My parents got separated and I was forced to move into my Uncle's house. Uncle Max lives in a different state in Nigeria, close to the state that I used to live in. My journey to Uncle Max’ house was smooth and within a couple of days, I was settled.
It was late in the night and the sun had faded away to give the moon an opportunity to shine in the sky when Uncle Max came to my room and woke me up. He was a fair man who was in his early forties. He was single and was yet to start making up any plans for marriage.
"You need to get ready for school, tomorrow," Uncle Max said, stretching his arms. "I have already found a new school that can fit a person of your standard." He looked round the room at the carelessly flung bags, books and shorts over the chair.
"What of my elder sister and junior brother? Are they not coming to Enugu?" I asked, grinning.
"No! They are not coming to Enugu," Uncle Ma
One might start a journey with a footstep, the thrill of an amazing adventure and bearing in mind, whatever he or she may be able to discover at the other end of the road. Life means considerably more than just living and most of the time we get trapped in our daily activities that we forget to realise that our imperfect bodies needs some form of excitement. But Uncle Max did not see life the way I saw it – rather he went to work, came back from work, ate, sleep and then repeat. With a new smile on his face every morning, he always joked about his boss calling him a loner. Something I was not unfamiliar with. A loner is a man who is alone. A man who enjoys avoiding the company of others. As off as it may sound, Uncle Max was a loner. A staunch man who had learnt to see spending time alone in his room as pleasure, oblivious to the fact that he was damaging himself.I formed a faint smile on my face as i thought of the night before, when Uncle Max had a remarkable o
By dawn, Dad, Mum, Christle, Danny and some relatives were already waiting for Uncle Max and I in Dad's apartment in Port-Harcourt. Before a large bowl filled with garden eggs was passed round the gathering, we had washed our hands in a common basin as a sign of unity before inviting God to ensure that the rest of our days go well. Everyone was smiling, including Dad and Mum who were divorced or better still, who felt they were divorced. Legally, it takes usually about four to six months before a divorce is finalized but my parents were resistant on any conversation that ended with them getting back together. Dad proudly told everyone in his workplace that he was a single man if anyone had the boldness to bring up the question of his marriage. On the other hand, Mum had pulled off the ring Dad gave to her when he proposed to her, from her index finger and told me the last time I saw her that she was divorced and married to the man that she was living with even though the man was yet
I dont like when the scorching sun hits my dark skin but there is nothing I can do about it anyway. The heat was a battering ram. I basked in it anyway not minding how hot it grew. The sky was tossing huge balls of sweat, the size of broken buttons forcefully pulled off from shirts. I could feel the rain coming. The soft drizzle hitting my skin like the sound of jazz music soothing my eardrums, like a distorted massage from a beautiful masseuse. The rain had the ability to drown the heat and put me away from the misery I felt as I walked alone to school, but it was as insignificant as following the advice of Uncle Max to stop at the bungalow owned by my classmate's parents. Goodness was a year older. Unlike Clag, he was a nerdy teen who liked to socialize.Being under the heat of the sun and waiting for the rain to fall is like holding a ladybug, the flutter of its shell-like front wings like a small tidal wave— smaller and safer than the tsunami that hit Lituya B
I and Goodness got to school when the school prefect rang the school bell and the assembly was about to begin. Taking Uncle Max's advice was the best thing I did this morning after a long time of avoiding Goodness' house. Listening to Goodness talk about his life in Warri, a boisterous city in Delta State, Nigeria was the start of an epic friendship. A friendship I am hoping would last for a long period of time.The morning assembly was brief. Unlike my former school in Port-Harcourt, my new school did not like wasting time in forcing students to form lines and coordinating some few elects to lead the rest students in hymns before announcing whatever changes the school had made or were making.About three teachers were waiting at the of the school as soon as the time was a minute past eight. According to school policies, it was not right for a student to enter the school premises after the time had passed eight. The prefect given the post to ensure that all the student
Miss Bisi worried about Uncle Max so did I. She did not know how best to approach the situation and tell him how she felt about the way he treated her. She was hoping that after the night that he had rejected her, he would return to his right senses and dial her number, but he seemed keener to spend his free time alone rather than spend it with a woman who was showing him affections he was not used to. In the meantime, although she was afraid of putting all her efforts on Uncle Max, some things were quite different about Uncle Max, at least not in a way that reduced her chances with him. It helped her to know that Uncle Max could still love her one day and probably even ask for her consent to marry him. Miss Bisi was getting older every day and as she marked her thirtieth birthday, she knew she would be expecting a reminder from her mother to get married as soon as possible. There was also another woman who usually paid Uncle Max a
The great Mother Teresa once said, "Let us meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love." The girl who sells in a small kiosk close to our school has been eye-balling me for weeks and I have been ignoring her too for weeks, hoping in her own time or reason she would consider how inappropriate all her gestures were.The girl who sells with a smiling face in the school canteen is the same girl that sells in a small kiosk. Today, I stared at her and returned her smile back. Trying to follow the wise words of Mother Teresa, I drew a hand of friendship, stretching my hands towards her. She laughed and looked at me not in a class-stalker way, or in hearty-crazy kind of way but in a way that makes me feel so uncomfortable."How are you?" She said."I am fine," I replied then added, "and you?""If I told you that I wasn't really feeling good would you take good care of me?" She asked, not smiling or flashing her eyelids."It depends o
Apart from the fact that British footballer, Ian Wright was born today, there was also something special about the third day of November. It was sunday. The day the “Holy Bible said God rested after creating the world in a period of six days. I try not to imagine the normal seven days I know: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is insane if you try to imagine that.I was raised to accept that God rested on the seventh day and it was expected from us(Christians) to go to church on the last day of the week. That was when I was a Christian, still followed Mum to church and ignore Dad's atheist comments. It was not until I was seven did I know that the last day of the week was not sunday but saturday. People who go to church on saturdays are they the ones who are right? And those who go to church on sundays are they the ones who are wrong?It has been more than a year since I last stepped foot on any church. Before you start ju
So today I am not going to be talking about my life because I believe there are a lot of things everyone of you that is reading this journal has learnt about me. Instead, I want to tell the story of a guy named Jack. He was the senior prefect in my former school in Port-Harcourt. In this story, I am going to be the sole narrator and whatever I say is authentic and not falsified. I would like you to pay attention to this wonderful tale of Jack. I am aware that it may not be any of the things that have happened to me but this story is important. Jack's story is important because I am a part of it. I am part of it in a very little way that you may not be able to notice but I am.Jack has had a lot of girlfriends since his rise to greatness in my former school in Port-Harcourt. He has had the classy girls, the rich girls with fake Gucci watches and flamboyant styles. The nerdy or less popular girls have never been left out in his taste to explore womanhood and of course most of his quest t