So I've been trying to copy and paste the story since friday from microsoft word to no avail....help someone? I even tried to cut and paste, I apologize to my few fans I will keep on trying though.
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On my life -
Can you fall in love with a mind (foremostly)?
I think I am falling in utmost LIKE with his mind.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Orion's Belt
Hey everyone, so I am awake waiting for Omulu's brown rice to cook (the things I do for love). How has everyone been o? I have been bamboozled with school work mehn...chai..na so education be? But I have something for you wonderful people of Blogsville, this is a short story I wrote for my creative writing class (as it is a lengthy piece, I willl be posting in installments).
ORION"S BELT
“Na condition wey dey make crayfish bend”
Asaba, Nigeria December 2006.
I remember the first time I was called an ogbanje, I was fifteen and it was after Uzo’s funeral, Adaku and I had gone to pay our condolences and upon seeing us Uzo’s mother screamed and shrieked in anguish “Get out of here! Haven’t you done enough? Go and take your ogbanje son with you.” The events leading up to Uzo’s death were prosaic but apparently they held a certain significance for Mama Uzo, we had been playing in his room with his deck of cards that his Aunty from Lagos just got him, when all of a sudden I felt very lightheaded and nauseous, I felt myself falling fast, very fast into a swirling, spinning black pool. I tried to grasp some tangible form and I realized I was clutching at air, a thick fierce wind engulfed me, the pool was sucking me in, I breathed deeply one last time and then I remembered Uzo, where was he? And then I let myself fall.
I woke up on the corner of the street, unharmed and afraid. People were walking past me like I was not there, I greeted Mama Uche, the crayfish seller and she barely glanced my way or even acknowledged my presence. I began to scream, thick and throaty, and then the sound caught in my throat as I watched Uzo follow his ball as it rolled into the road and a black Toyota charging into the road, hard and fast, sweeping Uzo with it and barely pausing. “Uzo!!” I screamed, he may have heard me but I would never know as his knees buckled and he fell as the car collided into him and left a bloody corpse in its trail.
I felt myself stirring “Amadi! Amadi! Wake up joo”, “Uzo?” I asked unsure, “Na wa for you o! Who falls asleep in the middle of go fish? Ha! I just went to get us chinchin and you are already sleeping.” “Uzo, you are going to die” I said matter of factly, shocking myself. “What?” “You are going to die” I said again firmly with no affect, I was scaring even myself, he looked at my face severely, scrutinizing as if for a tell-tale sign of an early onset of madness. “I think you better go home and sleep Amadi. You don’t seem very well to me’’ he replied. I wanted to argue and say I was fine, narrate my life-like dream and listen to Uzo’s take on the matter but I thought the better of it, I had just told my friend that he was going to die, I probably needed a whole lot of something.
As I walked out of Uzo’s room and into the shabbily furnished parlor that had cushions sagging in the middle and torn through the stitching from age and overuse, Uzo’s mother looked up from the egusi she had been shelling and placed it on the wobbly wooden centerpiece that looked like it might collapse at any moment. “ Nwa m e be ki n’eje? Unu e mesigo? My child where are you going? Have you boys finished?” she asked. I nodded quickly and muttered a yes as I promptly slid my thin frame through the door and disappeared before I was attacked with a barrage of questions, and then I heard her call for Uzo as I shut the door. Uzo avoided me at school for the next week like I was the proverbial king who had shit in his pant and was not aware, when he saw me in the boys’ bathroom he fled as if an army of black soldier ants were after him. The day before he died he finally spoke to me, school was over and I was sitting under the shade of the soursop tree munching noisily on roasted corn and pear. “Amadi” he said softly “Uzo” I answered, standing up from the tree root I had been sitting on. “Mama told me to stay away from you, I’m so...” he began, I waved away his apology “No, I’m sorry Uzo” “I really am” I said looking into his eyes. He looked back at me, searching my eyes for what seemed like forever “It is true then, you are sure?” he asked, his body was rigid, his shoulders squared, and his back ramrod straight but his quivering voice betrayed his fear.“Yes, It is what I saw” I replied. “What happened exactly?” he asked and then I began to narrate the trance like episode.
ORION"S BELT
“Na condition wey dey make crayfish bend”
Asaba, Nigeria December 2006.
I remember the first time I was called an ogbanje, I was fifteen and it was after Uzo’s funeral, Adaku and I had gone to pay our condolences and upon seeing us Uzo’s mother screamed and shrieked in anguish “Get out of here! Haven’t you done enough? Go and take your ogbanje son with you.” The events leading up to Uzo’s death were prosaic but apparently they held a certain significance for Mama Uzo, we had been playing in his room with his deck of cards that his Aunty from Lagos just got him, when all of a sudden I felt very lightheaded and nauseous, I felt myself falling fast, very fast into a swirling, spinning black pool. I tried to grasp some tangible form and I realized I was clutching at air, a thick fierce wind engulfed me, the pool was sucking me in, I breathed deeply one last time and then I remembered Uzo, where was he? And then I let myself fall.
I woke up on the corner of the street, unharmed and afraid. People were walking past me like I was not there, I greeted Mama Uche, the crayfish seller and she barely glanced my way or even acknowledged my presence. I began to scream, thick and throaty, and then the sound caught in my throat as I watched Uzo follow his ball as it rolled into the road and a black Toyota charging into the road, hard and fast, sweeping Uzo with it and barely pausing. “Uzo!!” I screamed, he may have heard me but I would never know as his knees buckled and he fell as the car collided into him and left a bloody corpse in its trail.
I felt myself stirring “Amadi! Amadi! Wake up joo”, “Uzo?” I asked unsure, “Na wa for you o! Who falls asleep in the middle of go fish? Ha! I just went to get us chinchin and you are already sleeping.” “Uzo, you are going to die” I said matter of factly, shocking myself. “What?” “You are going to die” I said again firmly with no affect, I was scaring even myself, he looked at my face severely, scrutinizing as if for a tell-tale sign of an early onset of madness. “I think you better go home and sleep Amadi. You don’t seem very well to me’’ he replied. I wanted to argue and say I was fine, narrate my life-like dream and listen to Uzo’s take on the matter but I thought the better of it, I had just told my friend that he was going to die, I probably needed a whole lot of something.
As I walked out of Uzo’s room and into the shabbily furnished parlor that had cushions sagging in the middle and torn through the stitching from age and overuse, Uzo’s mother looked up from the egusi she had been shelling and placed it on the wobbly wooden centerpiece that looked like it might collapse at any moment. “ Nwa m e be ki n’eje? Unu e mesigo? My child where are you going? Have you boys finished?” she asked. I nodded quickly and muttered a yes as I promptly slid my thin frame through the door and disappeared before I was attacked with a barrage of questions, and then I heard her call for Uzo as I shut the door. Uzo avoided me at school for the next week like I was the proverbial king who had shit in his pant and was not aware, when he saw me in the boys’ bathroom he fled as if an army of black soldier ants were after him. The day before he died he finally spoke to me, school was over and I was sitting under the shade of the soursop tree munching noisily on roasted corn and pear. “Amadi” he said softly “Uzo” I answered, standing up from the tree root I had been sitting on. “Mama told me to stay away from you, I’m so...” he began, I waved away his apology “No, I’m sorry Uzo” “I really am” I said looking into his eyes. He looked back at me, searching my eyes for what seemed like forever “It is true then, you are sure?” he asked, his body was rigid, his shoulders squared, and his back ramrod straight but his quivering voice betrayed his fear.“Yes, It is what I saw” I replied. “What happened exactly?” he asked and then I began to narrate the trance like episode.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Hey Guys..
So, I know I said I will be updating with loooooooooooooonng posts shortly, but mehn I have been so busy with work and this particular toaster that insists we must talk at least six times a week..jeez!!! more on that later sha.... Ok, so the semester is on and I'm taking this creative writing class to hone and polish my skills (the ones I hopefully have) and we had this assignment to write a letter in the same vein as James Baldwin's letter to his nephew (something generalizable that others can relate to) and here's what I did.....
Enjoy..P.S- No, I haven't gotten it graded yet and we were supposed to incorporate synesthesia and conflict, plus I need to proofread for punctuations.
Dear Mama,
I am angry at you, yes angry, livid even! I have only just begun to realize that the indifference and detachment with which you have treated me throughout my life has left a solid ineffaceable imprint, like a footprint mold in cement. I find that I am incapable of telling my new bride, Joyce, that I love her. Sure, I give her a roof over her head, the security of a home, food in her belly, trinkets and bejeweled combs to adorn her wrists and wooly hair, but the one thing she craves I cannot give, the simple words - “I love you”.
Our elders say blood is thicker than water, so I guess it is water that runs through these veins, because all I feel is hate, sharp and searing, I feel no kinship with you whatsoever. Throughout my childhood, you chiseled away at my capacity to feel, my emotions, my human essence. When I fell on the red sand, bruised my knee and bawled, desperate for comfort, you slung me across your knees and whacked my bottom till I fell silent, mortified - Boys did not cry. When I clung to your wrapper unrelenting, terrified to be sleeping alone on the makeshift bed by myself, you slapped me across my face and asked if I was a woman. I grew, nurtured with hard work and no love; I was learning to become “a man”. I suppose you want me to be grateful, seeing that I turned out an industrious, intelligent, and hard man. But I am not, because Mama in all my twenty eight years on earth you have never once told me you loved me, in teaching me to become “a man” you forgot to include that I would need a heart, and for Joyce I would always be an incomplete man trying to learn how to love.
Your son,
Nnamabia.
Mama's Response
Nnamabia,
How are you and your wife Joyce? So you are angry eh? You youngsters of nowadays forget the hands that fed you, in my time that rubbish letter you sent me expressing your…emotions, you called it? Would be an abomination!
So you want love? Nnamabia what are you going to do with love I ask you? Will you eat it? Will it quench your hunger? Did love make you the strong man you are today? You children make me laugh.
Our people say that a yam destined to burn, will burn whether it is roasted or boiled. Did I ask you to marry your educated wife, Nnamabia? Now, she wants love and you are insulting the breasts that fed you, it is not my fault you cannot satisfy your wife, perhaps you should tend your yams more carefully.
Mama.
N.B - Mama's letter was originally written in Igbo.
Enjoy..P.S- No, I haven't gotten it graded yet and we were supposed to incorporate synesthesia and conflict, plus I need to proofread for punctuations.
Dear Mama,
I am angry at you, yes angry, livid even! I have only just begun to realize that the indifference and detachment with which you have treated me throughout my life has left a solid ineffaceable imprint, like a footprint mold in cement. I find that I am incapable of telling my new bride, Joyce, that I love her. Sure, I give her a roof over her head, the security of a home, food in her belly, trinkets and bejeweled combs to adorn her wrists and wooly hair, but the one thing she craves I cannot give, the simple words - “I love you”.
Our elders say blood is thicker than water, so I guess it is water that runs through these veins, because all I feel is hate, sharp and searing, I feel no kinship with you whatsoever. Throughout my childhood, you chiseled away at my capacity to feel, my emotions, my human essence. When I fell on the red sand, bruised my knee and bawled, desperate for comfort, you slung me across your knees and whacked my bottom till I fell silent, mortified - Boys did not cry. When I clung to your wrapper unrelenting, terrified to be sleeping alone on the makeshift bed by myself, you slapped me across my face and asked if I was a woman. I grew, nurtured with hard work and no love; I was learning to become “a man”. I suppose you want me to be grateful, seeing that I turned out an industrious, intelligent, and hard man. But I am not, because Mama in all my twenty eight years on earth you have never once told me you loved me, in teaching me to become “a man” you forgot to include that I would need a heart, and for Joyce I would always be an incomplete man trying to learn how to love.
Your son,
Nnamabia.
Mama's Response
Nnamabia,
How are you and your wife Joyce? So you are angry eh? You youngsters of nowadays forget the hands that fed you, in my time that rubbish letter you sent me expressing your…emotions, you called it? Would be an abomination!
So you want love? Nnamabia what are you going to do with love I ask you? Will you eat it? Will it quench your hunger? Did love make you the strong man you are today? You children make me laugh.
Our people say that a yam destined to burn, will burn whether it is roasted or boiled. Did I ask you to marry your educated wife, Nnamabia? Now, she wants love and you are insulting the breasts that fed you, it is not my fault you cannot satisfy your wife, perhaps you should tend your yams more carefully.
Mama.
N.B - Mama's letter was originally written in Igbo.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Ekene Agabu
Gawlsh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! totally feeling Ekene!! and it's just his voice o! and what comes out his mouth! Eke Baby, I salute you! lol (I am such a groupie! chai!).
Check out Eke baby here>>>http://www.ekeneagabu.com
Check out Eke baby here>>>http://www.ekeneagabu.com
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Guys and Guys
Feels like I'm walking on eggshells...
I hate feeling like this.
Argh...so much for being truthfully blunt...
I forget I'm not as sensitive as I should be...
On the upside, is this our first tiff? (he he)
Who knows??
P.S - Chari, I realize this is not a PROPER update, does anyone know where Mz. Dee don run go?
I would say upcoming news on L.C>>> http://adialayo.blogspot.com/2007/07/ruminationschewing-cudover-and-over.html , but I may never deliver.*sigh. and I wonder why my blog is dying.
I hate feeling like this.
Argh...so much for being truthfully blunt...
I forget I'm not as sensitive as I should be...
On the upside, is this our first tiff? (he he)
Who knows??
P.S - Chari, I realize this is not a PROPER update, does anyone know where Mz. Dee don run go?
I would say upcoming news on L.C>>> http://adialayo.blogspot.com/2007/07/ruminationschewing-cudover-and-over.html , but I may never deliver.*sigh. and I wonder why my blog is dying.
Friday, May 8, 2009
In Love!
I have come to say that i am super-duperly officially in love with Chimere Shaffer Smith (known to the groupies as Ne-yo). Regardless of his receding hairline, his not-so discreet sowing of wild oats, I his undiscovered wife will remain faithful.
Signed on this day, May 8th 2009 - Adia Smith.
P.S - Don't judge me, I just saw the mad video, plus I had a pina colada....
(lengthy posts are on the way *crossed fingers* and I'm still kinda waiting for feedback on the story..so don't just read over...COMMENT! pls..I'm begging..don't Neyofy me again)
* Neyofy - Neyo's wanton behavior and unabashed disregard for his wife -Adia.
Signed on this day, May 8th 2009 - Adia Smith.
P.S - Don't judge me, I just saw the mad video, plus I had a pina colada....
(lengthy posts are on the way *crossed fingers* and I'm still kinda waiting for feedback on the story..so don't just read over...COMMENT! pls..I'm begging..don't Neyofy me again)
* Neyofy - Neyo's wanton behavior and unabashed disregard for his wife -Adia.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
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