I'M NOT CHEATING ON YOU

She told me about Chimamanda's book, Americanah that she was reading. The part where the lad traveled to school and left his girl in the care of his friend. We both laughed over skype, knowing fully well what transpired next, even though I had not read the book. In truth, she was talking to me, but I was too dumb to realize the logic. For she was already long gone in to the arms of another man. It was in March. It still froze. My judgment was beclouded with love - that ghost - to realize that the cold would send her into the bed of another. Lucky chap. Maybe a lonely Briton. Perhaps a lout.

Things were still rosy, even though I had raised eyebrows at the Facebook chat she had screengrabed and shared with me. The 'unknown' admirer. And then there was the birthday gift. Little did I know that the gifts were given in December, barely a few months after she had left for Wales. These two were tell-tale signs that Deola had left me. But I was still being stupid. We talked alot about the thickness of her winter jacket, the shop where she could get groceries from Nigeria, her coursework and the laptop I was saving up to get her. I hated for her to go to her friend's place first before we could skype. The privacy was non-existent.

I, Dimka Bernard was still love struck, and tied to the 'faithfulness' stake while she rode day and night by his side to school, then to the opera, the beach and even his bed. We argued over the email I had received from an anonymous person about spotting her and the Briton kissing on Bangor's streets. She chided me that it was a moment for my trust for her to be tested, "I am not cheating on you. People who know you online, see me interact with friends and course mates, and they freak out". I agreed. Though I was going through a rough patch, I was focused on her. She had just one year to spend in Wales and hopefully I will grow up to be that man who was right for her. I had swore, she'll be my last bus stop, so I invested every emotional resource I could muster. I was such a fool for love. A big one indeed.

I have now ended up in a pool of my own tears, with rage, anger, regrets, hate and grief as mates. For Deola riled me up to quarrel with her over my‪#‎WomanCrushWednesday‬ post on instagram of Bolanle Olukanni. Though Bolanle and I were good friends on snapchat, it was only on twitter that we grew our friendship. She was engaged to the father of her two year old son. I was secretly - which Deola hated with everything - in a relationship. And while in angst, she said she was walking away from what we shared.

Such silly jokes I thought. "How can you even break up with me on whatsapp? So I set about lending a car to drive to MMIA2 to pick her up in August when she was returning with her Masters. But she walked out of the "Arrivals" door, arm locked with a lad who had a moustache and an air about him that reeked of moral decline. She saw me and paused in shock. I gathered my now wobbly legs and dashed out into the milling crowd, half lost, half in rage as my chest to the left began to ache

A KISS IN YOUR SLEEP

My demons are here again
I'm cursed to watch you sleep
Depths of your slumber
Brings me wallow in stares
Thy long lithe frame
Wont for wrappers
Of my bossom's cusps of warmth
The calm of your face
Tells of the air of peace
As I crave a kiss in your sleep

ABUJA (6)

Abuja, I need a call to the heart; 

Touch me with thy whisper; 

Cringe my skin with thy touch

DON'T LOVE ME SWEET

Don't love me sweet

My heart's deep and wide

You can never fill it

Don't love me sweet

My heart's given up

To maternal love, surreal

 ­

Don't love me sweet

My heart's too broken

Your love can't mend it

Don't love me sweet

My heart's not for one

Yours' a loosing fight

Don't love me sweet

My heart's dead

Immortality reigns here

Don't love me sweet

My heart's given up to hell

You love but a bestial

Don't love me sweet

My heart's too selective

You don't fit the profile

Don't love me sweet

My heart's in need of reality

You, but a dream

PART 2: TROUBLES NEVER SINGLY COME

The night was cold. It was not traditional, like all nights – natural and usual. It was already two weeks in to the harmattan, but the heavens blew more wind this night. It was the biting type. The winds were gentle though, but the cold would seep through your skin and gnaw at your bones.
Temperatures were dropping lower than the usual for the period of the year, and by dusk, the streets were devoid of people. It was the kind of weather that is appropriate for twosome, when the young and old tangle and be twain, and morning fever would follow afterwards.
Weng lay in his covering, but still shuddered from the nibbling of the cold. It was very light – the covering, and had a couple of holes in it, which let in the cold. He donned layers of soiled sox, and his head wore an awesome afro, though very unkept. These he used as coverings for his feet and the head.
His stomach had not welcomed guests all day, and it protested in condescension. This made the cold even more difficult to keep out. The day had been full of high jinks. He had been assured a spot on one of the trucks that would go quarrying, and atleast he was going to get some money to fend for the stomach. But the foreman had told him when he got there, that there was no longer need for more hands. They were just going to stick with the band of laborers that went out daily with the truck.
It rippled a dour mood over him all morning. No matter how much he tried to get an alternative, the Good Spirit seemed not on his side, and he never was able to get any tangible done. He thus, went off to sleep till late in the noon, when there was a need for laborers to move cement off a truck at one of the warehouses around.
There was need for ten laborers, and it was going to be on ‘first come basis’. It took him time to shake off the sleep, as the body was already waned for lack of nourishment. By the time he got there, ten men were already working, offloading bags and lots of bags from the truck to the warehouse, where a local distributor sold in wholesale and retail.
He had debts to pay at the ‘Mama Put’, where he could eat on credit as far as he could payback at the end of the month. He owed three and half thousands, and may want to get a better blanket. But his day, like many past, and more to come was futile.
His cardboard did enough for protection and warmth, but the passageways for rats and the actions of weevils had rendered its job imperfect. It was in an alley, very close to the very wall that formed the end of the road. The alley was called Tapgun Close by the Metropolitan Planning Authority, and had a garden and a bar on it.
The wall formed a valuable piece of protection from the cold, atleast from its intensities. It was the backside of a housing complex. It was rumored to be owned by an ally of the chair of the board of the Metropolitan Planning Authority, who had lobbied for some contract, and had diverted the money to building the massive complex.
This wall had numerous windows that were for bedrooms and toilets and kitchens. During the harmattan season, when the cold blew so well and it penetrated walls, bedroom lights would stay on all night to provide some warmth. The wall had pipes crawling on it, from everywhere. Pipes that carried night soil and pipes that carried the water that drained from the sinks. A few times, the flushing of toilets that ran through burst pipes would rent the air with sour smell, while some running sinks continued through paths that were cut for them in the brown earth outside.
Bathroom lights would flicker on frequently, and once or twice the sound of deep frying oil rent the air. The very sides of the alley formed a complex of shops. Some buildings were storied, and had tiny staircases of thin metal which were individually installed by the shop owners. Going round to the side to climb up seemed a task.
Most shops sold building materials. In some, you find upholsteries, in others, only toilet and kitchen fittings. A few sold tiles, while the majority traded window panes, and zinc roofings, and nails, and general building tools.
The bar and the garden seemed like misfits on this alley, but there never could have been any site better for the both. Very often, the youth from the vicinity, and from around, would warm up to the steps of the bar, consume loads of liquor and then proceed to the garden to tangle in all manners. Some old folks would wind up there frequently, and mesh in the exuberance that overthrows youth.
A truck gets bye every Saturday, to deliver loads of cartons and crates of beer and whiskey and of locally brewed dangerous dry gins. It would then upload the empty ones, which have served the thirst and drunkenness of plenty, and made a huge hole in the pockets of many.
This part of the city was notorious for lawlessness, and the city’s authorities were really finding it difficult in dealing with its numerous crimes. A couple of times, gunshots have emanated from thence, and the victims either lay lifeless by dawn, or require the surgeon’s knife to rectify the damage made by hot spontaneous metal.
It was even rumored that the city’s elite frequented the alley for narcotics, and once in a while to poach on the availability of amateur assassins who would leave trails in their wake. So very famous was the Ministry official who was found with a need for the surgeon’s knife one morning, after he became the victim of what seemed to be his own schemes. He never told of what took him there anyway.
The alley also had its fair share of harlotry, as young girls loose from their mother’s leash, thronged, attracted by the lush supply of men, to the alley to profit from the misappropriation of customary and societal morals, debased more by the poverty that so thrives right on the fabric of society.
Little wonder, the growing number of unsung mothers in these parts. And the cold never did them any good, as there was hardly any need to press – the man, seeking to douse the rampaging fire running in his tap; the girl, warmth, and an anticlimax for the feeling that throbs there within, craving to explode. And this alley was very notorious, and very famous, and very well known around the nooks and cronies of this city.
And the little cardboard house stood on an empty plot of some rich man, who had left the land fallow, hoping its value was going to appreciate in years to come. A couple other installations, shared this valuable space with the cardboard.
Weng was almost drifting, part in agony of the cold, part in the looming need for sleep. Then some sound brought him back to reality. It was a car. It was obviously coming in late, and would lack the best of liquor that sold at the bar. The glitter from the car pierced through the dark, and formed figurine outlines in the vastness of the dark.
But it was not parked by the bar. The driver had faced the car to the adjoining street, putting the rear in the clear view of Weng. It was parked close to the garden, and carried a government registration number. Another elite in the hood he thought. He imagined what meaning life gave to an elite. He could see the silhouette of two men in the car. They seemed relaxed, and in a conversation.
Weng looked on in admiration, and wondered what the inside of the car felt like. The nice smell, the warmth, the comfort, and maybe a stereo played the DJ’s selection on bass boost woofers. He’s only heard music blasting from the speakers at the bar. All his life, he’d only sat in buses; and in trucks, when a few times, he’d been lucky to get a job to quarry sand. The car still glittered in the dark.
Then from the garden, a posse of men approached the car. It must be one of the daredevil gangs that lurk within these gardens at night. More like him, they are wont for money. The two elite emerged from the car. One of them had a briefcase.
Money for drugs Weng thought. He’d seen on countless occasions, this scene played out, when influential men come begging in the alley, for narcotics to cool off their thumping addictions. The guys who sell the drugs to these elites come from a cartel of barons who themselves live in Porsche houses and drive the latest cars, and drink the expensive wines.
A conversation ensued between both ends. Weng was beginning to drift back to sleep, this act no longer interesting. However, the act was one, longer than usual. He opened his eyes to find them still negotiating. Then fingers started pointing in opposite directions.
A brawl developed. Then guns were cocked, and pointed at heads. The gang was now in control of the deal. One of the elites was pleading for the gang leader to take things calm.
There was a final cocking of a gun. The elite with the briefcase had handed it over to the gang, and then the sound riffled through the night. Someone dropped to the ground, and the gang varnished just before the bar emptied to the alley, to come to terms with what had just proceeded. As the co-habiters of the bar thronged to the passage, the car zoomed past in a flash, and screeched on to the adjoining street, and out of sight.

ACHIEVING 2010 TODAY

My only surviving grandparent turned seventy one [71] late December 2009. She was full of anticipation for the new year, and I wondered why a septuagenarian would be so apt about 2010. She looks forward to seeing her last daughter tying them nuptials, another year of bliss hopefully, good health and perhaps this time next year, should be boasting of more grandchildren [and who knows, great grand children]. I understand her position towards 2010 from an old African proverb that says "what a child can't see, up on an iroko tree, an elder does sitting". She's seen it all, and not to give preference to the schemings of 2010, would be to fail from the start.

Today, the transfer window officially open in England, and those of you - like me, ardent football freaks would monitor, analyse, "mock-buy", predict and follow the happenings. Like all of you, I expect the right activity for my dear supported club. However, another transfer window opens today. "The Resolutions Transfer Market". With a lot of bad habits, misdemeanors, acts, immorals and shortcomings expected to give way to chastity, discipline, good behavior, "clean bills" and character. I ask how much do we need to buy good over bad? For some, its keeping a clean sheet. For others, its surpassing 2009's goals. In some cases, its just sustainability. In all cases, beating the gun won't be a good way to start a race of three hundreds and sixty five days.

Sometimes, we try, but don't try well enough to achieve the goals we set. Sometimes, we even set goals so we can - like every achiever, talk about goals and ambitions. We never understand the reasons why well enough, nor customize goals to our realities. I for one, fail on this basis. In 2009, three of six books were started; none has reached an advanced stage. Some manuscripts are even long forgotten. For some of the books, there are a lot of plot clashes. For others, its an issue of starting what I can't finish. Emotionally, I have failed to tie myself down to some commitments, responsibilities and demeanor. Yet, 2009 was a success for me. Yet, I crave to be better. To relate well with people, maybe not all people but most people; to set out on goals with precision, and to live a fulfilling life before God and before men.

Today, is my best shot at making 2010 the best of my life. Why should I wait for tomorrow am so uncertain about? Thus, I'd live it, like it was my last. And I expect you to follow suit. Don't be like Osuofia, who tries to calm a crying baby by asking it what it would do tomorrow, if it cried today. If you need to cry, please do cry today, when there are lots of shoulders to provide succor. I will live out 2010 today, stepping on them stones of yester years' experiences, and hope I achieve the goals of 2010, today!

AIMING FOR THE TOP

On Sunday, I received a call to inform me that I have been invited to a workshop for student - correspondents of a newspaper house in Nigeria's commercial hub, Lagos.

I was elated and quickly sent a confirmation, for my presence. It has been one of the things I have always dreamt of, one of the things I have always wanted, a room to explore the world of the things I most desire and crave.

I had started writing for the campus section of the newspaper, and I had just reeled in two reports when the invitation came knocking on my door, and I grabbed it with two hands.

Now, am in euphoria, and am preparing to learn the art of journalism and polish my writing at this workshop.

I would not also rule out the opportunity to create a network of contacts. It would also enable me to check on my girlfriend, Ifunanyam, Chiamaka, Vivian.