1/7 Beautiful People- Chike/ Fiction.

A snake flicking its tongue at a crab on Nat Geo Wild had replaced the African Magic Yoruba show on the television at the hospital’s reception when they walked in. She rushed to the seat she had previously occupied before going to get him, it was the coolest corner of the room with the standing AC directly opposite the seat.

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Calypso + Easter.

Sometimes, a song is your happy place. The rhythm, flow, cadence and lyrics coalesce into a magic feather that tickles your soul and fits wings on each ventricle of your heart.

I Like…

Odogwu,

I like the wiggle of you under my skin, carving your space in the swirl of cells and blood and bone and white, cold hunks of fat. I like to think I too have a space just inside the dermis, atop the blood pump in the third to sixth intercostal spaces, above the thrusts and rhythms of the life you’ve made for me.

Never.

I bury another Never
Watching it slink into the soil
As I cover it with the sand under the shadow of your face.
I look at the ruins of my fences and defences,
Strong and defiant a week ago,
Crumbled in the earth after you strode in,
Arms akimbo, pockets brimming with keys to secrets,
The secrets I didn’t even know I held.

Hodge Podge 2

You cannot listen to Good or Bad by J-Martins without thinking about your brother, the one who had bought speakers when he was in secondary school. Like you, he could obsess over a song and play it relentlessly until you suck it dry. Unlike you, he would not use headphones or earphones to keep the music within your head, if he liked a song, the house had to vibrate with the strains and strums of his new favourite song. But it wasn’t Good or Bad you were looking to listen to on an afternoon that was ultimately destined to be boring. You had just finished listening to Let’s Get Serious by Jermaine Jackson and your music player segued into the Timaya and P-Square flavoured buffet of a song.

Husband Wanted.

Husband Wanted, Apply Within

 

He winced at the sign at the gate, it seemed pedestrian and even inconsistent with the slice of genius that led him here, never mind that he had never seen a husband wanted sign in his 33 years of gulping oxygen. He looked at the tiny scrap of newsprint folded in his palm, unfurled it to look at the requirements again.

Hello There Sunshine.

December 8th.

His fingers caressed the keys, coaxing the antique piano to give him something it hadn’t given anyone in nearly fifty years. She had never heard anything that beautiful, it teased her soul, offering it a waltz and laughter and something that felt like joy. He began to sing and her heart burst, she clutched her chest with her left hand to keep the pieces from floating out of the open bay windows and her right hand held the mop and kept her steady as his voice- whiskey smooth, continued to rock her.