Temple of Words

That Friday, everyone was spitless, yet it felt as if we spoke all at once in fading tones. Adiza, Halimat's sister wore it differently, her eyes, blood red, her tongue, twisted. Mine was twisted too. Halimat laid right there, silent and unmoving; each gaze at her drove tears out of my eyes.

In some hour of the day, my eyes dragged their weak attention towards the wrist watch on my table and I noticed what in a long time had not occurred to me; it was the mid of the day! The two hands of the watch settled gently at the middle and, I realised this was it; time has settled for a break.

I remember that day clearly, as if it was set before my eyes; each moment, each action dancing back to my memory and reliving itself. It was once more real, the grasses now alive, the palm fronds at the orchard shook themselves as the wind tapped their green body and the grasses moved like the cloud which were once more skinned over in blue and white. It was once more that Sunday afternoon during siesta, some few minutes before prep time. We were still in the dormitory where I was pretending to be in deep sleep, avoiding to be caught as I took a cup of garri garnished with milk and sugar bought from aunty Wura's shop. This cup was below my bunk and as I took every spoon of soaked garri towards my mouth and swallowed it, I became more relaxed. Soon the school bell painted in green and white, formed from the rim of a vehicle went off with its most disturbing tone, ‘gbaghun gbaghun gbaghun!!’ As I rose from my bed, my stomach began to mumble loudly in an abnormal sequenc...

Excerpt:   His words got to me in the wrong part of my emotional prison that a huge punch, GBOSA!!!, Soon landed on his scornful face and catapulting a tooth out of his mouth... pooueh!...   Enjoy your reading Sometimes last week I was at a get together along with some friends and were all asked to disclose our greatest embarrassing moments and like a spoilt tap letting out water unstoppably, each one poured out his and hers, which were, I must confess, extremely funny that even myself that  I had perceived to have the greatest most embarrassing moment in that gathering was heavily laughing after listening to so many ones; though not all were funny, and even some people’s most embarrassing moment were even other people’s most exciting moments.

Excerpt: Just when I thought everything was getting better, this ASUU people didn’t actually hold any meeting. It all started on the 3rd of July, the rumours spread through the walls of the school: the students saying it everywhere, and the last thing I need is for the school to go on strike, this can last a month and from what I hear they said 100 days. That’s like 3 months and some days, and then my prayer started.

As the men came into the shrine seeking for the Chief priest, they checked around, but found no one; not the Chief priest, not the priestesses and certainly not the apprentices living in the shrine.

                               When two stones meet, they say, either one breaks the other, or they both break into pieces, but when two waters mix, they become one, and inseparable: so was the way it went for Akanji and Aduke. The day was bright at that time. The light of the sun shinned through the clouds, covering large fields of grasses and making them appear very radiant in their green skins. Akanji had kept it in mind for long: his heart pierced him badly that he knew that day was the day he would regain his freedom. Aduke, an elegant lady with vibrant smiles, enormous charms that made men melt on sighting her, sat beside Akanji as they usually did everyday. Many men have dreamt of Aduke in the night when they snoozed in bed with snores. In fact, many wanted to have her as something; be it wife, mistress or whatever just to have a taste of her, but the more they spoke to her, the more she ...

The story of my night continues here.... Everything had become a mystery to me. The death of Oyinkan had breathed some feelings of ineptness deep down into my soul. For days, I was just alone in my room, not speaking to anyone, or answered anyone who knocked on my door. The memories of Oyinkan’s death still roamed greatly in my mind and the most intense parts of her inflowing memories are the moments of her burial. It was such a disdainful sight as I saw mummy Oyinkan almost tearing herself down in pain. She wept so much that it seemed no one could control her, and yes, no one did. Who else could feel the loss more than her. She was the one who bore her for nine months, who washed her clothes when she dirtied them, who spent the night, maybe praying for her to be a great woman and all those hope for a fulfilled dream, a bright future of reaping the fruit of her labour were all gone; all gone within a day.

‘Taxi!’ You shouted into the hot air. Placing your leg on your Ghana-must-go bag, you shouted again. Finally one came around with four men in it, two behind and in front. ‘Seat in the middle’, one said. ‘I want the fresh air.’ No big deal. You got in and the cab was soon on motion. Seeing a sanitation vehicle, you ordered the driver to stop, but he refused. Surprisingly, you were in an unknown place. Your wallet was gone, including the bag and laughter hooked you. ‘Fools! Waste paper thieves. Dusting yourself, you got up and left the place . THE END

I waddled across the tiny bridge that led to where my hostel was situated. The road was very familiar. On a normal day when I crossed the bridge, my hands would hold tightly to the wall supporting the bridge. I would then walk over it slowly, trying my possible best not to fall into the small stream that split the road. But that night, that very night full of gnashing hollowness, I ran over it in a flash like manner, and slipping into the mud-covered road, I brushed my left hand against the elephant grasses that were at the left-hand side of the muddy road. I was unsteady. The race was so intense that I didn't know when I ran passed the church that was directly before my house into the somehow tiny corridor that led to my room. I could have woken some of my neighbors up, I could have disturbed some persons reading in the night, but all these, all those thoughts weren't at that moment my concern. That which most concerned me was the opening of my room with my key which ...

I knew there was nothing I could do to avoid walking straight into what into what was laying ahead of me; it was a dense and dangerous darkness for a loner to embark on. I was, however, left with just a choice which was to proceed. It was at this moment that I galloped into the short footpath that would at the end lead me to my place of residence. This single step I took in a shimmy and stumbling manner was the beginning of the short odyssey into an ever referential point in my life.

Dear Sade, It's been a while since your tongue last spoke to me in silence, since your eyes last watched mine like a horse watches the dusty road in blindness, a while since I last saw your face in absence and last asked you why you did that nonsense! As I always do each night before my eyes shuts in sleeplessness.  But Sade, hope all is well and fine where you are: where the claws of the scorpion summons peace and the teeth of the lion caresses.  Sade, hope in that your smile, still dwells that joyful thing? Yes! Yes! That very one, the one I always saw when you smiled, spreading your mouth wide when I spoke something, which you always claimed were funny and you would keep smiling until they turned into laughter.

For all eyes that have followed the episodes of Tears of a dead man, and have been waiting for the next episode 5, this apology goes to you. here is your 5th episode, wish you the best as you journey on. Haven't read the last episode? click here to read '...I continued to re-echo the same words as I sat on the ground, crying and tearing myself apart. Barr Pete held me very tightly that I couldn’t move my hands; I was about to shout when he blocked my mouth with his hands. I continued wrestling with his hands, but he wouldn’t let me go....' ' H ere you go again, the same story over and over again. And you are aware of the fact that your finger prints were found hugging everything in that house. It was found in the kitchen, in the rooms, on one of the knife found wondering in the bedroom where his body was found, and now to even consider the worst, it was found on his chest and on face his face… so….’

'Everywhere was as dead silent as a graveyard, ‘or maybe perhaps it was my graveyard, a deliberate silence, or maybe Simon had been waiting for me to come in before finally finishing off his job.’ Continued from last episode. Click here  to read the previous episode S ome minutes later, I heard the noise of someone who was trying to open the coffin up, and when it did open, ‘WOW!!!’, it wasn’t someone I had expected to see, behold it was Father James who was in an all-white robe. There was no fear on his face. He looked at me with a smile and without saying a word or making another gesture, he took my hands, and raised me up, then helped me come out of the coffin. Everyone, on seeing this ‘AH WHAT A CALAMITY!!!’ ran helter-skelter, including my wife and relatives. I looked at their faces as if I was trying to fish out the culprit, the one who had murdered me, I knew the person must have been around the vicinity, waiting and watching how I would be dropped six feet b...

Haven't read the last episode? click here to read 'As I looked at myself, I wasn’t with the cloths I wore in what I first thought to be my first dream, nor was I in a new one; I was naked, or could it have been nakedness, for that feeling of being naked was void...' s ome things are not born to be, but when men offer sacrifices to evil, strange deeds emerge to suck the blood of the good…. T he sounds made by birds and unknown animals chorusing in thousands and millions, cracked my eyes open to darkness; the whole place was dark and that, at first, scared me to worry, but as I recurrently heard the sounds again and again, it was as if I was in a jungle, harboured by lots of animals. I quickly shut them back and tried to lift my hands and legs but I couldn’t; they were as stiff as the bottom of a mountain. My head was no different as it was also strongly wedged to the soil which I felt without doubt and that made me conjecture that I had at that moment...

She stared at nowhere. Tears like balls played down her eyes as she relieved each memory.... Gates and bars, doors and chains adorned her home… no it was a solitary confinement, a cell. No light, no not a single ray did she ever allow into the room. Not even the ‘wardens’. The corridor was also dark so no light filtered in when each meal was brought in. they left the same way, barely touched.       She didn’t need any light… she had no sight. Hear her… ‘Hmmm’, she just sighed. That’s seems to be the only sound that was ever heard from the room. Wait, she also made a beautiful euphony whenever she bumped into the only piece of furniture in the room, an old rickety one, she would sleep on nothing else probably the floor. In the dead of the night, mutterings could be heard, who was she talking to? After each session, silence ruled the air.

'Come here you stubborn boy!' The old soldier shouted, as he spotted me from afar, but I didn't move an inch from where I stood. It could be seen in his eyes, the anger that had begun to cook inside of him. 'I said come here!' He shouted again. Seeing that I wasn't making any move to obey his command, he began to come towards me. GBAM! GBAM! His feet stamped on the ground. And when he got to where I was standing, that was when a wise me wanted to run off. But he hurriedly led out his left hand and took hold of me; helpless, I became sober and less revolting. 'You dare match on my shoe!' He banged his voice at me. 'Children of nowadays lack respect for elders.' He continued and landed a heavy knock on the center of my head, turning me into a victim of that popular nursery rhyme: ‘Old soldier is dead and gone to his grave They planted a mango tree over his head, The mango tree ripped and ready to drop.... Old soldier got ...

I got out of bed and with a strange question on my mind I began to wonder what must have dropped on my roof, accompanied with a very banging sound. It was as if a bomb was thrown at me, and which I, with my hand, had caught and had also foolishly placed very close to one of my ears, resulting into a Kabuuming sound and a rest-in-peace atmosphere.  Anyway, to contemplate in emptiness and cluelessness is a mad scenario, which I knew quite well. And equally, I knew I was nothing near being mad or trying to be mad. Hence I decided to go find out what had made the alarming sound. After getting hold of my shirt and a short, I stuck my feet into a pair of footwear arranged alongside my shoes, and went outside the building, like an Aare-onan-kakanfo heading for a war. There was a ladder, a very long one, with length matching with the building’s height. It was laid to rest on the soil at the other wing of the house. It had few missing steps, like two to three or so, but t...

Like any other day when my legs would run fast to my my sandy playground. Like any other moment under the watchful eyes of the sun when my eyes could only see things that were from the origin of man. Just like those days, like that day when my hands were covered in mud as I fondled them through some wet sand, from which I got my palms really dirty. There was one thing I was putting on, it was my slightly thick black and already dirtied pant. That black pant and others kept in a small basket placed on the floor of mama and papa's room were my playground suits. That was mama's thoughtful rule.  She was tired of it all, tired of continuously immersing her hands in dirty water like a fish having a hot bath in some overheated river and most especially tired of sweeping her tough palms through my rumpled and dirty clothes that have been subjected to harsh playing conditions. "You will not kill me, this child!" She would shout as soon as her sharp gaze fell on me ...

His chest pounded very hard. He could feel it as it vibrated from his chest to other parts of his body. It was as if he was listening to the sound of a well sun-heated talking drum, sounding some kilometres away from where he was standing outside his room, yet was as if it were near him, as close as his ear drums.  He was in a blue boxer pant. An image like the head of a woman with dreadlocks, and if viewed in another way, was like a lion’s head was sewn to the band of the boxer pant. On top of this image, which apparently is the logo, a little line was drawn from one end to another and on it was written, Vaserce, revealing the dexterity and duplicative prowess of those making the Aba-made versions of the world-class fashion designer, Versace. On his legs were a pair of yellow bathroom slippers. He had no real shirt on, definitely not while he was on a boxer pant, but rather, he wore a white singlet –covered with so much sweat that it had become slightly translucent, rendering...