of a victim of sexual assault.

***A Psychedelic Named Vivian***

A story of drug use, mental health and mystery.

***Neverland, A Tale of a Lost Boy***

An accomplished surgeon stumbled upon a mysterious message while on vacation. It proved too hard to decipher but he knows he has to figure it out to get some answers. Would he?

***Rebirth***

People stranded on a deserted island paradise with no rules, no stress and plenty of booze. Sounds like a recipe for a party, doesn't it?

Does it.

***Neverland***

A dare turns upside down when (enter the protagonist's name here I've forgotten) lands himself on the naughty list.

***Found***

Midnight lures her to sneak out but the heavy darkness outside has another plan for Ara as she enters into another realm unexpectedly, which leads her to peep into her mind, body & soul.

***Gone***

Ina and Taiye are different beings. One, a Jinn. The other, a carefree human. The two must share one body for mutual benefit until one claims who gets to stay.

***Two Roads***

Harry, a young boy of twelve years, in an attempt to escape an existence of mediocrity sought refuge in books and the adventures of the woods....until the familiar became alien, his mother's warnings materialising like none before now.

**  *Lost***

Love made her leave her hometown to a faraway city to visit her fiancé, who turned off his phone just to keep her from reaching him... would she find him?

