a cooking pot and twisted tales
Thoughts and Tales…A Lifestyle Blog with a Zing.
She was excited to see dawn break.
Sweet anticipation at finally getting to meet him in person had kept her sleepless for several nights.
They had skyped often over the months but nothing beats real face time.
In no time she was at the airport to pick him up but several hours later, he was a no-show.
Sandra dreaded the thought, but somehow, she knew that she’s just become a victim of online love fraud.
© Jacqueline
Tears ran down the bridge of Jane’s little nose and fell on Captain.
Huddled near her best friend she tried to drown out their screaming voices.
She never liked it when they fought and they seemed to do it more and more.
Dad would storm out and disappear for days and mum would go round the bend all teary and mad.
She wished she was back at her gran’s house.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Emma’s relationship with water is best described as fearful fascination. It’s taken more than two decades to get her to accept to sit by the waters without having an anxiety attack.
The doctor feels that part of her therapy is to reconcile with what happened and Jack buttresses this opinion with frequent plans to visit the seaside and the suggestion that the children should learn how to swim well in water bigger than their bathtub.
Commonsense tells her that’s the right thing to do, but dread always sits in her stomach like a huge lump of rock.
She likes to watch the boats and the kids play happily in the sand. Occasionally she even dips her toes into the water.
If only she could get past the horror that tends to paralyze her mind – watching her twin sister Ella drown when they were seven years old is a memory that she doubts she would ever forget.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
In response to the FFAW photo prompt above. Thank you, Louise, for the photo and Priceless Joy for hosting this challenge.
She hissed in annoyance and sighed in resignation. Not knowing if her irritation was due to her changed plans, the unpredictable weather, the weather channel or the summation of all three.
They just never seemed to get it right these days. Especially the new weather girl with the dry sense of humour, pout and too much makeup. She had said they would have a fair Spring day, yet here came sleet with ice nestling on the leaves.
With another sigh at her changed plans, Geeta put the kettle on for a spot of tea. She should have listened to her bones. Her tired bones could tell the neurotic weather better than all those fancy TV personalities, except maybe Harrison’s creaky bones.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
In response to the FFAW photo prompt above. Thank you loniangraphics for our photo prompt and Priceless Joy for this enchanting platform.
As the pile of freshly felled tree trunks grew, so did Theo’s stress grow. The cycle just never seemed to stop. He truly didn’t mind the work, not in the least, but it also didn’t hold much of his interest.
Though he found the art of turning the logs into different purposes satisfying, at the same time, he felt a deep dissatisfaction with his life. After high-school graduation, he had wanted to proceed to college and pursue his dreams of becoming a Civil Engineer, but that thought had simply upset his dad.
His great-grandpa down to his dad were woodcutters and he was expected to be satisfied carrying on with the family business of logging. It’s been three years since graduation, he wanted to bring up the conversation of going back to college again, but the time never seemed right – there were bank loans to repay and dad’s health had taken a poor turn.
With each passing day, the displeasure simply weighed him down. He knew that he was called to be more than a lumberjack which was what life currently offered him.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
In response to the FFAW photo prompt above. Thank you, Loretta, for the photo and Priceless Joy for this enchanting platform
Scalding hot tears spilt out of Ifueko’s swollen eyes mingling with the salty dribble from her nostrils into her mouth.
She wailed in reckless abandon, her swaying form gathered into itself as she interjected her pitiful cries with grief-lade idioms ‘Chi mu o, ewu ata mu igu n’isi – My God, the goat has eaten palm fronds off the top of my head’.
‘Why? Chukwu Okike. Why has such calamity befallen me, she asked her God of creation.
The repeated echos of ‘ndo, sorry’ and other words of commiseration from the growing gathering of neighbours and friends fell on deaf ears.
Her five young ones surrounded her on the bare ground of their uncompleted home, their young minds unable to comprehend the gravity of their situation as the men of the compound struggled to bring out their father’s body from the well.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Quick Glossary
Chi mu o – My God
Chukwu Okike – God of Creation
The fire raged with menace, its bright hot orange flames licked the timber with such nimble speed that in no time the house was razed to the ground.
The Darlington’s barely managed to escape the inferno with their lives and only their pyjamas on.
Thankfully, through their weeks of shock and coming to terms with their misfortune their wonderful neighbours rallied around them.
‘We are going to rebuild a bigger and better home Jo,’ Ziggy assured his wife and hugged her to his side as they stared while the workers cleared the charred remains of their former home.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Thank you, Yinglan for the photo prompt and Priceless Joy for providing this platform.
Clarisse held the silver urn close to her chest for several minutes, caressing it absentmindedly. Maybe it was her imagination, but the gentle wind grew stronger and the breeze teased her hair at the nape just the way Tim had loved to play with her hair. She felt the beautiful urn become warm in her hands, she felt his presence surround her and her eyes welled up with bittersweet tears.
This would be the final time she would hold him in her arms. She gently opened the jar and cast his ashes into the stream, watching as the gushing water carried away the remains of her love.
He had wanted to be free after being debilitated and confined for so long from an autoimmune disease. He had wanted this stream, his favourite spot on Earth to be his final resting place and she had fulfilled his last wish.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Thank you, Maria for the interesting photo prompt and my lady PJ, I appreciate this platform that you host.
Ulumma put down her basket of cassava for the umpteenth time and gasped in pain, her steps slow down as the contractions grow more painful and closer with each passing second.
The sound of critters amplifies and in the stillness of the air, the buzzing crickets, croaking frogs, mosquitoes and staccato beat of a talking drum that floated in the night air from the village increase her anxiety, reminding her how far she is from home.
She tries to dampen her ripe imagination from straying to folklores and ghoulish tales of the dead who come to do their farming after hours, but the tree limbs look ominous, gnarly and ghostly in appearance as dusk quickly falls in ‘Ubi.’
‘It wouldn’t do to have this child in this Godforsaken place’ she mutters as she trudges along, her thoughts diverting in anger toward her husband who was probably enjoying a drink of palm wine while waiting for his pregnant wife to return from the farm and make him a fresh pot of soup and fufu.
Hissing and cursing in pain, she vows not to allow him to touch her for the longest time ever.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Thank you Yarnspinner for the interesting photo prompt and my lady PJ, I appreciate this platform that you host.
Quick Glossary
Ubi – An Igbo word for farm.
He could recreate her routine to the last second, sometimes he watched and silently willed her to break it, but like clockwork, she kept to her schedule of little things.
At precisely 4.15, she would come in, a creature of habit, she loved to sit in the same chair and the quieter corner behind the shelf with Art on a bold plaque pinned to its side.
She would plug in her laptop, put on her headphones, hum and move to the soundless music as she happily chomped on Twizzlers and tapped away rhythmically on her Toshiba laptop.
At 6.30 she would rise, stretch her taut limbs that bordered on thin, go for a restroom break and return with her lips glistening pink from gloss, a powdered face and a cup of decaf from the vending machine.
Now it’s 5 minutes to 8, he watched her pack up her things, in less than two minutes she would take the stairs two at a time, sadly, she seemed happy today, it was time, so he followed behind.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
a cooking pot and twisted tales 