ALL ABOUT HER HEAD (A SHORT STORY)

The floor of the solitary cell was cold, but the air around it was humid and perfumed with the scent of many humans who had had their last sleep there.
Her eyes, which had been opened for the three days she had been there, recognized the light that streamed in through a small window. She saw a familiar hand let down a bowl of dates.
She looked from the golden succulent fruits to the pitcher of water at the corner of the gloomy room and a weak tear rolled out from her eye.
She had always looked forward to eating the delicious dates of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but she found it ironical that she would one day reject this much talked about delicacy.
A devout Muslim from her childhood, her heart was always filled with immense joy when she, her sibling and neighbours sang the song “Opopo Mecca dan roro, Aljanah nile mi”. A beautiful song, which attempted to point believers to Paradise by extolling the spotless...dazzling streets of Mecca.
So, it was with so much anticipation that at the age of 25yrs old, she had finally got the opportunity to visit Saudi Arabia.
She had traveled to Kano state to board her flight at the Mallam Aminu Kano International airport. The happiness she felt as she flew in the airplane left her in a blissful daze, but now she found herself in a condemned criminal cell in Madina Prison.
The airport security had found hard drugs in a piece of luggage with her name tag on it. The confusion as she was whisked away was overwhelming.
Days later at her trial in a Sharia court, she was in a trance like situation when a death sentence by beheading was slammed on her.
She rose up from the floor of the cell and tried to blink…her eyes hurt from the dryness that came with excessive crying. Taking a deep breath, she tried to recall the events at the Kano airport, but her memory and everything in her head were now in a whirlwind of befuddlement. The only sentence that kept pounding her mind was “you are going to die today!”.
She tried to sob, but all strength was gone. In little flashes of memory, she remembered her 3yr old son who had cried that he couldn’t travel with her… her husband, her parents, and only sister. She remembered her country, Nigeria, a country that had failed her and pushed her into the den of undeserved death.
From outside her cell, she heard the jangle of a bunch of keys. Death had come for her. The cell gates opened and two masked men walked in. The look in their eyes from the slit of their face covering was expressionless…no empathy…no feeling…nothing! They cuffed her wrists behind her and led her along a long corridor. She could hear the faint chattering of a crowd on the open execution grounds at the far end of the corridor.
One of the men wore a hood over her head and everywhere went black.
The winds of the open grounds touched her in a slightly comforting way, as they forced her into a kneeling position.
She heard a husky voice instruct her to recite the Shahada (Muslim Declaration of Belief). A recitation she had learned as a child came out in a painful stutter.
As her lips moved slowly, the darkness in the hood gave way to clear light, filled with pictures. What she had struggled to remember during her incarceration came rushing like a movie in fast forward mode.
She remembered sitting in the Departure Hall at the International Airport in Kano, and a man wearing a white jalabiya walked past her. His perfume was strong. As he moved he greeted everyone warmly. His “A salam Alaikum" came out with a pleasant smile. He also stopped briefly to speak to an airport official.
The man carried a classy leather bag with beautifully intricate and embroidered designs patterned on it. She made a mental note to buy something like that for her husband as a birthday gift.
Within the dark world of her hood, her once dried eyes moved fluidly and the scene changed to when she was apprehended on her arrival at Riyadh.
Finally, she remembered it was inside the same bag that the man at Kano airport was carrying that drugs were found. The only difference was that the cursed bag had her name tagged on it.
As her lips recited the last line of the prayer, the scene inside the hood came to an end…the sword of the executioner came down…the light of life went out…darkness returned. The nightmare was over.

BEFORE BEFORE

Before forks,
our fingers won wars
before our tongues tasted sweet battles of dining
before compasses
we tasted winds
gazed at stars
and spoke to waters
that showed the way to other lands
before baby carriers,
our babies danced
to their mamas' heartbeats
even as they cruised
in customized vehicles
made from iro and oja
before airplanes
we rolled up distances like carpets
lengthy miles became stunted metres
and days were starved into hours
before Google Maps
shadows cast upon tropical sands
pointed to journeys
devoid of delays
before measuring spoons
our mothers sprinkled salt
absentmindedly into stews
until the simmering pot whispered,
"enough".

WHY DOES JANUARY CRY?

Why does this young month cry so early? Why do her tears soak the earth? Is it to give us a soft landing in May? As they say, “water-soaked ground precedes a pleasant walk”.


Why does January weep with thunderous sobs struggling to escape her throat? Is it because she sees the coming regret born from the womb of bad decisions? Or does she wail at the coming hail of stones that cannot become bread?


Why does January sprinkle her tears over our sleeping faces before the break of dawn? Is she trying to wake us up from our amnesiac slumber? Or does she wants us to keep vigil over dreams and hopes?
January cries. Before it dries. Let’s find out why.

TO KNOW

Baltasar Gracian wrote,
there are four ways to know:
1. Live long enough.
2. Travel through many lands.
3. Read many good books.
4. Converse with wise friends.
1.
Live long enough,
and you’ll see a street bum
offer you his last cigarette
while the tycoon down your street
fills his garbage can with food
that his neighbor can’t afford.
Then you’ll know that
peoples’ names are not what we call them
but are spelled by the things they do.
2.
Travel through many lands
and you’ll be shocked
to realize that your poison
is another’s 3-course meal.
You’ll find peace
living under thatched roofs
and chaos running naked in palaces.
It will amaze you,
that there is a man
that looks like a king
and talks like a sage
but goes to bed hungry.
Don’t be rattled to find women
more beautiful than your queen
even though they wear no makeup.
3.
Read many good books
so you won’t bruise your palms
with effusive applause for your Prof.
because before he knew,
there were those that knew
of the new things
that are new to you.
Within pages, you’ll discover,
that there are worlds.
Worlds gone. Worlds here. Worlds to come.
And as your eyes read words,
they become heavy and weary
with the ages of the authors
4.
Converse with wise friends…
not just the ones dulled by schools,
or those who have their common sense
tied up by the web of the internet,
but those who slip their hands
between the underarms of the earth
to they tell the stories
of how ice can kill
and fire can heal.
This will make you learn
from those who learn not
from leaning on the tongues of men
but gleaning volumes
from what men left unsaid
FINALLY,
In all of your knowing,
know that, the more you know
the more you know you don’t know.

2 SMOKERS, 2 PRAYERS

1.
End this chokehold of old
With your grip, rip this heart out
Take me out suddenly... Anywhere...
At labour, laughter or slumber
Don't take me after being an old tenant
At the oncological mansion
With white walls, white robes and white faces

2.
Since I wouldn't let you go
Sink your fingers past my ribs
And drag me slowly...
Through the room of needles and tubes
And "get well soon" uttered in denial
Eat me slowly...
But save my lips
To kiss my loved ones one last time.

ILL FATED

My drowning eyes watched his remains, still on the pyre,
Tears scalded my cheeks. From my lips crept a sigh,
That misery so embraced this man. I wondered why
He teetered on survival's corridor, only to, in shame, die:

Despair pummeled him until he fainted and fell!
To appease hunger, his muscular fruits he had to sell!
I tell this, while he lived, he daily swam in hell!

Cold concrete was his bed - he wasn't friends with any bill!
As fevers shook him, his fingers could reach no pill!
Now a morsel, later a crumb, he never had a fill,
Now heat tortures, later cold punishes - at will.

This is the tale of a man with no blame at all,
He looked up to hope. Ah, his dreams were tall!
But his feeble aspirations crashed at a brick wall,
Never ascended, never rose, ever suffering a fall!

SUNSET

The Day has fought, but Night has won,

Darkness creeps behind a dozing sun,

The Sky is disrobed of her amber dress,

Sunset shall heal the Moon of blindness.