AYO
AYO
Will the colourful birds of noon cease to flap their wings, will the moon sing her a song tonight? This, Tiri could not tell, as the gentle breeze that came in through the open window behind her, blew her long black, already dirty hair off her face. Uncle Dunja had come to visit after a long time yesterday, not like anyone had wanted him to come around anyways.
Tiri wished she had not gone to open the door, when she heard the knock; because, it all seemed like a nightmare after that. He had followed her dad to the kitchen, on his way to get a bottle of wine last night. After that, this happened, and that followed.
Until he came for her. "You look more beautiful than the shy Tiri that I used to know." He touched his beards, obviously enjoying the look on her face. "You are so smart, aren't you? Trying to even run away but just take a look at yourself."
He took a step towards her. "You look so much like her now, and it reminds me of the days I used to have her in my bed. I wish to grant you the privilege of replacing her, but you are not all that smart anyways." He laughed. There was no way Tiri's angry voice could be heard.
The force of the gag held back all the words, words that she desperately wanted to spill in his ugly face. The beast! She thought. The cut on the bridge of his nose, the one her father had given him before he had fallen hard on the kitchen floor, was still so fresh. She shook her head, as she turned this way, and that way.
Her hands were held by shiny silver handcuffs, that was connected to chains that was fastened to the iron bars of her window. Each move, made her to wriggle in pain. He touched his lower lip, and raised his right brow. His darling sixteen year old Tiri wants to talk, and he'll let her, even if it's for the last time.
"You will so rot in prison; bastard!" She said at the peak of her voice. "No Tiri, don't be so rude. You should thank me for letting you talk, so those words don't give choke you." He let his tongue trace the shiny metal, and used his fore finger to play with its sharp edge.
"I will slit your throat the next time you fail to wisely select your words, before throwing them at me." "Let me go, you sick bastard!" Tiri screamed. He smiled, a smile that was meant to warn Tiri.
"You killed my mother, shot my father on his leg, leaving him to die. Isn't that enough payment for not getting married to a gem like my already dead mother?"
"I am amazed that you remember so well what I am capable of doing, yet, you still toy around with me." He shook his head, as he gave her a stinging slap on her left cheek.
"What exactly do you want from me, why don't you go ahead and slit my throat, or isn't that enough satisfaction for your evil soul?"
Tiri asked, as she stared him in the eyes. "I am Dunja, I revenge, I torment, and I will watch you suffer before I finally kill you like I killed your-"
"You will do no such thing to my daughter Dunja!" Tiri stared in shock at the figure behind Dunja. "Mother?!" Tiri gasped!
"Dunja, move away from my daughter immediately. I am not Ayo the daughter of Lamisi for nothing!" "Mother, you are alive! How?"
"Oh my darling child, death can not take me away from you." Tiri was overwhelmed by joy, and at the same time, struck by the events of the last fourty hours. The tears trailed down her cheeks.
"The bullet only brushed through my arms, I survived it. I haven't lost much blood." Ayo explained to her daughter. Her brown lacy dress, was soiled in blood. Her eyes were so red, she looked like a ghost.
Tiri stared at her mother, still looking beautiful, even when she was a total wreck. It was dark and Dunja had broken her light bulbs three hours ago, but she could still make out her mother's face in the darkness.
"Dad?" Tiri could barely see with her swelled eyes. "Your dad. He's uh-"
"I am right here beside you."
Tiri had not even felt his hands on her skin before now. The whole room was dark and she felt numb. Dayo was working on the handcuffs that held her. "So I see; love is stronger than the bullets I drove into your bones right?" Dunja was obviously confused and directed his question at Ayo.
Where had he gone wrong, how had they entered Tiri's room without a single sound to alert him? His plan was to kill father and daughter, then take Ayo his love along with him. He did fire his shot, but Ayo had run towards him and had gotten hit, instead of Dayo her husband. The second shot had driven a bullet into Dayo's leg, he had bled profusely.
He left Dayo to die slowly, and not to be up strong and breathing. The man was limping, but he had the strength of ten soldiers. He can't face a military man who is now well armed.
There was hardly a bullet, and he was fast losing strength. His attempts to kill Dayo had failed for the sixth time. There was the poison that did nothing, there was also a hired killer, but the man seemed to have something that protects him.
They were friends from high school, down to the university. He had planned on marrying his girlfriend Ayo after their youth service, but Dayo had gone behind his back to be introduced to Ayo's family.
Years have come and gone, but his life has not been complete without Ayo. There was no stable job, his dreams to even be one of the top musicians in Nigeria, had also failed.
"Listen to me Dunja, drop the knife in your hands, don't you move another step closer to my wife!" Dayo ordered him. Dunja will rather wipe out the whole family, than watch Ayo and Dayo live the life that they had denied him.
He rushed towards Ayo with the knife in hand, when he felt a sharp pain on his forehead. Ayo had shot him.
"I will always love you." He said, as he fell backwards. Those were his last words to Ayo before he drifted out of existence.
Dayo held his daughter in a tight embrace, and cried like a woman, knowing how he had almost lost her about an hour ago.
Ayo moved towards her husband and daughter. She hugged them both, the last fourty hours was a miracle. "We breathe." She said to Dayo, who stared at her lovingly.
"You are more of a soldier than I am. You handle the gun as well as you handle the kitchen." She smiled, even though she was breaking inside, seeing her husband in so much pain.
"I will clean your wounds again, before the cops would get here." She said to him, as she held his face in her hands.
"I love you Ayo."
That was the only way he could say thank you to his wife, for attempting to take a bullet in his place, and she understood him well enough.
"What is love, if I live only because I let you die?" Tiri moved away to sit down on the tiled floor of her room, an inch away from her parent.
She looked around her room and took a deep breath. Dunja had planned to take her life here, in her own room. All thanks to her mother, who had showed up.
How did her parent get into her room in the first place? She wondered. Then, she remembered the underground door in her bathroom. Goodness!
She touched the swollen places, where Dunja had hit her, and went straight to where his body laid to kick him with the little strength that she had.
"He's already dead!" Her parent chorused. I wish he'll wake up, so I can kill him a second time" Tiri wailed. "It's okay, he's not going to harm you anymore."
Her father assured her, and motioned for her to come sit with them. It was dark already, so they sat down together in Tiri's room, awaiting the arrival of the cops.
Featured Stories
Leah
by eli-smooth, published 3 years, 1 month ago
The ride down the empty hill felt like a deluge. Five people cramped into an old Peugeot 504. The car jolted its way down the rough terrain and with each sharp turn, their eyes narrowed with despair.
The driver was Kelechi, a 22 year old medical student who had joined the fraternity about a month ago. His low hanging beard chiseled into his sharp jaw-line. The scar that was above his eye gave him a menacing look.
“How could this happen?” He wondered as he drove through the rickety slope. His eyes squinted a little as he swerved to avoid a goat that had moved into their path. The sudden swerve forced the engine to quake mildly and shut down.
They all moved out into the open space.
Silence lingered for a while.
“What do we do now?” Simi asked. Her dark skin glistening under the low light of orange setting sun. She was a psychology student. Brilliant but edgy; unwilling to succumb to the wild stereotypes that followed the other women in her life.
“We do nothing; we just bury the body where no one can find it” Sam whispered coldly.
Leah winced and paced the space around them, sobbing gently as she walked from side to side. She seemed the most distraught of the five. She wondered how different the day before had been and wondered if her life would ever be the same.
But it was the fifth person who seemed the most odd.
His tattoos were visible under the sleeveless shirt he had on. A nose piercing marked him out from the rest of them. He barely talked as the others encircled the empty bushes around. He just leaned on the car and peacefully disappeared into his thoughts.
“We were only supposed to scare him” Simi lamented. Her voice seemed to echo a distant regret.
“I keep asking what happened and no one wants to tell me. We were all on the same plan but as soon as I turn to take a leak, I return and find a fucking dead body on the floor. What happened while I was gone?” Kelechi asked. He seemed to be screaming at everyone else.
“Is it that important? Would you rather not have the truth be a little subdued from your conscience now?” Goni, the boy with the tattoos whispered back at Kelechi. His voice was cold, almost haunting.
“I don’t know. I didn’t sign up for this.” Kelechi confessed.
“Oh, so you think we all woke up and planned a murder and you were the only person out of the loop?” Simi asked angrily.
Kelechi looked away. His hands shaking under the weight of his deepest thoughts.
Sam chuckled slyly as he watched Leah’s wandering theatrics. He seemed calmer than he was a few minutes ago.
“The truth is right here. Whatever we say it is” Sam cuts in. The others looked at him. He nodded. They all nod back except for Goni.
“We still haven’t answered the most pertinent question though. Who poisoned the little old chap?” He asked calmly.
“Does it matter, we all know he was a dwindling, two faced monster” Leah said.
She had stopped pacing and sobbing. She seemed calmer and her big round eyes cut into her beautiful face. Sam looked at her in admiration
“We all knew that, but we also knew that the idea was to scare him and not to murder. So who amongst us had the most reasons to murder him?” Goni asked.
They all went quiet. The few seconds left between their breaths built up a reckless angst. Leah stared at each of their faces. She wondered who amongst them fits the murder type best..
Sam was a nerd.
It was odd that the frat boys loved him but underneath his queer humor and deep lingering eyes, there was no reason to suspect that he could be a killer. Leah thought. Simi was mostly indifferent; capable of the mundane but also the awe inspiring moments. Her calculative mind set her apart as the most logical of the group.
Kelechi was by matter of chance, the only one that was unavailable when they witnessed the death.
Goni was the one who seemed the most vulnerable to accusations. He had fought with the dead boy just a few minutes before the boy broke into a fit. He seemed more dangerous than anyone else and he also seemed to be nonchalant about the corpse that lay in the trunk of the car that had just stopped.
- Simi looked at Leah from the corner of her eye. Their eyes meet and for a few seconds, they lingered on in their sanctified space. Simi felt a rush of casual emotions rushing within. She remembered their nights underneath the moon when the boys were away. She remembered every feeling and it made her question her every truth. But she also knew the other truth.
The five of them stood in an arc as the trunk was slowly being opened. The three boys straddle the body and move it towards the empty path that led one into the bushes. The rustling of the leaves just in front of them stopped them in their tracks.
A Park ranger had his gun pointed at them. The boys surrendered and raised their hands. The Ranger looked on in surprise.
“Who killed him?” He asked as he nudged the safety of the gun; turning it off.
The group stood, staring at him in silence.
“Who killed my partner?” The Ranger asked again.
This time his gun was pointed at a visibly distraught Simi.
She was overcome with fear.
“Leah, Leaaah,
She poisoned him because he raped her” Simi confessed.
The boys look back at Leah, stunned.
Leah’s face bore a look of resignation.
“Thanks so much for having my back; Lover” she said in disgust.
They boys all stood stunned. Processing both news that had crept into their ears.
Minutes of Memories
by InspiredLetters, published 3 years, 2 months ago
The first thing you know is that you don't know how to run until you know how to run.
***
"Do you plead guilty?" The Judge asks, his glasses perches on the bottom of his nose.
"Do you -"
Although the ceiling fan whizzes faithfully, the room is still hot. It is still still hot.
You are held behind a dock not just by chains washing your hands and feet but by betrayal spoken in silence. Your hands, those large elements of bloody lust, gasp for the air of freedom, at least.
Anxiety is carefully sketched on the brown faces of the court.
The eyes in the room shining brighter than your future peep into your past.
***
Your anger started the day you met Mama sitting on the verandah; her wrapper had come undone, finger prints, five of them, kissed her cheeks, disheveled hair, and eyes blood red from crying. And Papa walked around like four walls with the paintings of Mama's curse words hanging on them.
"Prostitute!"
"Jobless drunk!"
Whenever they quarrelled, there was a cold war; minutes grew into hours, hours into days, days into weeks...
You know the air in your compound smells of their daily quarrells, yet you do nothing, can do nothing but run away. Away from it. It's now normal that if you see Papa saying I love you to Mama, you wonder if something is wrong, if it's a dream.
You keep on dreaming but the pain from the cuffs whisper reality into your eyes.
***
"Do you plead guilty?"
The atmosphere is now condensed like the hot thick pap Mama does for you and Ike every Saturday morning.
In nanoseconds, you could be kissing Mother Earth goodbye just from one statement of one man. One! One!
You look around, wanting to say the truth. Say it anyway!
But then you keep quiet.
***
That fateful day you were greeted by distant sounds of fighting. You know it's Mama and Papa again!
"Not again," you mumble and walk into the sitting room sluggishly.
Your sight beheld a liquid on the burgundy carpet. No, it was not water, it was blood, that sacred stream of life's mystery, Mama's blood!
"Daddy, stop, please, stop," your younger brother, Ike, screams, kept on screaming. He tugs at you to do something because the overflowing blood scares him. But you do nothing, can do nothing but run away. Away from it.
"Daddy! Daddy!"
The punches come in quick successions. Mama's body lay half-dead, half-consYou'vehalf-consYou'vehalf-consYou'vehalf-consYou've
The punches come in quick successions. Mama's body lay half-dead, half-consYou'vehalf-consYou've on the floor decorated with blood.
on the floor decorated with blood. on the floor decorated with blood.
"Daddy-"
The blood melts into thin air, into your eyes, forming a dark cloud, maybe an envelope on the canopy of your eyelids.
You can no longer take it.
So, you grab Papa by the neckcollar of his shirt but he pushes you away. Once, twice, thrice.
Your anger gets the better part of you when you forget the scissors in your hand in his neck.
Blood gushing out, Papa dies within minutes. The same minutes with which everything falls apart.
Papa is dead. Dead!
***
You know you should run. But you also know that you don't know how to run until you know how to run. Instead your feet glues to the roof of the earth and your tongue embraces silence.
Your mother's eyes, though dull with darkness, will you to run away. Still, you don't run, you don't want to run. You don't want to run but still run. Still, run!
Don't run again. The police are waiting out of your house.
"Who called them?" you kept asking.
***
Now.
You pose, one knee up, one knee down, before a congregation of rifles about to blow your dream off. An eye closed, you remember minutes of memories that you never can forget. Memories such as your younger brother calling the police against you, in fear. Memories such as the night you mixed rat poison in Mama's drinking water instead of Papa's.
You tiptoe through life into the bars of death. You are now your own fate. Can you run away from it?
#TheRun