Night, Day August 7, 2012

@readjerome shares a laconic piece with us today. Share warmth.

 

Twin fruits of the clime, both to savour. But I suffer one.

 

NIGHT, DAY

 

…night is my comforter…

 

Night is my comforter, boy. For I have lost my eyesight, and it pleases me more than a little to know that it would’ve served me no purpose when the Sun goes home, and the shadows stop following man’s step. When light is but a small fire, an occasional firefly or glowworm to tease the darkness, of what use are your eyes than to frustrate you? To tickle your desire to see and mock your inability. My old ears and nose can fare me better through the night than your eyes, boy. Night is the leveler.

 

But Day son, the day, I cannot stand. I hear your voice, the voice of a man, yet I vision the face of a boy. I hold unto your thick arms and think how muscular they must be, but all I remember is the look of your tiny hands clasped in mine. I smell the perfume of your wife; I hear the jingle of her anklets and the songs she sings for fallen warriors, and yet all I recall is the tiny girl I brought home after her father was slain in battle. It is then I need my eyes, son. To visit your mother’s grave, to pull out the weeds with my hands, and replace the flowers. The Day is the torturer.

 

 
 

…

 
 

Secrets July 31, 2012

This is where the light must not fall.
AfroSays,

 

SECRETS

 

…not again, keep him away…

 
 
That sound again, it rings from behind me. It comes.

 
It mustn’t get to me – I have to make it to the whatever-it-is-called before it reaches me. It’s faster, stronger and would soon be on me.

 
The sound is getting closer, it’s a chorus now. The other ‘it’ has joined the first. I’m running as fast as I can, so fast that I’m struggling not to fall. The floor thunders behind me, four claps apiece. The chorus is louder and more urgent.

 
My goal is before me, beyond this place. It is where I must be; this I have been denied, over and over again. I don’t care what it would cost, the whatever-it-is-called is a secret that must be partaken of. It is their secret, but soon, it shan’t be anymore in the exclusive.
 

Of course, they’re too late. With the last of my desperate spunk, I throw myself at it, with fingers strained to the fingernail.

 
No! I cry, No!

 
It grabs me and lifts me effortlessly from the presence of it that which they were to keep me from. Pain is my friend, I know him personally. Their secret was pain.

 
I scream and tears fall from the sky.

 
They are gathering now, more of them, making different sounds, low and gloomy. But one sound that they make, it’s the same as the sound that it made, that the other ‘it’ made – the sound that they all seem to agree on whenever they’re not away from me. I know this sound, but I do not know its purpose. But, this sound is a secret that they want to share.

 
The sun shines.

 
The secret that they tell me to my face with their big fangs out in a smile; the secret they shout at me in alarm whenever I rush to partake of one of their other secrets, just before they leap over to deny me; the secret that they call loudly whenever I escape from them to enjoy my own privacy. What is this secret?

 
It seems to be what they call me.

 
It is, it is my name.

 
Amarachi.

 
 

… soon …

 

 

Charming Town March 23, 2012

Buckle up bonnie lassies and fellas, tis’ good that we share a tale in the hall today with meat between our jaws and ale in our bellies, aye.

 

Kiss yer pardners as AfroSays

 

CHARMING TOWN

 

art for art's sake, yer know?

 

I am Toodulo and it’s nice to meet you. I am dah tallest lad in all Charming, as tall as a cow. I’ve got pretty long ears and dah largest blue eyes, but I’m not dah only one with these last two – tis’ dah way we all are.

 

Charming, she’s a small town and we all know we, to think it well, we’re all one big familee.

 

In Charming, we mostly make our living from beauty, them travel catalogues say we are quaint art village hidden in dah purple hills, lapping lazily on dah sea water. ‘though, dah catalogue is right about dah town itself, it says nothing about dah people. Of kerrs, yer can imagine all dah very strange people that would call an art village thurr burrough – dah gypsy, dah lover, dah effeminate, dah old painter with dah suffering marriage, dah penniless string plucker, dah fat singun’ lady, dah happy-go-lucky dancing couple, dah little genius fella, dah cantankerous fire-eater, dah black clown, dah collector plus obsessor with a plucking purse of gold coins, plus plus. We at Charming are nothing like so, nothing at all.

 

From cottage to cottage, on every cobblestone street, in every back alley where a thieving orphan or two might make bed and especially in dah Town Hall where you’d see us all gathered on days we make tah be merry, yer’ll notice something strange and unsettling, I tell yah. There is only one face in Charming and that is dah face we all share.

 

My fadahr and my modahr are brodahr and sistahr and so were dah parents of them. On dah occasion where this is cannot be, dah would be a cousin available to build a home with. No outsiders can settle in Charming, i tell yah, and no member of dah family ever leaves. All our cottages are built exactically likewise – green mud walls and sun-yellow thatched roof with two windows out front and out back. All our clothes are dah same too: dirty wooly sweaters, brown and green checkered long johns and bunny slippers. Although, we all are artists of different kinna sorts, we’re all dah same person. You can’t live in Charming if it ain’t yer surname.

 

Dah travellers-through are used to dah way we live. They never stay more than a night at Molly’s inn for potatoes and nightsack; they as well are wanting to leave inna quickin’. They never stop coming though, for we paintings, we stone work, we wood work, we jewellery, we fashion, we books, we food, we music bottles, we shows and anything else they could be hoping to make a fortune from in dah big world.

 

Them travellers-through, they pay us in inspiration, for we have nothing of needing save that. They tell us stories of how things are, about thurr families, about thurr villages, about cities as big as ten towns put togedahr, about othahr ways of life, othahr creatures, othahr fashions, othahr songs, othahr shows and we are usually satisfied. Them tales helps us to create what we are not needing but they are mighty liking. On dah next trade day, yer can be looking to find statues of winged men as tall as houses or clothes that are too small for our little ‘uns. Yer would be finding paintings of men with hair on thurr faces and cows with six legs. Tis’ what makes living in Charming so wonderful – discovering othahr parts of dah big world in every home.

 

I make music bottles, I trap me merry voice in a green flask and yah can listen to it if yah put yerr ears close’nugh. One bottle, one song. Once you let dah song out, yer can’t put it back in. Me wife, who is also me sister, she makes fashions. And though we all wearing similar johnnies, dah travellers-through, they love Binnie’s fashions. Mah Sonny, he can make a painting of running cows, aye, and he can make yah hear them footsteps thumping on the field, fast and strong that yer gonna be looking around for a stampede. I love it here with my lassy, Binnie and my sonny but sometimes I’m thinking if I want to travel the big world for myself and see all these wonderful things fer meself.

 

If I journey outta Charming, I’d be the first lad to do so, aye!

 

But if I journey outta Charming, the familee’ll never let me back.

 

 

Molly July 28, 2011

Atta beats the gong today. We’ll let his words speak for him. Come one. Come all. Here’s ‘Molly’:

Mine is the tale of a weeping sky and a cloud that had no tears to give… of an ‘if’ that was slain before it became… of the thing that you felt that you could not say. My pen is the gong they would clang if they could: I speak in their stead.

MOLLY

I named her molly. She had come here only moments before, on tiny blue wings, a bird without a name. I wanted her. There was nothing more to this desire. No end. No lofty intent. No cause. No reason. I would have her and all would be as it should. The bird was not aware of this. It did not want these things. To be caught, then owned. It did not know I named it molly or assumed it was a she. It was not particularly worldly wise or concerned with affairs of state. It was a bird, blue-winged and harmless for the most part, the unwitting object of my unreasonable desire.

But even as I watched her make those brisk, jerky motions, watched her search with a ‘something reckless’ about her, for something that never seemed to be there, I knew I could not own her. I knew that if I tried I would fail. And so, content to fail before I tried, I stood motionless, unwilling to risk her misinterpreting a sudden movement for the beginnings of a coup d’etat of sorts. For she was loyal, you see: she had sold her soul to freedom a long time ago. Maybe it was this that made me want to have her – that I could not. It is the way of all men, I imagine: always reaching.

I took her all in, stored every detail in that temporary place that disappears when the thing is gone, but while it is there, exists solely for adoration’s sake. It was as close as I could come to seizing her. But even of this, she was unwilling to let go. If I must have the details, then we would share. They were hers and they were mine. There would be no bartering.

And then far too soon, she left – ripped herself away from me, running through the air, with the part of me she’d torn away, tethered to a wing, trailing on a current.

I stared at the place where she used to be. It was still now. Silent and meaningful. I tried to see it as it could be – ‘molly-esque’, tried to see the bird again, but there was something corrupted about the memory. Something fuzzy. Something to do with something else. I did not own the details anymore.

It stung where she had pulled away. I could not find the wound. But the throb was fleeting. It was not long before I could not find the sting. It was gone just like the bird I could not remember and I was grateful to the forgetting.

But I would always know I had been hunted – circled, perhaps; named, even; baited, snared, tethered and taken – would always be haunted by the knowledge that the thing she sought was there all the time. I would never completely forget the bird. Molly. Blue-winged and harmless – for the most part.

My Darkness July 15, 2011

I AfroSays, I bid you, welcome a friend.
She is of the same journey as I.
Listen.

I, Slim, I beat the gong tonight! Yay!!
So! I beat the gong.
I beat the gong of courage, and not of war…
The courage that lies in the breast of young women as they go out into the world to be saviours of their families and clans…

Enjoy.

Boo!

———————————————
Insudantha by Slim
———————————————

I am in a chasm, with glass walls and gold edges around me. I wonder how such lavishness came to be spent in a hole underground, when the times that we live in are times of want and suffering. I peer into the mirror and I can see my jutted lips and permanent frown, etched into my forehead. Gone are the days I was called beautiful. Gone are the days of beauty.

I look behind me. The people that look back remind me where I’m going. The looks on their faces are old, old and wise from the age of suffering. The children wave, chanting their goodbyes. Their parents clutch them tightly. They are absent minded. Or single minded, for they know the singleness of my purpose. I journey to the land no one would dare go. I do not know the name or what It will be called, but the path to the place is etched in my mind.

There is deep sadness in our hearts, and it reverberates in my soul. The looks they give me, oh, so wistful! A golden drop alights on the cheek of my mother, and I see that it is the dying sun reflecting in her tears. Don’t cry for me, my mother. Don’t cry. The daughter of Insudantha would bring you back your happiness, your home, your pride…

The chasm begins its descent. It has no door, so it does not close. There is little need for a door anyway. Slowly, I begin my plunge into the earth. I face the mirrors, I face my fate. It is time. Darkness envelops me, and I remember my father’s words…

“Darkness is good, Daughter of Insudantha. It will open your mind, and prepare it for the evil that lurks within…”

It is a long descent, and despite my stoic demeanour, my mind wanders a little. I cannot deny the fear that is in me, for it settles so heavily upon my chest. This mission would be the last of its kind. There can be only one journey to kill this Evil. I do not know what to expect, because none have gone before me. What would It look like? How would it fight? Would there be trickery involved? There is nothing I despise more that duels of the mind. Fight me like a woman, match power for power and strength for strength, let it be said that the mighty Valkyrie descendant, the great granddaughter of Brynhild, slew her opponent in a worthy clash of swords and not the weak swarshes of words…

The chasm stops suddenly. The darkness is full now. It is time. I clasp my hands and try to be strong, sending a quick beseech to Brynhild, Mother of the Strong and Wise . I peer into the mirrors and I see another form. There is a creature there, so dark! I thought to myself, Lo, this must be the mother of darkness herself. She is so dark that I could only make out her form because it was darker than the darkness around us. I touch the hilt of my sword and she fingers hers too, a mocking smile lingering in her bright eyes, eyes that burned with hate and mockery and everything in between…

It was a long fight. A hard one. She knew my blows and she knew her blows, and she didn’t seem to tire out. I struck as my father had taught me but it was clear that the end was drawing near. I could see that it would not be long before I was finished. She stepped heavily on my foot and drew her pulsing dark form towards me, and I fell at her feet. The end was near. I tried to strike a final blow but she was faster than me, piercing her sword deep, bringing out the blood and water that make up my being…

I was dying. Oh, Mother Brynhild! Save my people, for their hero has failed!

Then a strange thing happened. All the mirrors began to slide open. Darkness poured into the forms behind them and started to advance, her bright eyes magnifying into a legion and boring into me. Their thirst for blood was hungry in their bright, bright eyes. They had been waiting for me. I stared deep into the eyes of the one who held me down, and realised in one painful swoop of horror, that It was I. I was the evil that lurked beneath their hearts…

———————————————
On both sides by AfroSays
———————————————

The many.

The warring many punctured the dark, cloudy skies with cries of many meanings as burning arrows rained down on both sides. Sonorous cries. Ugly cries. On both sides.

Metal found bone. Splintered wood found flesh. Kegs of black and white powder exploded, borrowing from some a leg, from others an arm. Some managed to contribute a head, their bodies alone would fight this bitter fight. There was burning and smoke and the sacrifice of souls. Holy souls. Infernal souls. On both sides.

Mighty birds or whatever they were soared in the sky, picking men and women and dropping arms and legs and whatever else remained after. Beautiful birds. Grotesque birds. On both sides.

Mighty beasts or whatever they were tore through the unfortunate ones that held rank before them. Majestic beasts. Hideous beasts. On both sides.

They was victory and defeat on both sides, an eternal ocean of warriors and there was no end to them.

One side was the colour of death, with its machines of pain and its souls and its birds, whatever they were and its beasts, whatever they were also. The other side was the colour of mercy, with its machines of pain and its souls and its birds, whatever they were and its beasts, whatever they were also.

A little village sat on a hill, its feet painted brightly in the colour of the war that was, waiting for the eventual conqueror, waiting for its king.

CLUES

Good. Evil. The battle to rule yourself.

PLEASE DO LEAVE A COMMENT. REAL FEEDBACK ON HOW THE STORY RELATES TO REAL LIFE. COMMENTS SUCH AS “DEEP” OR ANY OF ITS SYNONYMS ARE ONLY STATING THE OBVIOUS, KINDLY SHARE WHAT YOU REALLY THINK (EVEN IF IT’S THAT THE MESSAGE IS UNCLEAR) SO WE CAN ALL COMPARE IDEAS. THANK YOU.

FIND THE ART OF SLIM HERE

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Seven July 14, 2011

Afro said. Because.
I smote the gong. Because.
You listened. Because.
Forget ‘Becauses’. AfroSays:

SEVEN

...what is seven?..

Thanks for following The Trench so far. I regret not explaining how to read them right from the start. Please do not take the stories literally, they are not the usual stories with a sensible climax at the end. They are stories with hidden meanings. Always. So they might not make sense if taken at face value. Follow the clues.

I’m considering giving my interpretation at the end as well but that would ruin the experience for me as well as many other villagers. I do hope, however, to simplify the clues.

“What is Seven Sevens?”

“Forty Nine”

“What is Seven?”

“…”

“Seven is only an idea in your head, there is no seven my son. It was created so that we can count things like errr…”

“Like how many days there are in a week? Or how many chairs there are in this living room?”

“Yes son. And if there is no Seven, there are no Seven Sevens. Do you understand?”

“Father, it’s a bit confusing, but it seems I do. But how does that relate to the questions I asked you?”

“Seven exists only as an idea, but these chairs are real, whether there was an idea such as seven or not, we would still have these chairs.

You don’t need a word to quantify your feelings towards Bimpe, all you need to know is how you feel. Gauging your affection for her by some standard of society only keeps you second-guessing your feelings for her because the gauge is only an idea.

When you can tell me what Seven is, I can tell you if what you feel for her is true love, for then, I can accurately define the ideas of love and truth.

And whether you should marry her? You should know.”

“Father, your wisdom befuddles one, I better talk to mum.”

CLUES

Measuring affection by societal standards. The use of affection labels. The implications?

PLEASE DO LEAVE A COMMENT. REAL FEEDBACK ON HOW THE STORY RELATES TO REAL LIFE. COMMENTS SUCH AS “DEEP” OR ANY OF ITS SYNONYMS ARE ONLY STATING THE OBVIOUS, KINDLY SHARE WHAT YOU REALLY THINK (EVEN IF IT’S THAT THE MESSAGE IS UNCLEAR) SO WE CAN ALL COMPARE IDEAS. THANK YOU.

THANKS FOR VOTING FOR US AT THE NIGERIAN BLOG AWARDS

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...coming soon...

Time. Again. June 7, 2011

Solemn sounds emitting from this gong. Pitches of immortal anguish plaguing the soul. Listen..
RegretfulBetty

... Time... Again...

The clock doesn’t tick anymore. Its tick-tock no longer mocks me.

Maybe I can sleep now.

I threw it against the wall. Hard. The batteries fell out. It’s face cracked. The broken clock.

Silence. Ahhhh…

The loud silence resounding through this empty house. It amplified the quiet in my head.

But it didn’t last. Tick. Tock.

I looked about wildly. No clocks in sight. What ticks? What tocks?

Tick.. Aaargh! The regret and shame welling through my being.

Tock.. The unconfessed, unforgiven sin you’ll never know.

Is..Is that my heart? No.

Noooooo! I let the scream wrench from my chest.

I took in deep breaths. Willing it to quiet down. Willing it stop ticking. But it won’t.

It’s loud. This ticking. This tocking. Because it comes from inside. I can’t take out the batteries… Can I?

Can I?

I can see you. I still see your reflection in my eyes.

But if I end it, the pain will end. I don’t deserve to be free of pain. There’s no healing in this pain.

I deserve to rot in pain. Writhe and languish in this den of torture that I have built for myself.

Why did I do it? I don’t know. I can’t explain it away. Can’t justify it. That’s part of the pain.

And when I had sated the pleasures of my body, the hole in my soul still remained. Only you could fill that. But that was when the call came. After I had had my epiphany. That you were it. They said you were gone. Gone?

No. I want you to have been here when I got home. To have asked you to forgive me. To have watched you cry and curse at me. To have told you there could only be you.

But you were gone. Are gone.

I’m a broken man. But it’s your time that is over.

But that’s all I have. Time. Time is all I have.

Time. Without you.

Just time. Endless time.

And this tick-tocking heart will always mock me. Until my time ends.. But every second seems like an eternity.

Tick. Tock.

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Savvy Morons June 2, 2011

If you don’t know the song the gong is playing, don’t act like you do. AfroSays:

SAVVY MORONS

Mmmm... deep!

A bowl of honey loops in vinegar.
A pot of noodles cooked in palm oil.
An Amala Jam doughnut.
A yellow dot.
A unicorn with a half-eaten corn cob for a horn.
A fountain pen with water for ink.
A river that flowed in two directions at once.
A cat on its back.
A hole.
A song with with the lyrics sang backwards.
A rotting diamond.
A mule.

“Interesting..”

“Poignant!”

“Deep!!”

“I am edified!!!”

“This is a brilliant juxtaposition of the elements of nature and humanness in colorful array.”

“The tears of one at war with the socio-cultural ambiguity of today’s terse intelligence.”

“Salient!”

I looked at them all, the critics, as they shared their opinions of the art exhibition. They all gave positive reviews, none of them with courage enough to voice his lack of understanding. A glass of expensive wine in each hand, they nodded like lizards and made funny faces in a public show of erudition.

My art.

My art was to prove a point.

The art was art alright. Not deep art, not poignant art, and definitely not edifying in any way. It was simply a product of random imagination brilliantly executed. I am an artist renown: A sculptor, a photographer, a chef, a writer and a songwriter. I am successful in all these endeavors. This good fortune of mine translates to goodwill in everything else I do. It is that simple!

“What was the point?”, you may ask.

“Don’t you see it already?”, I would ask in turn.

There is bias in every judgement and very few would tell you how they really feel. Better yet, maybe the critics say what they really feel, maybe my success is a veil over their eyes, so that they cannot see objectively anymore. If you ask any of them what his comments really means, he would launch into an even more equivocal explanation that arrives at no point in particular.

You don’t get it yet?

Ask a simple man who does not know me and therefore does not know that he is expected by society to react in a certain manner. He would tell you that the exhibition does not make any sense whatsoever. He is not shallow, he is honest.

“What is the point?”, you still ask?

Read tomorrow’s papers. On the front page, I would tell the world a story.

The story of an artist who’s real art was to watch people make a fool of themselves, acting out the dog-eared script of ‘tag-along’ because society expects them to . The fools of this joke are the ones everybody thinks wise. The ones who even more so, think themselves wise.

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The wish April 18, 2011

Hello folx!

This is a quickie.

I just thought to wish you a great week

My gong is a peeled, faded white. Telling ghost stories. Ghosts you’re familiar with and you’ve tried to hide from. They’re here because AfroSays:

THE WISH

... I want ....

She closed her eyes and made a wish. She was not required to speak it out, she just had to want it in her heart.

She knew what she wanted. She wanted him, but a true wish was not to be wasted, he’d told her that much. He’d also told her to be careful; wishes were bridges linking the real world which she lived in with the fantasy world that he came from. She could have anything she wanted. Anything. And that was the danger.

At first she didn’t believe him. She’d fought the idea that someone so real could be a figment of her imagination, a simple idea, but he’d explained it all to her.

Her faith had drawn him in.

She needed a man but men barely noticed her. She had been surprised that night when he suddenly appeared next to her and asked her to dance. She hadn’t been able to resist; he was the man of her dreams.

But he had to leave, return to the intangible world that he came from. Before he left, he’d told her that her desire had been so strong that night she had forced him into being. Although, she knew he had spoken the truth, she felt defensive and even though she didn’t say a word, she’d thought him a self-absorbed chauvinist dog.

She’d looked at him with one eyebrow raised as he’d gone on to tell her that he would leave a bridge to his world open, so that she could wish for anything she wanted, just one thing, by focusing her desires on it.

His words seemed gibberish to her till he slowly began to fade away right before her eyes. Nobody else noticed.

Only one part of him remained, a gentle ambience, a murmur of light, and she then knew she had to make a wish.

Then she believed him. Yes she did, but she thought it was all a dream, that she would wake up to her lonely life again in the morning. She decided that she believed, that she would indulge in the dream.

Foolish woman!

He watches her from his world trying to explain the police how she got locked in a central bank vault. That was the only place with as much cash as she’d imagined.

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Colours April 13, 2011

I’m beating a blue gong today. The color of the skies on a bright day. Let your senses inhale as you drift in time..
Yours, FloatingBetty.

..flashes of...ecstasy...

There was silence.
Then a flash of blue.
It was like a comet. It was gone that fast.
Then it was green. Then red. Then yellow.
A kaleidoscope of colors flashed before her eyes and she gasped in delight in the pure ecstacy of it all.
She giggled.
It occured to her that she knew not where she was; or if she was.
But this thought was banished from her mind almost immediately.
No questions here. Just being.
The flashes of colours increased in intensity and though she felt dizzy, she didn’t shut her eyes against them.
She luxuriated in them, let her grin grow wider and she sighed in joy.

The waking up didn’t come like a jerk. No, it didn’t.
It was like a snow flake falling lazily to the ground.
She felt herself return to her body slowly and when she opened her eyes to the darkness, she sighed.

‘David. Wake up. David!’ She nudged him.
‘Darling, why are you up?’, his voice growled sleepily.

‘David, I had a dream.’
He sat up. For she never dreamt. Could this mean.. ‘What about?’
‘David, I believe.. I believe I saw colors.’
‘And do you still see them?’ He asked tentatively.
‘No, I’m back to the darkness.’
‘Oh.’

He tried to hide the disappointment in his voice. For she had been blind from birth. It was probably just a wish.

She heard it though. But she cared not. For even if it were(was) just for a few moments; she had seen.
And she was happy.

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