October 2000 It is a Sunday of warm breezes and gentle sunshine when he asks you to accompany him to fetch the sheep from beyond the small forest of white-stemmed thorn trees and umpaki. The invitation comes as a surprise. It’s the first time anybody here invites you to do anything like this, though you […]
(In memoriam Uncle Ifeanyi Ezeanuna) I am in front of plot 72, Kwame Nkrumah Crescent, Asokoro, Abuja, to evoke Uncle Ifeanyi’s ghost. I look for a sign in the gigantic khaya senegalentis, at the birds in the clear blue sky, in the few cars zooming by. I seek a reason to go home, to […]
Of course, the older man was thirty-five years old and, of course, one day he told the younger man that he was getting married to a woman. He said this while they were in the older man’s three-bedroom high-rise apartment in Ikoyi. They were in the older man’s kitchen, making breakfast together. The older man […]
Under the clear night sky, our neighbours struck up a vigil for Bunie in the open street. The bonfire they made from old car tires sparkled. The flames licked the air. While they danced around it, the fire lit the faces of the little boys Bunie had given free haircuts to on Saturdays and the […]
You came to me beside the goal post when it was almost night, and the matches were over. You didn’t say a word, and I didn’t look up. You watched me take off the soccer boots and roll the hoses off my legs. I packed my things in my Cowbell bag, slung it across my shoulder, ready to go, before you talked.
The absence of change, supposed to make him happy, instead saddens him, and he lies on the bed, which creaks slightly with his weight. For the first time since getting back, he feels a heaviness in his soul and wonders if the universe conspires to preserve the things that cause so much hurt.The absence of change, supposed to make him happy, instead saddens him, and he lies on the bed, which creaks slightly with his weight. For the first time since getting back, he feels a heaviness in his soul and wonders if the universe conspires to preserve the things that cause so much hurt.