NAIJA BLOG

 We lay nestled between your mountanious mounds the June morning is dreamy, foggy and rainy lulling us to satied safety and manufactured peace From my gilded cage I peek and see signs of life,  below me fly a formation of herons, above them  fly a group of blackbirds, chirping  at the rain I hear the violent sound of the generator cuddled to a hum by the sound proof-glass I see below me a clean tarmac and a well cut lawn the painstaking submissions of the hordes of the invisble, who tiptoe around us like ghosts, catering to our needs for order,  masters of  hiding the chaos. Across my indentured castle I see the high-rise buildings that look snootily below, at the seamless passage of life, life passes, cars pass,  each with tales   sorrows, fears, victories, lies,  tears,  transiting to life, transiting to death, Abuja, the land of more, the land of less,  A valley of contradictions of hopes and despair,  of life and death...

 Today is a day of creating To look at the clouds above and wonder where the birds hide their young amidst the falling rain, to worry about lost friends  and daydream about forgotten memories.  To ponder about repairing broken things,  To wonder about mortality Today is a day to live and not a day to exist. .. Ehi. June, 6,2024. Written while existing

 One day, many years ago when my face was unlined and mind unburdened I met a man who had married above him and his lovely wife who was in love with him but i knew love was not enough to secure him from the sniggers of his friends  who laughed with him and at him I knew he was dying  to get away from our knowing eyes and  out of our gossipy smiles His head was bowed and eyes lay  low like an eunuched slave,  defeated by the judgement of strangers and  by the judgement of himself and burdened by  love  he was a declawed  and detoothed feline 

 You were picked, ripe and ready for harvest virle and strong blood clean You were a tool, useful for your part useless for  everything else you would die so they could live the distinguished and the rich But you would strike like a snake you little being who didnt deserve to live you would destroy a man  who had lived in privildged discordance before you had been birthed you little one would destoy one who had many  things but couldnt  have life who bought the houses so that people would die in dirty hospitals, drinking dirty water whose familiy was picturesqe on the glossy tabloids which children in Cambridge, Eton and Harvard Who wanted from you what he could never give Little barrow pusher, little phone seller, with a future as dark as a moonless sky who grew up on the streets drinking water from a plastic wrap eating food from typhoid plates dreaming of a life that could not promised David, you would have sold your kidney so they could live David you  ...

  In the midst of my sorrows I cried to God to add to me blessing I felt I deserved but God was busy crying  for the dead Sammy Teucsh Blond, green eyed adorable boy  who took his life at ten  God was wailing for the dead babies that are slaughtered in Zamfara and Gusau and the dead that will be killed in the killing fields of Oturkpo God was staring tenderly the child with Down syndrome destined to live of a life of turmoil and grief of the child with no hands and no feet rolling on the beach God was busy comforting the sad and too busy to answer my need for more  

 One a sunny morning was the day you died alone on the street while the crowd gawked and snapped to their delight we took you to save you in the back seat of the car i wondered why no one saved you  they snapped and gawked as you lay fallen on the street there you were forty-something neatly dressed, with black tights a bagco bag rolled up you were going to shop and the crowd gawkedand snapped so we drove to save you Maitama General would not save you No bed they said, while you lay dying in the car the good samaritan told me how his mother had died and he saw her, a vain woman, strewn on the floor the young doctor was in tears so young and so new, life would teach you that life was cheap the police commended us for saving you nameless one the morgue keeper was another god who denied entry to body of the dead your family came in tears tried to pay for my help On the day you died, i wore green and  drove you to rest. Rest in Peace, Nameless one  

 There I was, sick son in hand,  visiting the hospital the faces there were all bowed as if hiding I played with the little child and the cross-eyed baby and talked to the mother about ways to remedy the sight I saw the prancing man, who didn't care and tall giant with beautiful eyes there sat quietly a buxom lady on the wooden seats it was  our turn then I knew from the card that was carried by the couple in front  a card as long as an examination sheet the couple, a mustached man and his wife entwined in eternity and in drugs then I knew  the hidden faces the guarded eyes the wandering stares that looked as I walked and talked nonchalantly the prancing man I knew