a cooking pot and twisted tales
Thoughts and Tales…A Lifestyle Blog with a Zing.
I could barely wait for the phone to ring.
Every beep of an SMS or tweet raised my anticipation and it plummeted again to disappointment.
Was he going to call or not; ever? I wasn’t sure.
Is this what they call love at first sight, or is it just plain lust?
I’ve never felt like this before; the rubbery legs, butterfly-filled stomach, racing heart, throbbing thighs and many unidentified emotions, I don’t know, but I’m waiting.
©Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Silently, he listened to her hum happily, watching as she busied herself in front of the mirror, getting ready to go to work.
He knew she hadn’t heard of Elaine’s death and wondered what her reaction would be?
He had no words to express how sorry he felt that it had come to this, it had only started out as fun and he knew that the next couple of days may possibly change their lives forever.
He doubted that their marriage of twelve years would survive it. He would probably end up in prison if any evidence leads back to him.
The entire suspense made him sick to the pit of his stomach, he wasn’t sure again that he hadn’t left incriminating tell-tale marks.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
A heavy and wretched cloak of sorrow hung over her, her incoherent mumbles and vacant eyes’ belie the once happy soul that lay within; many believe that she has lost her mind.
For her deeply lined face shows a map of the harsh hand life dealt her and her dejected haunting look, too uncomfortable to look at.
What they forgot was the loss of three healthy sons and her husband to a bomb in the market square.
What they didn’t know was how deeply she loved them and the excruciating pain of missing them.
What they failed to understand was that life’s pleasure was lost to her and each day, she trudged through the rubble praying for another explosion to take away her pain.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Mrs. Kamanu could barely hide her disappointment and displeasure.
Jude’s return to the village after many years of sojourn in Holland with an ‘oyinbo‘ wife was least expected and a foreign wife was not the daughter-in-law that she had prayed for, for her son.
Her eyes were set on Okeofia’s first daughter Nkemdilim whom she had been calling ‘my wife’ for quite a while now.
A hard working, pretty and a well-mannered girl whose ample child-bearing hips would give her the grandchildren that she wanted.
Seated on her three-legged kitchen stool, with lips pursed like someone who had sucked on an unripe star fruit, she wondered how she would communicate with a daughter-in-law whose nasal language was beyond her comprehension.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Quick glossary:
Oyinbo – White
Okeofia – An Igbo name which means Big Forest.
Nkemdilim – An Igbo name which means ‘May my own stay with me.’
Fatma’s admiration for her pristine, shiny surroundings has waned to a jaded tired feeling; two years and a half looked like an eternity.
Her excitement months ago has evaporated into a resigned feeling of just getting on with life so that she would earn and send money home to her folks in Ethiopia.
No one told her that her 3-year contract as a domestic help would turn into modern day servitude with hidden parameters.
Parameters that had not specified that every waking and breathing moment belonged to these people.
Parameters that had not specified the inclusion of the boss groping her at will.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
P.S. We’ll be having our monthly blog party tomorrow, 1st – 2nd of October. I’ll keep you posted.
He always ran so fast that everyone marvelled at the fleetness of his feet.
They all thought he was a champion and admired him.
No one had an inkling that he was trying to outrun the demons that taunted him.
He ran, and ran until he could no longer hear their snarling voices.
Once his steps faltered, they came nipping at his heels; he just had to keep running…
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Mark sat in the dark smoke-filled room, the only light came from the red glow of his cigarettes.
Silent nights were his worst companions but he couldn’t stand the meaningless drone of the TV, where everyone looked cheerful and conversed with the ease of those who led normal lives. He hated the silent nights.
PTSD. That was what the doc said. PTSD. An easy blanket name used to describe his postwar struggles, and a handful of prescription that didn’t take away the recurring booms of explosives, the pungent stench of charred human bodies, the severed limbs, and the blood; so much blood.
The heroes welcome had been short-lived, for in the land fit for heroes there’s hardly any jobs for those like him and he wished he was back in Afghanistan, where he knew his place.
Now, he just didn’t know himself anymore.
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Anu’s perfectly arranged facial features gave nothing away, but her eyes bore a glazed faraway look in them as she watched the young boys play cricket.
She envied her son’s their sex and freedom. Their shouts and laughter took her back to the day’s of her childhood; days when she had played with her brothers, free of responsibilities and tiring worry; she had wanted to be a boy.
She recalled days of poking in the dirt to dig out little worms and nights of staring up at the star-studded skies in amazement that stoked her imagination and her inquisitive mind had wanted to know so much, but mother and nan always told her that aspirations of exploration were not for pretty little girls.
They said that pretty little girls grew up to be beautiful, proper, hardworking, obedient and selfless wives to boys from a nice family; pretty little girls bore strong sons to continue the man’s lineage and her questions about love were rebuffed; they said that love would come with the package.
At Seventeen years she had married her family’s handpicked choice of a nice boy from a nice family, bore strong sons and the boring obligation of sexual intimacy, but even after thirteen years of waiting, the kindling spark of love had failed to come with the package; mother and nan had lied to her, Anu still wanted to be an exploring boy and she plotted.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Simobi hissed and muttered to herself as she mixed the potion for the cane. As the daughter of a renowned witch-doctor, she knew her charms.
She hated the idea of being relegated to the position of an abandoned wife; no one would make her the spectacle of wagging and pitying tongues.
Ekwenti and his kinsmen had gone to bring back her husbands’ new bride – a young maiden who would give Ekwenti more male children that he desired.
Stroking the ‘koboko’ with the potent potion, she uttered her commands to the cane and nimbly went to Ekwenti’s hut to replace his old cane with the new one and also replenished the powder in his snuff box.
By the cock’s crow the following morning, the smacking love play of Ekwenti and his new wife had reached a painful crescendo. The young bewildered bride was seen hobbling back to her clan as hastily as she could, while dear Ekwenti lay prostrate in anger with painful welts received from thorough caning and Simobi soothed his pains with gentle ministrations.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Quick glossary:
Koboko: a special cane used in Nigeria to restore someone’s thinking back to its default settings 🙂
Halima is a good Muslim woman, but in her husband’s eyes, she’s too beautiful to a fault.
When she joined the bank as an intern, she met the gentlemanly Rashidi; a legal adviser at the bank.
A quick courtship ensued; they fell in love, their marriage Nikah was conducted and baby Hakeem arrived, with a darling baby girl Salama all within two years of nuptials.
With respect to Rashidi’s wishes, she became a stay-at-home mom and agreed to always wear the full covered Hijab because he wanted no one ogling his wife when they went out.
In no time, her hijab became a veil to mask the pain in her eye’s and the bruises around her throat. She kept struggling harder to be a better wife, to speak more softly in the face of the new brute who has invaded their home.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
P.S. I don’t care what religious denomination you believe in, but I care about humanity and domestic violence. Say no to domestic violence. This story came after watching an annoying video of a Pakistani man viciously striking his wife consistently on a train. I wondered why no one tried to stop him.
Jacqueline writes from her heart on passion, pain, suffering, loss and LIFE. I have been incredibly moved by her poetry and I know I will return to “Out of the Silent Breath” again and again.
a cooking pot and twisted tales 