My story contnd'

Hey guys, thanks for all the comments!!! thoroughly appreciate...At the end of the installments, I'll be asking you guys to critique the story, so please make a mental note of your critiques for all the installments..or you could just tell me now..either way works for me. Well, here is installment II enjoy (to my now live audience.lol)!!!

Sealed Graves contnd (COPYRIGHT!!!! cannot be reproduced people, borrowed, and all d ish..)

I watched Mama walk into our house, Aunty Ezinne had her arm around her waist and Mama Caro was holding her hand and leading her to the door. As I lay on my mat that night, I tossed and turned endlessly, unable to sleep I reached for the kerosene lamp and with one strike of the match box I had the wick of the lantern burning brightly. I looked down at my lap, little flesh triangles and lines covered it, Papa called it mat print. He said if I ever stopped sleeping like I was fighting a war then maybe I would not wake up every morning with impressions of the mat’s design temporarily etched in my flesh. I looked across the room, by the window sat my white plastic chair, bare. I stared at it for a while trying to decipher what was so wrong about its austerity, no light bulb illuminated my head, so I lay back on the mat, my knees bunched up, my arms forming a pillow for my head, and my eyes fixed intensely on the ceiling tiles as if there lay the answer to the chair’s mystery.
The light streaming in from the window and the cock’s incessant crowing woke me up, and then it hit me. It was Sunday and my chair was bare, Papa had forgotten to tell me to polish my shoes and iron my clothes with the charcoal iron and that was why my Sunday clothes were not laid out on the white chair. I sprang from my bed, eager to get to the bathroom before Papa caught me and began his speech about preparation and success. I turned the knob of the bathroom door, my towel in hand and realized that my bucket was empty. The empty bucket had just added another thirty minutes to Papa’s lecture, I could already hear him “Golibe, how many times will I tell you ehn? Fetch water for tomorrow the night before, iron your school clothes a week in advance, you can never be over-prepared. “A tuoro omara omara, a tuoro ofeke o fenye isi n’ohia – If you tell a wise one, he understands; tell a dunce, he runs into the bush.” Papa’s proverbs always made me cringe; their delivery was like a blow only more piercing. I snatched the bucket by its handle and made my way quickly to the tap outside the house, there I met Papa only he was not standing, his arms folded across his breasts with that remarkable frown pasted on his face. He lay beneath clay and limestone. It was there I finally broke down, my tears falling like torrential rain. On Papa’s grave were blocks of cement and bricklayers wearing cement bags fashioned into hats were mixing mortar beside it. Their bodies were grey with cement dust and most of them wore only shorts, one with a pot belly and a pen stuck behind his ear was yelling above the dust and the sound of cement bags slapping the ground. I assumed he was their supervisor, I watched as grey dust snaked up his nostrils and engulfed him, wondering how he could breathe with all the dust, and then I heard him “We must finish today o! and put the tombstone” he shouted. It was then an agonizing scream tore itself from my throat, they were sealing Papa in a grave, how would he ever come back now? I stood immobile, my tears blinding me, reality setting in, someone had their arms around me, and I knew instinctively it was Aunty Ezinne she always smelled liked a fusion of Saturday Night powder and pepper soup spices. She held me to her, hugging me tightly “E besina Gogo Don’t cry Gogo” she crooned. My tears fell profusely, continuously, I cried for myself and for Papa and I knew then that he was never coming back.