Writing Hours

The Rain. It rains for half the year in Africa and doesn’t for the other half. When it rains, it pours and when it doesn’t rain, dew is hard to find.  It was an early July morning in Abakaliki, one of those weeks in which the river Ebonyi burst its banks and little baby tilapia swam alongside you in concrete roadsides of clear water, accompanying you to your Aec lectures. Rows of market women leave their wares in the rain and seek shelter, appearing only when you approach with money. Rows of ice fish and okra sitting in the rain.  It’s a fun day but only in retrospect because:  A few fathers are on involuntary neighbourhood patrol. With heaven and earth joined as one heavy grey sky filled with relentless rain, they haven’t left for work yet. They corner a callous fellow in the streets,  Fathers : (in unison) what did we just hear? What happened?  Callous fellow: (with great feeling) it’s her fault, she has no respect for me!  Fathers; you kno...

👁 The muse says you cannot mix up points of views in narratives like your forefathers used to do. For instance, if a mother tells her daughter, “go and do your laundry!” whilst thinking, children nowadays are so lazy, in my days, we had to travel down to Ngene with the laundry and beat it on a stone then bring it and water home. All she has to do is pile it in the machine, add Ariel gel and press a button!  You can also write that the daughter replied, “I’m coming mum, I need to finish this project and email it to my teacher by tomorrow or I don’t get the grades!” and continued listening to I made it (cash money heroes) by Kevin Rudolf in front of her computer.  But you cannot write that she’s thinking, this mum self, she too dey send, it’s always, do this, do that with her, she even thinks that nursery school children should do introduction to calculus just to get them thinking about the next level. Which next level? Some of them still wet the bed!  You h...