I hear the sound of guns firing away somewhere in a distance. Shouts, rising and
“Girls don’t like boys who don’t have lots of friends like you. Although you are a fine boy, it is more the social part that can do it for you at this point. When I was in SS3, I was not fresh at all. But I was a talkative and could talk myself into anything. That was how I got Rhoda, that girl I carried in my graduation magazine. Did you see the picture?
Everyone wished for a visitation from Ituofia. There was no problem he could not solve if you were blessed enough by the gods for him to visit you. He had once visited Ezeugbo the Beggar and by the next harvest, Ezeugbo owned three huts and was about to marry a second wife. Everyone knew of Elioka the Pawpaw. She was the village’s oldest spinster. Her age-mates were already having their fourth or fifth children by the time Ituofia went into her hut. Within three months three men had killed themselves over her hand in marriage. The marriage ceremony was the loudest the village had ever had.
It was surprising and mildly heartbreaking to watch her Obiefuna lose all his baby charm by the time he was older and become a reserved, reticent child, saying very little, hardly complaining even when under visible strain, and unconsciously relegating authority to the more troublesome, vocal Ekene. Obiefuna had filed out to become odd and worryingly quiet and, more distressing, a source of irritation to Anozie.
iI could not love so completely.Inside of me were cities I never built, stories I
There was so much Dike wanted which made his heart pound hard often, which made
In your first coming, you are a miracle. You are the result of your mother’s
1. This is what people say of memories: they slip away with time. They disintegrate.
ONEIt was absurd, he thought, walking home that evening. Coming from a bar, he had
‘You’re too clean to be a writer,’ she said to me, half smiling, half cross-examining