TALES BY MOONLIGHT

"When I became Health Prefect there were cases I could handle by myself. But there were also cases that I couldn't. It's true. The saddest, saddest one was that of Haruna. He was asthmatic and had an attack in the middle of the night. By the time I got to him, he had slumped. I closed his nostrils and breathed into his open mouth. Then, I pumped his chest. Nothing. His hands did not feel like human flesh. They felt like cold rubber.

 

Did I not tell you? This was why I was made a School Prefect, because, even though I was holding Haruna's hands and they were as cold as rubber, I found myself very, very calm. So, I said to the students who were standing over me; "Go and call the Senior Boarding House Master! Tell him that we have to take Haruna to the hospital now!"

 

Then I, along with some other boys, lifted Haruna up to our shoulders and ran with him to the school gate. The Senior Boarding House Master was already waiting, with the engine of his car running. It was past midnight and a full moon was shining down. As we laid Haruna in the back seat, his head fell back and his eyes rolled upwards. In the silver light, I saw a bit of water trickle down from the side of his mouth. My heart fell at that moment.

 

At the hospital, they just shook their heads. They did not even allow us to bring him in. They just said; "Take him to the morgue. There is nothing we can do."

 

His parents came the next day. They wanted to speak with me, ask me what happened. His mother cried, but his father just nodded. "Insha Allah", he said. "It is the Will of God." Then, he looked at me, into my eyes, and, maybe, at that moment he understood the trauma of a child that had watched another child die. Because he pulled me into his arms and said; "Thank you."

 

It is not easy to be an angel in this world that can be so dark and dismal. But sometimes all it takes is opening your hand to the little boy pleading with a conductor that he has no money to pay the bus fare, or coming out to check that the children passing by your broken window on their way to fetch water are not being maltreated, or ignoring your own pain when you see that the child in front of you is suffering terribly under the burden of growing up. Because this journey always ends in death, and only angels have wings to fly. It is true.

 

I am talking like this because I am now in form six. It is all part of growing up. Please, bear with me…."

 

Ah. That was the voice of Pips McQueen, in a small excerpt from my novel, 'URICHINDERE'. But, you see, this particular story is a true one. One night in K.C, I watched a boy die. I did everything I knew, everything I had been taught, to save his life. But he still died. And I knew it the moment we put him in the back seat and I saw his face in the moonlight. There was no light that night. There was no clinic in school we could take him to. There was nothing – just us, teenage boys, and the Senior Boarding House Master's broken down car. It was just the way Secondary School was. But, somehow, we came through with our spirits still shining bright. Let it be.

Image taken from:

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SHOW TIME!

Sometimes you wait till the gyration is loudest; one of those services where the Pastor is encouraging everyone to leave their seats and dance for another year successfully lived through. No road accidents. No plane crashes. No asphyxiation in the middle of the night from inhaling diesel fumes. That's when you wind your tiny waist over to where she is; pretending you're 'in the Spirit', when the only thing you've been into for a long time now is her.

 

No yawa. I understand. We all need help sometimes to say these things, especially when we really mean them. Love can be like that, hitting with a force that shakes a few things loose, your first name included. Be honest. Have you never forgotten it before, just as you were about to introduce yourself? Opened your mouth and found it mysteriously dry? Both knees behaving like they were not made of bones? My brother, don't worry; the loss of liver is very normal.

 

Once, in Primary School, I stalked a girl; tailed her all the way home, searching the whole time for confidence. So, now, I can tell you CONFIDENTLY; there is nothing as intimidating as a pack of girls all high on Capri-Sonne and chattering away, when the particular one you're eyeing is in the middle. Especially after you've heard the horror stories. That babe that spins around and shouts (on a crowded corridor too), 'How many times will I tell you? LEAVE – ME – ALONE!' 'What is it?' I have been told that this is how you must respond in a situation like that, just as loud, just as aggressive. 'Can somebody not ask you for an eraser again?'

 

But – let's face the facts – there is NO gentle way of saying, 'No.' If they want let them dip it in syrup, roll it in chocolate, sprinkle it with two fistfuls of sugar, when you come home, you must still lie down on your bed for a while, cover your eyes with the crook of your arm and think about your life. And, my brother, if you're not careful you could get up from that experience with a phobia; needing 'God', henceforth, to do the talking for you.

 

Ah! This is where things can get ridiculous. Imagine - 'I had a dream and I saw Jesus under a Jacaranda Tree. He took me round to a silver stream and I saw you sitting on a rock beside it. He led me to where you were sitting and, before I knew it, you were standing. And I heard a voice from heaven, three times, saying – Behold, this is your wife!' And she thinks to herself – This is precisely why I don't come for Night Virgils.

 

Let me tell you something. There's NOTHING wrong with you. It doesn't matter how many people have told you they cannot be with you because you're too short, too fat, too thin, too bald, or (my personal favorite) too 'dry'. (Yes – sadly – once upon a time, my idea of 'going out' was climbing up the rocks at Usuma Dam and watching the water together.) No yawa. Everyone is entitled to his or her own idiosyncracies.

 

But – be warned – whenever you meet that person whose box of preferences you actually tick, you will still need to reel them in. And if you don't bring some swag with you on that particular day, well, let me put it this way – not saying it convincingly when you mean it can have consequences that are just as sad as saying it convincingly when you don't. It's just the way this thing is set up. Ultimately, you will walk off into the sunset, NOT with 'The One', but with the one you are able to convince.

 

And, believe me, it doesn't end there. Your ability to KEEP them convinced, long after the last firework has crackled into silence, is a big, big part of 'happily ever after'. So, I beg you, don't choose the wrong day to slack. It is true that I love you (or could love you) just the way you are. But it still wouldn't hurt if you took the time, whenever the occasion demanded, to take my breath away.

 

 

Image taken from:

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EKWUEME (My Word Is My Bond)

If all is well, then on at least one night between engagement and wedding, you SHOULD wake up with a cold sweat. True. If you don't, well, it's probably because Machiavelli (and I don't mean Tupac) was right. He was the one that said you had to be standing on the mountain to really see the valley, and you had to be standing in the valley to really see the mountain. In that context, let me write this down in plain English – being single is a beautiful thing.

 

Yes, yes, I don't know your mother, how she calls weekly to pray over your 'condition'. And how weekends are SO difficult, with nothing to do and no one to do it with. But, sis, weekends are no picnic either, when he wakes up and decides it is the perfect Saturday for EPL re-runs and that Pounded Yam only YOU can pound. Did you know? This is a serious question. Did you know that a baby deer will stand on its own feet within minutes of being born? Well, look in the mirror – YOU ARE NOT AN ANTELOPE. Your own babies will tie you down for a lot, lot longer.

 

So, looking back now, one of the best reactions I got when I told people I was getting married was Segun Abdul's; he sort of half-smiled, 'Have you guys fought yet?' Another good one was my Dad's; he sighed to himself, 'Are you sure about this?' (In the same voice you would say, 'Come and take it', if your fourteen-year-old wanted the car keys.) It all made me ask me – ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THIS? Because, Dike, you're not bringing people, some of them thousands of miles, just to update your status three months later – 'Ehm. My wife and I are separating. Irreconcilable differences. Please, respect our privacy.'

 

My brother, it may look like it is, but it is NOT 'beans' – the way some people still laugh after decades, still spend evenings watching love movies from the '70s. As resilient as Love is, it is still vulnerable; like that game we played in school, where you had to carry an egg in a spoon and run a little race. Ah! How do you do it? How do you find Love that lasts forever?

 

If there's an answer, I have not found it. At least, not one you can decode from how soft her lips feel when you kiss them; or how desperately he makes you cling to the belief he loves you even when he's mopping the floor with you every morning. Please, let me just say one thing. A broken nose is a broken nose. Good sex is good sex. True love is true love. If you've mislabeled these things, no wahala; go and quietly update your status. Life is too short.

 

What I'm actually looking for are those difficult, yes, but walkable paths to life-long happiness – you and me tossing and turning till daybreak; hurting each other without meaning to; so much in common, but never short of quarrels; wanting to be together, but not wanting to lose ourselves. It IS frightening to know that, regardless of how good we look in photographs, there's nothing that says it will last forever. But – and it is comforting to know this – there's nothing that says, it will not.

 

So, barring the unforeseeable, I intend to DO THIS! For that reason, I refused to repeat generic lines. It's too easy, when you're parroting the Officiating Minister, to under-estimate the true weight of words. And, if you think about it, that is what Love REALLY is – to keep a promise. Yes. Even the ones they didn't know you made. So, I sat up at night and thought these things through, eyes wide open. When I was done, I wrote my own vows. Because – imagine it – from that sad day when Love died, if we start walking backwards, we will come to the moment when we first broke our word.

 

Image taken from:

http://www.lettertag.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/holding-hands.jpg