Doom's Wing: The Legend of Tellam by Temitayo Ilori

Tellam raised his head when he noticed the movement. He moved to the bedside and the horror he had worn on his face for a few days melted away as a smile burst through the same face. The lady on the bed blinked continuously as the muscles in her eyes were trying to readjust because she had laid in coma for some days now. Her eyes were trying to contain the intensity of the light from the rising sun. Tellam moved closer to her and touched her hands, they looked into each other’s eyes and tears broke through the tired eyes of the two of them. Though crying, but his face remained smiling. The beautiful figure on the bed smiled back but words were still locked up in her mouth. Not all tears are a result of pain; some tears are only the extreme expression of joy. She only smiled but did not utter any word. Tellam embraced her on the sickbed and poured into her breath of love through his kiss. They mesmerized in this moment and smiles from the heart of the two collided.

“Though you are in pains and agony, I still love you. You are my angel and my life. Nothing will tear our souls apart. You’ll live to see each dawn break in my heart.” Tellam held her hand tightly. His eyes were very weak from the night watch he had kept. He continued, “You’ll live and be cured because you are in the hands of the best physician in Mead.”

She did not respond to him with voice but ripples of smile waved on her beautiful face telling how lucky she was to have known a man like him.

Tellam looked into her eyes, took hold of her hands and wondered how much he had come to love Gestry even in pains. Millions of thoughts flashed through his mind, but he never knew which one to recount. Is it their moments of mild and severe pain, because life had tortured them together, or the moment of love and joy that they always wished would remain forever? Tellam could not deny the expression of these thoughts, therefore, he smiled a little and tears trickled down his cheek. Gestry reached out with her other hand and wiped his face.

“You are all I have. You are what I need. You are my godsend. You are my key to immortality and eternal bliss. You are my life; in both rain and sun you have stood with me, in both pains and good health you have never neglected me. Even in my pains, you have even been more loving and you are never tired of the commitment of love. You’re indeed my love.“

Tellam teased, “was I your angel in your deep sleep?“

She smiled and replied with a nod of approval. Gestry smiled again and her face became immaculate in beauty as if she just ascended from death to glory of life. The morning had broken further and the chirping and squeaking of birds could be heard in the room. It seems the people of Mead woke late this morning as voices were not dispersed in the town.

“Hey Tellam, you complete me.”

“Without you, no us.” Tellam concluded to her.

“...what would life have paid me with, if not for you? May be death by now?” Gestry said.

“We’ll make it through together.”

They smiled again and never took their eyes off each other. Gestry broke the silence.

“What did you say the name of the physician is?”

“They say Harieti. The man with three healing powers. We can count on him for the restoration of your life. He is the best physician in Mead.”

“Did you say Mead?” Gestry questioned.

“Forgive me. Yeah I said Mead.” The questioning look on Gestry did not expire, therefore Tellam continued. “...when we were about to enter this town a few days ago, you slipped into coma. It was a horrific evening; I thought I’d lost you. In tears and fright I took you into this town and caring people of Mead directed me to this hospital...” he paused when he found that Gestry was lost in her gaze. “Hey what is it now?” Tellam asked with shakes in his voice.

The voice shook her out of her deep thought. She looked up to him and said, “Nothing really, just remembering what horrors have gutted our lives together over the years.”

“Lady, a sweet dream cancels a million years of nightmares. You never can tell what tomorrow will look like. We never thought you would be free from the bondage of death in the hands of coma this morning, and here you are. So we never can tell-”

He had not finished with this statement when a finely dressed man entered the room with all the corners of his face rooming smiles. Harieti entered the room with extravagant charisma coated with humility.

Harieti had been the physician in this hospital since he finished learning his art of medicine many years ago. He had been the man of cure for many diseases for both poor and rich; there is no element of disparity in him at all. Harieti was a man with a heart so healthy to induce anybody that was ill with good health and a hand of life that exchanges death in the spirit of the sick with life. Harieti, the man mostly known for his words of understanding and wisdom as well; they say you cannot go to him and come back the same; if his healing heart does not induce you with good health, his life-loving hand will touch you and heal you and if the two misses out, the words from his mouth would ever bath you with good health and life. And if he should combine the three to heal you, then you are lucky.

He intimated himself with the bed and Tellam took a step backward to allow him do his work after they had exchanged gestures.

“...you are so wonderful Tellam. For days now, you have been a guiding angel to this lovely and priceless gem of yours. Do not worry in your heart, she shall be cured.”

All Tellam could do was smile. Then Harieti turned to Gestry. “What sweet dreams kept you asleep in coma all these days; you have suffered your love his sleep both in the day and at night?” Silence filled the room when he paused, then he continued. “Whatever dream enticed you into coma; it’s not worth keeping your Tellam awake for more than a moment. It’s not worth tearing the loving heart of Tellam with fear. Do you understand?” His words gave them assurance. “You have a friend in Tellam, he is your godsend.”

Gestry looked into Tellam’s eyes again and they both dished out warm smiles. Harieti walked away with Tellam. Gestry followed them with her eyes. It amused her the way the two men chuckled and laughed in whispers as they walked toward the entrance of the room.

“Tellam, rest your heart, she will be cured. Her blood has been ravaged by some aliens of poor health. They have destroyed her blood. We will try to save her and give her into your hands better than you brought her into this town.” Harieti said. But those were just words of hope. There was more to it than that.

Tellam appreciated him. “You are a wonderful man Harieti, I have heard about you. They called you the ‘man with the triple power’.”

Harieti mumbled some laughter.

“The best thing you can give to people is a sense of love and belonging. If you learn to do this, you would have an amazing effect on them, that is when you can attend to their problems, and when you have learnt to be a man of honour. This was what I learnt when I was young and that has made me the man of my dreams today. Tellam let me tell you something, there are some things you cannot buy with money. You cannot buy amazing effect with money, you have to earn it by showing to the people that they have a place also in life. This you cannot deny.” Harieti said.

A moment of silence passed and Tellam kept nodding his head in affirmation.

Tellam broke the silence. “I paid the token you required to your medicine maid-”

Harieti interrupted him, “how fast you were in getting the money, but I thought you said you didn’t have money when you brought her?”

“Nature works out the impossible.”

Harieti continued, “Tellam, where do you go from here? I mean when Gestry is cured, to what town or city are you headed?”

“I was born a wanderer with no roof over my head. We don’t know where we will go. But I know I will get there one day with stories in my mouth. But I have come to find a lost treasure in Mead. A story.” Tellam replied him.

“What stories and what treasure are you talking about?” Harieti asked.

“Hmm...” Tellam giggled. “The stories of my life will be told to my mother whom I have never seen in my life. There’s a man in Mead who has a clue as to how to find my mother.”

The look in Harieti’s eyes showed deep concern for Tellam.

Harieti excused himself to attend to other duties. Tellam returned to the bedside to have a view of the person he had come to love in his life. Less than two minutes later, Harieti appeared on the scene again distressed. Sweat and fear was all over him. He trembled as he spoke with the royal guards at the entrance of the room housing sick Gestry. Terror filled the whole place. Both Tellam and Gestry watched the event as it began to unfold. Then Gestry whispered, “What has he done, what is happening?”

Tellam replied in whisper, “I don’t know what he has done.” But he began to fidget.

Intermittently, the eyes of Tellam and the other party which constituted, Harieti and the royal guards interlocked. They kept dragging words for a few more minutes before they finally resolved to take the accused away. Harieti would not stand in the way of Paton by preventing the arrest of Tellam. He finally pointed him after minutes of futile defence. It was a total shock when the guards pounced on Tellam and tore him from the bed. The event turned around. Gestry, in distress, reached out for Tellam’s hand to drag him back, but it was a legion of strengths against a dead strength. Gestry exhausted her strength in whispering shouts and wails. She needed somebody to explain the situation to her but none she could find before coma enticed her with dreams again and she would not but oblige. The wet and shaky hands of Dr. Harieti tried to do magic, but it was late.


The death of Paton’s son shrouded the morning of Mead with mourning. Everybody in the town, even the inanimate things and the animals remained in gloom when the news was disseminated.

“They said he was murdered in cold blood in his cart on his horse in the rise of the moon.” The news was on everybody’s lips. Though the detailed account of his death remained unsaid, different rumours flew around the town. The Meadian mourned the death of their heir as the town remained excessively calm. The market only stood in empty stalls as nobody traded anything whatsoever. Gallows remained thirsty for fresh blood each waking morning. “…soonest, soonest, soonest, you shall be fed…” the gallows thirstily cried and waited for the neck of those that would be hanged.

The house of merry on the hill, the royal house of Paton crumbled under the influence of gloom that took over the town. Ashes were thrown around and it shrouded the whole courtyard. The well carved mighty gothic pillars of the royal courtyard could not support it as the whole house crumbled under the weight of this horror.

The blood-stained cart in which the cold blood murder took place was parked in the garden, mounted by two guards. But would these guards be able to wade off flies from licking the blood? Where were they when Dankre the only prince of Mead was murdered last night? Dankre before his death was the best read like his father and the only possible heir to the throne of Mead. He was taught and raised in manners and thoughts of a king. Very humble and kind but Dankre is not without subtle dint of arrogance in his attitude. His mother would not trade her time and care for her son for anything else and Paton would not allow anything to trouble his son’s mind before he addresses it. Such love was invested in a son that was killed in a night.

“Justice or judgment without fairness, whoever is part of this will go down the drain,” Paton threatened in his torn-apart state of mind.

The whole citadel of Paton became flooded by the silent tears that stemmed from the hearts of those who felt for the death of honourable Dankre.

It was 8a.m when Tellam was dragged into the royal court of Mead. Paton was missing in the session because the grief was too much for him to bear. But his absence wields as much power as his presence. The honourable elders sat still; words were scarce in their mouths. Their eyes were weak and their visages were sad. The shreds Tellam was wearing before he was arrested that morning had been totally torn from him before he was put into the dock. He stood there half naked.

Hamit sat real quiet in his chair. He reflected in his heart, “Years ago, I was in this same court, as a little boy defending myself, but now I stand to judge people.”

When the hall settled down and the ruffleness in the air had faded, Hamit stood up from his magnificent seat with a rod of justice in his hand and walked to the dock. His eyes revealed locked away mixed feelings which were subtle and ambiguous. He observed the accused with keen eyes. Tellam’s body had peeled from the slashes of whip. Blood laced all the pores in his body.

“Do you know why you are brought before this honourable house of the elders of Mead?” The majestic and manly voice of Hamit decreased the intensity of the silence in the hall.

Tellam’s ill look and his unshaven face only told of a mere wretched man that would do anything to get better. Locked up behind in his heart was a far away look of dangerousness. Who knows? Hamit moved closer to him for one last time and said, “if you don’t know, you have been charged for the murder of Dankre the son of the governor of Mead. Does it suit you to know that the gallows are always thirsty for the blood of murderers and their brother acts in this town?”

“…ask him where he came from; I heard the tramp entered the town a few days ago… “

Tellam only looked estranged. He was in shock throughout the session. When the elders found they were not getting anywhere, they declared in consensus that Tellam be confined to the dark rooms of the cave just a few feet from the royal courts to be judged later when the shock has left him. Tellam remained locked-jaw. He could not be condemned because his own mouth had not condemned him. He had not spoken a word.

“-Take him away until he is ready to speak. Take him into the pit of the dark cave.” Hamit commanded.

The grief of the murder did not allow anybody the best opportunity of anger this day. They were all calm in gloom.

While the guards were taking Tellam out of the hall, he came face to face with Solom and quickly, he turned his face away. Solom could not disengage his eyes from him.

“…there is something about him…” Solom thought. By then Hamit had joined him on his desk. But Solom was lost in his thought that he did not know that Hamit stood with him. He repeated his thought, “…something, yes, there is something about him…”

“What is it about him?” Hamit’s voice disengaged him. Solom looked up into Hamit’s eyes and they both looked in the direction of the guards, dragging Tellam away. Simultaneously, another guard dropped a note for Hamit. It was from Paton. Hamit and Solom knew what the content of such well penned letter would be: a message of crucifixion and death.


There were two calibres of men you would find in the pits of the dark cave of Monort in Mead, they are the: the criminals, who one day would be condemned at gallows and the guards who maintain law and order amidst these criminals. The cave of Monort was a place where darkness tortures the soul of men. Only those who have not been condemned by the law are given the opportunity to see the light. In the dark cave of Monort, a streak of light is like the visit of God.

The darkness of Monort is greater in intensity than that of the moonless and starless midnight.

“…take him to the pit by the side. Think he should enjoy the last light of his life before he is condemned and die in agony…”

“…move on you…move on.” The guards shouted as they each led a criminal, either condemned or about to be condemned, to their pits. Metals clattered and voices scattered in noises. These are the two things that keep the place alive when the men of the pits are carrying out their daily chores. The eyes of the men confined to live in Monort are tormented by darkness. Some only opened their eyes wide, but could not see again. The light of the day does not break at all in the cave.

That evening at about the moonrise, Tellam rose from where he had rolled in sob of tears and went following the direction of the thin streak of light that entered his pit. The straw that carpeted the place was all over him. He tried to free himself from the dirt all over him as he moved in the direction of the light. The source of the thin streak became a shaft of light when he moved the stone covering the window. It was a full moon parading the sky of night. He became entranced by the beauty when he looked out. More tears fell from his eyes. His look was no better than the mad in the cave. The memories of the past days lingered in his thought. Facing him was a night owl hooting on a bare tree not quite a distance from him. The thought of Gestry filled his heart. Their love had suffered much pain and yet had not crumbled. He looked the moon in the eye and the message of light was embraced by his heart. The memories of his life flooded his heart; a life of mysteries.


At the same time Tellam was distressed in the cave of Monort, pondering over his entire life, Hamit and Solom wore quietness as they pondered in their hearts in Hamit’s study. Before them was the letter of Paton, indicating the condemnation of Tellam, either found guilty or not. And that should not take more than five days before the decision is reached. The ultimatum was that close. Justice must prevail.

“Hamit, you can’t condemn him…” the words stuck on his tongue. Then he continued again, “there is something to that boy called Tellam. You cannot condemn him.”

“What is to that tramp that makes him above the law?” Hamit asked, convinced that Tellam could not escape being hanged.

Solom combed is all-greyed hair with his hands, “son, you cannot condemn that Tellam.”

“Solom…” Hamit charged forward in desperation, “but you know for which crime he was charged and who he has offended. You taught me this art, you have been my mentor all my life, you know better than I do and you are convinced beyond doubts that he would be hanged to death.. Why then do you tempt my senses?”

Solom stood from his stool and went towards the open window. He stared at the full moon ascending the steep of the heavens in beauty, and he whispered some few words.

Hamit asked, “Show me the words on a straight line why I should not condemn this Tellam if his own act condemns him already? Solom, you know it is difficult to stand against the wish of Paton.”

Paton is a very gentle and meek breed of humankind. But he is as hard as a rod when he decides.

Solom smiled and he said some words of riddles, “The moon of the night, the moon of the night, what a beauty you are in the dark of the night. You, who reveal the truth of light in the gloom of darkness of the night.”

“Solom, it is not a night for riddles of words. What do you see?” he joined Solom by the window side and they watched the moon together. “Solom, we only have five days to make our decisions. What do you say?”

“Wait son, you will see the reason you can’t hang him.” Solom said.

“Solom,” Hamit stressed his name.

“Trust me, you will see.”

They both took a break from the discussion and concentrated on the moon. White clouds flew the night sky in great speed.

Hamit broke the silence, “the moon is quite exquisite tonight. It is a bit different from every other night. Do you think it has a message for us?”

“The moon has brought the time for the truth.”

Hamit’s eyes widened and it interlocked with Solom’s.

“The truth about what?”

“About his life. His life is made of stories.” Grey-haired Solom replied him.

“Stories? Does that mean he should not be condemned if found guilty?”

“Hamit, the answer to your question is found in the dark cave. If ever you seek an answer, you will deny your nobility tonight and we will enter the dark shadows to seek the answer you desire.” Solom charged him.

Hamit was shocked greatly to hear this from the mouth of Solom. No noble has ever dishonoured his nobility by entering into the shadows of Monort, it is forbidden. The shadows are only meant for the condemned. The law of Mead disrobes any noble who touches the stone gate of Monort, let alone enter into the shadows to seek answers from the mouth of an accused that Paton has condemned already.

“I will never walk in the shadows of Monort to seek any answer. Never! I will never risk my nobility because of an answer that will do no good. Let him be as Paton has declared.” Hamit quickly retorted.

“What is the essence of nobility when we are afraid to go and get the truth that can bring beauty to our future, the truth which lies in the darkness of Monort. The truth that preserves law. Isn’t that the legacy you once preached? That the law is not to kill alone but to preserve life.” Solom dismissed Hamit’s fear.

Hamit’s eyes widened.

“The answer in the dark cave could be the meaning of your life...” Solom added as he reached for Hamit’s drawer and brought out a pouch, (the only valuable property the guards found and seized from Tellam) and poured out its contents. “And these could be a great lead to solve all these mysteries.”

“Two necklaces, a lead to solve these mysteries? Solom don’t be crazy please. Paton…”

“Shush.“ Solom silenced Hamit.

“But Dubanon…how do we pass through such giant, a loyal servant to nobody but Paton…” Hamit voiced his fears.

“Dubanon… hmm. “ Solom sighed.

That night they entered Monort which is just some hundred feet from the court of Paton, disguised. They dressed in tattered apparels and covered their heads with veils like those who bring food for the inhabitants of the dark rooms. Solom knocked the stone gate with his stick and they waited for a few more minutes before Dubanon, a dreadful looking giant looked out through a hole to them.

“What do you seek in darkness?” Dubanon asked them the coded question.

“To feed those who live in shadows with bread.” Solom answered him while Hamit stood in silence and watched in fear behind him. He watched the two men speak codes to each other. They waited another minute before the stone was rolled away and Dubanon the giant allowed them in and a step into the dark cave, he stretched his hand forward and asked them for a note of confirmation. Hamit and Solom looked into each other’s eyes, and then Solom brought out a note that bears the seal of Paton. “Paton asked that the accused brought in today be fed generously till he meets his death.” Solom spoke as he handed to him the sealed note.

Dubanon tore it and read through the lines. After he was sure of the confirmation, he gave a nod of approval. At this point, Hamit had turned ice. He now saw that even the strong can be weak when he goes beyond his jurisdiction.

While Solom and Hamit were in Monort, heading towards the cave of Tellam, led by a guard, Tellam had escaped through the window of his mind and rode away on the horse of memories. Different stories made his life and he would tell the stories to the world...

Doom's Wing: The Legend of Tellam was written by Temitayo Ilori and is an excerpt from Doom's Wing: The Legend of Tellam (Value-Books 2010).

Copyright © Temitayo Ilori 2010.

Temitayo Ilori is a young and passionate Nigerian. An environmental biology graduate of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology. He is an author and an entrepreneur. He is also a social reformation and enlightening teacher and speaker.

Now he is focusing solely on making his debut fantasy novel Doom's Wing: Legend of Tellam, which was published by Tylor Business Home, a huge success. This book, unlike other novels, is a value book; a social re-construct project to re-emphasize, re-educate and re-educate on values that are now lacking in the social system.

You can meet him on Facebook, he will be delighted to receive you.

Ingrid's Ghost by Abigail George

She is a ghost of her former self, but she is still in the land of the living, a land that time forgot, a time of angels, a time of traumatic circumstances. She is a tragic beauty in a state of personal turmoil and crisis. There is no time like the future to seal my fate, she thinks with growing uncertainty. Her unquiet spirit began to move across the timeline of her unhappy adult life and childhood with a razor sharp edge.

She watched her former self smoking cigarette after cigarette each one dashed into the ashtray, and remembered the unbearable nervousness of that night. She feels exposed, she paces up and down, but she still attaches no serious damage or blame to her last love affair. She was gentle and loving with Simone, her daughter today. Simone is a very sweet and loveable child. She was blonde, looked more like her father than Ingrid. She was beautiful and she spoke in a soft voice while she followed her mother around the house.

Ghosts do not only come at night. During that turmoil in South Africa during Apartheid they came unseen during the heat of the day, during banning orders, detention, torture, the sub-conscious, student uprising and solitary confinement. Ghosts can also be seen as a link to the telepathic. A connection that is tenuous and invisible, that renders heartache. They do not appear as glowing apparitions in diaphanous white sheets. They come to us in dreams of what our life could be like. They give a meaning and a purpose, untold gifts to the loved ones we leave behind. What ghosts do best is tell stories, what they are best at is confessions.

In Paris, a trip she took paid for with the money she won in a writing competition she was already a writer in exile — cursed, perturbed and a voyeur who had high-maintenance taste. She is still unclear about what she is going to do tonight. She felt ambivalent. Glass beads of perspiration lay across her forehead. Her spirit stood close by watching what she was going to do next knowing full well the consequences of her actions but lacking the will to control what would happen.

Her spirit remembered that night her resolve unravelled in the flat. Her beauty meant nothing to her. She was not conceited. What had it brought her but ill-fated relationships, rejection, pain and suffering? Nothing dulled or sated her desire for love, for life, for a hot and heavy intellectual debate, which her voice was the centre of. In retrospect, living in Apartheid had made her begin to doubt what she was living for, what her writing, the words of her poems stood for.

She wanted to be taken seriously as a woman, but more importantly, as a writer. She wanted to be the voice of a new generation that knew no boundaries and no limitations, which had the power to disseminate knowledge through books, reading, the reciting of poetry. She knew she was a non-conformist with a relevant and unique voice. She knew this was dangerous in the times she was living in.

Spirits knew no boundaries over the past affairs and histories of the bodies they inhabited. They could go where they liked and have an opinion on what they disliked or where indifferent to. They could seek out the mysteries of life and illuminate truths about the lives they led before they returned to eternity or to a paradise in heaven or to hell. In eternity they were locked in a constant battle where Ingrid’s ghost now found itself whether or not to return to their human body before death or to linger in the no-man’s-land caught between either heaven or hell.

The group of writers that she had befriended were dangerously in hate with a patriarchal system. They were known as the ‘Sestigers’. It was the sixties and they were a Bohemian group of poets, artists and writers who fought against the beliefs and principles of a racially divided country that was in chaos and upheaval. She wished she could stop being so insecure and being amongst so many people who were likeminded and made her step out of her shell. The world around them, the country that they lived in seemed crazy, deranged and it distracted them from the seemingly normal lives they lived. They all seemed momentarily sidetracked from it only drawing attention to it in their writing.

The ghost carried the mirror image of Ingrid’s sadness and unhealed internal wounds, emotional scarring and the heartbreak battles she went through daily. She had not let go of the strange, disturbing dreams she had at night. There were often times when Ingrid’s tiredness, her ranting and her internal affairs of her heart got the better of her. It tore her optimism and motivation apart. The ghost was moved by Ingrid’s reflection in the water. She sensed there was a feeling there of a little girl being lost. Ingrid had often wondered what happened after you died especially when she was feeling melancholic.

The essence of her identity was fragmented and complicated. Piece by piece pushed her, destroyed her faith in love, passed her to a fate worse than death and could not guarantee security in her chosen career. Later the powerful pain and rejection she felt propelled her to write about her life experiences. She hated her loneliness, feelings of emptiness and of defeat, her feelings of despair and desperation.

The ghost knew that there is always bottled up melancholy in the abstract drawings of people and from mild observations made in the congested streets, traffic and streams of people. The ghost knew just how happy she could be but it already was too late.

The ghost also knew that love will change you in an indescribable way — it will make strong hearts weak, render the intellectual speechless, comedians will vanish and be replaced by philosophers; the funny will be replaced by philosophy and everything that was laughable before is serious and stimulating. The challenges of the human condition become painfully obvious. Death is the ultimate sacrifice, invisible and mysterious.

Ingrid made a decision for herself that was useless. She was distracted by her unquiet spirit.

There is no earthly justification for what she did — removing the very substance of her gift, her genius from this world, by taking her own life, by drowning herself in the sea. As they pulled the limp body from the ocean, the subject in death mirrored life. There was a chill in her embrace. Her fingers were numb. She was haunting, pale and beautiful, lacking tenderness. Her cheeks were wet as if from tears. Her mouth is full.

Ghosts try and press competence into the expanse of the mind of their human body. They live in another world. A world in which they are brave, committed expert time travellers. They guide mediums, healers, readers, human beings to a place where they longer weep with heavy hearts. They take you to a place where you can fly. They take you to a place where you can be naked and unembarrassed.

Her former-self’s lips are cool, as if she has drunk her fill. Her appetite is sated. She sleeps to dream, she does not speak and there is no lapsed recovery from the multiple meanings of words. There will no longer be the willing prerogative of an insomniac to stay up the whole night and blot out the stain of her sins by writing down her dreams, goals and decisions. What did see before her in her daily thoughts? Who was she born to be, she often wondered when she was alone, sadness pressing in on her from all sides, as her lover slept beside her.

Ghosts like looking at pictures especially portraits of human beings through smoke and mirrors. Here they have the absolute power. They are miracle-workers when you come to know them with the ability to make you forget those traces of painful girlhood, a youth filled with sore humiliations.

She often lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling, her sense of self-worth and self-pity circling questions in her wandering mind. Who could she blame now for this hurt, this humiliation that followed an argument with her lover at the time? Being known as this one’s goddess or that one’s muse delighted and amused her at varying times. She knew she broke all the rules. She knew she made mistakes that she harboured and kept close to her heart and would not let go. She knew she made herself suffer so, deliberately.

It was too late for her to realise that she already had the world at her feet. Instead she made the world cry.

Human beings do not have to be afraid of ghosts. They are not the manifestations of what we fear the most in the world as we have grown up to believe. They are just our former selves making their way through eternity trying to go back and correct their mistakes with a passion.

The male policemen's hair was windswept. They talked amongst themselves.
The breeze was salty, the morning tide came in, the breakers crashed against the rocks, the foam raced towards the shore, birds circling overhead perched on rocks and altered states, tension, were trapped in a war of nerves of the people who were present at the beach that day. They stood in a union of solidarity. Everyone was left to their own reflections staring up at the blue dissolve of the sky.

Her eyes stared into the pale, blue sky. The beginning of the day was like her work, imaginative. It gave recognition to curious incidents in the still, mournful air of the morning. It concerned itself with the decline of evil and the harmful beginnings of the harvest of desolation.

The shadow of a ghost of a haunting memory refused to disappear into a hazy reverie. The poet, Ingrid Jonker, is dead. Her face has an unsmiling seriousness on it. Even in death she is angelic. Her demeanour never giving way to the trouble or unfounded insecurity that lay underneath. She is still beautiful, morose like a needy, sullen child who is used to getting his or her own way.

She is authentic, a true original, a unique. But she will never know this in her own lifetime. Her life when held up to scrutiny in death will revere it.

She knew what the imagination was capable of, the loneliness of the heart and when it was ready to surrender to a temporary escape into a romance.

Her innocence and vulnerability was one that mirrored those of women ahead of the times they were born into, women who were visionaries, leaders, and had to endure great humiliation from powerful men, from a traditional public realm. Women like Joan of Arc, Saartjie Baartman, Susan Sontag, Princess Diana, Sylvia Plath and Marilyn Monroe.

She is barefoot in her flat. Her hair is dark, wild and free and falls across her face. Yet in her eyes there is a declaration of having been to hell and back again. There has been a radical change in her behaviour since she came back from Paris that hasn't escaped her but she doesn't speak of her experiences there, of the lingering sadness that torments her. The 'unhappiness' does not have a name yet, but soon the world will know and there is nothing she can do to protect her daughter from it.

Fate is like a drowned thing, an empty shell reserved for the sound of silence invoking the sound of the ocean. She has decided she is a poor activist, wife, mother, woman and lover. Simone, her daughter, wants to make her smile but she is tired of playing games.

Nonetheless she plays along, pretends to catch the joke, and today, when the journalist came for the interview, there was a glimmer of a smile on her face when her picture was taken.

The picture of her as the famous, prize-winning poet — the female voice of her generation — was a small consolation to her. Without her father's love she felt lost. Fame meant little or nothing to her and the turning point came now, this night. How different would things be in the morning for people that she had been estranged from for years, she wondered quietly to herself?

How many times did she have to redirect her focus when tears blurred her vision when she cried, when she was working? How do you survive a blessed and cursed childhood? What made her laugh, this sensitive, delicate woman? Who made her smile?

The elementary particles of light became diffused on her face. It was translucent, her face dreamy and lashes damp. The farm where she grew up with her grandparents and her mother and sister filled her with warmth comforted her in the dark times when she searched for beauty and escape. She was happy then when nothing could drag her away from what she found small joys in like the animals or wild-flowers or her mother or grandmother in the kitchen.

There is a distracting air near the incident now as they wait for the coroner. Simone woke up in the stillness of the flat and went in search of her mother. She searched the rooms one by one and found that they were empty.

Where does the story begin? Perhaps with a car is hurtling down the road past everything a young Ingrid knows and loves. This is the world of a child, a babyish language, tea parties in the shade with her sister, barefoot on the sandy beach searching for beautiful feathers, smooth pebbles and colorful shells. Now history has turned the page. Their father has come to fetch them to live with him and his family. It is his third wife and they have their own children. The years spent year, facing shame, rejection and isolation will push them further apart. Their idyllic childhood is over forever. As the car moves forward, the shiny wheels turning around and around without an end in sight like this trip they are being dragged to a new future, further and further away from their old haunts. As they turn the corner they will be a stone's throw from where they watched the fishing boats at sea.

Ingrid glances across at her sister on the back-seat. Her eyes are bright, but she does not look out at the world out of the window. Ingrid's shoulders are hunched over as she stares out of the window and looks at the sea of her childhood. She doesn't know it yet, but she will never see it again. Yet she knows with a certainty it will always be there. Other people will fall in love with the sea, the choppy, crashing waves against the shoreline at the break of day and at sunset, the warm undercurrents, slimy seaweed underfoot, stars above the dunes at night it like she has, easily.

Her father is very serious but he doesn't scare her. Ingrid doesn't scare easily.
She has already fallen in love with his spectacles, his shoes and the black suit he is wearing. He took his hat off in her grandmother's house. Ingrid wanted to take it from him and hold it in her hands. It smells like an elegant stick of liquorice. It smells dark and spicy. It smells like Old Spice or soap-on-a-rope. She had never seen anything quite like it before. He does not say a word to her. He ignores Ingrid and her sister completely. He looks like a brown grizzly bear that she saw in pictures in her school textbook with his broad shoulders and thick arms. Ingrid would like him to pick her up and hold her.

She wants him to take her hand in his and say in his gruff manner, What are the names of your dolls? What do you like to read? Do you miss your mother? But he says nothing and bundles them into the car. In her head Ingrid has an imaginary conversation with her father. He is silent. He stares ahead into the blue distance. Why didn't you come to see us before? Why did you wait so long? Ingrid has many conversations like this inside her head. He plays funny games. Sometimes he ignores her completely when she speaks to him and just nods his head or answers gruffly with an aloof and wan expression on his face. Sometimes he stares at the wall and pretends she didn’t say anything at all.

It makes her feel invisible, hurts her feelings, makes her feel small, feeble and like an orphan, like she is not wanted here. It makes her want to cry but she holds back that feeling and keeps it for when she is alone in her bed at night. When she can sob into her pillow and wipe the wetness across her face and remember fond memories of her mother’s kisses and hugs.

There were so many things I wanted to show you Daddy. Sometimes when we have tea parties we set a place for you. I don't know how you like your tea, with milk or without, with sugar or without, with lemon or without. I had a birthday this year. I'm a year older. I missed you. Daddy, daddy, are you listening? I love you. I always loved you. I thought you just forgot about me, about Anna, but one day I believed you'd come back to fetch us and we'd be a family again. But the important thing is that you're here now. My wish came true.

Ingrid tried to make sense of things, of this novel family and tried to make the best of it. She had the best intentions but failed miserably as a child and gloriously as an adult as her career as a poet began to take off and began to take shape. There are so many dreams that a human being dreams of in one lifetime. There are too many to recall. At night the sub-conscious is bewitching, alluring and illuminates the truths that we are so afraid to face daily. It cracks open the lid of the lies we feed ourselves greedily to make the childhood pain and fear go away. It fascinates our ego. It mesmerises us. It turns our madness and depression upside down.

Mr. Jonker begins to perspire. He takes out a beautifully starched handkerchief and wipes his brow. He is a man of few words. How does the world look through spectacles, Ingrid wonders. She leans back into the leather seat's interior. His cheeks are puffy like he is chewing sticky sweets. Ingrid is very still. Her sister's eyes are no longer bright but watery. Her life as she knew it is disappearing before her eyes. She kicked her foot against the seat as she straightened up. Her eyes were fixed on the beach, the silky mouths of the dunes that were like open purses and the quivering branches of the trees in the wind. Her childhood was over. She would only realise who she was born to be the night she stepped into the sea at Three Anchor Bay.

On that terrible night there was no quick magical thinking, the blank screen inside her mind that could so quickly be filled with words that could explain the disturbing and unnatural lives of the people who lived in a prejudiced society in South Africa. There was no pill that she could take to make her suffering go away.

No therapy. No big talk. No small support group to offer motivation and comfort. No self-help book, no life-coach, no stress-free vacation, no emotional stable relationship. She couldn’t make any sense of what was happening inside her brain. Nothing could please her.

There was no wine that could sate her thirst for the sadness she felt that night. Her gift was wasting away before the eyes of the world. It was the end of her world. It was the end of her gift of giving and her tremendous talent and potential.

Her sister started crying on the back-seat of the car. Ingrid hugs her and begins to stroke her hair, saying comforting things in her ear, whispering to her so she would not disturb her father. Now she was close to tears herself. She did not know this stranger, the even stranger place where they were going. She wondered how she would cope. Would he permit her to write her stories and poetry and let the sisters have their barefoot tea parties in the garden in the shade or would they be outsiders?

Mr. Jonker was not a man moved easily by tears. Ingrid cannot translate what she is feeling into words yet. She is lost in space. She is already in love with words. Words in books, novels, words on the tip of her tongue, in her dreams, that float on air, driven and determined in gossip and eavesdropping on them in passing conversations between her grandparents when they were still alive and her mother.

This is where it began, Ingrid Jonker said to herself in a flat in Sea Point thirty-one years later. This melancholy state of affairs was an accident waiting to happen. She was cursed.

Through shame, spite, the government's own brand of vitriolic censorship, a father and daughter remained estranged for decades. Did Ingrid know that she had more in common with her father than she realised. They had the same personality and the same aggressive style of debate. They stuck to their principles and would not let go. They both believed that what they were doing was right. She was mixing with Blacks and Coloureds, writing books that would be banned, talking about politics like an activist and he, her father was censoring, banning books that were against the government.

Neither of them was apolitical. She was her father's daughter. How could he reject her, how could she undermine him? They were both writers. Could they not see how alike they were? How could this escape both of them? When she was little her life had almost seemed like a dream. Now consorting with banned writers, Black artists, philosophers, poets, writers, activists and debating, remonstrating, taking their side against Apartheid, the Group Areas Act, testing racial boundaries and sweeping all limitations and the terrible burden that lay behind racialism in the sixties.

It seemed like it was another dream. So was spending her days on Clifton beach, lying on the sand, slender, tanned, in her white bikini and her nights with a new lover. The nightmare of a failed marriage left behind her. She dreamed other dreams when she was sad. She believed failed relationships could save her. Her work being published could make her a better writer. She believed when she failed at something she could rise above those circumstances and make something better come out of it.

She realised as a child that it was very hard to fall in love with something and give yourself over to it completely. She communed with nature as a child because it was here she felt most comfortable, most wild and most free. She was accepted here, and nowhere else for that matter, as an adult, as a grown-up. In her poetry she wrote about the harvest of desolation, the anguish of trials by fire and error, past mistakes, lives that were wrecked by emotional scarring, the youth who were detached from and attached to violence, marches, protests, Bantu education, boycotts and the eeriness of loneliness and mental illness.

She was scarred by mental illness very early on in her life. When she was ten years old her mother who had spent time in a psychiatric hospital, Valkenberg, took her own life. She consoled herself by telling herself that she and her sister were not orphans and they would not grow up as urchins or go to an orphanage and be mistreated. They had a father who would come and whisk them away to a house filled with laughter, jokes and happiness.

Instead this had not come true and she had to find other ways and means of escaping from her step-siblings and her step-mother she had christened as evil when she was a teenager. As she grew older she began to accept her father as being distant, vague and remiss and absent. A father, who had already abandoned them at birth, abandoned them again and again as she grew into womanhood.

But ghosts are loyal citizens of the world they live in, they are wise beings from a spiritual realm, they vanish into thin air and they love you when you are sick, when you are fat, when you can’t be dragged away from the intense feelings that come over you. They know that writing keeps the demons at bay. It is only a temporary sanctuary for self-loathing and insecurity. When they decide to show you the way they choose the time they appear with care. They appear when tears must be dried.

She is standing barefoot on the sandy beach. She is looking carefully at the light. The sunlight plays on the water, caresses it softly, illuminates everything immediately but she is shivering, trembling. The sky's blue dissolve lingered overhead. Ingrid Jonker is meeting her father for the first time today. She wonders if she looks anything like him. She wonders if he'll like her stories and her poems and what he will think of the idea of her being a writer one day when she is grown up. When she is older she says she doesn’t care that he said she was dead to him. She says it as if she means it. As if there is some importance and purpose behind her words but it is just a careful shadow to recover what is left of her dignity and integrity. She wants to reclaim some orderliness and decency into her life.

His approval is already important to her. She cannot wait for his arrival, to welcome him. She does not know yet that she and her sister will cry themselves to sleep in their father's new home. She does not know yet that life is the cause and effect of accidents waiting to happen. She needs his love, his guidance, but she is unprepared for the future that awaits her in her stepmother's new home.

Everything was already wrecked before she turned around and ran back to the house as she scrambled to put her shoes on. She didn't waste any time with regret as an adult, but with heartache she had finally found the words to translate the hunger and pain that consumed her as a child, careening away from the only home she had ever known. It was the same heartache; the same human stain that the mothers and daughters, wives and sisters of the lost but cherished and beloved men of this country had during the legacy of Apartheid. In her writing she felt she was finally accepted, loved. She felt she was finally going home. She was finally going to a home of her own and to a country of her own. She no longer felt so lost, so alone and rejected and isolated, blind. She would no longer seek comfort from lovers who would give her the cold shoulder and she would no longer be a girl in their company. She would no longer be a stranger in this mad country she called home. She was done with wishing the past was dead in the early hours of the morning dragging on a cigarette and drinking cups of tepid milky coffee with a murky residue at the bottom of the cup.

The ghost stood at the edge of the sea water watching the black sky. It knew some day that the legacy of her poetry, the poetry of her waking dreams and the writing of her infinite traces of sadness would be celebrated around the world.

Ingrid's Ghost was written by Abigail George.

Copyright © Abigail George 2010.

I am a writer of short stories, articles, personal essays, a memoirist, diarist, grant writer and poet who was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1979. I studied film and television production for a short while at Newtown Film and Television School in Newtown, Johannesburg, South Africa which was followed by brief stints as a trainee at a production house, studying Business Administration through correspondence, Bible School at Word of Faith Christian Centre in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and studying creative writing through the Leisure Study Group’s Writing School via correspondence again.

I have been published widely in print and online in journals and magazines in South Africa namely Litnet and on Litnet’s Blog, Sun Belly Press, Botsotso, Carapace, New Contrast, Kotaz, Timbila, Echoes Literary Journal, Upbeat and Tribute and online in Africa in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Turkey and Zimbabwe and internationally in the United States, England, Finland and Canada.

I have received two grants from the National Arts Council in Johannesburg. In 2005 for a poetry anthology entitled, Africa, where art thou? and again in 2008 for manuscript development for a collection of short stories entitled, The Origins of Smoke and Mirrors. In 2010 I was published in the following anthologies; Poems for Haiti (Published by Poets Printery), Animal Antics, Soulfully Seeking (Published by the Poetry Institute of Africa) and the forthcoming African Roar 2011.

The Abyssinian Boy by Onyeka Nwelue

And he began to run. Later on, he found that he was also running now and David and Raghu joined him. They tripped and leaped over a barbed wire into the mosque on Panchkuia Road. From the tower, the bell tolled forlornly and a man in a long robe wearing a straw cap came out of the top, with his fingers in the holes of his ears and screamed: ‘Allah-ho-Akkbar! Allah-ho-Akkbar! Ashadu-Allah-illah-illahu...’ Unlatched, everyone thronged into the mosque and the three of them - the American and Indian ambassadors - ran in through the back of the mosque.

The American Ambassador, who deep in his heart, wanted to be addressed as Ambassador-fucking-John-bitchy-Kennedy-dicky-Vulture-pussy-Handlebroadman, said he was an expert on South Asian politics and geography no matter his age. He thought that Jashim, the Bangladeshi was as Pakistani as any Pakistani. ‘He’s a Muslim, you know’, he would explain to the beery-eyed Indian Ambassadors who saw themselves as one Nehru, one Gandhi. No. One Gandhi, one Nehru, because Gandhi was there first before Nehru.

But that’s just politics!

So, Picard, the American-bitchy-Ambassador, because he thought he was one, said that Mr. Naif and Jashim were bitches. Oh, David liked the sound. Bitches bitching bitches. Raghu liked the sound. In the inside of him, he was afraid his mother could be a bitch. He was afraid. Plainly afraid. Bitches bitching... Shut up, David! And he shut up! Because there was nothing to shut down for. Seriously. Only he felt bitches bitched bitches!

Right there at the back of the mosque, Picard, like an American president, addressing his Indian and Pakistani counterparts, with loads of trepidation and intimidation, wanted David and Raghu to understand something about India. ‘You bitches might be Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis,’ he began, perplexed, ‘but you know nothing about India, Pakistan and Bangladesh...’

‘Oh bitches, let’s start with India,’ Picard told them.

‘You could be Indian, but you don’t know the history of India.’

‘You could be Indian, but my mother speaks better...’

‘Better what?’

‘Better Hindi!’

‘Oh yes, you could be Indian, but Indians don’t know anything about Pakistanis bitching around with them.’

‘I am more Indian than you both’ said Picard. ‘Yes, bitches, I eat with my bare hands, I can write the history of India. I can write about Indians the way Indians can’t. Yes, bitches, I can.’

For Picard, as an American Ambassador, he was observing India with diplomacy. He had his camera. He had his eye. He had his ears. One ear to get the news of India, one to get that of the US. He said he observed India with fuck-keen-interest.

And that made David think of when Swathi had begun to get pissed off by Picard parading her house with swear words. Bitches. Fucking. Pussy. Dicky. Arsey. Lickey. Mickey. (‘Was that a swear word, Swathi?’ David thought to himself. ‘Oh, Swathi, you don’t know anything. Only jam, jam, Swathi’). But no, everyone thought Licky-Mickey were swear words. Only Rajaswamy didn’t. Eunice half-thought, because half-thinking meant you were better than those who thought and those who didn’t. So, Swathi tried all her possible best to alert Warren Frazier and his wife over the ‘diminishing return’ of their son. What ‘diminishing return’? Frazier had asked. Swathi tried so well to explain so well but she couldn’t do it so well because she didn’t know so well how to tell Frazier that his son used swear words so well. So it stuck. Still Swathi could explain to herself what that (‘diminishing return’) meant but couldn’t understand it herself. She tried to give up warning David, Don’t bring that.

American boy into a Hindu home with swear words, bhai. Oh, if Mrs Frazier had heard that, she would call Swathi bhainchute – sisterfucker. But our God, Swathi had no sister and was really no fucker. How then, oh dearest heaven, how did these Americans come to the conclusion that they had better brains than Indians?

No brain Americans, no brain, Farida would howl back anytime she felt Picard was taking David’s attention from her. For that Farida, she hoped that David would become her son. Ah, if she had known, she would have escaped to Kashmir with him that time he was still growing up. This she couldn’t do, so she decided, very very well to love David. With all her might. To her, David was India and India was David. Indians were most patriotic, so Farida loved David as any good Indian would love India and hated Picard as any bad Indian would hate India to want to ask for the independence of Kashmir.

Fuck it, Picard swore.

David’s thoughts zoomed back to the mosque.

Picard was observing the mosque with David and Raghu. Picard said he was writing a book, titled A Passage to India. Yes, he was saying this as he stood in the mosque. And when he said that, David and Raghu sneered. A Passage to India? No. A Passage to India, I mean. What? Oh, A Passage from India.

‘You lie!’ Raghu said. ‘One Forster wrote A Passage to India’.

Picard smiled. ‘You see,’ he mumbled and then added, ‘that he didn’t write A Passage to India. He observed it. He observed A Passage to India’.

Raghu was surprised. ‘Really?’

‘Really, yes. Can’t you see? One Forster wrote A Passage to India. Then two fraudsters wrote A Passage from India.’

But David couldn’t buy that bitchy-trash about E.M. Forster. E.M. Forster, David tried explaining to the mosque-minded Picard and the ‘diminishing returned’ Raghu, was a British writer who loved

India. And India had a fucking American Ambassador who...

‘Terrorists!’ Picard mouthed. ‘You Indians are fucking terrorists. You Indians…’

‘Did you see my face the day your granny was blown up?’ David sarcastically asked.

‘No’. What I saw was your dicky head, pussy-sucker.

‘Diplomatically speaking,’ Picard-the-great-American-Ambassadorial-observer-again, ‘India is a beautiful country with beautiful minds. But those beautiful minds, diplomatically speaking, are beautiful terrorists... now I want to get down to my job as an observer, to understand terrorist India, to analyse, to marginalize, to criticize, to photographise...’

‘Photographise?’ David almost laughed.

‘Yes, photographise,’ Picard beamed. ‘Photographise as in, when you photograph, you ice it. It makes sense, doesn’t it?’

Two heads nodded. Yes, it fucking made sense. But it didn’t really make sense to them. Raghu really didn’t understand. What was that thing about photographing and icing? Icing what?’

‘You know,’ Picard said, ‘that Jashim is Pakistani Muslim?’

‘No,’ Raghu said.

‘He’s Bangladeshi’, David added.

‘No, Dave,’ Picard mumbled. ‘You fucking don’t understand why he’s in India. Now let’s get down to it. He is a Pakistani trying to appear as a Bangladeshi in India... when he gets to fucking know every nook and cranny of India, he goes back to Pakistan, alerts his terrorist group and they come back and bomb Inn-mere.’

Bomb Inn-There? Or India, arsehole? David thought, wanting so much to think out loud. But those kinds of thoughts were meant to be left inside.

Well, if Jashim were Pakistani and claiming he was Bangladeshi, he should fucking Pakistan himself out of India, Raghu kept saying to himself. And oh yes, he had never liked Jashim. Jashim was dark-skinned as Eunice, but that wasn’t why Raghu didn’t like Jashim. He half-liked Mr. Naif and it seemed Mr. Naif full-liked him.

Mr. Knife, Mr. Knife, always humming the Beatles. In the bathroom (while masturbating, thinking of Raghu or his grandfather, Anantha), in the kitchen (frying pakora), in his car (driving to anywhere), in his dream (thinking of the Yemeni girl his father wanted him to marry).

Very simple.

Mr Knife (Oh, Mr. Naif, Raghu!) came to India to sit out ‘a coup’. The ‘coup’ was his father’s decision that he must marry a Yemeni. Naif wanted to marry an Indian girl or a good American woman. He told his father. His father was roundly angry with him. What did he think? How dare he think he could marry an Indian? Even an American? And Naif had the money to run out of Riyadh and he did.

Now, he was in India, on Rani Jhansi Road, where there were all races, trying to hum the Beatles, masturbate when he could (he had no name for masturbation. No he did. He called itsalaaming sperm), fry his pakora, drive and dream.

Drive and dream he took very serious.

But then masturbation he took less serious. He said it was a normal thing any man could do in 90 days. If he were to think about the implications, he would smudge at how many dollars he was losing.

A bottle of sperm = Rs 50

A pinch of sperm = $3

A gallon of sperm = N150

Raghu made the first calculation.

The second appeared to Picard,

And David had the third.

So...

...as they stood in the mosque, Picard, diplomatically undiplomatically abandoned politics and like Rajaswamy, always in a lecturer-in-a-seminar-mood began to teach them, lecture them on sperm.

‘You know,’ he began, ‘sperm has the colour of milk and that’s why most children are beautiful when they are out. Two, when you mature, you’ll get to understand this, that as soon as you discharge, you’ll become weak. Sex is sweet when you’ve not discharged... most immature minds will start fucking to hate their partners in sex... sperm is like condensed milk. It spills out gradually.’

A bearded man, who had been listening to Picard’s sperm-lecture, said: ‘Shoo’.

‘Picard, let’s go.’ Raghu suggested.

‘Why?’ Picard wanted to know.

‘Shoo!’ the bearded man said. ‘Prayer in the mosque going!’

Oh, Picard fucking understood. Terrorist understood. Terrorist prayer, he said to himself. You blew out my granny, eh?

‘Shoo!’ the bearded man said again. ‘Prayer in the mosque going!’

The Ambassador ran away with his camera and the spirits flashed out with him.

The Abyssinian Boy was written by Onyeka Nwelue and is an excerpt from The Abyssinian Boy (Dada Books 2009).

Copyright © Onyeka Nwelue 2009.

Onyeka Nwelue was born in Nigeria in 1988. He was brought up in Ezeoke, a very historic village and spent six years in the seminary.

He was trained as a scriptwriter in a film-school in Delhi and read at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

His first book, The Abyssinian Boy, which is being made into a motion picture by Danish film-maker, Lasse Lau, won first prize in the TM ALUKO Prize for First Book and second prize in the IBRAHIM TAHIR Prize for Fiction and was nominated for the Creative Artist of the Year of the Future Awards 2010.

He is the editor of Home & Abroad: New Writings from India and Nigeria, to be published by DADA Books 2011. His writings have appeared in Maple Tree Literary Supplement, The Guardian, Kafla InterContinental, Ecletica and Next. He has participated at international festivals, including International Writers' Festival-India, The Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival, Jaipur Literature Festival and the Lagos Book and Art Festival. He splits his time between India and Nigeria.

Garuba by Anengiyefa Alagoa (Part Two)

It was late. The remains of our supper had been cleared away by the silent woman who had brought the food to us some hours previously. All three of us had stayed together in Garuba's room watching videos and talking generally. I talked about life in Lagos and the south and how what I had seen of the north so far seemed very different from the south, which I was used to. They talked about how they perceived Southerners and how people from the south of the country seemed to be so much more westernised than they were. Abdulsalami in particular, was keen to show me how Westernised I was in the way that I chose to dress and the hair product that I used. But all of this was quite good-natured and amiable and there was a lot of laughter and quite a few jokes.

Garuba I was told, was an architect. I learned that he had only just the year before, completed his one year of national youth service and had a few months ago started in a job with a firm of architects established by brilliant youngish Bauchi indigene, who having been granted a scholarship by the Bauchi State government, trained in America and had recently returned. Garuba was still living at home with his parents, but he reckoned that he would move to his own place within a few months. There was a lot of talk about how much there was yet to be done in Bauchi, talk about contributing to the development of the State and Bauchi town in particular, especially in relation to municipal and city planning. Garuba seemed really enthusiastic about the work that he did in his job and about his profession. I listened attentively, although I couldn't help admiring his fine angular jawline and the way his lips moved when he spoke. This man is absolutely gorgeous, I thought to myself.

Soon came the moment when that problem of the sleeping arrangements was to be considered. Garuba was our host, but Abdulsalami it was who had invited me here. It was obvious that both of them would have shared Garuba's huge double bed had I not been here. In the room, there was also a chaise lounge suite, upholstered in expensive looking Damask leather and I did not think it was customary for Garuba to have guests sleep on it. Anyway, there was a problem of working out where each of us would sleep and as is the custom in most of Africa, the guest is always in an honoured position. So I got first choice of the bed. Abdulsalami kindly deferred to his cousin and chose to lay on the chaise lounge suite, over which Garuba carefully draped a sheet. This meant that Garuba and I would share this huge bed. And as I climbed into it, I thought to myself that this day must be one of the most eventful I had yet seen.

It was a double bed, you know, with enough room for two adult people. I mean it was quite possible for both of us to have slept comfortably in that bed without once making body contact. But from the moment Garuba entered under the covers, it appeared that body contact with me was the only thing on his mind. Probably testing the waters, the first contact was tentative, watching for my reaction. I pretended that nothing had happened, but I didn't move away either. We stayed unmoving in the same position, our bodies touching just slightly, but we were so close to each other that it was impossible to pretend to be asleep. He moved in closer, such that the whole of his body from shoulder downwards was touching mine. And still I did not move. Actually, in truth I found this quite exciting, but I didn't feel relaxed enough to respond as I should have done. Then I must have fallen asleep, because when suddenly I came to, it was because Garuba's legs were entwined with mine. It felt nice and warm and lovely, but I also noticed that he was asleep. Careful not to wake him and without dislodging his legs, I twisted my torso so that my back was to him and then moved backwards so that my back touched his chest. By then he must have been half awake because at this point he put his left arm out around my midsection. In this position, I drifted off to sleep again. It had been a tiring day after all.

In the morning I woke up to find that I was alone in the room. Shortly afterwards Abdulsalami entered to say that his uncle had sent him on an errand with the driver to a location down Tafawa Balewa Road, which he explained was in the opposite direction from the house to the NYSC building. However, Garuba had agreed to take me to the NYSC place on his way to work. This sounded fine, but it was still early and I was sure the NYSC offices would not be open for another couple of hours yet. I lingered in bed, wishing that I didn't have to go out at all this morning. But just then Garuba came in. He sat on the bed and shook my shoulder, obviously thinking that I was still asleep. Garuba said breakfast would soon arrive and that I should get dressed, as he did not wish to be late for work.

Quickly coming to my senses I made for the shower room and returned to find that Garuba was waiting for me so we could have breakfast together, which had already been laid out. I started to dress, but he didn't leave the room as he had done the previous evening and this didn't bother me either. Perhaps, having slept all night in the same bed, there was no longer ice to be broken between us. It just seemed so natural putting on my clothes in his presence. I had heard of the phrase 'sexual tension' and I wondered if that is what this was. There was a feeling, some chemical, electrical, inexplicable thing. And I was in no doubt that the feeling was mutual. It was like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that fit together perfectly. It was comfortable being in his presence.

Garuba drove me in his brand new Honda to the NYSC place. He sat in the car waiting to see that I achieved some success with locating the exact room in the NYSC building where my registration was to place. I found the desk of the person who would perform the registration, but was informed by the other person in the room that although Mrs Giwa had not arrived, she was expected within the hour. I could sit and wait, or alternatively I could go and come back. Go where?, I wondered.

I went back to the car to let Garuba know what the position was and he suggested that he should drive to his office and return in about an hour. My things were still in his room at home and we would at some point later today need to make arrangements to move them to whichever accommodation I would be provided by the NYSC after my registration.

Garuba left me and I returned into the NYSC building. I waited in Mrs Giwa's office for about half an hour when she finally turned up, heavily pregnant. I started off the conversation with her in as polite a manner as I was capable of, but for some reason, or maybe she was just having a bad day, this woman was very irritable. I told her who I was and then she asked to see my NYSC call-up letter; the letter you are given informing you of your posting. I explained that the call-up letter itself did not say that we were required to produce it when reporting for registration. I said I had seen the list on the notice board in the corridor of this building and my name was on it. She became even more irascible and uncooperative. She insisted that without the call-up letter there was nothing she could do for me and that if I didn't have the letter with me I should leave her office immediately, because she had other things to do. I was despondent. I mean, I had travelled over 1000 kilometres from home in Lagos to Bauchi, only to be told to leave this woman's office. Tears of desperation came to my eyes and I didn't know what to do.

I walked out of the building, confused, dazed and bewildered. Then I heard a familiar voice shout my name. It was Garuba. He was sitting in his car parked across the road. I rushed to meet him and as I entered the car and slammed the front passenger door I burst into tears, uncontrollably. Garuba was puzzled. Between my tears I tried to explain to him what had happened and that this meant that I would have to go all the way back to Lagos to look for that call-up letter, wherever it was. Garuba put his hand on my thigh and begged me to stop crying. He said he had told his boss that there was a small family matter he was to deal with and his boss had allowed him the day off. He asked me to look at the bright side. It meant that I would not have to go and stay in some anonymous room somewhere in town by myself. I was with him and Abdulsalami and everything would be alright. Even if I was to return to Lagos for a short while, my things would be safe in his room. I looked at this man whom I met only last night and wondered if it was right for him to be offering me so much. I wiped my tears and looked at him again, that thing in his eyes. I really like this guy, I thought. Garuba set the car in motion and entered the traffic. He wouldn't tell me where we were going even when I asked.

"Somewhere nice..." is all he said.

Then he moved his hand from the gear lever, held my hand and squeezed it. I looked at him. He was looking straight ahead at the road in front of us, but there was the hint of a smile on his lips.

We drove up the Jos Road and then turned right at the roundabout unto the Darazo Road. Bauchi was a far cry from the rowdy, noisy, unruly chaos of Lagos to which I was accustomed. It was a pleasant change, although as this was just towards the end of the rainy season and being so far inland and with it proximity to the Sahara Desert, temperatures were higher than in Lagos. But the roads were broad and traffic was light and there were not very many people about. Altogether, it was pleasant. And I was with Garuba in this car with powerful air conditioning, who surprisingly had just put on an Anita Baker tape on the car stereo. Somehow, it was not easy to find a connection between the American songstress and this Fulani man, dressed in a caftan made from the most divine white guinea brocade and tan leather sandals that revealed perfect toenails. Garuba was not tall. Indeed, I was just a little taller than he was. But he oozed masculinity.

I was lost in thought, thinking about everything that had happened since I left home in Lagos, thankful that by chance I had met Abdulsalami at the motor park in Jos yesterday when suddenly I heard Garuba's voice, but as if from afar. He was asking me if I was alright and I apologised, saying that my mind must have been elsewhere.

"I know I'm not working today, but there's something I want to show you", Garuba said in a gentle voice. "A pet project of mine on the outskirts of Bauchi. Do you mind if we drive there?"

I turned in my seat to look at him as he stared straight ahead, appearing to be concentrating on his driving.

"I'm not exactly in a position to object, am I?" I replied jokingly, watching him as he broke out into a smile, still staring at the road ahead.

We continued down the Darazo Road, which is one of the main roads leading out of Bauchi towards the north east.

"This road leads to Darazo, Potiskum and Maiduguri", Garuba informed me.

We drove past the Awalah Hotel and I marvelled at how beautiful the scene was, the building positioned as it was, nestling precariously in the shadow of a huge rock. The rocks were another feature that were in abundance here in Bauchi and the wide expanses of grassland too. After about 20 minutes of fast driving down this wide and nearly empty road, Garuba turned the car to the left into a narrow road, which one could see was relatively newly constructed. The road twisted and turned and we were surrounded by rocks and grassland on both sides and as far as the eye could see. When we had passed the Awalah Hotel a while back, Garuba had said that we were already outside the city limits. So now we were well out of town. I was curious to see where Garuba was taking us and was just about to ask him when we turned a final corner. In front of us was the imposing façade of what was eventually to become a magnificent building. The road we had travelled on ran straight to this building and ended right in front of it in a clearing, with mounds of bricks stacked to one side and lifeless cement mixers, abandoned wheelbarrows and other such construction equipment littered about.

The building had clearly not been completed, but the site was completely deserted. It was silent, save for the chirping of birds. Garuba stopped the car in the clearing and we got out. It had been the plan he said, to establish an entire residential estate here, complete with shopping, cultural and recreational facilities. This building was the first structure put up, but the state government had pulled the rug out from under the project and this uncompleted structure stood as a monument to the dream that Garuba once had, his first major project in his professional career. He said he came here often when he wanted to be alone. This is such a sensitive, deep man, I thought.

We stood by the car, me leaning against it when Garuba started to speak. Garuba revealed to me that from the minute he saw me, he saw in me something that he had been searching for for a long time. He said he saw immediately that I was open and sincere and he knew when we had our first conversation that he would want to get close to me. He said he had to say all of this to me now, because he knew that I would soon have to go back to Lagos and the south. And there was no telling what would happen when I returned to Bauchi, or even whether I would return at all. He said he believed that Providence had brought me to him and that he would do everything in his power to keep me close to him. He admitted that his parents had recently put him under considerable pressure to get married and that his father had even begun arranging a bride for him. He said that his parents had substantial influence over him and that traditions in this part of the country are strong. He would have no choice but to do what was expected and marry his bride. However, he wanted to leave this as late as possible.

Hearing Garuba say these things to me, to say that I was flabbergasted would be an understatement. What on earth could have spurred this man to say such things to me? Was I not almost a complete stranger? As if he knew what I was thinking, he said he knew from when we slept in the bed last night that he could talk to me. He said if I was not happy about what he had said, I should forgive him. But he had never met anyone like me and since he thought I might soon be leaving he needed to say what was on his mind.

I was shocked! I wasn't sure if I had truly heard what Garuba had just said to me, or if I could handle what I had just heard. But here he was standing in front of me, closely gauging my reaction to what he had just told me. I was lost for words, dumbfounded. I just stared at this man whom I found so attractive and wondered at the fact that he had made himself seem so vulnerable. I could now understand why he had brought me to this deserted place. This was a matter that could only be spoken in a place like this, where it seemed as if we were the only two people on the planet. I didn't know this man well enough to give him any firm answers, but I liked him a lot and it felt uncomfortable to see him so exposed. I held out my hand to him.

Taking my hand Garuba moved himself towards me and held me. I sensed that he was relieved that I didn't rebuff or reject him. In truth, I would never have done that, because this was a man that I really liked. We just held each other for a while saying nothing. Then I tried to assure him that he had nothing to worry about and that even if I did go back to Lagos, I would be back in Bauchi within a week. In any event, I was stuck in this state for the next one year or so, so he would probably see more of me than he could deal with.


We drove back to town in complete silence, heading straight home since it was lunchtime. Somehow, Garuba's ambiance had changed and he had become noticeably more protective of me. Abdulsalami was still out and Garuba went into the main house to arrange for lunch to be brought over to us in the back house. He joined me and fussed over me in a way that I found almost uncomfortable because I wasn't used to it. But I didn't mind being doted upon as he was doing. We watched TV, we ate and before Adbulsalami returned, Garuba suggested that we go for a drive. I sensed that he possessively wanted to keep me to himself.


We drove around town for a while. This is a quiet little city where traffic jams are unknown and it felt quite cosy sitting in the car beside this very handsome man who had told me only a short while ago that he was crazy about me. It was Thursday and we both agreed that I would return to Lagos the next day, Friday, but that I would be back by Sunday or Monday at the latest.

We returned home to find Abdulsalami packing his bag. He was returning to his university in Zaria. Apparently, he had come to Bauchi to collect pocket money for school from his uncle. He had done that and now was returning to Zaria, this afternoon. I told Abdulsalami what had happened at the NYSC office, but that I intended to leave for Lagos the next morning. Mine was a much longer journey than his and I would need a whole day to complete it. Abdulsalami bade me goodbye and Garuba offered to drop him off at the motor park.

I was left alone in the room and being a bit tired I got into the bed and slept, but I do not know for how long before I was awakened by a warm body in the bed beside me. Garuba had returned from dropping off Abdulsalami and was now in bed with me. It was still light outside, so I knew it was not yet bedtime. As I turned to face him in the bed he lunged for me... (To be continued)

Garuba was written by Anengiyefa Alagoa.


Copyright © Anengiyefa Alagoa 2010.

I grew up in a suburb of the city of Lagos, Nigeria in the 1970s and spent all of my childhood and formative years there. That city more than any other, is my home. I fulfilled my childhood ambition of becoming a lawyer when I was admitted to the Nigerian Bar sometime in the mid 1980s and went straight into law practice. But it was not very long before I became disillusioned with the system in Nigeria. I persevered for as long as I could, but seized the opportunity when it came to relocate to the UK in 1996. I have been living in London, UK since then and have since re qualified and been admitted to the Roll of Solicitors of England and Wales. I enjoy the challenges thrown my way in the work that I do and my profession is a big part of my life.



But then I've also discovered another love, a new found love of creative writing. In February 2009, I surrendered to a long held desire to start a weblog. In writing the blog I gradually drifted towards writing stories, episode by episode, making up the details as I went along. The stories I have written and the ones that are still at the embryonic stage in my mind are all based on real life experiences and situations, of myself personally or of others I have known. But the accounts are fictionalised.



I stumbled upon ST while on one of my web surfing expeditions. I was moved by the fact that several other African people were similarly motivated to write creatively such that I felt a compulsion to join this group of African writers. And I was pleasantly surprised when Ivor Hartmann read one of my scripts and thought it good enough for me to be admitted as a ST author. I have never had anything published previously, save for the odd contribution here and there to Nigerian and British newspapers and magazines, usually one strong opinion or the otherr. ST is the first venue at which my creative writing is published and I cannot say how pleasing this is. I know this is supposed to be an autobiography, but I was not going to let slip the chance of expressing my immense pleasure.