Gucci Sandals

‘My mum’s favourite,’ he says. ‘She would be mad if I didn’t wear it today.’

He’s standing against a slab, his eyes gazing the laboratory. His legs are drawn together as though responding to a military command. It’s easy to spot him when you enter. These days, it’s easy to spot people. You only need a snippet of their physique – the guy with half-burnt hair, the lady who wears blue mascara, always. You are imagining this lady, with a blue mascara, pink shirt, the type that screams, ‘Queens are born in March.’

Our guy doesn’t wear mascara. Or burn hair. His black shirt is likely sold, buy one get one free. He’s wearing a Gucci sandal; a quick scan reveals five other students donning the sandals, they’ve become viral, those sandals with red and green straps, a tawdry mimic of the original brand.

You were vexed the first night you stumbled upon a conversation involving those sandals. It went somehow like:

Boss o.

Ha, egbon mi. Good evening sir.

Who is the egbon? Your boy is gentle o. See as you dey fresh. Gucci sandals.

You visited a cobbler the next morning and beheld the sandals, and you returned home thinking how rotten the world was getting.

So, sandals are not it. It’s not the guy’s backpack too. Yet, when you entered, you smelled him, the way a hen on heat smells a cock many miles off. He was making some payments, compelling you to linger some rows back until he was done. You waved him over and asked how much the dues were, and he, been the type of person he was, said, ‘We are paying #3,500.’

You smiled and said his shirt was nice.

‘My mum told me to wear it,’ he said.

.

‘I don’t understand. Do you stay off campus?’

He meets your eyes. ‘No. I was given hostel space. Since last week.’

‘That’s nice.’ He nods along. ‘How come your mum told you to wear a particular shirt?’

A frown digs into his face. You think, perhaps, this is the point where you retrieve your backpack and head the other direction, only for him to produce his phone. They are the big ones, with silver cases. He taps quickly and says, ‘Here.’ You know it’s a timetable. Sectioned into rows and columns. You marvel at the combination of attires – blue jeans and a white shirt, shorts and sandals (make sure it’s the Gucci sandal).

‘Your mum sent this?’

‘She’s a fashion designer,’ he says, simply.

You peel the expression off his face and analyze. He’s not defending his mother. He’s not endorsing it. He reminds you of Kambili, robbed of innocence, naïve, beautifully naïve. You think of days when Mother suggested you wore this to an event, and how you revolted, and how you both almost fought.

‘That’s nice,’ you say, again. You are beginning to repeat words. It’s time to go. ‘Well, in case you need anything, you can always holla, okay?’

He shifts. ‘You are in what level?’

‘200. David.’

‘Posi,’ he says.

You are learning few things about him, how he’s the student who doesn’t complain if the lecturer throws a class for 7pm, how he’s not fully established in what he wants and what he does yet, how he’s not a fan of the name, Posi, but because he still lacks roots, because he has not been washed with messages like feminism and freedom, he cannot call his dad and say, ‘Give me another name or I kill myself.’

.

‘I’m afraid,’ you tell Debbie.

‘God has not given us the spirit –’

‘Of fear. Do you ever change?’

‘Not for you,’ she replies. Her smile blooms. You head towards the bus-stop, hugging the morning silence. She brings her lips to your ear, ‘I missed you.’

‘Words, words, words.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘Obviously. I wasn’t talking about us, though.’

She stops walking. ‘What happened?’

A soft wind sweeps past you. On the other end, two guys barrel down the sidewalk, folders wedged between armpit and chest. Their breath reeks of freshmen. You think, how just a year back, you were barreling down a similar sidewalk, your breath the stench of naivety, your pocket jingling with currencies that was yours but not yours.

‘I met this guy today, and he’s what seventeen, eighteen?’

‘Did he steal your money?’

‘That would have been easy. No, he did not steal my money. He was robbed though. Of his privileges.’

‘I’m not following,’ Debbie says.

‘I saw him with Gucci sandals, so I said, ‘your sandals are nice.’ He says he had to wear it today, that they are his mum’s favorite. He explains his dressing timetable, and the consequences of not sticking to the timetable.’

‘His mum instructed him to wear them?’ You nod. ‘And he’s a student? He stays alone?’

‘Hostel.’

‘That’s bad,’ she says, finally.

‘That’s bad,’ you say.

You walk on.

.

At night, you lay on the bed and drink in fractured noises – hoots of boys just sweeping into the hostel, choking smells of burnt soups, whirls of a generator powering the printing shop some blocks away. Your eyes fall on the polythene at the foot of the bed. You call Debbie.

‘Guess.’

‘You bought the sandals.’

‘Yes,’ you say. ‘I don’t know why. Did I tell you I’m struggling with writing again? I wonder if it’s laziness on my path.’

‘You mean part?’

‘Yeah, part. Path works too, though. Laziness on my path, broken into parts.’

‘Laziness on my part, broken into paths. Dave, is this you?’

‘Yeah, it is I. Be not afraid.’

She laughs. ‘I think we both are drunk.’

‘Me, maybe. You? Not so much. Perhaps it’s the sandals.’

‘Perhaps. You wear it tomorrow, yes?’

You sit up. ‘What’s happening tomorrow?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I don’t,’ you say.

‘I don’t too,’ she says.

‘Really?’

She starts to respond. The door opens and a boy enters, wearing Gucci sandals.

Memories

“You want to learn how to write.”

“No sir. I want you to teach me writing.”

He stopped sipping and set the drink down. A cloud of gloom lingered in his eyes. The cup began to jitter atop the wooden surface of the table, the drink’s surface vibrating as if whipped by a wind. The silence got so cold I could feel it chill my bones. Outside, a dull sun towered above the buildings, accompanied by wraps of grey contrails. I could hear the distant hum of a mower, softly, like a choir of buzzing bees.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” I said. I’d learned, by reading his works, to maintain brevity. Statements like ‘I am sixteen years old’ were windy, boring.

“Do you intend to go to college?”

“Yes. Engineering.”

“Are you writing any exams soon?”

“I have the next six months free, sir.”

He sighed. “Do you have a mother?”

Ripple Effects

I.

It is night. I am holding a letter in one hand. A note. A piece of paper stained with words. Debbie’s words. A bulb casts an orange hue on the white sheet. The blades of the fan creak with each rotation, jutting downwards and pulling upwards, and briefly, I consider leaving the room before the inevitable would happen.

But I do not budge.

I unfold the paper and smoothen the creases, lingering my finger on each edge, as if by doing so, the words in the paper would vanish. I settle on a stool and begin to read.

Dave,

It’s been a while. Scratch that. I’m angry at you.

How are you? How is home? How is writing? How was your semester result? Oh. Ayo mentioned you hadn’t seen it yet. Your school’s so… Sometimes, I’m glad we are only in the same institution, not in the same school. Well, I just wanted to say hello. I know your head is bobbing in disbelief, so I’ll just state my grievances.

How could you? We were close, Dave. Friends. Whispers of our relationship laced every dialogue, so much I had to pray myself into caution. We talked about writing and about family, goals, church, love, Father, everything. And you just vanished. Like a satellite hacked off the feeds.

That doesn’t work fine, Dave. It doesn’t (sigh). It’s break now. Holidays are good times to rethink and reorganize. The clothes are on the line. The smell of harmattan lingers in the air, thick as strong brandy. My mum’s cooking rice. She asks of you every morning, just after family prayers.

You know the implications.

Hmm. The hellos have been said. I should go now. Mum calls. Give your brother a wave for me.

Love, Deborah.

I hold the paper at a stretch and suspend breathing. The next few moments, I think, are important. Important in preserving her voice, the smile on her face, the scent of her words, the spoken and the salient.

The door opens and Brother peeks.

“Dinner’s done.”

I nod. “I’d join you.”

He catches the note but plays blind. When the door bangs shut, I ease up and tuck the note in a pocket of my backpack. The bulb fizzles. I fumble out of the room.

II.

“Christmas,” Mother says. “What’s your plan?”

I gaze at her. Gaze her over. “What else.”

She sets her spoon at the tip of the plate. “Seriously, Dave, you need to think about doing something tangible with your life.”

“Mum, please.”

She looks past me to Brother. Brother nods and forks a neatly cut yam. I imagine briefly, how I would write that – the boy who sat on the left of the room, sticking the tongs of a serrated knife into a piece of yam was (insert name). I immediately think of Ted. Ted and his book full of Dekker-effects and Dekker-sentences. Sentences like, Dead by Billos. Sentences like, One of his many names. Sentences like, To say he was fat was an understatement. He was obese.

A smile wiggles unto my lower lip.

“David.”

I sit straight. “Yes, I intend getting a job, if that works out. Also, I am sending samples of my works – not writings – to people, hoping they would be interested in hiring me. Also, I’m trying to see if I can mentor someone in writing. I have some books to study too.” Confusion fills her eyes. “Books of the bible.”

She smiles.

“And of course, there are notes to familiarize myself with. 200 level notes. How’s that?”

She picks her spoon and begins to eat. Brother rocks his chair. No one says anything for a while.

Wait. That was a Dekker-sentence.

III.

The clock strikes midnight. I tap a button on the phone and close my eyes. I do not say – Thank you Jesus for a new day. Instead, I say – Lord, I need help. I talk about the letter and Debbie, about writing, about how my fingers are growing and soon, my Sunday School teachers would be curious as to why I haven’t mentioned any plans for marriage, about the need to, yes, do something with my life?

“Should I stick with writing, Lord?”

A reptile hisses in the distance. I turn over and continue the reread of Blink of an eye. I consider the hero’s dilemma – having precognitive powers yet facing attacks from all angles. Midway, the precognition’s spell dwindles. What’s worse, he’s trapped on the road with a Saudi princess. And no, they aren’t eloping lovers.

They are just about to be.

Something about the story strikes me – the hero explaining the limitations of his precognition as, “Presently, I can see a squad car heading towards us from Fifth. But, the squad car can decide to turn right at the next junction, which produces another future.” His princess looks with blank eyes.

I too, for a trice.

But then, it connects. Ripple effects. Like a rock plopped into a pool, there’s one central action and surrounding actions. If, right now, I pick my phone and text Debbie – I am sorry. Can we meet tomorrow? – and she shows up and a month later, we are dating and on a night of wild drinks, there’s an exchange between us, the pregnancy that might result would not be because we drank too much, it would go back to the text I sent.

So, I should…

I snap awake. The phone reader glows. I tap the reader close and trail my last thought. Yes, Debbie. Central action.

I send her a text – Hi, Debbie. I have read your letter so much my head hurts. I will call tomorrow. Good night. Michael. I hit send and rest my head on the pillow. Puff a breath.

The sound of a ticking clock fills the silence.

******

Hi. Thank you for stopping by to read. There’s something else I have to share with you today.

Christmas was drawing close and the air was thick with carols. The neighbors chattered about chicken, rice, and what else. I, however, was thinking about writing. Another year was wrapping up and I was yet to hit that 10-pointer. In came CFW.

I remember responding to the call for submissions and how, weeks later, the two stories I sent were accepted to be published. The magazine came out in January and marked over a thousand downloads.

This time, there’s a new magazine. Freedom Magazine, published by Creative Freelance Writers. The stories in these magazines are fresh, not because they’ve clinched some Caine, but that they are narrated with unabashed voices. You wade through the poems, the story titled Lotanna and the story told from the POV of a weapon, and you wonder how, indeed, some writers are willing to put in the work. The bonus is, there’s no charges on downloading. Just visit CFW and find the download link (it should be up here as soon as I can access it).

What’s more? There’s a second publication. An anthology. Long Walk To Freedom. Thirty stories with a central, salient cry – Home is where freedom lies. The price of freedom costs more than rubies, yet the editors have decided to put up the anthology at an affordable price. Hit us at CFW to find out more. Each download matters simply because, essentially, our stories are worth telling.

And worth reading!!!

A Bit Of You

I am going to miss you. It was the first thing you wanted to say. Because he was a guy and you were a guy and the admission felt bland on your lips, inappropriate, you said, “So, what do you plan to do during the break?”

He did not stop packing. “Man would find work, of course. Work.”

You nodded as if it was norm and leaned into the wall, watching him fold one cloth after another, then throw the small bucket you normally fetched drinking water in. The bucket sat sideways in the bag, like a lopsided treasure box, its lid smeared with dirt that had accumulated over the session. A second bag rested before his closet. The closet door swiveled in the morning breeze, its inside cleared save a nylon bag and a junk of a textbook.

You thought how funny that some weeks back, the textbook was a treasure. The bunk on which you sat was close to the entrance. Your roommates occupied their space, each lost in a floating activity, and you looked at them and thought they were all engaging themselves because, in the smallest way, they felt as if they were floating away.

“Finally, Jos,” one said. He kept a beard. His face was arguably as clean as freshly plucked tomato, with that redness and that evenness and that succulence. His eyes danced like two rings. A bible spread open on his bed. You smiled. Church was not his favorite place to go.

“Have you missed your mum?”

He stopped packing. He towered above you. “No. Not really miss.”

“In ten months?”

He shrugged. You shook your head and looked away.

*

There’s a laptop on the bed. Not bed. Bunk. Steel bunk. The mattress was cleared off it hours back, folded into bends, like a rolled metal sheet, and dragged to a lodge off campus. The laptop is on the bunk, you are on the bunk, a book is on the bunk. The laptop is opened to a document and you stare at the pages, lingering on Times New Roman and font size, praying silently that inspiration would come.

Kevin is in no need of inspiration. He’s longed stop packing. His legs are folded atop the bed now. Arms to chest, like a nine-year old flogged to silence, to solitude. In his eyes are lost circles, as if those eyes have travelled the desert, journeyed the forest, and are now in a community sparkling with life and are wondering how to adjust, to blend in. Kevin is watching a film. A Chinese movie.

No. It isn’t Chinese. It’s Korean. And Taiwanese too. It’s a sort of rerun. The movie is playing on another laptop. The laptop’s owner wears a striped shirt. He has beards too, unlike Kevin. He watches a lot of movies.

Kevin watches without grunting, without blinking, without breathing. It is so alien to him you wonder if he still exists, if it is only a clone sitting on that bed, a travelling bag at his feet, a Chinese movie before his eyes.

You talked about clones today with a departmental mate. How it’s such a stupid, illiterate idea, though executed by a bunch of scholars. “How many gigabytes of data would it take to code emotions?” the mate had asked.

You look at Kevin now and see the answers in his eyes. In the lost circles. Never.

Five minutes later, you haven’t added a word to the Term Paper. Kevin has spoken some words. Passive comments. This is not the Kevin you know. Kevin, naturally, would not speak except when watching movies. This Kevin is as mute as a mute.

Mute as a mute?

You begin to wonder if the silence is intentional on Kevin’s part, if Kevin is choking on the words because he is trying to hold back himself; maybe the old rule, the words you speak show who you are, is playing in his head and he does not want to reveal what is coursing through his nerves now, hence the silence. Maybe he is thinking of home already, of work, of stretches of hours in steep darkness and eerie quiet.

Maybe he is thinking of the past eleven months.

Someone roars.

Yes, roars. Like a lion. He turns in his sleep and mutters inaudible phrases. A moment on, his breath steadies. You want to draw close to him and pat his neck and say, “You don’t have to talk in your sleep, if only you would talk to God.” But then, you remember his hours as your roommate are numbered.

So you shrink in the bed and continue to watch the blank laptop screen.

The sun warming the louvers remind you it’s noon. You tap a few more words and hit the save button before walking out. Outside, you stand under the walkway, staring out at the deserted concrete field. Someone walks by and talks of the football match showing in the evening, and slowly, images filter into your memory. Images of hostel residents running after a leather ball. Images you shot when you were thinking about dinner and the next days. Images you shot when you had to pray and the room was suffocated with noise. Images expressing your first year as a student.

You stare so long you feel tear snakes towards your eyelids. So you blink off the tears. You turn around and walk back to the room, taking even, equal, measured steps, thinking of the term paper.

The movie is done. Kevin is talking with the erstwhile roommate and there’s a small smile on his face and a fragment of light has crawled into his eyes. His sight catches you as you enter and he offers that small smile. You flatten your cheeks and resume with the paper. Your topic borders technology, but you begin to write about goodbyes, about roses that wither for hours before blooming again, about rain and sun, about being a student.

There’s a silence in the room. No one is asleep, and you wonder if the silence is a mutual, unvoiced agreement, if everyone feels there’s a sacredness in the next few hours of being together, and the sacredness must be revered. You stop typing and set the laptop on the edge of the bed, even though it might topple over.

You clasp your hands together and look at Kevin, at the sleeping roommate, at the one who doesn’t miss his mum, and you think of pushing out a lengthy exhale. But because the silence hasn’t been broken, because you feel everyone feels there’s a dangerous teeter in the next few hours, because you think you all have realized there’s a bit of you in the next person.

Because of all these, you stay silent.

P.S: The session is done. Home looms in the distance. How do you feel when you finally have to say goodbye?

Thank you for reading. Thanks.

By Way Of An Apology

The story goes of a woman who stumbled upon a tape of her husband and another lady. She narrows said lady, sends her a mysterious invitation to dinner, and meets at the restaurant. While waiting for the meals, and with the lady still racking her senses on how she knows the woman, the woman shows her the video.

The lady pushes her chair back and falls to both knees, fingers clasped. Her words come out incoherently. Dinner that day ends with the woman finding a friend in the lady.

Not so for the woman’s husband. Husband, after discovering he’s been found out, takes it upon himself to practice a new routine of gifts buying – necklaces, chains, shoes, sneakers, cooking utensils. He buys the globe for the woman.

A month on and without a word from the woman, someone asks her, “Why did you forgive the mistress and not your husband?”

No eyelids batted, the woman says, “The stupid guy couldn’t even say sorry.”

Story ends.

Point of the story, one should never assume people understand one’s method of saying sorry. That I send you a truckload of gifts without mouthing the words, “I am sorry,” might, more often than not, mean I’m not sorry.

So, guys, I am sorry. Yeah, I said it.

The easiest thing a writer could do is offer excuses for not writing – I had series of tests and now I am preparing for exams; there was no light; I felt sapped out, like I had emptied and I needed a refilling; there was no new read, and books are the writer’s fuel; Debbie broke up…

Did you get that? Debbie, dearest girlfriend, broke up… Almost broke up. Wanted to break up with me. But, it did not occur. The village people played an offside here.

Thing is, there is really no reason for not writing. Excuses has never, and will never live up as a synonym for reason. A thousand excuses might abound, but not one reason. Good, solid, reason. I recall the beginning days as a blogger, how I posted twice a week, struggling once a while to meet the demand. Months wore on and I settled on a weekly sharing. School crept in and weekly took a cut. Even at once in two weeks, I haven’t exactly churned out really interesting, hooking content.

Until Debbie.

Exams are rapping the door now, intent on breaking it down. Exams mean – no writing, no graphics design, praying with one eye closed and the other on the course outline, spooning rice with a calculator, waking and feeling a bang in one corner of the head. Exams mean many things.

But, exams this time mean something different. One of those is write. I will write and write. I will write about Debbie, about the close breakup, the rekindling, about winning a short story competition (low budget), crying at the laptop, writer friends, the dusty academic track, about everything worth hearing.

About the few short stories I read in September and October, maybe.

Now, I sit at the laptop, looking at this post that’s just shy above one page, listening as faithful, faithful explodes into the air from a friend’s phone, and I’m asking, what’s the best way to end a post that’s supposed to be an apology. The bees are buzzing, here’s what they are buzzing. Here’s what I’m leaving you, dear reader, with, till the next post (should come in a number of days).

I am sorry.