The Orange Seller April 20, 2011

Hello world!
I’m beating an old gong today; but the tunes are still as fresh as day. Enjoy the slow dance of wistfulness as we all try to grasp the mist outside the window..
Yours, YearningBetty

... Ifeoma ...

This was my favorite street in town; with the trees flanking both sides. This part of town was still well-kept; a home to the elite.

I tugged Lazy’s leash; my terrier dragged along. Its name was a huge understatement; the indolent narrow-headed thing didn’t believe in any form of exertion.

I was absorbed in Lazy’s non-antics for a minute that I didn’t notice her for a while. But when I did, my first emotion was indignation.

My neat, clean street had been ruined for me. She sat there; her basket of yellow oranges perched on her laps. A hawker; whose only mission was to disrupt the tranquility of my street.

“Sweet orange! Buy ya sweet orange!” She said in that sing-song voice characteristic to all hawkers.

My second thought was that she had the fairest, most beautiful legs I’d ever seen. Cute and shapely, tapering down to the graceful ankles. Legs blemished with not a spot; marred with not a scar.

My eyes snapped up to her face, taking in her round face, devoid of make-up; her dark eyes looked bored, her full brows were drawn downward; her long, dark hair tied up with a fraying red cloth.

Her name would be Chioma or Ifeoma or Chidinma; I was sure. She would know how to cook; I could tell. Those their thick soups with plenty chunks of fish.

A mental image of Cassandra popped up in my head; my girlfriend of two years. Cassandra with all her poise, classy restaurants and manicured nails. Cassandra was tall and willowy where my orange girl was petite and curvy.

My orange girl. Maybe it was the mellowness of the afternoon; or that Lazy was actually raising his head to stare at her; or maybe I was just plain crazy.

I had subconsciously walked closer. She looked up at my approach.

And it was just the two of us.

I let my mind wander, taking her home, buying her clothes, showing her the world. Running my hands through that hair; splaying my hands over those legs; smoothening, then kissing those brows. Reveling in her eyes lighting up; pooling in tears of gratitude as they gazed back at mine…

“Oga. Abi you wan buy orange?”

I slammed back to earth. I thought of the look of horror that would creep on my mother’s face when she saw her first son’s choice. The sniggers of my sisters. The sarcastic lift of my father’s brows.

And finally, I thought of how she couldn’t survive in my world. They’ll break her; destroy her spirit.

“Oga?”

So, I walked up to the orange girl and bought all 36 of her damn oranges. Then walked away; home to Cassandra.

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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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