I am not sure of what I am doing, but it feels right and beautiful. I am scared that I would fail and things would not work out well, but I choose to face my fear and brave it. After all, I love Will and I feel that our love is enough.
Twirling before the ornate looking glass at the Wedding bells store – the only one that could be found for miles around in our small town, I am pleased with the image that stares back at me.
The dress is delicately gorgeous. I love the way it clings to all the right parts and accentuates my hour glass shape. It is even amplified around the upper chambers. The cleavage is cut in such a way that it creates a mirage of more bosomness, where that is non-existent.
I lack Joleen’s and Ma’s capacious specifications. It flows down , hitting the floor in a soft frilly fall of French lace. I know that this is the dress for me.
Ma’s nose is red from crying and blowing it. The fitting lady thinks that her tears are from mere joy of seeing her daughter try on wedding gowns for forthcoming nuptials. In Ma’s own way, I know that she is very happy to see me getting married to Will; Will is a fine and well-mannered lad. Not that scapegrace Jake who broke my heart and only rekindled his interest when he saw that I was getting along with Will.
For a moment, I was almost fooled and persuaded to take him back. He gave me a wicked thrill but treated me with such disrespect that I knew that the thrill would lose its appeal in the long run and problem drag me down a long winding road of regret. He was like a bad habit that was difficult to break.
Catching him making out with Lucinda was the jolt that I needed to get my head straightened out, even though he blamed it on the drink, I was done!
I know Ma’s tears partially stems from her feeling that she is losing an ally. I stand as a buffer between her and my father’s punches. Why she has stayed and taken it all, is an answer that I have never figured out? I keep hoping that one day, he won’t get so deep into his cups and kill her, more especially since no one would be around to support Ma.
My sister Joleen ran off at seventeen with a trucker who had more brawn than sense. She has passed through husband number 2 and on the prowl for number 3. She is in town for my wedding shindig, even though she has spent most of her stay getting up to no good. She couldn’t even come to the wedding store with us – bleary eyed and sleeping off her last nights carousel.
Kev O’Reilly’s wife Maybelle is on a war-path. Joleen has been blinking her baby blue eyes and extra long lashes; with some tips of fakes, at Kev. Giving him an insiders view of her ample bosom. I see his Adam’s apple bob up and down in a quick swallow and the glazed look that appears in his eyes whenever Joleen is around and flirting with him.
The O’Reilly’s have wealth to their name and Joleen is hell bent on the fact that husband number 3 would have a well lined deep pocket and some class too. She was tired of traipsing around the big ole country with a truck for a home.
Joleen is very pretty and Maybelle – Kev’s wife is not! She is…homely! Yes! That is the word.
I sigh over these thoughts as I hear alarm bells tinkle in my mind. I feel disaster coming along!
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
In fulfillment of Writing 101 – Day 15 Assignment: Take a Cue From Your Readers. In the opinion poll that I placed, most of the vote were cast in favour of fiction, so I wrote this!
Desire to paint was compelling. She couldn’t stop even when there was hardly any coins left to purchase supplies. Grocery change finagled to buy a paint or two.
Thoughts flowing from fingertips onto the easel with boundless verve, leaving people in awe of the elemental depths of her works.
Mama had urged her over and over to focus on a sensible trade. To pull her head out of painted clouds.
Mama’s fear, was that she would end up a penniless and hungry artist, if she had nothing else to do.
To please Mama, she had learnt a sensible trade. A governess to spoilt brats and dabbling in her painting away from prying eyes.
“If only Mama could see me now!” Georgiana fervently wished for a moment.
Her works had won the National Art entry and gained public acclaim!
….And here she is on the palace grounds, painting her ladyships gardens. Appointment notes chock full with sittings for portraits and the likes!
Who would have thought! I Georgiana, the daughter of a green-grocer, would be an artist for nobility!
Benjamin assessed the corralled horses, his mind deeply disturbed.
”Who could have done such a dastardly thing,” he mulled over and over. His disturbed mien hardly taking cognizance of the rain that soaked him to the skin.
”It is only three more weeks to the Steeplechase competition and some mean snake got it into his head to contaminate the horses oats, now my best mount Thunder Hoof is down.”
”Could it have been Lucas, my ever envious neighbor?” ”Or that oily tongued land grabber, Max?” He debated.
The answers were not forthcoming. He scratched his head in indecision.
”I need to choose a good horse and very fast too.”
His mind quickly settled on Sun-dance, whose silky white mane swam down his neck like waterfall, and his tail swept carelessly with pride.
He almost stood apart from the rest in confidence and regal posture, with muscles that rippled under his white coat.
It is rumored that his sire is the direct descendant of Crazy Horse, an Apache Warrior’s mount.
This post is for the Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers (FFfAW) Challenge, run by Priceless Joy. This week’s photo prompt was provided by her. Thank you ma’am! The challenge is that you write a story of 75-175 words inspired by the photo prompt below. I hope you like it
Tommy sprawls on his stomach on the thick paisley rug by the fireplace. His crooked elbows supporting his head, as he gazes at Nana with rapt attention.
In her favorite rocking chair, her shawl around her shoulders and Jack-sparrow at her feet, her little round glasses keeps sliding down her nose, when she chuckles.
He loves Nana dearly and her tales are full of magic. Time spent with her are precious.
He enjoys such special nights; the room is warm and toasty, despite the downpour. Cups of warm cocoa with marshmallows and buttery toast are just the thing. Nana’s pecan pie; the best in the entire county. The scents of spices all form a sense of coziness in their hearth.
Stretching his limber frame, his dreamy senses are roused by whispering voices and the waft of vanilla essence. Thomas pads over to his kitchen, brews a cup of coffee and sits by the misty window watching the rain drops.
He startles as a shadow of an orange floral shawl and a limping dog float by. Rushing to open the window, scents of nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla and other spices float in.
Time to finish writing Nana’s tales, he tells himself.
I am 100 today. Not in age 😉 but in blog posts. In my place, there is an old saying that “you celebrate the small things, in order to pave way for the bigger ones” and this is precisely what I am doing. I am celebrating my 100 posts, my 192 blogger friends, my 4,247 followers and my 5,220 stats on this blog.
Vividly, I recall the trepidation that I felt on May 6th when I made my first post on this blog.
I felt like an amateur fisherman who was sitting in a boat that gently rocked on a calm lake, with an occasional ripple of the water, croaks and chirps from the surrounding shrub to interrupt his concentration. He hooks a wriggly, skinny worm as bait and simply casts his line into the water, in hopeful hope to catch a fry.
His minutes turn to a slow time of humming, sipping his beer and holding his bated breath; then SNAG, the pull of a first bite tugged at the end of the pole and he nearly topples over into the water out of elation and excitement of his first catch.
Now, that was precisely my reaction when I sent out my initial 2 posts and 3 bloggers Stuart M. Perkins – Story Shucker, E. I. Wong and gpicone liked my feeble attempt at getting my toes wet in the choppy bloggy waters.
To say the least, it gave me such a buzz, that the thrill nearly jolted me out of my seat. Thus, my expedition in blogosphere began. Almost each day, like an adrenaline junkie, I return for more jolts; to write, to read, to listen and to learn. I have met lovely blogging souls on this path and I thank you all for staying with me.
Need I say more about this blogging milestone? If truth be told, the warm reception at WordPress exceeds my expectations.
I am going to go off on a festive tangent as a way of celebrating my little drops by re-blogging old posts of mine as well as posts of others that catch my eyes each day for at least a week.
It rankles! Yes it does. Maria sits mute at the dinner table, her roiling thoughts consumed with jealousy and anger. Mama, cracks a joke that maybe a widower with a dozen children would fall hopelessly in love with her homeliness but it is a struggle to plaster a smile on her face. She knows the icy look in her eyes must be as cold as the Arctic but no one notices.
She can’t seem to help her unbidden thoughts and distorted feelings for Ella. Ella, her identical twin but there are no two people who are more different. Maria’s distorted feelings of animosity, envy and sadness have accrued over the years.
Even her name is prettier for pity’s sake – Maria thinks. They saddle me with a staid, homely, sensible name “Maria” and “Ella” gets to be called a fairytaley, princessy, frilly name.
Ella the glitzy, charming one. The one that drew the boys like mindless bees to her honeysuckle petals. The one who got all the accolades, yet didn’t exert herself much to earn them.
Mama keeps saying that Ella will go places; our ballerina tutus are the same, yet mine always managed to look crumpled and my flats had a hole in the toe. I made that hole! In rebellion too, she recalls in remembered pleasure. She hated the ballet lessons and all that pirouetting made her dizzy. “No spotlights for you, my young lady” auntie Anna would say. That sounded like doom to the young lady’s ears.
She loves to draw and paint, but no one seems to notice. They noticed easily how unruly her hair is, how her skirts are always overrun with watercolor and how her finger nails are eaten to jagged bits, from nervous energy.
Ella is always immaculate. No hair is ever out of place. Her bubbly energy takes up the entire air meant for both of them and sometimes Maria feels like the evil step-sister waiting for the Sword of Damocles to fall and swish Ella’s head off her shoulders.
Maria prays. Every moment, she tries. Trying to staunch the flow of ill-feeling by saturating them in heartfelt prayers, but those moments of peaceful thoughts did not last.
Today she feels so petty and angry as she watches Ella weave her sticky charm, yet again on a beau. Our budding romance is dead on arrival, Jeremy has just bitten the dust, she thinks.
Debating all the painful, slow ways to eliminate her sibling rival and shaking with an itchy, ugly desire to slap Ella’s face, Maria slowly rises from the dinner table and leaves for her room. No one notices.
Annalise stands shivering in the early mornings chill as her cotton shift can barely keep her warm. She impatiently watches the noisy steam locomotive as it pulls up to the station, willing it to stop quickly so that she can hop on.
She casts furtive glances over her shoulders, every step of a passer-by stops her heartbeat in its tracks.
It was still incredulous to her simple mind on how easy it had been to sneak off and she knows that the luxury of time is not at her disposal.
They will soon discover that the lump under the scratchy blanket is a plumped dud. All hell will be let loose.
A fresh start is inevitable, away from it all, but all that she has pinched is just enough to get her to Oregon.
An assortment of okada, keke, and several kabu’kabu/taxi’s, park lackadaisically on the hard-packed earthen kerb, beside the gutter that Mama Put used as her frontage. This is a busy corner of the road side, which teems with human traffic.
Mama Put’s shack is brimming with customers going in and coming out. Some still have their toothpicks in-between their teeth, sucking in air, in an attempt to dislodge a tiny morsel that had stolen into a gap, whilst some insert a finger in their mouths, using it as a wrench to pluck out remnants of chewed meat.
Lunch time is one of Mama’s busiest period. These rushed gathering of men jostle each other for space on the worn wooden benches and the few mismatched plastic chairs inside the crowded shambolic tent of the popular buka.
The men are taking a proper break from the morning rush. Most times they leave their homes on empty stomach as early as 5:00am for the quick business turnaround of taking passengers to their places of work and trade. Leaving early not only helps to put more money in their pockets, but it is also a means of beating the unbelievable go-slow which builds up as early as 6:30 in the morning.
Hasty gobbles of soft Agege bread, slathered with blue band butter chased down with hot tea from the local Mai shayi, serves as a respite till lunch time. On days when there is a lag between passengers, then it could be a quick meal of hot fried akara balls and ogi or kunu.
Hot Akara Balls
From 6.00am in the morning till she closes shop in the evening, Mama Put’s domain is a place of systematic chaos. She endeavors to start early to cater to her early bird customers and it was not a strange sight to see a flashy car or two with a customer carrying a food warmer to make purchase and eat in the comfort of their office, shop or home.
Her rivals spread snippets of malicious gossip that mama uses spiritual powers to keep her customers enraptured, but these back talks neither stopped her nor did it deter her customers. Nkoyo – Mama Put’s real name – could cook. Her food is always tasty, fresh and her demeanor pleasant.
The men look forward to their lunch. It is a place of camaraderie; a place you need to be, to keep abreast with the goings on in the vicinity. Heads crowd the steaming pots of jollof and dodo, white rice and stew, porridge beans and yam; each customer making their request and pointing out their particular choice of a piece of assorted meat or fish, whilst those who waited on the next round of pounded yam straddled their benches and engaged in idle chatter.
As they crowd the eating arena, an overpowering smell of dried human perspiration clings to the air, mingling with the divergent aroma wafting from pots of food and this creates a unique smell in itself.
The deep hums of their voices rhyme with the kpom, kpom, kpom beat of the pestle and the mortar at the back of the tent where a young lad mashes the boiled yam – which occasionally mingles with beads of his sweat – into softer lumps for swallowing with native soup. Pounded yam is a heavy meal appreciated by the hardworking men. It kept the hunger pangs at bay for hours on end.
Pounded Yam
Over their hot plates of food, their loud voices compete to regale each other with anecdotes of the days events. Of cantankerous, corrupt officials who dot every few meters of the road, casing the riders and extorting money from them. Sometimes, it would be the story of an irksome passenger or a tussle with another rider. They argue over football, a division of thoughts depending on the persons Premier League of support and their gist’s are often interspersed with ribald jokes. They talk politics, share their opinionated advise about women, touching on this and that.
“Ha!” “Mama, na wa o!” exclaims a stocky regular. This poundo fit belleful person so? E small o, he carries on talking as he receives his plate of pounded yam and afang soup.
Mama generously cuts a little extra portion and adds to the lumpy mound on his plate.
A beg give me pure water, another customer known as Sadiq requests.
Mercy, one of Mama’s kitchen girl heeds his request and ambles over with a cold sachet of pure water, which is kept cool with the ice blocks purchased from the ice block supplier.
Sadiq, calls her “my wife, my wife”, pats her ample waist and Mercy giggles as she steps away to answer another customer.
Jollof Rice and Dodo
It’s a typical selling day and nothing is amiss until a customer rushes in, breathless with news of calamity. A demolition order from the new local government chairman is taking place. Makeshift stalls, shacks and all are being callously pulled down. They say it is to make way for modern stalls that Mr. Chairman wants to construct and sell or rent to the highest bidders.
Grumbling of mistreatment of poor masses in the hands of elected officials ensues. The men disperse quickly in order not to be caught in the backlash and have their properties impounded, as the rumble of the crushing Bulldozer is heard chugging it’s way slowly and surely, leaving destruction, tears and anguish in its wake.
Mama flounders as they hasten to gather crockery, aluminum pots, pans and other items that they can move quickly. Her thoughts are scattered to the four winds as she glumly watches her modest enterprise bulldozed to the ground. Tears leak out of her gritty eyes, rolling down her face unashamedly. She is caught in a wave of abject despondency.
Her sweat and efforts of many hard months fast turn into a crumpled heap of rubbish. It has taken so much to get to this point. To get to a point where she had a steady stream of customers and feasible income. Her family existed from hand to mouth; from the sweat of her brows and thoughts of her children, Uduak and Kufre’s school fees which is due in a couple of weeks cause more tears to well and brim over.
The bitterness of her situation pools and curdles her spirit. She rails and rants in anger, her vitriolic emotions overflowing its bounds. Her life has been a deep struggle; from one point to the other, that it sometimes feels as if the current sweeping her is too strong for her to keep her head up.
“Where will I start from?” Nkoyo mutters to no one in particular.
“How will I now catch up with my book me down customers?” She ponders fleetingly?
The vote she that she cast for the imbecilic Chairman a thought to regret and hiss over.
For as long as she can remember, she pays the local government touts protection money in cash and with free plates of food too. They extorted sums of pin money with promises that her space will always be maintained. She even contributed when all the vendors were approached to add their meager support to the Chairman’s campaign kitty.
Now that trouble had come calling, where were they to flex their lying muscles? Where were the thieving local government officials and their area boys? The Area fathers have slunk away like sly foxes with their tails tucked in-between their legs.
Nkoyo sits on an overturned mortar beside the rubble in weariness, her ambitions of expanding her business callously truncated. Her leaden legs are too tired to carry her home.
Glossary for words in italics that you may not know:
Afang soup: A vegetable soup originating from the South Eastern part of Nigeria – Cross River states.
Agege bread: A very popular low class bread baked in Lagos and favored by laborers. Usually very soft and eaten with so many variations of items e.g eggs, beans, bean cakes, etc
Akara: Bean cakes made from peeled black eyed peas and fried in hot oil.
Area boys/fathers: These are loosely organized gangs of young men, who roam the streets of Lagos. They extort money from passers-by, act as informal security guards, and perform other “odd jobs” in return for compensation.
Book me down: Customers who purchase food on credit and keep an account with the food vendor.
Buka: Local food canteen a step below restaurants. Food cheaper than the restaurants.
Dodo: Fried ripe plantain
Go slow: Slow crawling traffic
Jollof: A popular meal eaten in most West African homes, a one-pot meal made with fried tomato and pepper stew, rice, meat and spices
Keke: Tricycles
Kabu’kabu: Shared taxi
Kpom, kpom: Typical sound made from pounding.
Kunu: Popular drink consumed throughout Nigeria but mostly in the North. Made out of millet or sorghum
Mama Put: Road side food seller so called because her customers are known to beg for extra food for their plates ”mama abeg put more now”
Mai Shayi: Road side hot tea sellers
Na wa o: Exclamation which expresses so many things such as surprise, woe, you don’t say etc
Ogi: Liquefied maize meal which is thickened with hot water and sweetened with sugar and/or milk.
Okada: Commercial motorcycle used as vehicle for hire in Nigeria.
Pure Water: Water bagged in disposable sachets.
This poundo fit belleful person so?: Will this pounded yam fill me up?
I am not sure of what I am doing, but it feels right and beautiful. I am scared that I would fail and things would not work out well, but I choose to face my fear and brave it. After all, I love Will and I feel that our love is enough.
a cooking pot and twisted tales 