Writitude (2): Matter and Manner of Characters

 

A character can be defined as a being in a story. But this is only for some of the time. Some other time a character may choose to be a non-being, as in the case of trees and mountains. A character can be anything: a person (living or dead), a dog, a flying boat, a fish or a wallflower. But one character should not be all these at any one time. In this opinion, it will be easier all around for us to direct our attentions to the general area of human characters.

Humans are far from perfect, and so a human character in a story should be sufficiently mortal with all the imperfections and limitations, except when said character belongs to the class of Spiderman and Superman and X-men.

Characters are creations existing in someone’s imagination and they have rights. As such, characters should be treated fairly and with respect and given adequate protection in a tale’s society.

And Christmas died in Minna

First Published on Naijastories.

It starts with the sun: the large red disc that appears at dusk up behind the houses and right atop the Fadama. The sun and then the smells: the scent of dust and bush fires and finally the aroma of fried meat and frying tomatoes. The sun assumed that colour and particular position only when Christmas was near. As far as we knew, Christmas, fell from that red disc and arrived floating on the scents of the harmattan.

In those times, Christmas celebration was not confined to any religion. It was a communal festival that got all the angwa involved. For us children, it was the best time of our lives. Parental discipline reduced in severity as the scent of dust and bush fires changed to that of fried meat. On Christmas day itself, childhood freedom knew no restrictions. With merry hearts and with heads sporting the latest Bobby Brown or MC hammer hairstyles, boys knew Christmas was the onetime they could get away with any mischief.

Rape: Ending This Culture of Silence

Reblogged from 7venhillsmedia:

By Kechi Nomu

In 2009, angry militants lodged within walking distance from students in the University of Port Harcourt decided to protest against the Federal government for not paying the rehabilitation money it had promised it would pay them monthly. Their preferred means of protest was rape.

They had the advantage of strength (they were after all militants) and the element of surprise.

Read more… 819 more words

WRITITUDE: The Behavior of a Story and the Attitude of a Writer

There are certain behaviours that are expected from good stories, and there are attitudes that good writers should exhibit. Aside from the great attitudes of arrogance, pride and superiority, a good writer should also exhibit some other qualities.  A story, on its part, should exhibit well cultivated qualities like dissidence, irreverence and intolerance, alongside some other courteous behaviours.

In these series, we will examine these other attitudes and qualities a writer and his story should have if they must be noticed, and if they have any hopes and rights or claimancy to the term of Story or Writer.

These are my feelings, most of which I was born with and others I have garnered from writing and from reading others. Note that I said feelings; most times it is all in the feel. A story’s only fault, many times, is in the feel. It may look right and read right, but if it feels somehow and anyhow then it is not a good story. Good stories feel good.

If you spot any errors in these lectures of mine, please keep it to yourself and avoid interruption. I am only a critic, and a critic should not be criticized.

Candid Shot

A door sprang open, swung to the wall and began a slow return journey. Underneath the revealed curtain, two small feet searched for slippers. A little girl emerged and side stepped for the door to close.
Dark, shiny, 3 maybe 4 years old, clad in over sized white cotton panties, she squinted at the sun and rubbed her belly. It was the quiet time of afternoons, the time of lethargy and siesta. No one was about.

She was in a large compound with single rooms built in two rows with a large cemented courtyard in the middle. The block of rooms facing hers had 12 doors, some closed, and others open with curtains shivering.

She called. “Bingo!”
An ear perked up, one eye opened.

“Bingo, Bingo.” she cooed.

The other ear and the other eye reluctantly became involved as Bingo stretched, yawned and shook itself to power. All compounds like these had one or two of these ekwukes with no origins. They were completely useless and docile; communally owned, communally fed.

As Bingo approached, the little girl walked to an end of the compound, towards the latrine, her newly braided hair shining in the sunlight.

Touch of Spite (2)

See, she did not break my heart. I am serious, she didn’t. Yes, I didn’t eat for some days, but that had nothing to do with her. I just didn’t have the appetite. For the whole week that she refused to speak to me or see me, I had no hunger for food. I was just worried.

That I did not date another female after her for more than a year didn’t mean that my heart was broken. I am a man, we don’t get heartbroken. Do not argue with me, it is my heart not yours. If a body’s heart gets broken, the body dies. My heart was just fine, still is, thank you.

Nothing really happened too. There was no offense on my part. The last time we were together it was all blissful panting and enjoyable sighs. This was routine. So when she didn’t take my calls the next morning it was no issue for me. I only began to worry when she didn’t call me or pick my calls the next day too. Then she sent a text telling me that she wanted to be alone for some time because she wanted to think through some things.

I have never put much stock in what a woman would be thinking, so I felt I just needed to up my game, you know, improve on the romance, even though I was sure I was up there with cupid and the other masters of the game. So I went back to my love dictionary,The Art of Seduction and marked some pages and underlined some great ideas. Then I persevered and wrote some other great insights at the book edges and between the lines. But when a girl is evil there is no strategy that will bring her back. That great book failed me.

Ok, it earned me one last audience with her for some minutes, but I don’t know if that should count because that interview that occurred at her door step was terrible.

When her door opened, joy flooded my heart; I observed that her eyes were a bit swollen and red. I also observed that she didn’t let me in.

“Sweetie, what happened? What is going on? Did I do something wrong?”

She raised her eyes at me, and for the umpteenth time I wondered what God was playing at when he made those eyes.

“I am pregnant.”

I swallowed, digested the swallow and swallowed some more. My heart stammered and then my lips exulted.

“What? Sweet heart! Are you serious? That is so wonderful! It is going to be a boy. I cant belie…”

The slap that slim fine lady gave me was worse than a gun shot. In my ecstasy I didn’t see it coming. My brain thought the world had ended. I could not see. I could not hear.

All those idiots who think women are weaker or harmless have never been slapped by a woman. Her door slamming shut inspired my brain to get hold of itself and give me balance. I found I was still standing and alive in front of the closed door.

I journeyed back to my car, flipped down my mirror and checked why the left side of my face felt like rusted heavy metal.

When a man survives blunt trauma, he naturally begins to evaluate how it happened. Now, in a saner world, pregnancy is a good thing. In the womb of the wise and proper women,ladies with pure hearts,no guile and no bad intentions, a child is a testimony. A man swells with pride at the feat of impregnating a female body. But my own things are always different. My achievement was a blunt trauma worse than a stroke. Judge this mater and tell me how I did wrong? How I deserved that slap, and how pregnancy is a cause for break up?

I have always told you women are not good things: that is the only explanation.

It is known that women are generally worse during pregnancy, and that their hormones and emotions swing like pendulum at many intervals. So, I had supposed, after that slap, that she will call me to apologize and tell me some nice things and blame the weather or her mother for her bad behaviour. I supposed erroneously for two days.

I trampled on my ego and pride, and called her. She didn’t pick the calls. I supposed it was due to the bad cell network in the area. I wanted to go see her but the left side of my face would have none of it; it didn’t want another trauma. So I sent her a text message. I put all my reason into that message which after five phone pages climaxed with the fact that I would marry her and will be a good man and father to our child.

My phone tringed with her reply message and I smiled in satisfaction.

“Go to hell!”

I removed my SIM card, blew at it, swiped it, blew inside the phone too for good measure and then reinserted the SIM.

“Go to hell!”

It was no SIM error. She wanted me to go to hell. And she didn’t say how long she wanted me to stay there.

Slowly, it took some hours, as I examined and cogitated on the three words of her reply text , it began to dawn on me, very gently, that she didn’t want anything further to do with me.

You find it strange too, right? She didn’t even want to marry me. Imagine that!In these days when men are scarce and lucrative. Just imagine. Besides, this is me we are chatting about here: everything loves me. Other single women play the pregnancy card to ensnare and enslave the hapless male, there I was, willing to be the unfortunate, yet she refused me. What do you make of that? Did i not say they were evil? Did i not?

While I was coming to terms with her message requesting me to go spend some time in hell, and if I agreed, how best I should undertake the enterprise, three sharp raps on my door interrupted me.

I opened the door and encountered three policemen. They looked at me, and my eyes replied.

A Touch of Spite (1)

True loves are the ones you reminisce. The kinds you remember with a pang and an ache. They are always in past tense, because you never really know love till you are out of it. You also never forget the worst romantic involvements of your life. It is a well known fact: love and hate are siblings -very identical.
The other day I saw an ad for a writing competition with the theme, A Touch of Spice. They wanted a steamy love story. These writer people and their captions. They believe all experiences are to be chronicled. If I were to write a story about each of my relationships, the caption would be A Touch of Spite, or better, A Handful of Spite.
I ran my mind over some of my relationships, ticking them off one after the other till I got to a particular one that refused to be ticked off. That relationship was terrible. You see, they give you no warning in the beginning, these terrible ones. They always start up like the best thing to ever happen to a man. A body keeps feeling lucky and blessed until the ultimate shock. It is not anybody’s fault: Spice and Spite are so similar that if, while in the middle of the act, Spice goes to the bathroom and returns as Spite, you won’t know the difference till the next morning or the morning after.
And the girls in such relationships are always exquisite. The one in this particular relationship of mine is not like the others you’ve read about or even thought about. You have heard people claim that someone is perfect and you have lied to your lovers that they were perfect. But I assure you, this one is no lie: she is perfect. I can repeat if you don’t believe. It isn’t a beauty one can capture on canvas or on any lens. God is the only artist that can draw her, and if He tries He might not even get her as He drew her in the beginning.

CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY, FOR THE SCEPTRE MAY NOT HOLD

A sceptre has been looming over our heads, a sceptre called Biafra. For 42 years it has defied gravity and remained poised up above the firmament of the geographical location called Nigeria.

This sceptre most recently was brandished a little closer to our heads by the publishing of Achebe’s book, There was a Country.

It has brought wars. Wars for now, only in an intellectual capacity, fought with the pen and keyboards on Newspapers and on social media. Old friendships have been threatened and new alliances forged. 42 years ago, allegedly, there was no victor, no vanquished; today, for now, that status quo remains. But how long until the balance gives?

Some fear the war would soon be brought down from the virtual world. Tempers are flaring and grievances are being remembered. Stratagems are being mulled over and positions are being noted. This perhaps was a little more than Achebe intended as he said in the book, “My aim is not to provide all the answers but to raise questions and perhaps to cause a few headaches”. Achebe is causing more than just a few headaches.

If You Must Maintain the Mystery

There is a certain allure that mystery brings to an object, lifting it and enhancing its illusory. To be demystified is not a very friendly affair; it does not encourage awe. That is why there is no much excitement in a 10 year old marriage. That is why your siblings are never great in your sight no matter how celebrated they are to the rest of the world. That is why lovers, spouses and children should be changed frequently. Where there is no mystery, there is little to excite and there is little to appreciate.

This is why your internet friendships should remain virtual.

The virtual world is a grand kingdom of possibilities and grandeur, a world of imaginations, freedom and garnishing of profiles, a glossy world without zoom capabilities; a world of mystery.

Leave it that way, if you please.

It is very dicey to bring your internet relationships from that world of vagueness and glory to this one of scrutiny and glare. If your virtual life is zoomed and viewed under a magnifying lens, all those likes would be turned to dislikes and instant unfollowings. Your online persona will do well if it is left vague and shrouded.

What started on twitter should blossom and flourish on twitter. Do not bring it to earth. To the dubious, and foolish, if you meet someone awesome on the internet, quick, consummate the thing. Do not wait. I repeat, do not wait to meet face to face. Consummate on facebook, sign that deal before you meet. And the Lord be with you.

Let me bring this nonsense down and close-up with some particulars.

You know that girl driving you crazy? Yeah, the one you tweet good morning to even before your wife? That beautiful lady that replies and retweets all your tweets and likes all your comments; leave her in your dreams. In real life, her face is not that Photo Shoppy; the acnes will terrify you, and she is much smarter online.

I think it would be better if I address my own virtual friends directly, especially the young ones. If you don’t like me after this, well, what can you do aside from unfollow? My heart can no longer condone the frequent bashings, disappointments and disorientation your online impersonation has brought upon my imaginations of you, all because we decided to meet in person.

To you, Sir, you that write like you know everything. Guy, that conversation we had face to face in the cinema… the typos that dropped from your mouth will kill any publisher. Can’t you talk like you write? And you, Occupation: Editor, Farafina. Why didn’t you say it was only your dream Job, something you are hoping to achieve by the grace of God and by much faith?
And you, your profile picture had “you” in a plane holding an Ipad, but you came to the Book Reading like poverty. What further convinced me of your online impersonation was your dressing: green long sleeves on green trousers! Haba, that was not healthy. I had wonderful imaginations of you.

You, my friend, you forgot that your ex girlfriend is on twitter, and that you had left her heart in an angry state, and that she knows things. She knows, for example, that the Jeep you owned in that your wonderful non- fiction that got 2,600 views was actually for your boss and you are his driver and that driving is your day Job. It is a crime to be a driver, but it is not too terrible.

As for you that has your location stating London; they said they saw you o, and that they know where you live in Ikeja. And you that tagged Madison Square Garden as location for that picture… there was a BRT bus far behind. Zoom and you will see. If you must lie, write fiction.

Most of you didn’t exactly lie, I agree, but guy, haba! That car you wrote you had an accident in, I sympathize o, but that thing no be car na. It was a wreck even before the small accident you garnished for us on your blog, and you made like the car was one of these expensive hybrids. You are not alone in this world. Some people know people who know people that know you.

And you, Mr Man, so the Free Lance Writer you have on your profile actually meant you have no Job and willing to take any offer? You could have been explicit; you don’t know where help will come from.

You that keep giving advice and sounding like you are one old sage; so you are just 17, about to write your first Jamb? Weren’t you the one giving that woman marriage counsel the other day? Satan has seen you!

Where is that one that said he has multiple degrees in this and in that? I first suspected because in your DP you looked very young. I gave you the benefit of doubt, until you sent me your CV mistakenly. I didn’t say a word, but I read it wella. HND and OND are not multiple degrees. Computer center degree is also not among. NIM and that other course you took courtesy of NYSC freebie do not constitute multiple degrees. My brother, No dey lie!

I will not write your name or say your twitter handle, but guy, a mutual friend said you were in same hostel with him in Unizik. But the school on your profile is not even in Africa. Why do you people hate this Africa so much?

But, some of these bad things you do to me are not deliberate. Like you that actually put your true and reasonable picture without Photo shop and without sitting in the Hummer your cousin borrowed for her Just Wedded picture, and you with a DP you took on your doorstep and not in one foreign looking eatery, you both didn’t tell me you were so photogenic. Give a guy clue next time. When one looks before he leaps and still ends up breaking limbs, who should be blamed?

And you, well it is not your fault actually. Perhaps, you write better than you speak or look. You are a terror online but see how meek and frail you look. So na small geh you be seff?
All those people you talk to anyhow because you have online freedom and liberty, many are older than your parents. All those people you give advice and criticize mercilessly, if you meet them, their achievements would humiliate you; some of them you can never stop referring to as Sirs and Ma’s.

All these people that I have mentioned without citation and proper referencing have one thing in common: they failed to sustain their mystery; they broke my heart. I opine that if you must meet on ground, then, get your dual personalities in order. Because if these symptoms persist, you will search for me and I won’t come up. I will unfollow and block you. And I will cease to believe any of that your foolish Musings of this and Ramblings of that.

Now these are my recommendations to those of you that have any sense. The first is that you should never take your friends (ones you met there) out of twitter and facebook. Leave them there. Do not for any reason arrange to meet them in any stupid beach or boring Book reading or Cinema. They might be disappointments, or you might be the disappointment. I have warned you. If you want to keep being friends with these people then get closer to them online, only online. Being physically absent and unavailable is better for a body’s mysterious level, because absence allows the imaginations to garnish your persona.
But if you can manage to create more mystery around you by meeting your virtual friends, then by any means, do so. It is going to be a hard enterprise, because you cannot always maintain the swagger you have online on ground, especially in Naija. Your car might break down a day to that meet. The friend you bribed to pose as your driver might get a running stomach on the day. These things happen.

On a candid note, put up behaviours that are in sync with your facebook and twittter comments. Your social media profile is your CV, employers and prospective in-laws are watching. Even though we know you have to look good, and though we know it’s all about packaging, still, let your virtual presence have a little resemblance to your real self. Package your online profile well, in a way that will enhance your mysteriousness. Do not make your self too large and overly distant from your actual reality so that if you ever meet any of your online friends, or if your online persona is compared to the real you, there wont be much shock. This is the safest path to tread. But I prefer to remain virtual.

I will not be demystified.

First posted on Naijastories.

SAY THIS TO GOD

 

I am a young man, a very good young man. I have a well paying job and some toys, and the feminine accompaniment to these things. I am healthy. I have everything a young man of this age would love. My life is perfect, but I am dead

A lot of men my age envy me.  I understand their illusion; they do not see my reality. They don’t wear my shoes. I am almost 30 but I feel  70. I can’t drink, I can’t smoke, and I can’t have all those wonderful pleasures of the world. I can’t sin no more. It seems I have outgrown this world and its pleasures. I feel dead, and like the dead, I do not look forward to anything. I don’t feel like going to bed or waking up the next day. If I am promised a million pounds tomorrow, I will still not look forward to it. Everything that should be interesting now seems mundane.

You would not believe this, but at times, a beautiful lady, a friendly stranger with no familial ties would spend a weekend in my house and I would have no urge? This is a very strange thing; it is a problem that really troubles me. These days I am a recluse and I abstain from everything. It is not because I have found Christ; even though Christ is very good in hide and seek, I really have never misplaced him. I think I am having something worse than a midlife crisis. I am dying of old age at my young age and there is no visible reason for this.