Short Stories

  The Married Love of my Life



Yesterday, at exactly 8:15 she called me; interrupting my night beauty cleanse routine. Our names were not necessary to divulge, no need for niceties or the display of manners. We were partners of the same man, almost best friends in our combined knowledge of you. I had been expecting this call for three years.

She started off with an apology

“I am sorry to bother you, but why won’t you let me be happy?”
She sounded strong but at the same time I could hear that she had been crying. Her voice held so much pain under layers of faux confidence.
Uttering my first statement;

“Excuse me?”

I pretended I was not aware of what she referred to.

Humoring me or genuinely believing I was clueless of what she spoke of; “Why won’t you let me be happy” she repeated.
“I know who you are and what you are doing. You are the reason I cry to bed, you are why the reason I smile won’t smile back at me. My bed for two houses one, he spends my nights with you. His family misses him; please return my joy to me. I am begging you. Again, why won’t you let me be happy”; and then came the tears.

I have to say I was touched by the poetic flow of her mind. You had told me but nonetheless I still managed to be impressed.  

She kept sniffing and mumbling “why” I could hear the tissue box beside her as she dragged paper after paper.
“Please leave my husband for me, my children need their father” any trace of strength that I had initially heard or probably imagined was gone now.
“Don’t you have any shame or decency to respect the sanctity of a marriage?” she weepily said to me

Her sniveling was beginning to irritate me and my silence was not helping matters.

I asked her to meet me at the mall in one of those little restaurants that we never go to because of terrible service. My night was spent thinking of what I would tell her, what excuse would I give to the mother of your children and the person you promised you won’t part with till death.

I woke up resolved I was going to cancel, tell her to ask you why you had defiled your marriage and never bother me again. But my curiosity did me in; I found myself at the mall, in a chair at a shitty restaurant.
After five minutes of waiting, she came in. Beautiful in an elven way, she was so tiny and she looked about ready to break if anything as much as a tray hit her, but her eyes. Her eyes; spoke of so much sadness mixed with worry. After learning of her appearance and not waiting to hear whatever she had to say.  

I simply said I am sorry and walked out. I had perused your wife and learned I didn’t have the cure to what ailed her. It was not my place to do what you should have done.  

How was I to tell her why she wasn’t enough? Who am I tell to her why I make your blood hot and cool it at the same time. I have no reason for why you look at me like I am the last thing you want to see before you die. It confuses me when you wake me up at three am, crying, repeatedly saying “I love you” although you know I hate it when you disturb my sleep. Words elude me when you hold my hand tight and squeeze my tiny butt in the streets of Lagos, to the shame of every witness including me. I wished I could say I am sorry, offer tips to your wife on how to keep you, but I have nothing. I am devoid of reasons why you love me. I can’t possibly tell her the truth, of how we fell in love as children. Experimenting at the age of fifteen and sixteen in the most cliché of romances, we did things that my body never forgot and never will. How we lost ourselves in the river of globalization and tourism or explain the way I had felt when you bumped into me in Ikeja and then your world felt right again.

All I can tell your anti-divorce wife, who would rather suffer than leave the “father of her children”, is that I am the one thing that completes you. I can’t tell her you married the distraction while searching for your destiny.

I will let you tell her that she is not your missing half. 

NKem Oyaghire

Sweet Dreams 




Three months sober and counting. 

I have dreams of you. Where you haunt me in the most delicious ways possible, I wake up parched, sweaty and needy. For every single one of these dreams I experience withdrawal symptoms, my day wasted from the activities of sleep that put me in a philosophical haze. A haze that has me questioning the necessity of a lifetime without the proper maximization of the bond I share with you. These dreams scare me but not in a nightmarish way, I am awakened by the realization that my existence will be riddled with attempts at curbing the excesses you come with.

Three months sober and counting.

I see you everywhere; in stores and on TV. Omnipresent. Flirting and teasing me, I hear your fizzy laughter when you are in the hands of others; you soothe them in ways they have no comprehension of and all I desire is to hold you. Feel your coolness as I take you in.

Three months sober and counting. 
My darling bottles of 35 and 50 cl- I do not care in what size or flavor you come, I need to see you. No, taste you; I already see you everywhere. I cannot start to think of all the ways I am dying without you and at the same time not dying, my waistline complained and my doctor says you will be the death of me but I am willing and ready to risk it all.

Am I really?

Three months sober and counting.


Nkem Oyaghire


 

 

 

 

I Killed Me




If they should ask I died of suicide. Make sure it is what you tell them when you call.my parents and when people come for the funeral. Don't make a fuss; just say it as plainly and as blandly as it tastes in your mouth.
"She killed herself."
Anyone worth their eyes and deserving of their brain would move on and leave you alone.
If the idiots decide to prod you and force out of you what you could possibly not know or comprehend because you are not me, if they insist that you tell them what happened;  after all you're my husband. We lived together; you are supposed to know every tiny bit of my life, even the things I am too blind to see.
Then you tell them I romanticized the idea of you loving me, that I stretched an image of what should be so thinly and when it made no sense anymore I choked on it.
Make sure you mention that I blinded myself by always running into the walls of reality wrapped in your fist. You have to mention that for every mistake I made; which were quite a lot; klutzy me, that I made myself penitent by letting you shower me with your special kind of loving.
Don't tell them you killed me, honey I would never blame you for this.
What could you have done? Changed your ways, loved me like you promised to, not kill all our children before they had eyes.
That would have been too much, you have always been this way, angry and dismissive, you couldn't have possibly been a better man. Honestly, you don't have it in you.
You were everything that was wrong with my life and I was that foolish wife that kept saying “he will change”.
It was my mantra; I said it when it a slap stung, when each insult was thrown at me. I loved the idea of you changing more than you. I carried it around with me everywhere it was my baggage. It kept me warm at night and healed my bruises faster.
If they should ask I died of suicide, in hindsight I should have killed you but suicide was easier. 
@Nkemoyaghire

 


I’d rather be just tired and not tired and bored, exhausted from the activity of nothing. And I used to think the saying, "busy doing nothing" was just that, a saying. My days are swallowed by the whale of idleness and in this large sea of whales I recognize a thousand like me, I would say hello but my lips are too tired from saying nothing. Social media is our meeting point, Twitter with her gist; thank you Sub Delivery Man, SJWs stop making our playground a melting pot of ticking bombs. Snapchat with her stories.

I am a moving devil’s workshop but the arms of my empty pockets have restrained me from hatching my plans. My people would have to wait before I gather the courage to once again ask dissatisfied parents for more money to come see them. Agba la gba like me their eyes say as my father wires money to my Sahara desert of an account. 

When will my life start? Time greets me cheerily with each passing second and my stoic face nods in tune to her song.  

Somewhere far in my wonderland, I see the cars to come with the matching wardrobe that cockroaches don’t feed on, shoes that have not tasted almost every area in Lagos in my hunt of a job and a phone I don’t have to coax into staying on. Under my pillar of pillows and blanket, I hear what sounds like the phone ring, the urgency and speed I muster to pick that call, Usain Bolt has nothing on it. It may be that job, the millionth one I was told “we would get back to you”. And I don’t even have credit or money to buy credit to call that person back.

News Flash; It is not them. It is not that office that promised me a call back neither is it those ones that smiled widely and said “you would hear from us soon.”

It is my aunt of many years long forgotten, the pleasantries are a good foundation for the question that is coming, I can feel it, my bones are prepared and my mind knows what is next, but when she spews forth the lava that attacks me and my fellow job seeking colleagues I am surprised into a three-second-silence.

Let me make something clear, we are not jobless, job hunting is as tedious as any job in this world, we are hunters just not with guns but with beautifully crafted CVs in all manners of fonts and sizes ready to storm the world with the remnants of knowledge we crammed in school to pass exams. 
 “Omalicha” she calls me; like what is Omalicha about my life now, “what are you doing now?” Ah!!!!! Why?


The last time a potential employer asked me "what I was doing?" across the phone while doing my exercise routine, like the stupid girl I am, I replied “I am working out” I could hear the smile in his voice that is when I knew my CV shall be used to sell Puff Puff. Then he reiterated the question, I answered appropriately this time. But…
I slowly whisper “nothing” to my aunt's question. |Then she utters a prayer, like that is the thing that would provide me with a job
"Greet your mummy for me"
Don't you have her number? She doesn't ask for my account number. Evil relatives.


Couldn’t this woman have asked me to send my account number? Why this question that has no answer?  If I had gotten a job I would have published it in the papers, how else do you announce such a great miracle. Finding something a thousand and one people are looking for is a miracle.

My answer to this very ambiguous and yet pointed question is nothing, in my twenty something life at this twenty something age, I am doing nothing.

Proudly without shame I stand at the top of my imaginary mountain my kinky stubborn hair doing what natural African hair does in the wind, my arms spread out and my legs in unison to the stretching of my arms. I am yelling “my name is Adaora, my occupation is nothing. I have no experience because I don’t know where they sell it, all I have is certification, edakun, biko give me a job.” This might work since going for interviews have failed me.  


 

 

 

 

Imani: First Kiss 



The room was dimly lit; light strained to pass through the thick curtains and a strong wind bellowed outside; shaking the trees and making the leaves shiver.


We were finally alone. The other guys playing FIFA had gone to watch The Voice in the larger sitting room.
He donned a white shirt with Core inscribed on it and grey shorts and a face cap. He looked good. The cap made him seem mysterious and I needed to understand the many things in his head; but I didn't want to ruin the moment by interviewing him.
We sat in a comfortable silence.

Well it was comfortable for me but his palms kept twitching, I figured it was because he was high. For a very gentle and usually still person his nerves seemed strained.

Then he spoke; breaking the silence and interrupting the music of the bellowing wind. He said he had to do something and I knew what was coming next.

I had predicted this, even spoken about it to Lois earlier in the day but I didn't think it would come to pass.
Fine he thought I was attractive; I had caught him staring at me and after our first meeting which was the day before; he seemed a little bit awestruck by me. I honestly wonder why. I thought he was cute too.
When he said those words, he followed them by saying he had to kiss me. I told him not to, but I would like to believe he didn't hear me.

I tried to dissuade him out of it but to no avail. Hoping my feeble rendition of some facts about the destruction 
of friendships and the bliss of delayed gratification and my half-hearted attempts would stop him. To my utter shock and excitement it didn't stop him.

Slowly he leaned in and in less than five seconds I saw the transformation of our two day friendship take place.
On the other side of the small grey couch where I sat, I saw things change from platonic to sexy and did nothing to change the fate I was weaving.

I could have stood up or moved my face but I let my curiosity get the better of me. I wanted to know; had to know how his lips would feel on mine. Wanted to; had to test the waters of my restraint and to see how far we would go.

When his lips got in contact with mine, I heard myself protest but not fight him off. Felt myself open my mouth to let him in and not stop him.

It was a warm, wet and maybe sloppy kiss.  Nothing savage about it. Just a boy kissing a girl he wanted to kiss. There was no hidden message in it. It was sweet, cute and gentle just like him.

I enjoyed it.

And after five minutes of being a slut with a boy whose surname I didn't even know. He confidently said words to me that are without a reasonable argument, fact. Not a promise or speculation but a fact that I want to fulfill.

I would be his girlfriend.  

Nkem Oyaghire


 

 

 

 

 I Love My Sister

She had always been the prettier one and I was the other one. Dowdy looking against the epitome of elegance that my sister was. Our names were even on a battle. She was called Esmeralda and I had to deal with the boring name; Faith.
She looked like a gypsy; her beauty was dark and bold, height that could defy most boys, hips that called to be stared at, breasts that were made for soft kisses and caresses. I think she was sent to the world to tell my parents that he was sorry for giving me to them. She was as kind as an Angel and as beautiful as a dozen angels.



She was the younger one and could be irresponsible if she chose to, but since she was the exact replica of perfect she had to be good. That's why on this fateful day I don't feel the slightest pain or guilt. She had to go, in life we eliminate things that prove to make things difficult for us, all because of her my parents stopped loving me. No boy walked up to me to ask me for my ugly name all they ever wanted to talk about was the irresistible, surreal, unattainable Esmeralda, they only settled for me when they felt having sex with me would make me paint them in a good light before her eyes. Pity became my best friend, aunts and uncles only remembered her. All the while in my head I keep screaming “I was here first!!!".
I was the slut in the family, because I couldn't get love from the people that I wanted to love me the most. So I looked for it in the trousers of different boys, that didn't work. Drugs didn't either and alcohol made me angrier. I don't think she realised what she was doing, she was just living her life as the princess of the world. Now I would have you know I'm not ugly, it's just like placing a china doll against a Rag doll. Her beauty overshadowed mine. She was the good, I was the bad. She was the gift and I was the mistake. I was too busy been ugly both on the inside and outside for my parents to notice that I was dying inside. But I knew deep inside me that I was destined for greatness, which I may never achieve if she was in the way.
I hated her so much. That doesn't make me a bad person just a normal one. We all hate our competitions.
As her coffin was lowered to the ground I felt relief, like a blanket was lifted off me, I even felt like the sun was smiling on me already. I no longer felt guilty for pushing her down those steps; I felt joy from knowing that hindrance in my life was over. My life could start now and Esmeralda could go and join God in heaven where she should never have come from in the first place.


 

 

 

A Peaceful Death.

I had just gotten home from a round of drinking and I wasn’t in a mood to see my father and hear his constant nagging. “Julia where have you been?” and I spun around to see the very person I didn’t want to see.
I hated my father and it’s his fault. You can say he did nothing to deserve hate from the child of his loins, and I would say that the seed of his loins didn’t deserve to be raped for eight years by him. On the surface we looked like the ideal family. Lawyer parents, doctor and lawyer sons and just like every ideal family, there was a black sheep which just happened to me.
My loving caring mother tried her best to curb my willful spirit but she keeps forgetting that when I needed her ages ago she shunned me and told me my father couldn’t be sticking his hands into my panties during the day and injuring me with his phallus at night.
Looking at him now in this state of intoxication all I feel is hatred, the years of abuse come hurling back and my mother’s silence and refusal to see what was happening hit me like the force of a battalion and I who was about to go to my room and ignore the old bastard turned around and said “what is it to you? You pedophile.”

He had the audacity to look hurt and angry, I couldn’t help the laughter that spewed forth “oh, you think because you have stopped raping me I would just forgive you, daddy you should know it doesn’t work that way, you think sending me abroad or dropping all those completely unwanted gifts would wipe the memory of you killing me slowly those nights, those nights when you were slowly creating a shell of emptiness that only the fear of physical contact would fill.”
“Julia stop saying that nonsense” he yelled. I moved closer to him and leered in his face “who fulfills your pedophilic needs now, the maid right? I see how you look at her and she is the perfect age just below puberty the way you like them. I could see fury rising in his eyes but didn’t care I was on a roll and I felt joy just seeing him in pain. He looked frail and old. I kept taunting him, pain from my words were all I could see in his eyes. What I didn’t expect was the slap I felt on my face, rage rose in me as it reverberated in my mind that this pervert had touched me. In blind rage I started punching him and all I learnt in self-defense classes I practiced on my father. I caught a glimpse of a pair scissors on the centre table, grabbed it and rammed it into the man that had birthed me and had given me my first child, as I repeatedly stabbed him I remembered the way he pounded into me night after night and followed the same tempo of those nights until I couldn’t hear him breathe anymore and for the first time in years I felt peace. That peace that has remained with me all these years.
@nkemoyaghire

Goodbye Cathy

“Bimbo, she is dead”, the voice on the other end of the phone said to me. I felt the earth beneath my feet move and found myself on my knees, as tears poured down my cheeks, all I could remember was her smile when she kissed her babies goodbye and told me she would see me in the evening. How could she be dead, her life just started, she just gave birth to these beautiful twin girls and they look soo much like her.
If anybody should die not Catherine, she was the kindest person I knew and her heart was too large for her own good. All she ever did was good and nobody really had a mean word to say about her. She was a beautiful girl, had a terrific husband who loved her to all the corners of the earth and no one can fault him for loving her so much, she was like sunlight in darkness, calmness in chaos, peace in rivalry she was the kind of person that just knowing her is a gift. Ultimately she was perfect. All I kept wondering was how the only Angel I knew was dead? It didn’t just seem right and a fresh batch of tears erupted from me and I couldn’t help shouting and screaming, “it isn’t fair, God why?”

I remember the first day I met her, I was crying in the toilet, I had failed a test and I didn’t understand why, and in walks this girl, I had seen her around in school but didn’t know her, she touches up her makeup while I’m trying to hold my sobs and she just hugs me and says “you will be fine”, just like magic I already felt better. She was a cleansing rain.
I heard Samantha crying in her crib as I lifted her, she started smiling and I realized she and Sabrina would never feel the warm touch of their mother, or remember her kisses, or even know what her voice sounded like. I couldn’t help the tears, but I had to be strong for the children of my best friend.
When Matthew came home that evening from the hospital with his brother, I could see nothing in his eyes. It was like his soul had died. He looked morose and forlorn; the pain that wrenched my heart was all I could feel. I knew how much he loved her, now what would he do without his sunshine, his other half, at that moment I could remember his joy at seeing her coming down the aisle on their wedding day and how nervous he looked and to think that after five years the person he had built his life for was dead.
I had to go home that night, but I promised Matt to be there first thing the next morning and told Dipo; his brother what to do if the girls started crying.
When I got home the first thing I saw was the picture we took on our last vacation together, she was three months pregnant then and she was already glowing. I cried myself to sleep, questioning God. In my dream I saw Cathy smiling and she looked soo happy and like that first time in the toilet she saw my tears, hugged and told me “you will be fine” and once again I felt peace.
When I came back the following day I met Dipo singing to the girls while wearing their diapers for them, I went into their room to get more diapers and saw Matt with Cathy’s scarf on their bed and he was crying, shoulder racking tears and deep sobs came from him. When he saw me, he said “Bimbo, she’s the only girl I remember loving, how am I supposed to continue? What will I say to our girls, how will I be able to even look at them when all I would see is Cat?” and I told him “you will continue, because Cat would be angry to see you sad and God knew he needed her soon, that’s why they both look like her, so he gave them to you so that a piece of Cat would always remain with us.”
Heaven couldn’t wait for you.
@nkemoyaghire

My Brother is a Terrorist.

The sounds of the bombs and guns echo through my house shaking the walls and making the windows rattle in their sill, although the massacre is happening villages away fear still envelopes me better than my blanket. I can hear the collective sighs of everyone in my house, they keep wondering when our village would be hit. Adamu my brother is missing but to me he isn’t. I know exactly where Adamu is, so does my entire family, my cowardly father who I used to associate with wisdom thinks he is the better son because he is fighting for our rights as Muslims, the madness that runs in their veins has seemed to elude me and now I’m the outcast.

The other day at the bus station at Benin I got searched more thoroughly than any other passenger, just because my accent gave me away and even my manner of dress didn't help matters, even those that looked more hardened than I do didn't get as thoroughly searched as I did. How could I blame these people for their fear when people like my brother are raiding the Northern half of the country, my religion which I reverence and learned by means of education although Arabic is now being desecrated by my brother and his friends. They don’t want education yet their tools of warfare were created by people who are Nobel Laureates, education they forget is a means of acquiring knowledge, even if that knowledge is how to activate a bomb or how to send a message via YouTube, education is how they know how to shoot and kill, they forget education is a basic instinct in man. If you are against Western Education practice what you preach and don’t use the fruits of this great education. They kill our people in the name of a religion; the same religion that is a bond for both the deceased and the killers. They want a Sharia state that only benefits men forgetting that the girl child is a tool too important to be dismissed.
I would love to go to university, I want to be a doctor which is a thing of pride to most families but I dare not voice my desire or I shall be seen as the black sheep. My brother Adamu is a terrorist and my ignorant father thinks he is a hero; I feel sad for him that he hasn’t yet realized that his son has run mad. I left my village two days ago and I can see a better future for myself where it doesn’t involve me kidnapping children and blowing up my country.
@nkemoyaghire.

How I Met Your Father

It was a dark and stormy night when it happened. I had planned to go and visit my sister before the rain started, now I was parked under a tree waiting out the rain, five minutes into my sleep, I heard a tap on my window. It was a man, warily I wound down my window, he told me he needed some shelter if I would let him come inside my car, throwing caution to the wind and embracing the naïve Samaritan in me I let a complete stranger into my car. I tried to start a conversation with him but it was obvious he wasn’t interested.
The last thing I remembered is this stranger bashing my head against my steering wheel. I woke up tied to a chair and my lips sealed. I was in a dark and dank room it looked like a basement; the fear that enveloped me is synonymous to that of a person beside a suicide bomber. Minutes after struggling to get free of the knots that held me bound, I heard the stranger’s voice and he said “struggling is pointless”.
I tried to speak but my mouth was sealed shut, he then said “I have been watching you, I have tried so hard to talk to you, your mesmerizing beauty has held me in awe for the past 6 months.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, he continued “but today God finally decided to smile upon me, I couldn’t contain the joy I felt from seeing your car I knew I had to talk to you but the moment I got into the car I couldn’t help myself, you belong to me and you are never leaving here” at the utterance of that last statement tears started to flow down my cheeks.
He walked forward and wiped my tears slowly and softly. His big hands cupping my face. Terror was the only thing I felt, he began to remove the gag and proceeded to kiss me, repulsiveness joined the feeling of terror, his big hands moved to caress my breasts. I was soo sick all I wanted to do was throw up. Just to think I really didn’t want to visit my sister.He bent low to nibble my earlobe and bite the nape of my neck, while his hands moved to unzip my trousers all the while I helplessly let all this happen. The moment is started crying and begging he got angry and as the crying escalated so did his anger, he kept shouting at me to shut up that I was his personal doll and he wasn’t letting me go. He had gotten me and no one else was going to take me from him, but that didn’t abate the tears. He got soo mad that he slapped me hard. When I came to I was naked on a bed and I felt sore all over.
I have been here for in this dark room for a long time, at least I get to have my bath and meals sometimes. I still hope for the day when I will come out. I have lost track of the days and being continually raped. The child I had for the stranger I haven’t seen.
Every day I reflect to why I opened my door to the father of my child and regretted it. The day I found this pen and pencil I decided to to write this to tell my story to my child, from all the signs I am seeing I think you are going to have a little brother or sister. Please be the mother I will not be to him. “My name is Danielle and I’m your mother.”
@nkemoyaghire

My Beautiful Hobby.

As I sit in the dark, a blanket of shame covers me, I wonder to myself how I could have been so stupid. But the urge had been too strong. The need to be evil and vile, the feeling of good after doing evil was something I couldn't forfeit. You see the things people consider to be addictive are completely trivial to me such things like weed, alcohol, the highest point of an orgasm or the inexplicable joy when the football team you support wins a match.
But to me the feeling of being inebriated with alcohol or high on marijuana cannot compare to the rush of blood or thrill I get from firing a shot or inflicting that wound soo deeply, that the person won't see the next 5 minutes.
There is no better feeling than watching a person gasp and fight for their last breathe. Look into their eyes as they see their lives flash before them. No better feeling than freeing people from the prison of their lives. I never get a thank you from these people I have helped, but the terror they experience from realising that it was me, the look of shock and betrayal is gratitude enough for me.
Just like every addict, it gets to a point when this evil is lifted off me and it dawns on me what my hands for holiness have done. I am a sick person and the 12 step programme can't help me. I have tried it. Done the admission and group therapy and I still want more.
What I hate most about this hobby, is not the metallic smell of blood or the mess I have to clean off after each indulgence or the fear of being caught. It is the voices in my head that taunt me and drive me crazy. The silly voice of my conscience repeatedly reminding me of the tears and fear in the eyes if my friends. I can't exactly say they are my victims cos I have served them the biggest favour ever. Taking a person's life is easier than giving them a promise of hope that things will be better when I know they never will.
Finding my victims have never been hard for me, my choice of vocation makes it easy cos people just pour out their hearts to me and the ones I know that my hands can help I willingly offer to.
In this darkness I lay, I could hear the sirens wail and the sound of the helicopter and I knew it was finally time to do what should have been done the day I came to this earth, my last victim had managed to let me be reckless, she was a girl of 16 and was pregnant, in my mind I had saved her the humiliation, rejection and stigma attached to teenage pregnancy and the promise of two deaths had made me soo feverish with anticipation, I forgot some fingerprints, and now the police has linked all 22 murders to me. I know I can't stand trial. I will have to be killed. I can't even claim insanity and running away is out of the question. I have to do this myself, because all the therapy didn't work and not even my vocation or conscience could have curbed this habit.
As I plunge the knife to my heart, I look into the mirror, smile and say to myself, "good evening, I am Reverend Paul and I'm an addict".



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