Salted Words

To be or not to be;

A little bit of salt and the next, a sampling

Buffets of choice set before the eyes

Every course, and indeed every savour, a delight

Scrapings of the bottom part

Like an icing cap on the cake

A little piece of gracious words

A written thought, a prayer said

A card, a mail, a kiss, a hug;

These little shows of affections

Breathes of life in a dying world

If you dare!

Broken hearts and broken homes

A touch will receive of new life

And fear and shame will remove

If we but try

One word from my heart

Could change a life forever

To make my world more beautiful

My words, my life, must be with

A little bit of salt

Wired!

This temper of mine was getting the best of me and I had to do something about it pretty fast before it becomes my undoing.

That thought has becoming a daily rehash. Getting off and going was a hard one. The problem is that I have an attitude and a mouth I loved to run; two things that just don’t mix well.

‘Who is that’ I responded to the knock on the door

‘Local Council Inspectors’ came the reply

‘Local what?’ sounded like some something straight from the seventies. I was just not in the mood for any long thing right now. The girl friend had just broken up and I didn’t really need the company that was being forced upon me. What were they here for anyways?

“One minute” I called out. Already calculating and mind checking what and what could be the cause of this definitely going-to-end-up unpleasant visit.

I got up from the recliner that the now ex-girlfriend had bought for my birthdays two years before. She said I needed it to rest my neck from all the reading. I am not so sure now it was not the same books that had finally driven her away. I thought to myself as I meandered through the several stacks of books and magazines all over the floor. I just didn’t have the space to stack them and even if I did, the time was not just there. And by any standard I liked my stuff just where they are for easy accessibility by me. I couldn’t afford to have someone come and help clear the place and become confounded when I needed a particular one.

‘Gbam gbam’ it sounded as if they meant to break down my door. What the heck was the problem? First they come for only providence knows what. Then they are attempting to push down my door. I felt tempted to just go back to my seat and see how long they would keep at their silliness. But I thought better of it. No point having them put the neighbours through the hullaballoo, and not because I liked my neighbours, oh no, but at least it was a point to begin work on myself.

After making it through the space between where I was and the door, I peeped through the viewer and saw two men and a lady all staring silly-like at the door. Not knowing what to expect I guess.

‘Your ids please’ I asked

One by one they all raised their identity cards to the level of the eye-viewer. Not necessarily a confirmation but the way they had been a little bit reluctant had told me they could be genuine. They probably weren’t used to being questioned. Well they were in for a very delectable afternoon; they had no inkling whatsoever.

I opened the door a crack and asked ‘how may I help you’?

‘Well we are here to inspect you sanitary ...’

‘Towel?’ I cut in before the lady who was leading the talk could finish. ‘Do I look like a lady that uses one?

If she had been light skinned she couldn’t have been any more crimson than she was at that moment.

‘What she meant to say ...’ One of the men with her tried to interject.

‘I believe that she can still do that without you being her interpreter. Or am I wrong ms?’ I jumped in again. I had suddenly gained a healthy dose of endorphins being released into my system and all I felt right now was no pain but enough contempt for the society to take it out on these silly looking government officials

“Yes I..” she stammered.  “.. I was saying that we came to check the condition of your drainage and septic system’ she finally got it out

“That is what you should have said instead of just standing there and blabbing sanitary” I queried as I opened the door a little bit wider so that it was one person at a time that could squeeze in. This was to help me access them individual as they stepped over the threshold.

It was a strange building where I lived in. It was a two room apartment. The two rooms were upstairs, underneath the staircase there was a visitor’s loo. The kitchen was to the left of the entrance door. The staircase faced the main door and the parlour was on your right as you stepped through the door they had just come in through. At the end of the parlour was a door that leads outdoors, to the back of the house. Here was planted a garden that was neatly trimmed and weeded. Timi, the boy from next door, come in weekly to make sure that it was properly kept. It was in fact the only part that made proper about the whole house. Mom had stayed with me before her passing and that had been her passion. And I somewhat still thought of her as being alive whenever I walked into that garden. The only reason I had it trimmed and watered. To the extreme left, coming out of that door was what they had come to check. The pipes that brought forth waste from the interior of the house.

‘Can we take a closer look?’ the one who appeared to be the leader of the group. I turned to look at her with a look that said ‘would my saying no make any difference?’ but answered in the affirmative, ‘Please go ahead’.

And they all moved like zombies towards the pipe. I stood back as I watched the government operatives try to do their thing. I was not a government lover and anything that had to do with them I tried to steer clear of as much as I could. But now that they had brought themselves in to my lair I was at loss at how I was going to deal with them. I had a mind to just dispose of them before they really got on my nerves.

‘Excuse sir?’ she called. I had not even bothered to ask their names, what is the point? I wasn’t planning on seeing them again, ever, if I could avoid it.

‘Yes ma’ I answered sarcastically. No way was I going to make their intrusion on my privacy easy or welcoming for that matter.

‘The slab is broken and it causes the water that should flow away, seep into the soil. It will percolate and begin to stench up the air.’ She went on.

I looked at her shook my head and said absolutely nothing. It was obvious that they either didn’t have anything to hold on to or they were not really who they were claiming to be in spite of the ids they possessed. At that point I just lost interest in the entire drama. I walked away from them into the house, went to the kitchen took from the fridge a cold can of malt, cut myself a slice of cake and went upstairs. And all the while they just stood there and stared after me like they had been jinxed.

I got upstairs and let out of the room my German Shepard house mate, Judy and asked her to go downstairs and keep the guests company. I could not keep from giggling as I went into the room and snacked on my cake.

A few minutes later I stepped out and went downstairs. Judy was sitting at the door blocking any means of exit. I went in to the kitchen dropped the plate in the sink and the can in the thrash basket, turned back into the parlour and stared in mock horror when I saw that government officials, on seeing Judy apparently, had pulled the slide door shut. And they just stood there in great apprehension of what next.

I most have acted really well because rather than show anger, relief and gratitude was written on their faces. I quickly shooed Judy upstairs, opened the slide door and by the way they hurried to the door profusely thanking me, lol, I was just too sure that I was not going to see them back so soon or at worst not this set of government staffers. 

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Nothing related to real life though. Just trying my hands at imaginary writing, better known as fiction. Let me know what you think.

Ciao!

A country of six regions

Okay I don't really know how this would end but ….

I cannot for the love of me imagine why human beings with heads on their shoulders and some tissue mass in it would resort to violent demonstrations to show their non-agreement with the results of a poll. If you don't agree with me do I have to take a knife to your throat?  Lock up a few more in a building and set it on fire? And then still put the lives of hundreds in jeopardy? Of young men and women who had no issues to grind with you except that they took part in the elections as ad-hoc staff in their own country?

And then I hear mouths being opened to say that those that died where heroes of our land. Bloody hell! Do we need to butcher our own innocent and patriotic young people and make mincemeat of them just so we can find an excuse to use the word 'heroes'? And by the way whose heroes are they? Is he ‘hero’ of parents who slaved off to put him through at least fifteen years of schooling that didn't come cheap only to have his life cut short at just about when all the investment was beginning to show signs of making sense, or ‘hero’ to a country where after he had finished the mandatory 1 year cheap labour he would probably trek the length and breadth of the cities in search for security - nicely-tagged job - which is however non-existent?

Before you begin to wonder where all that anger is coming from, I'll tell you. I served my one year in Kaduna State in a remote village that was more than an hour and a half from the state's capital. When I served there had been no light (electricity), [not a big deal (yeah?)], for the very first six months of my stay in the village/town. And worst still there was not a single communications network. The best we could do for the first seven/eight months was to do a thirty minutes journey to a neighbouring town to make calls to friends and family and then another thirty minutes back to our place of primary posting. Four years later my brother serves in the same state, having spent four years in the federal university in the state's capital.

Imagine the chaos and confusion that was when we couldn't reach him and didn't hear from him when the riot started. I do not know what kind of story we would have been sharing if anything had happened to him.  Would we sit and ask ourselves why we allowed him to ever have gone so far from home to study; why we didn't insist after his education to come back home; why we hadn't gone to pull some strings to ensure he served in one of the states closer to home? What manners of condolences would be enough to dampen the loss of a brother, a son, and a friend in a land where his right to life, his right to freedom of expression, his right to freedom of association should be most upheld without thoughts to what ethnic background or political persuasion he is of? 

Similar questions I am sure the bereaved families would have asked themselves, unfortunately no amount of answers, apt or not, tactful or not, would ever bring their loved ones back to them.

I used to want to stay back in the north after my service year because it remains one of the best years of my life, yes in spite of the inconveniences that the absence of electricity and the initial lack of communication brought. It was a beautiful place. It didn't have the smokiness of my ‘Lasgidi’ state, the people were warm and friendly, of course disregarding the mostly miscommunication minor issues that arose due to difference in language. 

But now, how do I feel? I feel hurt, I feel pain, I feel hatred, yes I know it is a rather strong word, for the ones that incite the ‘stupids’ to violence, I feel fear at even the mention of a visit to friends from that side of the country and who live there. In a land of my birth? A place where my almost twelve years of primary and secondary school days where spent pledging to defend her honour and glory? “For what” I ask myself, now.

 p.s.

Lasgidi - Lagos