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.

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.

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

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.

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.

On my life...

(sometimes) Tears are therapeutic, sacrifice...not so much.

SEALED GRAVES FINALE

Hey guys, I am sorry I didn't post on Thursday like I promised...I was uber busy with mid-terms..so once again I apologize. I am grinning stupidly as I type this, imagine my surprise when I logged in to post and what did Adia see? Two followers??? what?? I was flabbergasted!! thanks Timi and Estelle. Mwah!! Ok, so here's the finale guys, I haven't gotten any critique so far, so I hoping you guys chip in and critique away...I appreciate constructive criticism, here>>>>>>>> enjoy!!!!

SEALED GRAVES ©


I was looking at the six-foot hole in the ground, they lowered the casket into the ground and I shoved a spade in the soil and threw dirt on the coffin. Ralu stood beside me, steady as a rock, he put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder as we both watched the priest perform the burial rites. I could smell him, sweat and cologne mingled to give a heady fragrance. I looked up at him and smiled reassuringly, I was fine. Although, death seemingly brings with it an aura of finality, this death marked a new beginning . It brought transcendence and release. This was the time, that chapter in my life I had tried to tackle for so long, never letting up had finally unraveled itself. Even though this was not closure, I was content with resolution. Oddly, I was happy; funerals are typically cheerless and dispiriting, yet I was standing looking at the coffin and I felt no sadness only a strange sense of serenity. Mama had finally gone home.
In retrospect, Mama had lived her life after Papa’s death in gravitation towards this destination. She had never gotten over Papa’s death and I am almost certain that she had pined for this day to come. I watched her degenerate until she became a living relic and I could do nothing to help her. I remember so vividly that rainy day after we had stormed out of the women’s meeting in church, it had been the incipience of her spiral downwards. As we walked home that day she had murmured constantly and at times she interjected the drone of the rain with loud exclamations like “Pity…hmm!” The weeks that followed revealed a new and unfamiliar Mama; she would cry and hit her head on the rough brick wall of her room until her shaven head was scratched sore and bleeding. She stayed in her room all day and never came out. My eight year old mind could not decipher what was happening. I was oblivious to the truth that Mama had not yet come to terms with Papa’s death and that after three months her repressions had broken loose. I slowly became a walking shadow in the house, an insignificant painting that no one remembered to dust. I remember asking Aunty Ezinne what was wrong with Mama and she answering that Mama was sad but she would soon be happy again.
That happiness never truly came, on her “happy days” Mama would cook up a storm, everything from ofe nsala to akara. Those were the days I lived for, she would look at me with her bright eyes dancing in their sockets and ask me in Igbo “Gogo, what do you want to eat, what should I cook?” beaming at me all the time. I did not need to look for the light of recognition in her eyes then; I knew she was really seeing me. However, those days were few, after her cooking sprees she would abruptly become distant and return to her room and then the wailing would begin. I recall asking Aunty Ezinne a second time what was wrong with Mama, this time she shook her head despairingly and said that Mama was sick, very sick. Consequently, Aunty Ezinne cooked my meals and took care of me while Mama lay in her room moaning and wailing or staring at the ceiling tiles seemingly lost. I slept in Aunty Ezinne’s house till I turned thirteen and then I became Mama’s mother. It was because of those “happy days” I never left Mama; I force-fed her, restrained her when she tried to inflict wounds on herself and held her as she shook violently her body racked with sobs. I stayed, because on those “happy days” our roles were reversed, I became the child once again and Mama my mother.
I watched them, arms folded across my breasts; the picture was so familiar somewhat like déjà vu. Men clad in shorts carrying head pans and cement bags walked around, some mixed mortar and others laid the mortar on the grave. I watched like an unseen observer distanced from my body, oblivious to the flies that danced around my legs; piercing and sucking. Then at sundown, it happened they sealed the grave with the headstone, beautiful words inscribed in cement alluding to Mama’s wonderful attributes. I expected to feel pain, sharp and biting but all I felt was release like a bladder full of urine that was finally assuaged. Mama was where she had longed and needed to be, laid to rest beside her husband. I stood looking at the two tombstones, lovers interred, they sat side by side like mirror images almost disappearing into one another and then I smiled.