a fly is a fly...

 

There used to be a story that mma used to tell us. She used to say that the fly that roams at night isn’t a fly but a firefly; I would occasionally pass a cursory glance at her whenever she told us such stories, “…but a fly is a fly mma”. “No my son, after yam is pounded, it is called fufu”. The puzzled look on my face always left her smiling. It was as if her aim was to throw me into a deep dark well of confusion.  

The sparks of fire from the little bonfire spread apart as the moon rested high up the reposing sky. The crickets went silent; the sound of the rats fleeing from snakes in the bush became more audible. “…and after a long day, the dog finally met the fly at night…” mma concluded. “But mma, did the fly become a firefly?” I asked. “No my son, I shall ask my grandfather at Potiskum and let you know what he says”. Mma always spoke about her grandfather at Potiskum. Mma had really white hair and her shiny skin looked like a parched landscape in January. I always wondered what her grandfather would look like. I asked my mother about mma’s grandfather, she smiled and told me to go and help my sisters pick the little stones out of the rice. But I asked Aisha and she said mma’s grandfather was a ghost; he lived in a cemetery in Potiskum. I couldn’t sleep that night; I dreamt about him.

I still remained being that curious child who questioned everything that came his way. Several years passed until I got here… 

   

Sweat dripped down my face as it dropped near my bended knees on the desert sand. I couldn’t look at my captors; not even a cursory glance like I used to give mma. My lips trembled; I couldn’t speak, not even a simple question like I used to ask mma. I remembered the story mma told me about a man who was killed for his beliefs. She said he was a martyr and that Allah put his soul inside a green bird. I told her I wanted to be a green bird and then she smiled; that smile, unlike her usual smiles, got engraved in my heart.

“Kill him…” I felt the dark shadow of the gun’s barrel behind my head. As the gang leader walked away, he lit a cigarette and said in words reminiscent of my childhood “a fly is a fly…” There was a loud gunshot, several others followed.

Green bird… I thought… but the chance had eluded me. Bullets hit the thugs who had captured me. Suddenly I longed to spend time with Mma again, to hear her tell us stories, to ask her silly questions and to watch her smile at me.

   

I remembered her smile, that smile… and then I smiled as soldiers from my platoon carried me away.

As I lost my sleep...

 

The mosquito buzzed through the room as I lost my sleep to its unwanted company. I had drawn the sheets over my body and covered my face with what was left. I threw my hands across my ears and over my head but she kept returning like an over-domesticated cat. I couldn’t stand her company anymore so I got off the bed and switched on the light. I sat looking around for her. She had absconded, the creepy little blood sucker.

The fajr adhaan resonated through the neighbourhood - my day, technically, had already started. I had to wake my father up for the prayer as usual- the old man couldn’t trust the white man’s toy to wake him up. “When I was growing up, the fear of our mother’s water wetting our faces forced us up for fajr” he’d say whenever I insisted he get himself an alarm or at least allow me get him one.  

It was dark, and the moon had cast its light on the compound after the electricity company took its break. I walked towards his door and knocked gently, not wanting to wake the scornful neighbours up. I yawned as I rubbed my sore eyes from the terrible sleep I was forced out of. I walked off to perform ablution before my father got out to join me.

I returned to his door, surprised that he still hadn’t woken up. His room was dead quiet. I knocked slightly harder and I couldn’t hear the usual grunts he makes when he wakes up. I mentioned his name through the window sill. Still dead silence... What could have happened to him?

Thoughts of how my father found my mother dead flooded my mind. I knocked harder at the door and called his name out loud. The neighbours began waking up. I couldn’t be bothered. The door had to be broken down. Even if he wasn’t dead yet, I felt I could at least save him. I forced open the trap door. The neighbours were awake now but too scared to come out because of the darkness and rate of crime in the neighbourhood. I wasn’t going to let my old man die without me.

As I raised my foot to break his door open, someone spoke to me, “Dela, nukeyjor?” I turned around to see my father looking at me, bewildered by the intended action. I sighed. Mixed feelings of anger and happiness made a cocktail out of my reaction. He could have at least told me he was going to spend the night in the mosque.  

  

...the beardless men

Basking in the flames of defeat,
the beardless men asked for the leper’s hand.
While the clouds swept in
like a desert sandstorm.

And she smiled again;
Not because she’d seen the beardless men fall back
But because the score had been settled.

 

She remembered when her sisters were dishonoured,
When the throats of the noisy little kids next door were slit,
As the once proud men on the street were stripped naked and tortured,
She remembered the boy who starved to death,
And the girls who traded their pride for food,
As the world watched on unperturbed.

 

But then the clouds marched in
Shading the homeless from the sun
And pouring rain to wash away the filth left behind by the beardless men.

 

The clouds spread;
Reaching town upon town,
Field upon field,
Until eyes turned green
While others turned red
In envy and hatred.

 

Then the dogs started to bark at the clouds
While they wagged their tails at the beardless men.
The dogs, the friends of the beardless men
And the clouds, too far up to be bothered by the dogs…

 

The women of this world
Are of two camps;
Those whose desires are for the dun’ya  
And those whose hearts yearn for the aakhira while working towards it.

 

Let the beardless men
Acknowledge their weakness
And let the sincere lions charge at the filthy hyenas
That crossed the boundary.

 

This world is like a path.
You can either keep walking
Or you can camp beside the path like the disbelievers
And watch the travellers rush to Allah’s promise.

 

But do we see
Or do we look?
Are we Muslims
Or are we just people?

Where are our hearts?

Are our wealth and lives too precious
To be sacrificed for our aakhira?

 

Or maybe, we just don’t understand
What Islaam really is…

    

Cock-Shithole Unions

After successfully writing a sequel to The University Required Phone, I went cherry picking in the fields of my old classic top 10% blog posts. A lot has changed since I last wrote most of them. Out of the over 60 posts they have remained as the most popular 10% for a long while. This time I’m rewriting ‘I Need A Woman’. It’s only normal that I choose to work on this next- considering the fact that every man needs a woman.

So even before I jump into why I’m writing this, I just want to mention a little observation I made about something worth observing that I actually observed while observing other things I had intended observing before chancing upon that little observation. Oh yes, life isn’t like a box of chocolate bars so you don’t get the ease that comes with eating chocolate in real life – even if you do.

Great! Since you’ve made that little observation too then me thinks us is good to go! Don’t mention grammar, or that crap about grammar. I’m supposed to have that thing they call poetic license- that thing that lets me justifiably make mistakes and get away with it. Because, hey! I just said hey! And there is no, absolutely no – English enforcer that can strip me of my poetic license because hey! I have a problem with why you can actually have a problem when there is really no problem considering the fact that that little observation is what got us here.

I visited a couple of blogs and I noticed a trend. Some bloggers be like “I haven’t blogged in a while…blah blaaah blaaaah… “…writers block… hah haaah haaaah” bbblllll, %$£%^^()&^$$”£$%^&&**. Glad I got that off my chest. Words can’t explain how these things find their way up here. Keep that little observation in mind – I’m not done, not yet. But yes of course every man needs a woman. Except the biologically and socially awfully misdirected ones who prefer their women without ‘wo’. The dude writing this must be homophobic to the core! Let’s label him and marginalize him because the shithole loving cocks can’t stand those who just won’t stoop so low to legitimize cock-shithole unions.

How on earth did women go wrong that some men decided to hit on fellow men? How can you not love a woman; they are overly sentimental, extremely dramatic, always nagging, never wrong and entirely right always – just don’t disagree with them else all this won’t make any sense. So which man still prefers a man to a woman after I painstakingly listed all those unique features?  See how that little observation is gently creeping out?

What?

No?

Not seeing anything?

The little observation is; the world is just a messed up place. That’s how come it’s now socially wrong to frown upon cock-shithole unions. But no, I shan’t hide my resentment and utter disgust! And yes I’ll always be homophobic. Call me backward, closed minded and whatever label that has been created for people like me but I just won’t support an act that even horny he-goats won’t think of.

Now you see why I need a woman?

No, No… No… see why every man needs a woman?

these words that i wrote...

Voices down the alley

Voices behind the ears I had

A second thought

And then silence pervaded

Not from behind my ears

But down the alley

That I once took lonely walks on

Memories of the man I was

Clash with the man I am

I’m torn between then and now

The middle path is only a temporal thought

I’m the thorn between the paws of the beast

And the earth that gave me comfort…

I didn’t intend to be the reason why

The beast bled

And destroyed the tender plumules

That greened the dusty bare earth.

A thousand more reasons

Why the tree must shed off leaves

And the one reason why

A well pruned tree grows well

Gaze set on the horizon;

The nothingness of today

And the false hope that

A tomorrow here might be better…

Bump…

Up and down

Like the head of the domestic lizard.

Thoughts of when

I helplessly watched lizards

Murdered by my sadistic elementary school mates

But her smile evades my thoughts,

Then the shy look in her eyes.

The clouds boast of beauty too

Though our eyes only reach the horizon

Back and forth

Like a tennis ball

Who we are today

And who we might be tomorrow

Are two different images

In the same frame…

I’ve no better words

Or no more thoughts

Than the one that reads

These words that I wrote

While journeying to the highest peak…