I want to tell you something but, I prefer going slowly. What do you think about life? For me life, undefined something lately defined drastic. You know what? I like myself; I like the things I do too and, I enjoy doing them, but I don’t like what I hate, and afraid to be afraid, so I do things that won’t bring fear to avoid slapping my lost dimples. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
On the pavement I sat in front of our house and sketches of a forest I tried to make. Minute by minute slid through my eyes, imaginations of palm fronds, unwanted trees, grasses that grows without license, and maybe, or wait a minute… do into the forest enter men, punished grasses by their feet? How’ll they stand comfortable or uncomfortable, in what look the picture will be their stand, should men be hidden behind dark shadows of these trees…?
“What are you doing?” Behind me, Amanda sneaked through and struck a sonorous sound of my name.
“You scared me” I said smiling.
“No, not at all, I didn’t, what of everybody in the house?”
“What’s my business with the business of the wild animals?”
“What? You called your siblings wild?”
“No o… Domestic” I dashed a mean face and replied. I didn’t know why she laughed.
“I’ll tell your Father that you called him a wild animal.”
“That man? He can roar for Africa and bark for Mbaise, and I don’t even know why you’re laughing for Ahiazu, are you an isi-azu person?”
“Is it your laugh? Is it not my laugh again? ‘Jealousy-tablet’, worries in your head.” She proclaimed.
I didn’t stop the insults. My siblings would’ve buried me alive if they heard I insulted them, I needed to make Amanda happy, only. My father’s case knew no boundary from my mouth.
“And…, what did I hear you Say” ‘twas Him, My Father roared like I said.
“The ghost…, I mean, speak of the devil and he’ll cheerfully, stupidly and wickedly not only appear, but destroy you.” I said in an in audible tone to Amanda. She understood my stylish whisper in my bent head. She laughed deep inside her mouth; it grew fat like, if you touched it (her cheek), it (her laughter) would burst out widely. You could see her swollen cheeks; she had turned slightly the other side and laughed deep inside her covered swollen mouth. I didn’t notice it on time, the heat formed mustache on me, those on my fore head, and they came seeding like the ‘Crunchies’ bar gathering.
“Who said my Father is a lion?” Father trembled. Nobody said a thing, I mean, nobody answered him. He provoked;
“I said who called his father a lion?” Father roared and it scared me.
This time, the smiles on Amanda’s face went off like the rays of the sun from the earth; she tuned in and kept her mouth wined open like she’d say something, she never did.
“Em, Daddy, em some boys just… em.” Air struggled with my mouth.
“Some boys did what?” He roared again.
“Yes! Some boys passed here and I think I heard them saying something like, their father went to the forest and he used to normally…, something, their father, I mean, sometimes used to turn to a lion in the forest and devour things, like the rat, guff, humans like us. You know these boys lie like Lai Mohammed, the current governor of liars.”
He didn’t say a thing, and he left. The bomb detonated from Amanda’s mouth. She had been holding it in her mouth.
“Lai Mohammed, na you be Lai himself.” Amanda said.
“You can be ungrateful” I cheeped in. She grabbed my drawing, careful as she tried, and she almost cried down the whole building so she could help me draw.
Are you wondering? The artist in America, the once in the Guinness book of record, the devil himself, if he can appear here and draw, he can never and will not draw better than my ‘Ami-beke’. She drew me into the forest. My people used it that day to tame my name in their laughter. Amanda could widen your lips, make you show your white teeth, make you unhide the brown ones, turn you on and off with words, intelligent, her fingers could do whatever, they could run on nails, on ladies hair, surprisingly on keyboard, I mean dexterous and beautiful, the boys in my street have had sleepless nights, She always told me, these boys disturb me a lot, she’d never had their time and most of all, she’s creative. She plays with everybody in our house except my Father the Lion, King of the animals.
She had taken several scholarship exams recently. I trust her. While in school, I saw her results, Grade ‘A’ all trough in the semesters, and this is her final year. I had graduated before she could be in her final level. But, I confess, she made better results than I did.
It’s been decades I visited Amanda. She wouldn’t come to my house. I’ve hardly gone to her place. Although she told me, she would be studying further for an ICAN exam, it’s for those who studied Accountancy in the higher institution, although my uncle, he studied PM, but he took the exam. After the exam, I heard you would be called charted. Why a project manager will take that exam, that, I don’t think I want to know. My uncle will say;
“Show me the streets interlocked with nails, if I pass through it I’m a strong man and victorious, if I don’t, I’m weak a man and a failure. If I fail, I must try again.”
I didn’t make much meaning to me. But Amanda chased me if I came during her study hours. She would hardly talk to anyone; her mother will complain tirelessly to me, she wanted her daughter to take this ‘book thing’ easy. I’d tried so hard to talk sense into her but no gain for me. Amanda enjoys my company, she can give a loud cry such that it could make you laugh, joyful and great mouth opening, but no, and not when she’d turned to her books. Those long and fat text books written in capital letters, PE 1, PE 2, PE3…. “God forbid!” I snap my fingers here.
“No be me and you” I told Amanda when she starts the wicked eye journey.
One morning I decided to see her. On my way to their house, I noticed a lot of people passed me while I approached their gate. It meant nothing. Why were they here? I wondered. I got into the gate greeting the outgoing Aunty Chinyere, Nkechi’s mother. The front yard was unusually noisy. Amanda’s house can be quiet for Ihitte Uboma her maternal home. I didn’t believe my eyes;
“Is this Amanda?” I’d asked her mum.
She didn’t say a word. Amanda’s mother filled her own eyes with tears, she had let her eyes to be swollen, the tears found way down her cheek, and let her cloths wet in such if you squeezed them, water will be dropped to the ground, off course, there were drops of her tears on the ground.
“Why were those people here?” I said lowly.
“Can somebody talk to me?”
Her siblings were young, though, their faces weren’t bright at all, and I met Chinonye, twelve year old younger sister to Amanda. While those men were struggling with Amanda, and Nonye almost said a word to me, she burst out and cried. Amanda can’t be insane. Those men succeeded in tying her, they stood and had a relieved breath. I looked at their chest, it went up and down, you could hear their breath from their nose, I saw the dark map of heat on their shirt gummed hard to their body, I guess they wore no singlet. They moved to mummy, and she gave them some money. She had dipped her hand into her bra and brought out black stuff she used in tying money. They guys looked like they weren’t satisfied with the pay, then they had to go. For how long have they been here? I walked to the dancing tied Amanda, my Amanda, Amanda I’ve promised heaven on earth, and Amanda that has promised me Europe in Africa, if her scholarship plans worked out.
“Amanda, please talk to me.” In my mean face I spoke to her smiling face, she looked into my face, I thought she would say something, I wished she had come to her senses, I put my hands on her face and drew her closer, I looked into her eyes, mine went left-right deeply into hers, I didn’t want to remember her crying siblings, her mother who sat one corner, I could see the two of us alone in her scattered room. She gave a calm face, her fat white eyes perfectly fixed on her clean black face caught mine steady with her sealed red lips, gradually turning into a smile and the next thing, she roared and laughed like a disturbed ocean that rose from calmness, it scared me so I left her face and jumped off. She struggled with the chains, I cried, and I hated to cry. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I found my back on the wall, my folded arms; one supported my face, my crossed legs. I cried really hard.
That night, I didn’t sleep. My parents knew why I didn’t eat my food. For two days, I knew no food, I ate tears. I sat outside, like a stick hit my head, I rose and ran to Amanda’s house in the morning. I rushed into Amanda’s room, threw up everything. Her siblings watched me in tears, they’ve not seen me act, I dragged everything on the bed to the floor, I rushed to the ceiling, struggled to pull off the fan, I dragged the turning fan while I screamed, pulling to let it right, left from the centre, directly on the engine though. I ran to the wardrobe, tearing cloths, everything happened so fast, I hit everybody around, I saw things hazily, but it seemed as if I knew what I did. I kept on spoiling everything in Amanda’s room.
Something calmed my spirit. It softened my flesh, and then I could think one thing and another, calm and gentle. On the floor, I saw Amanda’s art. It drew my attention. I went for it with my hand on the ground, it looked like a picture. In her art, she had drawn me on a paper; it looked eighty percent real, like me. It’s me in black shadows on a white background, with nice flowers in pink and red, like they grew around and a touch of ashy rose I wore in the picture. Imagine me in black afro, my face darkly shaded and neatly with the side of the sharpened long slim pencil by its slide against the paper. She had told me to go back to my afro hair style. She liked my afro hair style when I did. See me, mirror head shinning like the gold coloured windows in our neighbour’s house, created in art to wear afro. Fine art sweetly created. Then the writing, she wrote finely behind the shadows of a heart picture;
‘The man I love back and forth.’ Acoustically nice and something dropped on the drawing paper, two balls of tears. I turned my face to look at Amanda as she gradually appeared in my vaguely then slowly bright, Amanda lying on the ground at the edge of the room, strongly tied, you could see the wires that connect partly inside my skin on my face then sweating. I held her hand so strong to my chest and said; “I love you so much.” I said without weight in my voice. Chinonye ran in;
“Somebody is here to see my sister Amanda.” A quick move I made and rushed to see the person. I had cleaned my face carefully, I made sure the tears were all gone, and then I turned on a little smile.
“I’m looking for Miss George Chimamanda Victory.” The man dressed in corporate, said expectantly.
“Emm…, you can talk to me, I’m her, em…, I’m her... Never mind, I’m here for her. ”
He brought out a letter from a bag, Charcoal colour, he skipped a lot of files, green, orange, red…, papers, and then he pulled out a file, someone’s name bold and written on it. He explained how Amanda has won a scholarship to study in Toronto University of Science and Technology, Toronto, Canada. I don’t think I got the name of the school correctly. But it should be a Technology School. She had submitted a drawing and she won the competition, she would have been studying Architecture. Amanda is good; she has a G.C.E certificate in science subjects. She had told me she’s fit for anything in life, and would always prove it. Now where’s Amanda to take up her opportunity? Is this a trap or something or one of those things she’s fit for?
If heard, I imagined how Amanda would’ve shone her thirty two teeth to me and welding her two hands together like ten tenons in mortises, taking her shoulders high. Careless hug she would’ve jumped on the man and give and plead unexpectedly.
“Please, can we see her?”
“Em…, sir, She, em, you would have to check back later!” I staggered in my response while he went through the file.
“Have you heard about this scholarship before? It’s rarely won, an opportunity like this is sponsored, and she’s paying for nothing except for her feeding, which might not be necessarily checked, so go get her, I’m waiting for the next ten minutes.” The man concluded.
What a world? Amanda lost a Scholarship. Is this not a good reason to join in her madness? Everything is crazy, everything has no defined destination, I’m mad. Life is drastic and wicked. This world gives life the opportunity for you to live rough.
One week later, I needed to tell Amanda, that I’ve missed her sanity and currently her insanity; I needed to tell how much I love her so much, I needed to show it. So, I made sketches of her on a clean white paper, her face, pretty felt by hands on the paper when it had no stretches, marks of deep blood cut in her face, I could see her beauty behind the stretches, marks of disrepair. She did it for me when I didn’t ask for it and I needed to do same for her. Who knows, she might understand.
I got to her house, the weather their seemed like it turned out fairly dark, nothing seemed right, their gate opened, people where trooping out, they had mourned enough till evening. I saw mummy, she cried out her heart and she had thrown herself up and down. Why were people gathered? It hasn’t gone worst. How worst should situations like this go if not her madness of a thing? While would people tell her mother to take heart, why would people join in the cry? Ah!
“Where’s everybody, and where’s Amanda, my Amanda?” I had asked a woman who didn’t say a word.
I ran inside, scampered in Amanda’s broken up room, papers dotted here and there, empty without living being, Chinonye had followed me. In my house, one thing they won’t do is to make me angry, because I could flame up everywhere. I get provoked easily; I rushed Chinonye, I didn’t mind her little structure, I held her on her shoulders and pressed her front, back, left-right and so hard, in her tears and my voice thundered, I shook her in her tenderness, she cried. I didn’t care and a young man, I guess heard my voice and so he rushed in.
“Leave her alone, onye nwuru anwu, anwu-ola, let the dead die and go, leave the small Child.”
The young man whispered and rescued Nonye at once. What he said hit my head. I could hear the beat, the kick on the base drum, pictures of the trouble players, muscle in the drummers leg, steady, it continued, a bit calm but the beat continued in my calm state and then fast. My chest could’ve almost fallen off from me by the heart’s drum beats like under the mango trees of Afogbe square, the brigades bass drum, you can’t dance to it, I can’t, I agreed with the spirit that talked to me, the still voice, slow, smiling and light as though talked with air in the throat into my head;
“It’s the beat of trouble, misery and finally death, and please…, I offer you this opportunity, may we dance?”
The young man had already gone out with Nonye while I struggled with my thoughts.
“Who died?” I had asked before he left, he took Nonye to the door.
I heard his fading voice while he walked away. I said something that devoured me apart; you know what he said? I’ll tell you but I took a long free and deep breath, and guess what? My heart got swollen, time to do sane madness, yes I ran to the kitchen, throwing up the pots, spoons, and of course, everything in the chop box didn’t survive me. You could hear the argument between the spoons and the stainless plates with their gnashing like they spoke in languages I didn’t understand as the punished the floor with strokes. I did search for something, up to something. I smiled to a knife, I think he’s the one I want, I held it with my four fingers lying on it and supported from the other way, my thumb. I moved few steps forward with my wide opened eyes and teeth on it, I admired it. It’s time to join my ancestors, I wanted the drama fast. So, I raised my left foot to the left in sear for balance like it no longer stays near my right foot. I raised my hand, but Nonye came again, she shouted and rapped her hands on my waist, the young man came in again, he pushed me to the ground, we rolled left-right, I could remember, I kicked a kettle of hot water, it pinched me, I didn’t feel it, you could hear pots and the kitchen utensils sing, with the knife, they started a tingling discussion that lasted while I struggled with the man. He held me from behind; I raised the knife to do something I call;
‘It’s the end of the world’ or ‘the scene after the last prayer.’
The man grabbed my arms up there in the air, I felt a ball heat racing down to my armpit, the wires that stood on our flesh didn’t allow any of us to agree, another argument between four arms in the air against one thing, the knife.
“Leave me alone. Leave me o, you won’t hear.” I alarmed in my thick cracked voice and stood up
“I won’t, why do you want to die?” he asked like he cried and stood strong.
“I want you to live and tell a good story” He continued.
“Because there’s nothing worth living for, so, respect your old age and allow me die safely.” I replied his question.
“What have you achieved in life, you want to die like that?”
“I want to tell the bad story in the other side of life. Do you want to die with me?” I’d asked him.
“Give me that knife, the dead can’t talk.”
“You lie.”
He rushed me again and shook me on my muscles and the knife fell to the ground, and we were in tussle again, and Scared Nonye watched us in her tears, my hands where shuffling on the ground near and close to the knife. We were both adding colours to our cloths and to our body by arts of the struggle, and the irritating red tomatoes we spat on ourselves, and he acted so strong a man, he got injuries, I saw them, mine were deeper but I felt nothing. I almost escaped him for the knife, he drew me back on my shirt to himself, I thought I touched his cheek, a vibrating slap I dashed his face, I could see my fingers red on him and it the highest note on piano, he fell to the ground, so I grabbed the knife quickly, I made up my mind to die, so he stood up, breathing fast and took his time to say things;
“You don’t have to die, just…, just let it go, let the dead be, you…” He spoke through hard breath.
“You said something to me and it has got me high. She escaped while we were tying her for the second time. We had tough time with her today; she became worse of what she used to be. So she got into the streets and a bus driver, drunk, people perceived he does always, didn’t run into her, it would’ve been better if he did, but the monster who the nearby sellers described as a running rat made a disparage of this whole story, took fobbed steps into thin air after he littered the road with the pieces of her head.” The young man had gone outside the room with Nonye earlier while he said this thing to me and I quoted him again to tell my good reason why I should die.
“Who’s she?” I’d asked him.
But, I’d prepared my mind, no going back. He timed me to grab me again and the clock had ticked passed 11:59, the dice tossed and dotted game over so he grabbed me, my arms were up there in the air, more like a triangle, I thought I died by the heaviest stab. Blood flowed and I became a murderer.
If you’ve not seen me or heard from me for long, this is where I am. I’m writing from behind bars. It’s been long I wrote and it’s one of those stuffs my Friend thought me; to read, write and draw. I’m observed by a man in black uniform that helped me with the materials I wrote with. He wouldn’t believe me for one second, but I’ll say; you see, I have a better life definition, drastic; Life is only good for those it has chosen to be good to. Life has got two options; to live and to die... I’m calm in nature, but nature is wild to me. Life is a journey for the lucky once to survive and for the graced to have journey mercies alone. I hate me; again I hate me as much as you hate a murderer, I’ve made my choice, I don’t know if this man will send my letter to you and I don’t like what I hate but please tell me, when will I die?
***END***