WE ARE ABLE by SammyHoe
Episode 18
I pulled at the gate and got into my aunty’s compound. That verandah was waterlogged as usual. Since my aunty’s husband’s death, she hadn’t had enough money to put it right.
I looked around, all the clothes on the line had been drained. All the undies had been blown off the line. I began to pick them up to hang them back one after the other. I had to stand on tiptoes to put them across the wire.
I traipsed to the door. It was locked.
Does that mean my aunty hadn’t arrived yet? I pondered. I checked the time on my little digital wristwatch. It displayed 88:88. It was strange to me.
“What do you mean?” I whispered to the watch. No response. If it had replied me, how would I have heard its voice. I checked the watch, water resistant.
I sprawled beside the entrance door. The tiled floor was unusually cold. I shivered uncontrollably. My teeth shook like bomb blast. It was as if I would freeze up in the next minute.
The memory of the event came up in my head–why did I leave the venue that way? Anyway, I still didn’t feel any guilt that I spoke against God. I would even do more if situation warranted it, I hissed.
I remembered Moses. He was the boy who helped me to the Egbeda bus park while I was in Ejigbo–first time a male would assist me; Bode and John weren’t so kind. He even paid for my transport fare without my knowledge. Were it not for the bus conductor who refused to collect my transport fare when I was alighting, I wouldn’t have known that he had paid for me.
I read out the name he wrote on a sheet of paper he handed to me before leaving me alone. It contained his name and home address:
Immaculate Moses; Plot 5, Estate Road, Lekki.
My attention was shifted to that moment I was in the Egbeda bus waiting for it to be filled up. A boy peeped into the bus from the window. He was dressed in an outfit lacking taste and glory. His hair was curled up like popcorns. He wore a long chain on his neck carrying a laminated write-up: I Am Deaf And Dumb, Pls Help Me
The boy saw my face lit up, then he knew I had interest. He quickly gave me a piece of paper and then an envelope. I read what was in the paper:
He is a Deaf and Dumb Student of the Ejigbo Deaf and Dumb School. He needs some money to pay his school fees. Please Help him with any amount. Deaf And Dumb Association of Nigeria
I smiled. It would take a thief to catch a thief, so I got into action, pushing the sliding window aside and putting my hands out of it.
“What is your name?” I asked him in sign language. No response. I had just used the British sign, perhaps he didn’t understand that, so I made use of the American sign, still there wasn’t any response.
“Don’t you have a name?” I kept saying. He was a novice, yet he had claimed to be in a deaf and dumb school. He knew I had already discovered his secret, so he moved on after protruding his lips as if he wanted to have a kiss with somebody, definitely not with me. I knew what he just did; he had just hissed at me.
I am surely a bad market to him, I thought.
I began to freeze in the cold. My spirit and soul had departed my body. I would have to continue the next episode in the land of the non-living.
My eyes flashed open suddenly. I was on a bed, my bed. A candle was lit few inches away from me on a table. My arms could reach the candle.
I gazed at the ceiling. It was my room. How did I get in? I set my eyes at the watch and it was a shock to me when I found it to be 2am.
If I could talk I would have yelled ‘What!”
I threw my hand away aimlessly and inadvertently, it brought down the candle upon the rug. The house was on fire but I wasn’t aware. I didn’t even know that the candle had fallen
I turned at the wall and squeezed my eyes together. I needed to sleep. I would ask my aunt in the morning how it all went–the graduation ceremony.
I turned around on the bed and I saw hell beneath my bed.
Am I dead? Am I in hell right now? God why? Why did you bring me to hell just because I spoke against you once, yet I have spoken well of you a thousand times before and you didn’t take me to heaven?
I woke up from my dream. No, I wasn’t dreaming–it is real; the house is on fire!
I couldn’t quench it. I ran out with a scream and two souls came in a rush; my aunty and my classteacher.
We fought the fire like the firefighters–water, sand, Omo and anything we could think about all to no avail. Few street dwellers even assisted. They called the fire service but the response they heard were snores from the other end of the line–they were drunk with sleep. I don’t blame them, since it was midnight.
When my aunt’s husband’s house was completely brought down with the raging conflagration, I ‘heard’ the devil’s voice: it was time for me to flee to the nearest lagoon.
I ran like lightning, heading to nowhere in particular, but my teacher raised an alarm and I was caught.
My aunty didn’t speak a word all through as she watched her only hope go up in flames like Cain’s unacceptable sacrifice
WE ARE ABLE by SammyHoe
Episode 19
Since the day before when my aunty’s home was burnt, she hadn’t spoken a word to me. It made me almost go insane.
My classteacher had taken us to her place at Magodo. Since her husband was a london-based businessman, we wouldn’t have any problem putting up with her till further notice. Her two sons and only daughter were all in the UK with their father.
Mrs Oyin called me into the parlour. Then, my aunt was fast asleep.
“Why did you do that, Rose?” she asked me.
“It wasn’t intentional!” I replied her. I had begun to sob.
“I am not talking about the fire accident, Rose,” she said. “That was the devil’s work and God must have a good reason for it because according to a Yoruba proverb, a King’s house that got burnt would only bring about more beauty in the end. I am only asking why you left the graduation ceremony like that.”
I couldn’t explain clearly. I didn’t even know what to explain.
“I–I…” I couldn’t speak on. I was down in tears.
“Rose, congratulations!” she said.
“For what?” I asked. It was strange to me. What was here to be getting congratulated for? For all I care, I have only been a thorn in everybody’s flesh–my mother imprisoned because of me, my aunt’s embarrassed and rendered homeless, all because I am existing.
“Rose, guess what?”
“I can’t guess,” I said.
“Your poem won you a lot of prizes!” she said. “You were announced as the best graduands of the ceremony.”
“How?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. She must be joking. “Do you mean that…that poem in which I lambasted God?”
Mrs Oyin unzipped her bag and produced the piece of paper into which I wrote the poem. I was shocked when I checked and discovered three more stanzas added to it:
Oh! my idle hands
Speaking idle words
Brain befuddled,
Like a mouldy cake
God isn’t an idol
And he is for real
He will forever heal
Taller than the heavens
Brighter than the sun
His ways are glaring
Though to us blurry
‘Cos we are human
Seeing a bit afar
Through the twilight
The stars bowed
The rainbow cowed
The gaoler turned the gates
Leading my mother out
Freedom at last!
I was shocked.
“Who added these stanzas?” I was quick to ask.
“Thanks to your aunt. She picked it up and recited those stanzas offhand while looking into the paper blankly. Everyone thought it was the continuation of your poem and a round of applause rented the air for you in absentia. The scream was deafening. They wished you were around.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, Rose. It was a standing ovation, unfortunately you weren’t there. A lot of gifts were awarded–a bicycle by the governor-representative, an electric kettle, electric blenders, all for you. My car boot was filled to the brim yesterday.”
“I don’t believe this,” I was confused.
“After the party, the PA to the Commissioner for Education, Honorable Daniel, picked interest in the poem. He asked to see the write-up, therefore myself and your aunt brainstormed and came up with these. We had to strain our brains to remember every word of the three stanzas she had rendered impromptu. Then we wrote it down here and showed him.”
“Awesome!”
“Not only that, Rose, Judimax, a publishing company also showed interest in your poem and they asked that you should provide them with nine more to add to your anthology. You have won yourself a publishing contract with them. They would publish you under the title: Rose’s Anthology; The Voice Of The Deaf Mute.”
I wept. I was shy. How would I be able to face the world? Didn’t I have my limitation? More so, how would I be able to write nine more touching poems? That one I wrote came as a result of luck. I could write nine more craps and make a fool of myself.
“Please ma, let’s forget about all that for now. I am only twelve so what can I do? You said I won a lot of awards ma. Where are they?”
“All gone in flame in your aunt’s store room.”
I wept.
*******TO BE CONTINUED*******
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