The Udala Tree In Our Backyard by Mirabelle Morah
Sometimes I like to watch the leaves fall from our Udala tree behind the house. Nne is so over protective of our Udala tree, she’s always in the kitchen watching out for the small boys who like climbing people’s Udala trees and plucking all their ripe Udala. I also like to watch when Jide’s father comes to pick him up from school. All the form 3 boys envy Jide’s father’s car and how he’s so overprotective of his car. He never lets any of the students come near his car, talk-less of laying a finger on it. Sometimes I think about me in the next ten years. I wonder what I would hold priceless to me. Will I be a big man and hold my possessions close to my heart just like Jide’s father. What if I spend my time struggling for a piece of farmland in the village, like…
I Wish I Knew by Mirabelle Morah
I enjoy making everyone in my stories suffer, but for this girl, I sincerely cried when I was writing this. This is one story which broke my heart and broke the water from my tear glands. I cannot begin to imagine what real life people in her shoes go through. I was so worried about her, and I still am.
Please if you find another like her, encourage her, love her, hold her and tell her that she will be okay and she has got to be strong.
Violence affects a growing child’s psyche. Let’s stop violence.
WEDNESDAY SERIES | THE SUICIDE NOTE 6 BY EDIKAN AKPANTE
“When you go there alone, he will give you more, these days he thinks I’m playing him ojoro.” My mother said. I didn’t fill the visitors’ form like other visitors but was ushered in immediately. He pulled me closer, after the normal hug, his hands found its way to my breast and he squeezed on it. I shifted listlessly and he urged me to be calm. According to him, he had been watching and admiring from afar and he thought I was big enough now, to handle a relationship with him. I wanted to tell him to go to hell but then, what will I tell my mum was the reason for my coming home without the desired result. He was the source of mum’s income and booming business and I didn’t want to destroy my mother and be the usual evil child once again. And he was as smart…
A Short Story by Ukeme Inyang
It was a cold Sunday Evening, about 5 minutes after the heavy rain that had just hit the surface of the Earth had just gone back to its source. It’s been five years and a half after my NYSC, life has been the way I have thought, my four-year-old daughter and my beautiful wife were both in the kitchen preparing the dinner for the family. My family had been the happiest when I Introduced my wife to them Five years ago after my NYSC, as the lady who would be the mother of my children . “Daddy meal is ready,” said my daughter, I could smell the aroma of the meal that sparked over the whole room from the dining table. I am not a fan of hot meals, my wife never wasted her time to repeat what my inquisitive daughter just said. Getting bored with what I was watching,…
My Sin By Ekene Ngoka
Chioma’s basket of cassava was at the foot of the river, set away from the reach of water. She turned right and left to pick a peeking eye. She waded into the water, gingerly up to her thighs as she plucked her girdle down her hips exposing the shiny pearls on her laps. The fresh warm smell of her skin filled the air. The waters were lambent through her skin with her; with her deft fingers she loosed her hair and deepened herself in the water. Splash, Splash, she stroked backward as the tide flattered her breast erect, they were ripe with joy, flashing the well structured tiny nipples. Her fair skin, her red coral tattoo, the soothing flow of her limbs wrapped my attention as I hid behind the reeds, with my hands protecting my royal staff from protruding its ugly head. The golden sand produced iridescence on her…
WEDNESDAY SERIES | THE SUICIDE NOTE 5 BY EDIKAN AKPANTE
Soon my uniform was sewn and I eventually went to school with my neighbors. I attended for more than one month yet I didn’t have any note of studies because my teachers were too busy, mobilizing students to cultivate their farms than in educating us. We worked in farms, drummed and played. My father met some persons who introduced him to some touts, who load buses at junctions and roadside parks. Dad joined in tickets marketing. While mum started roasting plantain by the roadside every evening, until her sister introduced her to the big man, Hon. Richard, who was her in-law. According to mum, she did it for us. Because according to her, we were too precious to be like the ghetto children. So my mother started an affair with Hon. Richard, a man whose children were married while some were abroad and a wife who innocently waits for him…
The Right Time By Innocent Philip | Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO JOY The red lettered day came and all the fair maidens from all classes trooped down to the Major’s palace. It was that hour that Madam Branda knew what the traditional regalia under her bed was meant for. She called her husband and together they called their daughter and asked if she was interested in going for the display and she said, “Yes.” Madam Branda dressed her up. She was asked to kneel down and thus, Mr. Kelvin and Madam Branda prayed for her. Then Mr. Kelvin took her to the Palace. When Shantel got to the Palace stage, she danced her heart out and even Mr. Robinson admired her. Shantel found favour in the sight of Mr. Churchman. He questioned her and found out all the things about her. Then finally, he proposed marriage to her but she was not carried away. Shantel on her part knew…
BROTHER SLY BY EKENE NGOKA
Church was simply the excuse Obi used to get close to Ada. “Sister” was the name his boldness could let him call her, he always said that with a big grin wrapped around his face. The spiritual visions he saw drew Ada closer to him as she perceived his prayer life like that of the Bible’s Prophet Elijah. At some point, he counseled her about his revelation, that the hand of God could not help her with university admission because she was saucy and impertinent towards men. Since almost no girl in the village could refuse Brother Obi’s advances, he was not willing to let this church girl slip away. He carefully paved a path for himself in her heart through his determination and dirty revised strategies. He devised skillful tricks to shove off her dim-witted resistance. The marriage proposal became his best bet, this made Ada melt to his…
The Right Time By Innocent Philip | Chapter One
CHAPTER ONE TEARS Mr. Kelvin’s hut was situated twenty-four miles from the District of James Town, just before the Katagum Forest. Mr. Kelvin lived with his wife and two children. Their living in a hut just before the great Katagum forest showed that they were even worse than church rats. Before then, Mr. Kelvin just like every other human lived in the big district of James Town but he was banished because he was too poor. James Town was also nicknamed Architectural Haven and was well designed. Houses were not built separately but were built in groups. The rich people in James Town pulled their resources together to build housing estates. If there were ten people in a group then ten houses were to be built, alongside ten shops for the wives of the estate owners. “Which class do I belong to?” Wondered Mr. Kelvin all the time. “Or maybe…
The Right Time By Innocent Philip | Introduction
DEDICATION I dedicate this book to God because He is the giver of everything. Also to my aunty, Mrs. Esther Samuel and to the Sunrise Gospel Organization. INTRODUCTION This story is all about Mr. Kelvin, his wife Madam Branda, and their two children, Shantel and Austin. They lived in a hut near the great Katagum forest. Their living there was not by choice but because they had no other option. Before then, like every other human being they lived in a big town known as James Town. However, because they were poor, the Major of James Town, Major Robinson banished them. One day Madam Branda went to her farm to harvest and her father’s spirit appeared to her. He gave her a prophesy. After a while, a white man named Mr. Churchman came to James Town as well. Maidens were brought to dance before him but the presence of Shantel…
WEDNESDAY SERIES | THE SUICIDE NOTE 4 BY EDIKAN AKPANTE
THE BEGINNING OF MY WOES Fate decided to rub salt in my wounds when my father was sacked. There had to be a retrenchment of some public servants in the state due to the economic recession and my father was one of the unlucky ones. Of course, this was a big blow on the family. Mother wasn’t working, she was just managing my father’s school but my father said there was no more money to run the school therefore that left my two parents jobless. And I declined from the position of a first-lady with all glamor and hatred to that of a fantasy princess with no glamor, yet hated. We left for the city. Before now, we were living in my father’s town. “There are many business opportunities in Uyo,” my father’s friends had advised. “Akwaibom ado ok”. With dad’s savings, we were able to cram into a single-room…
WEDNESDAY SERIES | THE SUICIDE NOTE 3 BY EDIKAN AKPANTE
It was obvious that my grandfather didn’t like me, whether it was because I was my mother’s daughter or for my being a female child, I didn’t know why. But he didn’t just fancy my existence, moreover, in our society, it is seen as a crime, a sacrilege, for a young one to say her mind to an elder or her own view on any matter as far as an elderly person is concerned. But truly, up to this generation, we are still bearing our forefathers’ names and not even our grand parents’. So why are they so concerned about their names being passed on, when their ancestral fathers are still living on, while their names die with them. Then Lizzy, while I struggled with this thought, something dropped in my mind, that this isn’t just about what they really want but it’s just a belief. And do you know…
Emeka by Blessing Iyeli
It’s one thing to live in a “face me I bullshit you” compound, it’s another thing to live with good/bad neighbours. Emeka is not someone to be classified as a good neighbour. A neighbour that enjoys watching your cloths being beaten by rain, tells a visitor that whoever he or she wants to see is not around, stops a girlfriend from seeing her boyfriend with an excuse that the boy’s mother is around. Whenever he is going out, he disconnects NEPA light from the right fuse to the wrong one. Emeka indeed is a wonderful neighbour who is hated by everyone especially Rita. One beautiful Sunday morning around 5:24am Rita was outside washing some cloths and making sure she gets to church on time, being the praise and worship leader she had to be in church before everyone else. Emeka knowing very well that it was time for her to…