"ADE'S JOURNAL", 48

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 47

  The sun shines and a large bulb of sweat trickles down my angry face. The seething mass of sweaty people walk and bump into me and I move Swiftly and dodge them. Why are people comfortable touching strangers, what happened to that Beautiful unwritten law... Personal space, I mean respect people's private space. I know, I'm a little obsessed with my space. But it's the only thing I can call mine for now. A man Huff's and puffs past me and splashes his we like feet into the filthy rain waters, running down clogged up drainages. I need an antihistamine shot, quick. Lucky for me, the rain water missed my trousers by two inches but his sweaty body didn't. I could feel it soak up on my thick long sleeve top. I always wear long sleeve to shield me from direct contact from people. Will this be enough? My wipes are in my bag, once I get into a Keke Marwa, I will charter it. Do I have seven hundred to charter it? Nope, all I have left is a hundred Naira. Just enough to take me to Oshodi. Ha, na wa ooo. No vehicle, why and how come? It must be a conspiracy. Finally, a bus shows up and no one gets in. I do, because it is calling and announcing to everyone that the fare is fifty. Half what I have. Maybe I will indeed get home today. But no one joins me and I begin to worry.
 I hear it squawk and almost gorge my eyes out. Luckily, I wear shades to protect my eyes from dusts and people who speak too close to my delicate eyes.
It's an eagle, I didn't know they were this massive. It's almost the size of an Electronic vulture... I think bigger. When I say Epe vultures, you need to go by the Lagoon and see those massive flying beasts. It's the same shock I got when I first met face to face with a fox. Fixes are not cute and cuddly, they are dusty gray and brown and the size of alsasian dogs. People down play monsters because they want you to think that the world is sweet and pretty. It's a lie...
And when, tomorrow I am in the news because an eagle eat me. You will believe me.
His owner was smiling at me and says the eagle likes me. Without replying, he answered me and adds that we are on the same wavelength. The bus driver and conductor grumbled but did nothing.
Talk against my seer and your soul will be devoured by this God. I wanted to laugh but fear catch me. Any sudden movement, could agitate this creature.
I am asking him home, to his hill where he was hatched. We all long to go back to our dreams, to a place we are happy and free. Find it and I tell you, you will not need all this armour. I look at the cape, veil, raincoat, face cap and gloves I had on.
I've paid your fare, I'm dropping here. Give her my change. The conductor gives me seven hundred and I collect it. Then stop the bus at the next bus stop.
I had money to go back home but I didn't. Instead I headed to a cyber cafe and opened articles about what I loved. And even though I didn't believe the eagle had any power. I was re-energized and stopped looking down at my problems but up to my goals. I was soaring high and revamped.
My passion was reignited...

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 46

  Trickling down a pregnant sky, strong screams escape her aching lips as cold winds blow at her cay skin. This land already soaked and full experience more rain. The high lands escape the gathered waters, the low lands collect her shattered dreams. The prison walls hear whispers from inmates with rich relatives. Once on the path to becoming governor but smashed by religious paranoid delusional. The courtyard is trampled by broken dreams, stepped on by lost children caught wondering the Lagos streets. Kept alive by generous riches, built from hard working women. The food given exceeds those that guard it. The crops planted, all organic and fresh. The poultry animals fat from natural nutrients, the envy of the jailers. How cruel are dreams of grandeur, how wicked are false hopes of crossing the seas. To a land that hates poor migrants and only wants the riches of dreamers glad they barely made it. Made it in this cruel crude world.

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 45

  Glossy skies shine and glister as tiny crystals fall from the pregnant sky. I should rejoice because it means I am no longer going to boil and burn from this heat. Instead my fear escalates and I am afraid. These hyenas think the money is mine but it's a loan, the money that is in my account isn't mine and I've given it back. I cried and pleaded but what chance does a fawn have when under arrest. I gallop and fight hard but my hands are chained to this growling monster producing light. That's it's function and what is mine?
Chained Again By Liars To The Generator Set, I do not know why this keeps happening. No this time it's not an angry abusive husband that chained his wife to a generator set. It's me a young man with a modern card, an ATM filled with cashed that these thieves in police uniform want. They have kidnapped me for information about cash that does not belong to me. I am afraid and the heat the generator set exhumes is making the chains cuffed to my hands burn. The fumes also fill my lungs with carbon monoxide and now the rain is hitting the exposed wires that could electrocute me. I surrender to their demands and send them to my house, where the ATM is. And pray my brother is suspicious and catches them in the lie.
Would they kill me after they have the cash to hide their crimes. Tears stream down my face as shame engulfs me. In my own country, my state and my hometown, this is humiliating and God please when will power supply work? I ask because it could Capture this crime, I mean that a security camera could expose this. But when a country depends on generators to su0ly power at least for twelve hours in a day minimum and petrol costs are high. Then what are our priorities? Feeding, housing or the extra expense on security cameras in case of situations like this.
The problem is that no one ever thinks this would happen to him or her. And look at how people look away because these armed men that kidnapped me and chained me to a generator set, have on police uniform.
The other criminals arrive with cash and celebrate and then he is tackled by a legit police man and overwhelmed by their numbers. Tears stream down my face as my brother shows up and hugs me. Crying I am glad I am free and happy these criminals did not bury their secrets with me. Their confessions reveal other victims and I just look up at the sky pouring down soft rains and just heave a heavy sigh of relief.
  I am free....

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 44

  Not long ago, I was a lone bud. A green baby with tiny roots, in a rich Beautiful earth. I had just two voluptuous pastel green shoots facing the sun, All around me was abundance and rich loamy soil. The other plants thrived too and we all danced for joy. And then someone decided to up root me. To take me away from the earthworms that ensured aeration. Yank me away from my species and my plant comrades. Driver ants bite with large mouths, enraged by the sudden exposure and snap and protect their colony. Little do they know, that the young juvenile agama lizard is watching and waiting. As they start to retreat back into the soil, they are devoured one at a time. The lady trying to replant me stops. She hears the crunching sound and her massive eyes focus. The lizard freezes and the ants too. As they search for their missing comrades. The lizard is impatient and ignores the human and quickly snacks on the ants. Woodlice too coil into semi circles and uncoil, this spectacle was beautiful to watch. She moves earthworms and worms I didn't know their names. Maybe nematodes and then moved me into a beautiful aerated clay pot. Bath me in fresh underground water and watched me grow. Blue blowflies perch and go and I beat the odds and survive. Everyday she gives me a bath and then she stopped. Not out of wickedness, but because the rains washed me daily. This was the life, until it happened. A nonsensical play, that should never have happened in the first place. If my groomer, my care taker was around it would have halted their gimmicks. But they crashed into me and my majestic clay pot, forged by Benin potters. The last in this house, shattered. The game was up and everyone shook as my caretaker walked in. Her smile changed to a frown and morphed into rage as she dashed to my side.
Who did this? The culprit was sorry but the harm was done. She got a sack and moved my remains into it. A broken bucket was all she could find and she burnt metal and drilled holes into the bucket. As she mounts it on the steel pot stand from her Benin childhood. It was never the same and I tilted and died. She moved worms, buried eggshells, shocked loamy soil onto my roots. But nothing happened, I died and left this earth. She never gave up and planted agbalumo seed, the massive African cherry
Tree beside me. Maybe because her sister and her compared the growth of their Aloe vera plants monthly. I don't know, but I felt her efforts and my roots absorbed her richness. So, I grew. She is no longer my caretaker but my sister and I will do everything to protect her. So I didn't just grow, I grew and grew, defying gravity and everything else. You could say....
Octopus-Like, I Overheard My In-law Suggest A Threesome.
Now I am stuck, should I be loyal and tell her of the plot. Or should I ignore them and assume her partner will do the right thing?

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 43

      Piercing through my tough skin are feelings ingrained in my head. Things I have no choice but to act on, hunger, thirst and the will to survive and move forward. Everything looks delicious right now, like a mix of salad and a side dish, dripping with delicious goodness. I want to feel and taste Everything as new life begins and one is about to end.
 The rattle snake clanks and hisses but it's all noise, his taste has fifteen times less effective. I mean, even his fangs are bigger than I am. Yet my venom is more potent and I can go in, tiptoe and enter where he dates not. For he will be beheaded on sight and made into a belt, shoe or bag. I laugh at the tragic end that awaits the clanking beast. Knowing fully well that my mates end was near. Just look at him... He lacks colour and is tiny, as most male species are. I giggled and hope he didn't notice, not out of fear but because I want him at his best. The next generation is definitely fearless, with my DNA in them that is certain. But for him to even come close to my web, was a risk two others took before him. They, I have drank from the coffers of my silk web, passionately spun out of desire.
 Oh just look at him, I want to start with his head while he performs his duty like the praying mantis does so skillfully. Unlike the male praying mantis, mine does not go out ensuring the generations are still finding their way. Not like the headless creature pounding hard while his mate devours him. The beauty of it, takes my breath away and makes me linger on the delicious juice of male spiders in my jaws. The thought of it makes me hungry, makes my dark eyes glow as I watch the third mate finish his chore and try to run. Such tiny, spiny limbs, running on my web and his yellow and red stripes and dots on his abdomen bump and fall into my well concealed trap. He dangles there and tries to wiggle free. Instead i catch up and my spiny fangs sink in and envenom my meal. I spin fast and with a skill set I've honed over the years. My excitement is real as the red hour glass glows and shines through, six hundred eggs are fertilized as I wait for the golden dozen to pop up and take over the mantle. Ten minutes later the juice is ready. Across from me is My cousin, she is much less a black widow than I am. Imagine, she let her mate escape and just wraps up her eggs. How she gets so big, I don't know. Even her web is bigger than mine and I heard her say she has seven hundred eggs or more. She didn't even count it herself, see life, her mate did. She fights what we are and says there are many insects to feed on. But she is exhausted from procreating it all makes her move slower and look awkward because of it. I warn her but instead she sings slowly and ignores me. I turn around for a bit and do not see the praying mantis. In lightning speed, I move me and my eggs to a secure location, around traps I've built from energy from the men I devoured. My web is a fortress and I've seen that my traps have deflected a predator. My cousin is laughing at me then she is gone

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 42

Hide, he is coming. The shock from his blow jolts me out of a dream and I hold my neck to ease the pain. He is not here, beside me or in the room. His beating me, has reduced and my parents betrayed me by sending me back to him. My friend is afraid and I don't blame her. Nightmare's of reading about my death hunts her. My husband threw punches at my neck the night before and I ran home to escape. But my retired Parents can't take on a stray and won't be one of those people with divorced children. They benefit from his miserable hand outs he gives them and I've lost two sisters in the Libyan desert. Two dreamers that died in the hands of human traffickers. My savings gone to killers and parents that turn me back to my abuser.
  I will leave today, I have got a teaching job. The one with kindergarten children running all around me as we learn a, b C's. Fifteen thousand Naira is small, but my friend survives somehow. No need for transport money, just walk from her mushroom apartment to work. It's my husband's language, before him, I never looked down on anyone or abused any tribe. He insults me and everyone else, beat me into quiting my job and now his isn't certain. I suspect I know where he is. The maid that loves Nollywood movies and came to Lagos to dethrone her madam and bosses wife. What delusions she has about me, about a woman married to a hypocritical fanatic. I know he has sneaked up into her room again. I just need the confirmation, so that the church members will see him for who he is. So that my divorce will be quick and expedient.
I push open the maids door, the same one sleeping with my driver. And there is my lazy husband, pounding hard to prove he can perform. Working hard with his assisted sexual enhanced performance.
The maid spots me and shoves him off and the phone in my hand, quietly goes into the jumpsuit I made the week before.
I cover my mouth and walk away backwards. Not because I am surprised, but because I have to act surprised and broken. He launched at me with her sweat still on him. The blow is intense and I see my teeth fly out of my mouth, at least two.1
What have you done? He accused me and Jack's my neck with both hands, lifting me high up, until the wall supports me.
I whispered the words help me and bite and swallow his skin and flesh. Today is different, he means to hide his sin and my finding out. I tuck the phone into my pant from the unfinished pocket hole I intensionally left unfinished. I plead and beg and could see the maid was smiling. She would be in my position soon enough. He turned to smile at her and I kicked him in the groin and ran. I trip and fall and keep running, if there is a chance that I could survive. I will take it, he dived and taps my feet and I fall and then he kneels on my stomach with force. Just seven years ago, he was on his knees asking me to marry him. He swore his mother's hatred of me would not affect his love for me, his father ignoring me meant nothing. Said, she was a troubleshooting woman that fought all her brother's wife. I questioned it in my heart, but didn't want to sin further. I was fornicating with him and wanted it to be all legal and true. Even though the love had faded, I believed e could rekindle it.
Right now the love in his eyes were real, he loved to see me in pain and loved how he was crushing my neck. I heard it snap and stopped feeling anything.
The baby, I whispered, trying to save our child.
Who wants it? I have another, the one my family approved. You will be buried and forgotten, the lazy twarth that fell off the stairs. He was cruel and mean and I cursed the day I met him and promised him that God was not asleep. I slid into a deep slumber and faded permanent from this cruel life.
My friend was crying and had arrived at the hospital with police men and women. Screaming that he was lying, saying I didn't fall. Begging the doctor's to check my neck, asking them to test the maid and asking for an arrest. His church members, the doctors didn't believe her. But on re-examining the body, the doctor's were in shock. Her eck bones were crushed, this was clearly murder. The maid panicked and ran away, but was caught by border police. The evidence was painful to watch and listen to. The voice of the maid, telling him to finish her quickly. The laughter and sex after, the plan and lies they planned to tell the doctor's. But it was her voice telling her parents to get their priorities right, to protect her daughter, while she grows up. And not to excuse any form of abuse from anyone. Her daughter was present and testified against him. A painful experience that could have been avoided, if she had just walked away sooner.
Instead, I was Strangled By A Wicked Horizon, The Serial Cheater inflicted.
   The perpetrators were escorted out of court in handcuffs with church members reigning abuses at the man and the maid.

"ADE'S JOURNAL", 41

  Bless the Beautiful morning dew that cools my lips as the sun fries it's tips. Flesh eating bugs, dug deep and entice me to touch the lips of the carnivore that bites gently at the bouquet of flowers. Yes, the red maroonish bunch that lures my lips to part and accept the end. Press quickly and run, like a teenage boy on heat enticing the pastor's daughter. A vengeful being, hurt by truthful words, fighting to win more evil souls to his many flock. Bless broken flowers, they wither and die but the stem, branches and leaves all connected to deep roots... Prepare to groom another array of flowers. Know that, he hacks at flowers and not the roots. Damn wicked soul, his nematodes approach at the tubers, rich in nutrients. I am afraid he will come and repopulate every inch of my existence.