Stripped ~ 1 (Series)

Just sitting in my birthday gift to myself, a Mercedes Benz GLE and with a Chris Aire engagement ring for the love of my life in my right hand. Tonight I’m taking Tomi out and putting this ring on her finger. It is long overdue. You don’t want to know, trust me.

“Akin you better drive with your body, spirit and soul in this traffic because I will not take it lightly with you if I see any scratch or dent on this car. You better face the road and stop smiling like a goat that just got his lips shaved off”.

It’s my 28^th birthday and no one sent gifts, cakes or even greetings my way. Even Tomi my girlfriend of 14 years and all my friends. Wow, does everyone just hate me over night. I hope this is not the beginning of my Job experience “shut up O2, you take things too personal. Just get home man”. Well I just can’t wait to get this ring on her finger.

Oh sorry for not introducing myself, this birthday thing is getting to me. Osasere Osagie is my name, my friends call me O2 because of my initials.  An accomplished young entrepreneur is who I am, don’t make that face jooor, I am pretty much accomplished. My team and I are responsible for “Group Study” and “Living waters” besides I made it to “Forbes 30 under 30 individuals changing the Africa”. I’m not usually this proud but a man’s got to blow his trumpet sometimes. Wait I didn’t tell you Tomi calls me her tall glass of dark chocolate milkshake, yea I guess it’s expected when you are six feet and five inches with a sexy body. I am not vain. I just love me.

For some reason, with all my accomplishments I still feel empty. There’s a void that needs to be filled. A lot of times I pretend not to know what it is, that makes me feel this way. Trying to get rid of this feeling, means going to look for that missing slate and that is something my pride and anger won’t let me do. It is just hard. Today will be a significant day in my life. These kind of days are to be shared with friends and family. I dread days like this. No no no no wait, you don’t understand. Days like this remind me that I have no family left in the world. My parents separated when I was 14 years old, my Dad passed on ages ago and I have no clue if my mum is still alive, all my grandparents kicked the bucket too. Growing up as a kid in Lagos, Nigeria was so much fun. Dad taught me how to play soccer. Every Saturday morning, we’d drive to the beach to play soccer, then have breakfast while enjoying the sea breeze and watch the waves. My dad was my mentor, my role model. On some Saturdays mum would come with us, she was my biggest fan. When I joined the soccer team in school, she would come watch me, she never missed any of my games. My mum was my biggest cheerleader and the best chef. My mum was Ibibio, if you know women from that area you’ll know they are a natural when it comes to cooking. There was no soup she couldn’t make, was it Afang, Atama abak, Ikon, Edikai nkong name it. Every soup was stuffed with a variety of sea food and well roasted goat meat. I really miss those days.

Finally home. This is my Victoria Island home, it is a beautiful five bedroom duplex, with a three bedroom boys quarters or guest house like Tomi always calls it. It has a basketball court, a pool area, a gym and a garden. Babe seems to thinks it’s a big property but I think it’s just ok.

Everywhere is so quiet, did Tomi leave me already or did something happen, different thoughts going through my head. Walking into the living room, it is pitch-black and quiet but I feel the presence of humans in the room. I switch on the lights and then voices just start singing happy birthday. I almost ran out but looking across the room I knew everyone in there. Tomi just stood there smiling at me like the angel that she is.  I was close to tears but I did a good job fighting it. My closest friends were all present. I hugged Tomi so tight. The party began, I didn’t even want to get out of my work clothes. There was a lot of food. Dj Sagie my friend, was there to deliver good music. I danced my ass off. Trust me I got moves from Azonto to Shoki to Nae Nae, I’ve got it all.

After what seemed like hours the music faded out and my all-time favourite person in the world had something to say about me and my journey so far. Tomi’s words got me all emotional and brought tears to my eyes. We’ve been best friends before we decided to start dating 14 years ago. So she has been there through it all, in plenty and scarce she stayed put. She believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself. When she was done with her speech, it was my turn to go all John Legend on her.  This wasn’t the plan but it was more perfect that what I had planned, after adorning her with the crown of every beautiful adjective, I couldn’t bring myself to ask her the life changing question “will you marry me?” After my unprepared speech, we danced a little more before our guests began to leave one after the other, till everyone was gone and it was just us two.

Babe made me go up for a shower, she said ‘by the time you are done with bathing get in your pyjamas and come down your birthday gift will be right here waiting for you.’ Filled with so much anxiety, I hurriedly had my bath got into one of my old Chelsea jerseys and a pair of pyjama pants. I ran down the stairs like an excited kid who can’t wait to unwrap his present. Tomi was there in the living room sitting with a woman. I was confused as to who this was, or what she was doing here, is she the gift? Could Tomi be considering a threesome just after I proposed to her, well let’s see. Walking towards the living room, babe gave me that flashy smile from across the room. This made me more uncomfortable. The lady will not turn her face towards me, so I walked up to her closely. Then she raised her head and I almost had a heart attack, WHAT! I fell to the ground...

Uduakobong Etukudo writes from Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

Umudike

"MIsericordias Domini in aeternum cantarbo..."

The cold humming continued as members of the Taize community sang their way through my very essence via the car stereo. The low temperature inside the car completed the requirements for a dull morning. Then, I was thirsty!

"Pooommmmm!!!", came the most obvious sound from a hurrying taxi as I let down my window to summon "the-kid-with-the-coke". I just couldn't imagine the sharp difference. Heat waves from the window. A mixture of all sorts of sounds from all sorts of unfriendly sources. Dust particles flying at random from shuffling feet in the dirty tar-like stretch of a road. Signposts by the roadside were as many as the total population of Madagascar. It was almost impossible to drive through here unscratched. This is UMUDIKE!

"Oga, which one?", the-kid-with-the-coke asked, amidst other competitors. I had seen the particular bottle of coke I wanted to drink from a distance. Infact, I could spot it from a million bottles of coke in Abia State. It had the inscription "Share a Coca Cola with Gabriel". Of course, the most comfortable thing in life is to drink a chilled bottle of coke ALONE! I am not a marketer actually, 'm just being realistic.

Since I wouldn't want to have a kid's brain splashed on my face, I drove slowly a bit forward, off the road. The-kid-with-the-coke magically moved at the same pace with my car, no matter how sporadic the changes in speed became. I had to quietly swipe my side mirror down to be sure he had not straddled himself to my car. Surprisingly, he had not.

The-kid-with-the-coke looked 8, smart, intelligent, could easily read my mind, spoke good grammar...yet, was not in school! There were millions like him around here.

While he pointed the bottle at me, I thought through the fact that there were billionaire politicians in this same community. Education was preached as a free commodity.

Just before I could reach the N100 note in my pocket, the-kid-with-the-coke had vanished; with his bottle of coke. Then, I heard the blarring siren of a police van...towards where I had parked. My heart-beat increased. 

As the dark-tanned Police-Man walked towards my window even before their van came to a total halt, I shot a glance to confirm the presence of the wig on my dashboard. Then, I slowly let the window roll down again and smiled; this time, with the confidence of a lawyer who just won a case against the government.

"Yes? How may I be of help officer?"

I am i~Witness.

Save the Black Child

The evening dew settled on everything around and harmattan dust decorated them to a different flavor. The humming sound of the strolling river spoke volumes to my soul. My heartbeats became like an accompaniment to the river music.

 For several minutes, my eyes felt like they were not permitted to stare away from the waters. Yet, each time they belched, my heart sank to its very depths. When I finally gathered the courage to look around, I realised how late it had become. The beach side was completely abandoned. The Michael Kors time piece on my left wrist screamed a tick; it was 8 o'clock.

Thoughts of stories of mermaids swimming out to river banks at unholy hours caused a tremor in my stomach. As I hurried away, my feet struggled to jumble through the thick pile of quicksand. The blue Amazon tie I wore kept flipping into clear view in response to wind direction. Suddenly, my eyes caught sight of the object of my fears.

An object lay quietly just a distance away. Oh no, rather, a couple of objects. I attempted a diversion, yet laziness and the length of the new distance brought me to a standstill. I produced the thick glasses; my spare eyes, and stuck them on. This thing has a grande relationship with my bone-filled face. It just sits in and hugs the face like a gorilla in heat. Just as it settled into position, the objects became magnified. And I saw, for the first time, the image of a tired child, lying beside a bag of pure water, a plate, a spoon, an old piece of canvas shoes for a pillow, a little heap of clothes and covered with two scanty pieces of whatever rags these were.

My legs wobbled as I gathered the guts to walk towards the heap. She looked 9. Frozen in the cold. Unperturbed even by nature. I simply sat beside her, pulled my glasses and let the tears flow freely. I pulled my suit and added to her self-constructed set of duvét. She smiled in her sleep and stirred as if to appreciate the increase in beachside temperature. As my teeth started clattering in the cold, it occured to me that this one could simply die out, unnoticed; and her corpse swept away by the ragging river.

While I sat, lost in thought; she woke with a start. "Officer please don't arrest me again, I have no way else to go. My mummy and daddy have died and my aunty said she will kill me if I don't sell all these pure water", she begged, almost wailing. Obviously, she has been threatened or even arrested severally. I simply pulled her closer. "I am no officer", I replied. Her heartbeat hurriedly slowed down as tears splashed from her eyes on my wrist watch. "What happened to you?", I asked. "My name is Edidiong." She began, in plain English. Her throat was cracked, I could detect it from her voice.

While the bag of pure water lay protected like diamonds, Edidiong excused me, strolled towards the flowing river and lapped off some water in a doglike fashion. I sat there, frozen and in tears as she hurried back, sat closely beside me, tugged herself beneath my left arm and began her story.

I am i~Witness.

What If...

There is nothing in this world I hate more than a January morning in England. Oh! How I detest the dampness, the fog and most certainly the frost in the air that comes with it. However, all that I could live with but for the fact that a January morning in England is also deceitful. The brightness in the sky gives you a false hope that heaven heard your prayers last night and it just might be  -2 degrees rather than -10 degrees. Ten times out of ten, it is latter rather than the former.

Nothing was bringing me down today, not the frost, not the damp and most certainly not the disappointment that the brightness in the sky presented a false hope of a sunny day.  It was -13 degrees and yet I was determined to have a great day!

Phew phew phew … I whistled happily as I walked to the 79 bus stop. Today is going to  be good day  I thought to myself as I waited impatiently for the bus to arrive. 

“Where is the bus anyway?” I spoke quietly to myself. Of course I did not want to be mistaken for a retard.

“Whop! Whop!” I coughed in an attempt to disguise my whispering from the people waiting at the bus stop with me.

“Wow that was close”, I thought.

Imagine if they concluded that I was a retard. I obviously would be given a wide breath when the bus arrives and we finally get to file in. It is bad enough that I am an African girl living in England, I did not want anyone thinking I was a retard as well. That would be double trouble.

I stretched my hand to signal the bus as it whooshed pass me.

“Bloody bastard!” I shouted at the bus driver, this time not bothering to disguise my words with even a sneeze. I regretted my impulsive words immediately as everyone turned in my direction. Oh great! now they think I am an aggressive, ill-mannered African girl.

“Who bloody cares anyway?” I thought to myself. At least, I was bold enough to say what all of them were thinking.

I boldly looked each one of them in the eye and dared them to say anything. Everyone seemed to suddenly receive a very important text message on their phone, as they all quickly whipped out their phones and tapped vigorously at it while avoiding any eye contact with me.

I must stress the fact that I shy away from using profanity, as much as I can of course. But I dare anyone who lives in a country where profane words are used like an elder in Umuanunu village uses proverbs, not to swear at least twice a day. As a child, my mother would threaten to wash my mouth out with Omo detergent if I swore. In fact I can truly say that I couldn’t say a swear word until I was eighteen. Eight years later, I still hesitate to do so except in exceptional circumstances, and I think the current circumstance warranted at least 3 swear words. In my defence, I only used two.

The bus had taken its maximum capacity of passengers therefore could not stop at the bus stop where I waited, to take in anymore passenger. That's just my luck!.

A good day was slowly turning to a bad day. Nevertheless, I was determined not to let that happen. I was not going to let a minor bus incident steal my joy and so I clung to my happiness like a drowning swimmer clutching at a broken twig. Desperation, I swear is the mother of invention. 

My mind sought new ways to entertain itself. I thought to myself, if I had my life to live over, would I change anything?

At first, I riled at the idea that I would want to change anything about my life. I am well educated, I have food on my table, the clothes on my back are of a good quality and to top it all off, I have a family that loves me unconditionally. Why then would I want to change anything about my life? I thought.

As I thought about my perfect life, doubts began to creep into my mind and before long I realised that I had changed my answer to the question. My life was not so “perfect” after all.

It needed a few tweaks here and there.

If I had to live my life over again, instead of wishing away the years in boarding school and whining about the punishments, watery soup and cold baths, I'd have relished every minute of it and recognised that they were the years that shaped my future and the only chance I had in life to cast my cares aside, to live without major responsibilities.

I would never have maintained my father roll up the car windows during our trips to the village just because I was afraid of a little dust settling on perfectly ironed dress. A dirty dress was like a tiny speck of dust compared to the troubles life brought with it.

I would have encouraged my friends over for a visit even though our sofa was faded and we had no cable t.v. In doing so, I would have been able to easily separate the wheat from the chaff.

I would have taken the time to listen carefully to my grandfather, my grandmother, my mother and my father as they ramble about their youth. For truer words of wisdom were never spoken that those that fell from an experienced tongue.

I would have lit the pretty pink, passionate red and baby blue candles that were shaped like cupcakes before they melted in storage.

I would have lay on the lawn with my siblings and cousins and never worried about grass stains.

I would have laughed and cried less while watching television and reading my novels ... and bit more while watching real life.

I would have shouldered more of the duties and responsibilities carried by my Father and Mother which I took for granted. I would have eaten more ice cream and less salads.

I would have hugged my mother a little more, said I love you to my father even when he upset me, listened to my brother brag about his achievements, allowed my sister launch my favourite dresses and never complain when she borrowed my stuff and never returned them.

Given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it, see it for the blessing it really is, try everything at least once, laugh recklessly, cry shamelessly, love desperately and never give any minute of my life back, I will use them all until there was nothing left of it.

“Excuse me, are you catching this bus?” an unknown said to me.

Firmly dragging me away from my musing.

“Yes. Thank you” I replied as I watched another bus 79 slowly make its way to the bus stop where I stood. This time thankfully, it did not whoosh past me!

It may yet be my lucky day.

I am i~Witness. 

Chukwunonye Chinwe writes from Nottingham, England.