Up My Alley [Blogversary Edition]

copyright – Kent Bonham

Banteke loves my hands on approach on his jobs. I left his yacht with a new mission; looking around for a ride option, I went for a bike down the lot.

My mission was to meet an Asian chef at the alley behind the Avenue’s drugstore.

The FX Stealth fighter bike stole in on him as he talked on his mobile.

“Give it up dude, ya phone?”

“I ain’t no nagger and you’d have to make me”

A jab on the scrotum, the mobile flew into my hands.

Mounting the bike I rode through the course of the alley, I love this job!

GTA Vice City

The prompt brings to mind a scene in the Grand Theft Auto [GTA 4], which I just described above.

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Today is the combination of my birthday as well as my blogversary [blog became two years old] and I wish to roll my gratitude to some really wonderful readers

Readinpleasure

For being that BIG sister to me and the highest commenter on this blog your kind devotion is flattering and appreciated thank you.

SusieLindu

Well, the freshly pressed led me to your blog. I am still amazed at the attention I get from you despite your many followers you still give up time to peek into my world. My gratitude is here recorded.

dmmacilroy

If Susie is the godmother of my blog, Doug is the godfather. He has a way of reading more meaning to a flashfiction and getting right into the soul of the writer. He has done this for me, even called me out on not a few occasions and gave his correction, suggestions et al with love. Thank you dear Doug!

Boomie Bol

My first Nigerian follower…Thank you for those days of encouragement and love. I’ve missed your frequent posting though, and I pray life smiles at you and the family.

Sandra Crook

Sandra is that one person that surprises you with reviews least on your mind and makes your works glow even in your own eyes. Dear ma, thanks for your generosity.

Rocehelle Wisoff-Fields

Our anchor who has taken charge of the bus since Madison, she also took up new relationships and maintained same as genuinely as she can.

Timi Yeseibo

My own sister! In a twist of irony you are only next to Celestone [readinpleasure] on my comments log in just a few months of acquaintance. Just when I thought my blog is not for the Nigerian audience, well you’re not strictly Nigerian in that sense. Your kind devotion is appreciated, thank you!

A word goes to Madison Wood the originator of Friday Fictioneers, whose birthday is 15th November and Russel, that I called the clown on our bus, 16th November…Long life and happy endings!

Still in the spirit of the celebration, some of my finest flash fictions here you should click on…They are my gift to you. You may drop comments on anywhere else as your present to me. I appreciate you all!

STUCK: the other side of Valour

SCORCHED

ABUSED- the story of a good Girl

The Demons of Dents and other Minor Scratches in Nigeria

Some Demons in Nigeria

The Greeks had a god for almost everything. Each one of their gods controlled one of the elements or some phase of life. Apollo was the god of poetry; Ares was the god of war; Posedion was god of the sea; Athena, the goddess of wisdom.

But unlike the Greeks, Nigerians have a demon for every misfortune. Household demons, those who follow you from your village to the city and ensure you never do well in life; Neighbourhood demons, those who take charge of your ill-luck in case your household demons are too busy in the villages; women demon, those who ensure all your savings go down the drain of some women’s loins etc

I don’t know whether the Greeks or the Nigerians had one or not, but there must be a god or a demon who controls dents and scratches that always shows up on new things. Where else would they come from? Who else but an all-powerful master of imperfections could possibly put all these little dents on all new cars in Lagos?

Last week I bought a new pair of shoes. Never mind how much they cost, I bought a new pair of shoes. On the second day I had them, I was climbing up on the stairs leading to my apartment, which is shared by my generator set, but somehow the generator decided for the first time in a year to demand for legroom only this time a part of it made a cut in the leather of my new shoe that looked as if it was done by a razor blade. I’ve put polish on the shoes several times since then, and the rip doesn’t show much, but I know it’s there and the shoes will never be new again. They lost their newness the second day.

I’ve not seen a new car that didn’t pick up some little scratch or dent in its first few weeks on Lagos roads. In fact, everyone seems to be reconciled to this around here. My uncle got KIA Sorento 2013 in July but by August we visited KIA centre for bodywork. It was so new there were no available parts at the warehouse. Looking around in traffic there seems to be a contracted denter in town who gives new cars a dent, scratch or bash no matter how careful one is.

It couldn’t have been more than three weeks after I got my new watch that the ding demon put a scratch in the crystal. Have you ever wondered how you manage to clash your watch with another’s on Broad Street? It’s not much, mind you; just enough to remind me that I no longer have a brand new watch.

Talking about clothes, the ding demons have so much aversion for mortals wearing white. As Nigerians are white loving people you can’t see these demons at their best anywhere else. Wear a white shirt on a given day and brave the odds of rain and mud-splash from vehicles. Or, if it were a party you went for, I can bet you would not return until you have spilled some palm-oil on your attire. My father had a ritual of dipping a finger in the soup and showing it to the cloth before having a taste of the meal. It works for him, but I hardly have time for such fetishes.

Another thing about these demons is their hatred for anything that makes us happy. I have owned several clothes but like a few really much. Those few somehow find a way of being caught in the bus seat, stained with engine oil or accidentally bleached. Recently, a bus conductor stained my new ash coloured trousers with his engine-oil-smeared-hands.

‘Oga no vex, the dry cleaners would make it as good as new.’ He said

But I knew, when the ding demon, dents and scratches gets through with something, it’s never as new again.

November Night

Feeling poetic

Nights like this

I want to

Strike away

At the keyboard

Like a player

Against a goalpost

I want to

Burst

A vein and bleed

Feelings

Like a cow

At the dairy

I want to

Punch away

Every stroke

In sync with beats

Rocking out

In my head

On a night like this

I want to

Abandon the sheets

and run into the embrace of the stars