Niqui Anekwe's Blog

There's a cue from an award-winning movie titled Dry and a TV series titled Jenifa's Diary. I know this is really very mainstream, especially for the latter but I'd still write anyways.

Dry is a movie about a female gynaecologist/obstetrician who found her closure by confronting her fears of going to Nigeria to fight the war of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula in teenage girls in the northern part of Nigeria and to also confront her rapist (never mind that I am still pissed that they referred to Africa as a country, pfft!!)

Jenifa's Diary? Well, we all know about Jenifa - that crazy and razz girl from Ayetoro with a forgiving heart who strives to carve a niche for herself in Lagos.

One of the common messages to learn from these two is forgiveness. I've been able to understand how forgiveness gives one closure after confronting one's fears, how forgiveness gives a certain kind of inexplicable relief psychologically.

There are some things, words or acts which are unforgivable in a moral, social or character context and can never be reversed once the act has been carried out. Many of us are victims, myself included. However, I like to think that time and distance are great tools which provide the much needed closure for forgiveness, although time is the most essential of the two. We may or may not forget, but if we could forgive, we are assured of the mental relief we would feel.

We may get hunted by our past every now and then. Those flashbacks are what they are - flashes of pain and soreness and hurt that would tempt us to go back in time and put a gun to the heads of those who put us through hell for no just cause. Those flashes are there to remind us that we are stronger than we think. We have been able to wipe our tears, dust our feet and move on. We have survived and are better off. We have learned our lessons.

A forgiving heart helps us find and gain closure once we confront our worst fears, but a grudging and malcious heart drives away peace, love and happiness and paves the way to become dark shadows of who we are - always afraid, wary and restless.

Let us gain insight and perspective from the main characters in Dry and Jenifa's Diary, Zara Robins and Jenifa, and open our hearts out to close up the pain even if we don't ever want to have anything to do with the causes of our pains.

Niqui Anekwe
Imaginations Run Deep (August Cover).

There is something that peppers my intestines with alacrity - people who are too proud at heart especially when they know something and think they are too good at it and are therefore, irreplaceable. It is peppery and discomforting. It is highly irritating to my senses. You have to understand the gravity of the situation when I place emphasis on "highly irritating", the degree to which I cannot categorically qualify or quantify. This is the honest truth. Let me gist you this incident that happened two months ago.

There was a certain young lady, N, who needed the services of a graphic/web designer. She wanted to "upgrade" her blog and create traffic for a business she hoped would thrive well. Her longstanding friend, S, knew someone who could be of help to her. S gave her Mr Designer's number with strict instructions to "contact him via Whatsapp and tell him what she wanted" and to "endeavor to mention that she is very closely related to S, so that she can get the benefit of a discount price for the job."

N, a very keen lady, followed the instructions to the letter and contacted Mr Designer. She sent him a message on Whatsapp. It delivered, but there was no reply. The first reply came a few hours later. Without wasting any time on frivolities but standing firm on formalities, N introduced herself and told him what she wanted him to do. He had acted like someone who was ready to do the job on her blog, get a personal domain for her. He asked a few questions, to which she replied with the ease of a brush scrubbed against canvass. This was business and business only. She knew what she wanted and she was out to get it. Money was not an issue because she was prepared to pay the associated costs for the job.

N went ahead to ask him the cost of this job but he did not reply. She asked him the next day and the day after that but she got no reply. Apparently, Mr Designer had seen the Whatsapp messages but did not reply. Not even a simple "Hi, I am sorry I am very busy and you caught me at a bad timing. I will get back to you." Nada! She decided to brush away the no courtesy stunt but was more concerned that he had agreed to do the job - or so she thought - but wouldn't mention the cost for her to effectively plan herself.

Two weeks and some days passed by and she still did not hear from Mr Designer. Neither did she text him after seeing that he did not reply her previous messages. She was vaguely concerned that this designer guy she initially assumed was going to help was the same person who acted wierd. He had a customer, N. It was supposed to be straight forward. Discuss what she wanted, discuss and agree on the price, weigh the pros and cons and make a decision. Simple. Very easy, right? If only humans were that easy to handle.

She made up her mind to scratch him out. As long as she breathed, she was sure there were a thousand and one web designers willing to do the job. She remembered her classmate from Unizik who was now a computer scientist. During her NYSC period, her classmate once mentioned that he was into web design and IT related stuff. She had not taken him seriously until she recalled every word he spoke to her.

Without further ado, she contacted him and explained what she wanted him to do. Her classmate was excited, willing and ready to help with a solution. The typical igbo man was so happy he had got a customer. N was ready to pay him after he gave her the details of what was to be done. She decided there was no need informing S or Mr Designer about the recent developments or change of plans. Her instincts confirmed that Mr Designer was incapable.

Out of the blues and reds, Mr Designer waltzed into Whatsapp with a troll-ish set of messages, referring to her as sweetheart. He had given her number to a complete stranger and stated that since he was the expert, he could decide on who to help or who to refer to. That grated on her nerves. The nerve of that niggar whom she had never met physically and never seen! Immediately she intercepted the messages, she automatically expressed her annoyance at calling her a name other than her name since he was nothing to her but a complete stranger whose services she wanted. She was annoyed that he had lied to her, played her for a fool, misled her into thinking he was going to be of help and then had the audacity to give another stranger her number without her permission. After carefully expressing her annoyance, she did not wait for a reply. She silently blocked him from Whatsapp and deleted his number. Then she went ahead to narrate the ordeal to S. Her irritation was heightened when S told her that he is a proud fellow and lies a lot like there is no tomorrow. For the love of humans, she could not understand why S did not tell her this at the start. But she was all done for.

Within an hour, N's irritation had subsided to minimal levels. She could care less since she had found a replacement who had started the job without wasting time. So she focused on paying up the first installment price to get him gingered.
***
My people, do you know that pride is a disease? Just because you think you know something and call yourself perfect, so you decide to dash your common sense to pride?

Now, listen to me carefully. You don't know jack shit, my friend, sit down and shataapu! Will you please mechie onu gi there!?!
If you know something and you are in a position and capacity to profer a solution, instead of acting like a proud Boss Voltron, why don't you humbly render your services? If you are incapable but know someone whom you can refer to, inform the person.
That thing you think you know, a thousand and one people will know it better than you do. Tomorrow, a million and one people will become experts at it while you sit there, rotting away with pride like maggot-infested carcass for the vultures. You are not irreplaceable!

Help someone if you can and stop being proud hearted.

Humility is a priceless virtue. Put some ''respeck'' on it. Apply common sense and save us all the trouble of breathing in rotten pride.

During my time as a Batch B youth corps member serving the fatherland in Edo state, I witnessed a very dramatic situation I learned a thing or two from.

While I was serving in Edo, I lived in a 5 bedroom shared apartment with other fellow 'corpers', some of them were my 'seniors' in Batch A while others were my 'juniors' in Batch C. I lived in my own self contained room space so the only thing I shared with others was the kitchen. I met and became friends with a young lady, Nkiru (real name witheld). She was about the same age as I was and in the same Batch B. She lived in the bigger shared masters room with two other girls. Mary, 29 as at the time, was one of those girls Nkiru shared the room with and the three of us are from the Igbo tribe (Mary's real name also witheld).

Nkiru and I shared similar traits and values that made it easy for me to relate with her more than I could with Mary. She was a devout Catholic like myself who always strove to attend masses and always woke me up in the wee hours of the morning to pray the Rosary with her because she firmly believed in the part of the Bible where Jesus said, "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst..." We always topped the devotions with Catholic hymns and all those praise and worship songs that got us into the mood, after which I jejely went back to sleep until the day got brighter.

Between December 2014 and February 2015, Nkiru privately and occasionally began to table concerns about Mary's sudden behaviour before our local CLO, listing a bunch of examples, such as grumbling and nagging on a regular basis and never being satisfied with herself or with anyone, especially the rest of the corps members in that lodge. Alas, it turned out that she was not the only one who had made complaints. A handful of the corps members had even taken the matter up to our boss in our PPA. Nkiru categorically stated to the CLO that she was not comfortable sharing the same room with Mary and needed her own space. Mary would always just as easily find fault with any one of us and bear a grudge as she would walk into a store to purchase sachet water, then expect us to come prostrating before her in apology when there was no bone of contention. In a short time, every corps member had come to realize Mary as someone who always found it very easy to take but difficult to give. If she ever did give out something, there was something that was bound to happen. Actually, something was going to happen. I had noticed the kind of person Mary was but I kept my observations to myself. I told Nkiru to be wary of this room mate and to never, never accept or ask anything from her (Mary had previously given her food to eat when she had nothing on two occasions and stressed that she gave it from her heart).

By March 2014, Mary had began peddling slanders around the entire community, stating that Nkiru was a user, a thief and a wicked soul who came to Edo to finish all her provisions and food. She also called all the corpers in the lodge - including me - wicked souls who did not want her progress or happiness in life. She had seen and tagged Nkiru and I as idol worshippers because we lit blessed candles to invoke the Holy Spirit and the Holy Trinity whenever we prayed the Rosary. Hence she had began to snob us and all the corpers in the lodge and with the intervention of our boss, she moved out into another apartment where she continued scandalous slanders against us - the corpers who remained in the lodge she previously lived in. Word got around my ears faster than the speed of light and after a private confrontation with Mary in order to ascertain the root of the problem and seek out a solution, she embarrassed me in the public glare of the community. To say I was highly ashamed before a whole community of people I had never known before the time of Adam and Eve was an understatement with a classic degree. However, I could care less, knowing full well that I had nothing to do with her and she had nothing on me. So I couldn't be bothered by the false accusations. The one who was most emotionally and psychologically distraught was Nkiru.

There were days when Nkiru would come running into my room, crying like a hungry child and swearing before the heavens and earth of her innocence. There were moments where, drenched in tears, she swore upon her life that she was not a user or a thief, that she had never asked for the food and never asked to serve in Edo and be falsely accused over frivolities, that Mary was the one who was the first to approach her and "willingly" offer her food when she had nothing to eat and was too broke she couldn't afford to even buy Indomie from a provision store. I knew my instincts were cock sure when I intercepted the first signs of Mary's misdemeanor. It felt like a déjà vu then, almost as if I had seen this coming prior to the time the incidents occurred. Nkiru had fallen victim to a cold case of character and personality defamation and she couldn't bare to face the public community.

Whenever someone swears upon his/her life, it has be a serious case of will power of the mind to free itself from the threat it has perceived. We all did our best to placate her. One of the male corps members suggested that Nkiru act like Mary didn't exist in her world and continue to live normally, without giving a hoot of a regard to what the community was fed with.

At the end of May 2015, I noticed that Mary had waltzed back to normalcy out of the blues and reds and resumed talking to everyone she snobbed, especially Nkiru. Later on, I got to understand from Nkiru that Mary turned off her switch and started talking to Nkiru.
When I asked her what she did, she said she did absolutely nothing but act like Mary didn't exist until she came crawling out of the shit hole she buried herself in. I asked her if she confronted Mary or did anything fishy to which she replied, "Why do I need to confront her when we both know I'm innocent? This issue has already confirmed how immature and lonely she is battling with multiple personality disorder. Not everyone can take the shit I did. I don't have the strength to fight either so I couldn't fight her, otherwise I still wouldn't have had my peace of mind. Sometimes, it's not all about gra gra, gra gra. Sometimes one just needs to sit back, relax and let the truth overshadow stupidity and shallowness. Sometimes, silence is both golden and diamond-like."
***

The calmness and ease with which Nkiru took hold of the situation as opposed to open challenges and physical fighting of this present day marveled me despite the emotional faux pas and drama that came with it and this is where the central focus of the message lies.

The way and manner in which one is able to comport oneself and accurately take charge of a challenging situation in the midst of trials and temptations goes a long way in establishing one's character and attitude to problem-solving. My point is that sometimes, it is not necessary, useful, helpful or wise to exhibit aggression as a problem-solving skill. An aggressive attitude does not help, neither will it ameliorate the situation in question.

Have you ever been falsely accused and your character and personality defamed? Fighting the antagonist and acting with gra gra will not vindicate you. Instead, it will only place you neck-deep in frustration such that you become afraid of that person.

Who is that antagonist? Is it not a mere human being? Why should you let yourself fall beneath a mere mortal soul who cannot do jack to you? The antagonist is meant to be scared of you. He/she cannot face you fair and square and that gives him/her the leverage to go behind your back in order to gain attention and spotlight, leaving you befuddled and overwhelmed.

Be calm. Take charge and act like an adult with tact. Use your common sense to turn things around instead of aggression and violence. Let the truth vindicate you such that the antagonist will end up being the stupid one.

Be calm.
***

Niqui Anekwe (June cover story)
Imaginations Run Deep.

5 MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS I HAVE LEARNT IN THE PAST
ONE YEAR.

1) YOU ARE NOT DESIGNED TO WORK FOR MONEY.
Yep! I said it. Go to school, get a good paying job and slave away till you die.. Fa fa fa….fowl!!! You are not designed to work for money. You are designed to Provide Value. Whatever you are doing now, business or otherwise, if it does not; Challenge Your Purpose, Demand Your Intellect And Improve your Skills, find something else to do.
The reward you get from providing value (especially Cash), don’t spend it, send it to work. You will get tired of working but guess what, money never gets tired of working. If you don’t find a way to earn money while you’re asleep, you will work till you die.

2) YOU CANNOT CHANGE YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES
I know this sounds ridiculous, unfortunately, it’s true. Here’s what I mean; You cannot directly change your circumstances because they are an ‘effect’ coming from a ‘cause’ The manifestation theory states that: Your THOUGHTS produce your FEELINGS which cause your ACTIONS which in turn produce your RESULTS and eventually your CIRCUMSTANCES. Stop struggling to change the ‘effect’ when the ‘cause’ is still unattended to.
It’s like trying to console a crying baby whose diaper is extremely wet, Change the d**n diaper and watch the baby smile at you. Remember the expression, “Fighting Against Circumstances”? Exactly!!! If your thoughts don’t align with the circumstances you want to create, forget it! You’ll just keep fighting.

3) YOUR ‘TITLE’ COULD BE DOING YOU MORE HARM THAN GOOD.
For someone who spent 7 years in school becoming a Doctor, saying this must take some guts!! Tying yourself down to a title (Dr. Barr. Pharm. Arc. Engr e.t.c) is shutting your eyes and mind to the boundless opportunities available to you. Try this experiment; For the next 24 hours, forget you have a title and default to your ‘factory’ mode. Assume that you can create whatever you want to create, no matter what, you will be shocked at the ideas that come to you. Titles do not make the man, the man makes the title. “Who title don epp?”

4) SCHOOLING AND EDUCATION ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
Just because you went to school, doesn’t mean you are educated. Schooling ends with a certificate (Clap for yourself!!), Education is forever. So, the only books you have and the ones you have read, are all about ‘your field’? Stop that right away.
If you haven’t picked up a book to read since you left school, you are in trouble o! The moment you stop learning, you start dying. Forget this ‘certificate’ thing and start educating yourself biko! The world is too loaded with information to limit yourself to books about ‘what you do’.

5) THERE IS NOTHING RIGHTEOUS ABOUT POVERTY
Your first responsibility in life is ‘Not to be Poor’. So, tell me, when you are poor, how will you help poor people?
A slave cannot save slaves. Even Moses had to be born into the royal family and be raised with a royal mentality before God could use him to free the Israelites. The best gift you can give to a ‘poor’ person is Inspiration. How? Get Rich yourself and prove to them that they too can be rich.

JUST ONE EXTRA:

5A) THERE IS A SHORTCUT TO SUCCESS
It is called Mentorship. There is no wisdom in failing where someone else has succeeded. A mentor will reduce your mistakes and accelerate your success. Find a mentor and let him/her take you by the hand and lead you to where you want to be.

Written by: Dr. Chisom C. Ibe
Cc. Dr. Chudi Godson.

Source: Facebook

In life, there are some things that pepper my body. I mean, they give me wild shivers down my bone marrow, such as the sounds of a baby's cry or little children suffering for the mistakes their parents made. These things pierce my senses like a jagged edged sword and I end up feeling so sorry that I want to hug and peck them and make them feel better. Let me explain a scenario.

About two weeks ago, on one fine afternoon, I was on my way home. I was seated in a bus, jejely minding my own business and busy writing my stories in a draft. You see, in this country, Canada and especially in Alberta, you have to learn how to jejely be on your own and mind your business every step of the way. This place is not Obalende or Oshodi or Mushin where you can just open your mouth carelessly and vomit whatever you feel like because a good number of fellow Nigerians do not know how and when to keep quiet at things that don't concern them. This place is not even close to looking like Houston or Atlanta where you feel you can say anything that comes to your mind because you are in America where everyone believes in that popular slogan, "America is a free country!" It is a lie! You must always, always jejely be on your own and mind your business when you are in Canada so that you will live longer. However, in this case, I was really touched by the situation in question.

So, I was concentrating on constructing a story plot when the bus got to a terminal adjacent to a high school and stopped for school children to get in. Before I could open my mouth and say, "Jack Robinson!" a young boy threw his body on the seat next to mine. This boy could not be more than 18 years old, even if he had eaten all the fertilizers in this world that made him look like a 30 year old man, with all the fatty and adipose tissues clinging mercilessly underneath his skin. He was carrying a baby in a roller carriage and he had positioned the carriage in front of him before he sat down and made me uncomfortable with his weight. Apparently, his weight could not contain one seat so he ended up putting me in a tight position because part of his body was already occupying my seat.

I took one look at the baby and lost my focus. A very cute little tot she was, with eyes as blue as the waters of Bora Bora, skin as pale as nude beach and lips as pink as deep fuchsia. While I was busy admiring the baby, the boy, who appeared to be the father, received a phone call. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew, a female was shouting at the top of her voice from the other end of the line. I literally heard her yell at the boy and threaten to report him to the police for attempting to kidnap "their" baby.

My curiosity shone brighter than white light this time as I turned to look at the boy. The female's shrill at the other end was too distracting. This boy was almost in tears as he tried to ask the female to calm down, explaining to her that he was only taking their baby to his home because she had told him earlier that she didn't want to have anything to do with their baby and she didn't want to see the little tot. She would have none of his explanations as her ranting took a new level, similar to a wild banshee.

I watched his face become contorted with frustration, his eyes became red and if not for the semblance of control he was trying effortlessly to put up in public glare, he would have actually shed tears right there in the bus. The female deftly hung up on him and left him too flabbergasted to speak. He sniffed and wiped back tears with the back of his hand. Then he made a couple of other calls to people, asking them to help him and protect him from the police and explaining that there was no way in heaven, hell or on earth he would kidnap his own baby and keep her away from the mother.

Just then, the cute baby made a few gurgling sounds and immediately began to scream and wail simultaneously, flailing her arms up in the air. It was the kind of cry that signaled hunger and it was not just an ordinary kind of baby's hunger. She could've yearned for baby food or breast milk, maybe. Paying attention to the pain and discomfort in her eyes my mind aptly suggested she wanted something more. A mother's cuddle would have worked like magic. He took his baby and tried to placate her on his chest, cooing and making goofy baby sounds and kissing her head. His efforts went as fruitless as vain as she continued to wail. This kind of wailing really, really pierced my senses, even more than a jagged edged sword. A certain kind of pityful feeling enveloped me as I stared at the frustrated boy and his crying baby, not knowing what to do or make of the situation.

Soon enough, the boy pushed for a stop when he got to his destination and carefully carried his baby and the carriage out of the bus. I watched them until the bus drove so far away that I couldn't catch sight of them again.

***

I sit, in my moment of solitude and introspection, and wonder why and how it ever got to this. A lot of youngsters claiming adulthood are not even interested in getting to know what adulthood is about. These days, many people are not interested in building viable relationships that could last but are only interested in what, how, and when to satisfy their carnal desires. It is always all about the sex. When do we do it? How do we do it? Who do we do it with and what position do we have it in?
Apparently, I understand that this is not new for someone who is used to commuting publicly both at home and abroad.

I would normally reserve my comments whenever I am asked my two cents about this. But I would stand on a neutral position, without putting as much as any remnant of religion or bias to this.

If anyone wishes to fulfill the desires of his/her flesh, that's his/her problem, not mine. It doesn't even concern me. After all, people will still end up claiming to be adults who know what they are doing and know what they want. If anyone wishes to do it a million times before he/she turns 25, or before or after marriage, I could less and "jejely mind my business" because I am not going to live his/her life. Still, people will claim to live their own lives and tell you to live yours. I am not even wasting my mind or my energy judging anyone.

Whatever you do, it doesn't hurt to apply common sense, logic and conscience. Don't be so selfish and/or wicked as to bring a child into this world to suffer when you are not ready to take on the responsibility of parenthood. It is so unfair to that child. Stop being an architect of your misfortune. The world already has issues dealing with desolate, homeless and abandoned babies and children. Stop adding more flames to a fire that you cannot quench.

I live in a part of the world where the average African is stereotyped as everything bad and negative, as one who is unproductive. You mention the word African and they start to think of voodoo (juju).
Being the only black person in a class of 20-something overgrown babies who I am forced against my volition to regard as "supposedly mature" graduates, is tough. I am being watched everywhere I go. Every move I make is monitored. Yet, I am not paranoid.

To them, as far as they are concerned, I don't know anything and I am not supposed to know anything. I am supposed to be the academic fool they already perceived.

I answer a question in class and they tell me it's wrong straight up. But when they answer, it is the exact same thing I said. They just used different words interchangeably. People of colour cannot know anything. They are not afraid to tell me I do not know anything. They are not afraid to rub it in my face.

They try to mark me down and when I try to fight for my grades they tell me I didn't give them the answer that was suitable enough for them as with their fellow "pale-skinned" people. They call me to tell me they are watching my grades and hoping that I fail so that they can use that as justification to prove that I do not know it.

I work in a team and contribute ideas and suggestions. I write up summaries of research. They trash it and say it is not suitable. They put theirs instead, only to find out at the dying minute before presentation that they could actually fit in some of my contributions.

They tell me that I am from a "developing" country where the standard of education cannot beat theirs because my developing country is still struggling to gain grounds whereas theirs sits on a golden pedestal. So I have nothing to offer.

I meet my "fellow peers" to ask questions and share ideas and they tell me they will not share what they have and will not tell me what they know because it is a competition and I am not supposed to know more than they know. Whatever they know, they keep to themselves so that no one else will know.

I stay up burning thousands of candles upon candles, trying to quench my thirst and they get surprised. They begin to ask but rather than being stingy, I give what I have and tell what I know because I know that I can only grow and move forward by sharing. They will not be caught dead burning candles.

I ask a question to cure my ignorance and they are outraged that I had the audacity to ask them what the others couldn't think of, so they answer it in an unsatisfactory way. But when they ask a question, they are being given the best of explanations I would never have dreamed of.

I try to answer a question and they see me as competition they can't handle. They think I am trying to challenge their intelligence and they are not happy.

When I don't answer a question and decide to keep quiet, I am deliberately being picked on and forced to answer it because according to them, I should know it. I know it. I should talk and contribute and stop being quiet.

I make a seminar presentation and they deliberately find every possible way to "rattle" me and tell me to my face that they want to rattle me. According to them, they want to see me involved, but I know they don't want me to be more involved than they are because they want all the glory.

They are not happy when I beat their wildest imaginations because it is not what they expect of me.

They smile at me to make me feel comfortable and get me to talk by all means. Try as hard as they might it's a fruitless effort they can't handle. Behind me, they try to snitch in every possible way they could and even make up false stories and lies to add unnecessary flames to the fire they try to create. Oh yes. Tell me which African has not been snitched on in this part of the world and I would tell you that the person is trying to be hypocritical.

I am not angry when I am discriminated against. Sincerely, how can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It is beyond me.

I felt a sharp pain on my waist and jumped up with a start. It was that common, consistent pain I felt from my waist down to my left leg which was severely bound in a cast for quite a long while. The pain was so indescribable it left me numb all over. When I opened my eyes, I didn't recognize where I was. Everywhere was so strange and unreal that I began to fret and fidget. My eyes turned from narrow to wide as I shivered violently and flailed my arms. I wanted to run away but my legs failed me. So I shrieked out in fear, my breathing so laboured with each movement while my heart pounded mercilessly that I could hear my beat and liken it to a pestle hitting cassava in a mortar. The novel, Under Bridge by Immanuel James, which lay on my chest fell to the floor with a loud thud. My whole body hurt all over, including my head which was heavily wrapped in a bandage. I couldn't move because I couldn't feel my legs. I didn't know why my left leg was in a cast or why my head was bandaged with bruises on other parts of my body covered in brown and white plasters. I was restless and terrified. I screeched for dear life.
***

Someone started to hold me still. It was a woman, an extremely light-skinned woman with a face covered in make up. I didn't know her. She wore a red turban on her head that matched the fitted red sequined mermaid gown on her body and red lipstick on her lips. Her hands were as strong as a vice gripped on my shoulders and with each forced movement forward, she pushed me back to the soft couch to keep me locked in. Her long, gold earrings jingled loudly as did her bangles. She was a complete stranger to me.

"My child... It's alright. I'm here," she said after a pause, still clutching my shoulders in a firm grip. I pushed her arms away, then held my waist and screamed out. My waist hurt terribly. It felt like a sword sliced my body apart. She tried to placate me by holding me close to her bossom and rocking me back and forth, saying all kinds of things to bring my hysteria down.

"Be still," she continued. "Be still. It's me, your mother. It is me, Onyeka. I'm here."

I stopped wrestling and stared at her face while she sat on the small space left on the couch beside me. I was struggling to catch my breath and heaving violently while at it. She started to breathe slowly and loudly with her palms on her chest, demonstrating for me to do the same. She placed her hands on my chest and she measured her breathing with mine. I was totally confused. I didn't know why she called me her daughter or who Onyeka was. I placed my bandaged right hand on my chest and when I thought my breath had slowed to a steady pace, I moved my hands to my throat. It was dry, as were my lips. She moved over to a small side stool I didn't know was beside the couch and brought a glass cup filled with water that lay on top of it. She brought the cup to my lips and urged me to drink the water.

After I took two large gulps she paused for a moment and then put the cup away. I cleaned my wet lips with the back of my bandaged hand. I groaned as I tried to balance my sitting position. She began to fuss over me, placing the back of her palms on my forehead, my cheeks and my neck, drawing my hair backwards, adjusting my left leg and helping me to get into a sitting position. She was just touching and inspecting every part of me that had an injury, an act I found absolutely ridiculous. I did not like her doing that to me.

"Onyeka," she started to speak after heaving a sigh. "You know me and recognize me, don't you?" I continued to stare at her blankly as her long eyelashes fluttered with anxiety. She was too beautiful to be true.

"Your name is Onyekachukwu Okafor and I am your mother," she spoke mechanically like a robot trained to answer in a specific way to its master. "You were involved in an accident five months ago at Allen Avenue, Ikeja. A young man ran into you with his car. You sustained injuries on your leg which is why there is a cast on it. You also sustained other minor injuries on your body and hands. There was a major contusion on the right side of your forehead from where your head bashed into the windshield of the car and you also suffered a concussion in your head. The doctor said your brain went into a state of traumatic shock such that when you woke up you couldn't remember anything and he was so surprised because you had been in coma for two weeks. We had hoped you would make it alive. Now we have to deal with the amnesia which is way better than death. He said everything will be fine because you are recuperating fast and gradually starting to remember things quicker than expected. My own daughter is a lucky survivor.
"I brought you home after the surgery. The doctor assumed the shock affected your mind and made you slightly crazy. But you are not. As a matter of fact, you have been responding to treatments. You're alive and doing well. You know me, Onyeka. I am the only one you've been able to allow feed you, the only one you've attempted to speak to since the accident."

I watched her as she spoke. She looked exhausted and worn out even with the make up on her face. Her eyes got watery and she seemed a tad bit too desperate to prove herself. Out of nowhere, she automatically flashed a picture on her mobile phone right across my face and pointed to an older woman who looked exactly like her which she identified as herself and a younger woman who looked like the younger version of herself she identified as me. I stared long and hard at the picture. The faces seemed to appear familiar and after acquiescing it as a striking resemblance, I nodded my head at her. She breathed out a sigh of relief.
I looked at the floor to see Under Bridge lying carelessly on the marble floor atop the long pair of silver crutches meant to support my foot steps. Its holder had fallen off at another angle underneath the crutches. Mother bent over to pick them up and hand them back to me.

"I'm so sorry, darling. You just had a trance," she continued after waiting for me to speak with no response in return. "I should never have left you on your own. I was almost scared out of my wits here. You're probably still experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but you are fine. We are going to get through this."

She sniffed and stared down at her long, manicured fingernails. Everything she said didn't make sense to me - the accident, the injuries, the amnesia, the cast. I couldn't fathom out anything plausible save for my name. I turned away to survey the room instead and gather my thoughts together to recall the little that was revealed. It was annoying to think that I could not remember anything. The room was well furnished with large, abstract paintings hung on light cream walls and black couches arranged in an L shaped format. There was also a loveseat at an adjacent position to where I was seated. The two windows had what looked like taupe Parisian eyelet curtains with floral gold embroidery that were spread out and held by gold holdbacks on either side to reveal light curtain blinds with the sun's rays streaming through. A large, flat screen TV was fixed to the wall directly opposite where I sat with the CNN channel on but at a very low volume. A large Victorian chandelier hung at the very center of a sparkling white, complex POP ceiling with it's bright orange light glinting in the daylight. The room was somewhat too serene and too neat, with the air-conditioning on at close to room temperature.

"Where am I? What time is it?" I asked Mother in a very low and quiet voice.

"At home, in Lagos. It's 5.30 pm." she responded in an even much quieter tone. I focused my thoughts on the television before me. Anthony Bourdain, whose name and whereabouts I only knew because it appeared on the screen, was walking about the streets of Ankra in Turkey, talking to some people as he did. The area looked like a desolate village with very narrow streets and walkways.

"Onye," Mother resumed, breaking into my thoughts. "There's someone here to see you in the main living room. He's been here awhile now and many times in the last few months. Now, I know you've said you didn't want to see anyone other than me or the doctor who comes to check up but it's been 5 mo--" I shook my head rigorously, interrupting her speech. She looked at me in disbelief and rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

"It's been five agonizing months!" she continued sharply, her artificially drawn eyebrows slightly moved down together in a small frown. "For God's sake, Onyeka, you have to break even. I know you can speak. The young man is insistent on talking with you and he won't leave until he sees you. So, just... give the benefit of doubt even if you don't know him and get yourself together."

She touched her palms to the bandage on my head, drew them down across my face and with a salient kiss on my forehead, she smiled and stood up. After adjusting her gown, she carefully walked out of the room, her flip flops slapping carelessly on her heels one after the other with each measured foot step. I felt dazed and light headed. I didn't want to see anyone. I didn't want anyone having some kind of stupid pity for me for being in this kind of unfortunate state.

"In case you didn't know," she stopped and turned back to me at the doorway. "He's the one who came to your rescue minutes away from your death and paid for the surgery and all the hospital bills down to the penny. A little appreciation would do." She closed the door behind her.

I reluctantly grabbed my crutches from the floor and having set them to standing position, I tried to stand up myself to head to the main living room. It was a laborious effort not to scream so I groaned out and gritted my teeth instead. Gently rubbing the left side of my waist with my palms, I had made up my mind to tell this Mr. Charity guy off. I didn't need pity or the likes of it. I didn't need anyone looking down at me or trying to fuss over me. I hated myself for being in this condition since I couldn't remember how I got myself into this. I had taken the first three agonizing steps forward, my underarms pressed against the crutches as I held the handle on both sides, my left leg raised while my right leg did the walking and wobbling. I began to sweat in my underarms and pant like a dog taken out for a run when someone walked into the room.
***

"Hi," a young male voice spoke up. I looked up from the ground to stare at the stranger who was now standing a few inches away from me. He was beaming with a bright smile when he said "Hi" and was still smiling even after. I was struck with surprise and transfixed that I didn't reply back.

My eyes took in extra effort to drink in this stranger. He was taller than 6 feet that I practically had to raise my head up to look at him like I was looking onto the heavens, which made my 5'8" feature seem dwarf-like. He wore a very dark navy blue - almost black - double-breasted suit that was unbuttoned. A couple of buttons of his white shirt beneath the suit jacket were undone, leaving behind a small patch of hair on a muscular chest. His skin looked like glazed caramel, a very striking colour of light brown glinting under a mixture of daylight and the chandelier light on the ceiling with an even creamy tone and his beard game looked so deftly shaved and thinly carved across his chin. He had narrow, smiling, brown eyes with a slightly pointed nose. His perfectly sculpted lips were a daring colour of nude beach it set my hormones on a wild rage. My stomach began to do a silent lap dance while the hairs at the back of my neck stood on end. My pulse worked it's way into a steady rising beat and I vaguely became too conscious of how exposed I was before him in a sleeveless tank blouse that barely covered my breasts with a generous amount of cleavage and mini shorts that revealed a lot of flesh on my thighs. His physical appearance was unnerving and brought tingly sensations of adrenalin to my spine and my down below.

"I am Jesse. How are you doing, Onyeka?" he continued to smile with his eyes but I could not concentrate on his words. I stared at his lips for a while, vaguely wondering where I had last seen them, whether it was in my wildest fantasies or in reality. I knew I had seen such lips before. I just didn't remember where or how. I couldnt remember much of anything, as a matter of fact. He stretched out his right arm to shake mine but I left it hanging and continued to stare. I was short of words. His rigid presence seemed to intimidate me.

My gaze shifted to the rest of his face. There was something wrong about this man I couldn't quite place even though he appeared too smart or dapper with a pretty face. He stared directly into my eyes this time. Instinctively, I knew I had seen this man before. The mesmerizing heat waves from his brown eyes were so piercing I could scarcely bring my thoughts into focus. They arrested the faculty of my brain with reckless abandon. There was a small, round, dark spot just inches away from his left eye and an identical spot on the right side of his upper lip, very close to his nose. My head began to throb harder as I looked at the birth mark while he searched my face. It felt like some invisible electric sparks were shooting across from his end to my end and vice versa. The longer I stared at that particular birth mark above his lips, the more my mind got automatically transported into a flash of oblivion.

"You... Stay away from me..." I blurted out. My heart beat was steadily rising to its crescendo. I had just noticed the small gold necklace resting on his clavicle. The layers of the necklace were intertwined into an intricate design with a central piece that bore a set of initials. I struggled inside my head to figure out how familiar that necklace looked to me. He took a step forward and placed his right arm on my shoulder but I moved back away from him and raised my hand up to stop him. One of my crutches gave way and fell to the floor as I held my head and reeled myself into my past.
***

He was saying something but it sounded like a faint rap to my ears. My mind spun as I shook my head and shifted on my right leg to steady myself. Images and scenes began to jar up in my head, creating a kaleidoscope of colours that rapidly flashed before me faster than the speed of light. Different series of white and neon lights appeared and disappeared rapidly. Everywhere became so noisy on Allen Avenue with cars honking, people screaming and police sirens screeching. Just then, I noticed the bright yellow head lights of a car flash right before me with a loud horn. The tyres forcefully scratched against the road surface as the car effortlessly tried to come to a halt but it was too late for me to move as I lifted my hands to shield my eyes. Something sharp and metallic hit my waist and then I saw myself rolling over the hood of the car.

I screamed as I saw my head forcefully collide head long into the windshield of the car and bounce back, leaving behind a broken windshield with red liquid dripping from the wide hole in the glass. In the twinkle of an eye through that hole, I noticed a striking gold piece of necklace on the driver's neck and a dark spot above his lips. The rest of my body followed suit and rolled over the windscreen, this time increasing the magnitude of the cracks and breaking more than half of the windscreen. The back of my head hit the outer rear view mirror on the driver's side and like a log of wood dumped into a lumbering factory, my body rolled and fell face down onto the hard, tarred road surface. I tasted my warm blood as it flowed from my head to the ground in a pool of red.
***

When my mind eased itself back into the present and the scene behind my predicament became crystal clear, I did not know when I screamed and lost my balance. In a monumental flash, I fell backwards, hitting the back of my head on the edge of the sofa. I heard the sound of the cup break unceremoniously on the floor.

Just as it was on that ill-fated day of the accident, this man with the pretty face and a gold necklace held me up and shook me in a hopeful attempt to revive me. I watched him forlonly as he called out words which sounded like a faint echo to my ears. As he checked my pulse just beneath the central focus of my clavicle, I tasted my warm blood again dripping from my nose. Only this time, it was warmer because the heat from his body intoxicated all my senses. It was this heat that managed to keep me awake long enough against my volition to stare into his eyes.

He hunted my senses just before I passed out.

Memoir from a puzzled mind...

On a certain cold and bleak winter morning, my sights were set on sail to Alberta's Number 1 Hall of Fame, that popular school where many proud hearted 'overgrown babies' carry their faces like expired shit that refused to be flushed down the toilet. As feeble as I was that morning, I was all strapped up and ready to leave, looking like nothing short of a sorry excuse for an Eskimo. No thanks to the freezing weather which had a way of forcing me to look uber goofy like the rest of the population at that particular time of the year. I took a bus down to the train station and got on the next available train going to my destination.

I got into the train and began to walk down the aisle slowly, looking for an open seat very close to the window so I could easily doze off. I saw a young, dark-skinned lady in one particular compartment which had an open seat by the window. She had just taken her seat when I decided to take the opposite seat. In a matter of moments we were both seated facing each other, waiting for the train to depart. She looked a tad bit uncomfortable, like there was an insect biting her buttocks. So she kept shifting carefully from side to side and adjusting her back pack that was also seated beside her with her hands unceremoniously placed over it.

From the corner of my eyes, I watched her open and close her bag a number of times, searching for this or that, bringing them out and sliding them back in. It was as if she was trying every effort to make sure she didn't lose something when her composure looked like she actually misplaced something. I do that too, sometimes when I'm not sure I have this or that or even my ID with me, I usually fret a bit until I find it and stow it away safely.

There was a white, blonde middle aged woman seated behind her, backing her in the next train compartment. This young lady hadn't the slightest idea that in those moments of shifting and minor fidgeting, her elbows brushed the woman's shoulder across a couple of times. Clearly a case of an unconscious state of action, I didn't expect her to know because her winter jacket was so thick and fluffy that I, for one, wouldn't have known it if I brushed someone. I wouldn't feel the effect. In this case, she didn't feel it so she didn't know.

"Get your hands off my shoulders!" the woman shouted aggressively at the girl in a very loud high pitched voice, a voice loud enough to make a bird freeze during flight and draw upon the attention of the entire passengers in the train cabin. She turned back abruptly and faced forward with a heavy frown, mechanically fixing her earpiece back in her ears in a classic bad ass style likened to a hit man acting undercover. Those words electrified my senses to the marrow. Few seconds of shock registered on my face and the faces of nearby passengers but the one who had the greatest 3D bone cracking effect was the young girl.

My eyebrows pointed toward the sky as I watched her closely after the woman faced forward. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that the woman had had a previous grudge with the girl. This girl was so innocently embarrassed she could hardly speak. She didn't even utter a word, not even as much as a 'Sorry'. Her medulla must have been placed on a brief paralysis for she stared a little longer at the woman, apparently not knowing what to say. Then she sighed deeply and turned away to meet my eyes. I gave a sincerely weak smile. One that said something like, "Don't worry about her. She's not worth your salt."

She did not smile back. Instead, she rolled her eyes to the roof of the train and turned away to face the outside through the window, obviously nonplussed and outraged. She blinked her eyes forlonly and gave a very deep sigh, then a small hiss. I caught that hiss very well. It reminded me of those frustrated Yoruba women at Balogun market in Lagos Island who made a meager profit at the end of the day. After puckering her lips in a comical, old fashioned manner, she pushed herself forward a little bit, leaned her back and placed her head by the window, then closed her eyes. I did not know if the rough stunt was still affecting her senses or if she had decided to let it off her mind. I could never tell.

Introspecting silently, the only question I could ask myself was, "If this young girl was also white, how differently or not differently would this woman have reacted, or was it that it was in her nature to be unnecessarily cold?" I did not have an answer. I would never know. However, one thing was certainly crystal clear. Based on the nature of the woman's reaction which was totally unpolite and uncalled for, the girl didn't think an apology was a necessary sine qua non for validation and that was final for her. This was a quintessential example of what the phrase 'Tit for Tat' meant.
***

MORAL: Never transfer your aggression for an unjust cause because the unlucky victim of your aggression is not the cause of your issues. Do you realize how much of a bad impression you inflict upon yourself by doing that?

Do you think you are the only one with issues in this world? Please go back to your mat and continue sleeping!

The world needs humanity and we all need love. To treat with love is to be humane. To be humane is bliss. Find it. Learn it. Develop it.

Memoirs from the Cave....

When I was much younger, I used to see myself as being the vibrant albeit quiet city girl that was born, bred and raised in a suburban city setting far away from the East. I was also deficient and handicapped and worse, ignorant of the fact that I was deficient and handicapped. I could count the number of times I was taken to my hometown during long holidays save for Christmas festivities - it was either Abuja or Lagos or an excursion to a different place organised by my Alma mater in order to get that much exposure. So, when people would open their mouths to talk about Nnewi, Alor, Awka, Oraukwu, Abia, Owerri, Enugu, Uga, Igboukwu, Ihiala, even the rowdy Onitsha and it's neighboring sister Nkpor, I humbled myself by looking and acting like a dunce. I didn't know shigbain about that supposedly popular Cave City in Anambra. My Igbo-speaking skills back then were nothing short of a sorry excuse for a half-baked Easterner. I understood it perfectly but I couldn't speak it well without infusing some form of English.
I didn't exactly fit in, at first, with the majorly razz lifestyles and shenanigans of some of the razz folk which were plainly evident in my first year at Nnamdi Azikiwe University. But as time went by, the circumstances opened my previously blinded eyes properly and I began to see things in a different light. I had the biggest break when several people supposedly from Cave City repeatedly baptised me with satirical punch lines to my greatest chagrin, such as, "Nya, etu a I chagolu anya nwaagbo na-emezi ka ndi obodo, I maghi uzo be gi ofuma, I maghi etu esi a ga ogba di na be gi; ifele megbukwalu gi ebe ahu. Lijukwa nsi! (So, you claim the city life but you don't know your home and you don't know the cave, shame on you!)"
Only the Igbos would understand how deep it gets when one is told to "lie nsi".
My perspective changed completely after I was bound, tied and unceremoniously dumped in the East some years later...
***
11 YEARS AGO...

On a cold and dusty Harmattan morning shortly after Christmas day, I set my sights and began a hitch-hike from Umueri-Umudioka axis with Emeka. Emeka was my close cousin (still is) and he brought along a few of his paternal cousins and a tour guide. There was no car that could take us all so we arduously trekked the 1 hour journey along an uneven, untarred and hilly road to a destination that was hidden amidst a thick forest of trees, down in a valley. Conversations sprung up along the way and jokes were cracked, those kinds of jokes that could only make you entertained when it was spoken in Igbo, rather than English. I have never in my entire existence trekked for 1 hour on foot save for NYSC endurance trek which was even less than 1 hour, but I'll be damned if I complained about being tired. I could not stand to be jabbed in my native language as a weakling.

The tour guide alerted us when we approached the cave. I expected to see a gate of some sorts but all I could see was just an expanse of trees, a stretch of forest that seemed to follow the topography of the hills. Nothing looked closely related to an underground hole to climb into. There was a vast expanse of land behind me, even behind the endless horizon across, very evident in an undulating fashion. It felt like I was in an entirely different world and an entirely different time than the present. The wind blew across my face and cooled my senses and the pores underneath my skin, making the hairs at the back of my neck stand on edge. The sweetest part of this breeze was where it soared over my underarms and armpits, attempting to dry off the beads of sweat but giving me a sensational feeling of excitement at the same time. Apart from the voices of the tour guide and Emeka trying to urge the local securities to beat down the cost of touring the cave, together with the subtle gossips coming from Emeka's female cousins, the only other sounds coming from the place were the sparrows and robins of the air, screeching and tweeting as they flew in a colony from tree to tree, their sounds echoing as they flew graciously overhead. 

We were finally let into the vicinity and had to trek for another kilometer to get to the stairs. It felt quite easy climbing down more than one hundred steps into the down below, shaded from the sun's rays by the tallest of pine trees I ever saw. Easy because it didn't feel like one of those workout sessions being displayed on TV. Easy because talk wasn't cheap and talking overshadowed the anxiety born out of a desire to go inside the ground, something I had never thought I would do because I had always assumed that a cave was where primitive people lived, if there were any of those still alive in that cave in Ogbunike.

I was still reveling in the mixed and unknown scent of the trees whose leaves and branches swayed here and there intermittently as the wind ruffled them when I saw it from the corner of my eye. That open hole into the down below. A very large one indeed with a million and one scratch markings on its walls. It looked like an ancient tomb without a door, wide enough for a crowd of people to easily get into the darkness. The large boulder just a distance from the main entrance had so many scratch markings of names and nicknames of people who had been there and left their impressions on a monument of some sorts. Some people had been into that cave and never came out. They had gotten lost among the mazes or swallowed up by sink holes along the floor, left to their fate in the hands of bats and wild animals. My skin crawled with goosebumps at the thought of that. I peered into the darkness ahead and saw many inner open entrances. I could almost have sworn that a lion could come out from any one entrance when the tour guide mentioned wild animals that took refuge there at nighttime. I would never know if it was a myth or the truth.

With torches and lanterns we followed our tour guide straight into the darkness, into the mazes ahead like local warriors off to battle with the king, carefully avoiding sink and swallow holes and bats. At some point we crawled underneath the earthen roof which was too low for any human straight enough to walk, or we laid flat on our stomachs and crawled over earthen ground filled with mud and water. We were too dazed by eagerness to worry about our clothes getting dirty.

After what seemed like an eternity climbing walls, crawling over openings and dodging attacks from wild bats within, we got out to the Nature Waterfall somewhere at the back of the cave. The most beautiful part of the cave was this waterfall, guarded surreptitiously by large pines with moss-green leaves on either side. It was the peak highlight of my tour. I sat down on one of the large boulders by the edge of the crystal clear stream and stared at the waterfall in all of its magnificent glory as it poured endlessly from the summit of a hill down into the stream, creating a laminar flow along the stream a short distance away. Without thinking, I removed my sandals, folded and drew my jeans up to my knees and placed my feet into the stream. I wanted to feel the sheer beauty of it. I wanted to touch it.

I wanted to take off my clothes and just lay there in the water and imagine that I was in a tub, to let Nature pet and caress my skin as I looked on at it. Instead I waded my feet in the water, enjoying the way the water tickled my legs and feet. I scooped water off the stream and splashed it on my face, my hair, my hands, even my back and on my clothes. I could see my reflection from the subtle waves at the surface. Nature is a very beautiful thing, I thought to myself.

Sometime later, it was time to leave Nature Waterfall and the Cave and head back home as the afternoon progressed into evening. By then, I had seen and felt enough of the waterfall and as a token, the waterfall decided to take away my wristwatch which was initially a gift. I didn't really care. I thought it was tit for tat. It gave me a magnificent and unspeakable view and feeling and then still took my watch away because it knew too well that I could easily get a new watch even if I didn't come back to look for it. I would always, always remember it in many more years to come. I would never forget it.
***
11 YEARS LATER...

It has been eleven years and not just eleven years right on but eleven years and three months since I visited Nature Waterfall and the Cave for the first time. I still have the various scenes invariably etched like a fitted jigsaw inside my brain. That place is too beautiful to ever forget. Amongst the various places around the world on my wishlist to visit, The Cave and Nature Waterfall are one of them. I want anyone who cares to visit to see what I saw and feel what I felt practically. I want them to have the experience I had and live to tell the tale again and again. Maybe someday, the Anambrarian and Nigerian government would finally look at it and turn it into a world class tourist destination.

It is Sunday, very early in the cold winter morning and my phone alarm begins to ring out that deafening tone I deliberately set on it. Without opening my eyes, I fish for my phone and snooze the alarm. I can't get up from the bed. Groaning out, I feel so drained down to my bones but that is the problem with winter and -12 degrees. It leaves me cold, lonely, lazy, tired, unnecessarily weak and drained emotionally, physically, socially and psychologically. Having met face to face with depression and frost bite at -21 degrees, I have vowed that I will always appreciate -12 degrees and accept it fully as a warm winter. I do not have a choice. I have fully accepted it. I am living it and surviving it because I am a strong survivor. This day will be a bright and promising one for me, I vaguely speak into my inner self as I am about to drift away into an unconscious state. I have also come to embrace the power of self speech long ago as a way of uplifting myself. Oh yes, I will be strong for myself and the for people who still believe in me.

The alarm rings again ten minutes later and this time, I open my eyes to turn it off and squint at the bright light bulb on the ceiling. Sometimes, I find it appalling that I am hopelessly lygophobic, but I have no apologies for that because everyone has a phobia for something. On this particular Sunday, I wished it was a Saturday. I would give anything, arm and leg inclusive, to sleep in on that soft, comfy bed and not have anything or anyone come between sleep and I. I feel extremely pooped from burning my midnight candle and the thought of getting up to go out in the freezing cold brings this certain wave of paranoia and laziness I just cannot comprehend. Something in me pulls me up against my volition and then I deliberately rise up from my bed. The first thing I remember is that I have to fulfill the Sunday obligation. Because I was raised by a staunch Catholic man within the confined walls of an even stauncher Roman Catholic Church, I was bound to live by the catechisms of the church instructed by God which have been inscribed into my brain since the days of old. Sundays had an obligation and fulfilling that obligation became a necessity since I am neither a saint nor the holiest of holy people, but a firm believer in the existence of God in heaven. Eventually, that thing that pulled me up from the bed pulls me again and then I am headed straight to the bathroom.

Two hours later - an hour of preparation and another one for the Mass - I am glad that I have accomplished one mission if anything today. Phew, that was done faster than I thought. It was always striking to realize that the white people have no patience for long masses as opposed to the 2 hours plus of lengthy masses in Nigeria enriched with project Sundays, harvest and bazaars, sowing of seeds, second and third collections for this and that, thanksgivings and all what not. Even the homilies were so short and straight to the point like a double edged sword. There were no comedies infused, no charismatic approaches to prayers - the kabashing, casting and binding were just not there. Sometimes they did not even wait for a final blessing before they began to shuffle their feet in exasperation and begin to depart the church when it was 1 hour up, an act which I find questionable but I am in no position to judge because it is not my jurisdiction. The fact remained that the impatience had no chill whatsoever.

The Padre (Priest) in charge is a black man. There were only a handful of black people surrounded by a gathering of white faithfuls in that church. I am thrilled that Padre is an Igbo man from Eastern Nigeria, thrilled because it is the very same tribe I was born out of. I have met him a number of times before and he is always very happy to see me. There is always, always a certain kind of acknowledgement when Nigerians meet themselves up in a foreign land.There is this sense of understanding I get whenever I walk up to him because I know that I have found someone whom I can easily relate to strictly on spiritual matters of faith and more importantly, someone to speak Igbo with. I am always relieved to speak Igbo to someone and anyone who understands because I do not want my native language to die in me because I came to chase a life goal on Western soil. In that situation, I am grateful that I do not have to force myself to slur my speech with I-wanna-gonna just because some of the whites don't understand the Nigerian intonations in the English language. For example, I have once been put off when I walked up to a stranger and asked, "Please, I am looking for Londonderry. How do I get there?", and after she looked at me all confused like I spoke Chinese, I forced myself to rephrase my question as, "Errm... I'm tryina ge-dah Lehn-dehn-deh-rry. Which way amma gonna go-dah get there?"

The mass has come to an end and Padre who is last in recessional procession heads to the foyer while the train of the altar servers proceeds into the sacristy. I make my way to the foyer after genuflecting before the altar to where Padre conducts a meet-and-greet session with a well-plastered grin on his face. Honestly, I have come to assume that he might actually have had to stand in front of a mirror to practice how to grin and laugh unnecessarily to the dry jokes dished out whilst shaking hands with people. As I approach him, his face lights up with a smile and by the time I smile back and say, "Padre, Ututu oma, good morning," he speaks to me in Igbo by first melodramatically calling out my name as, "Nkiruka nwa Anekwe! Kee kwanu?!" Then he proceeds by asking about my general welfare and how I am doing with my hustle. I reply back in the same language.

Few seconds into the brief talk, a white couple strings along with their son who could not be more than six years of age. They exchange pleasantries with Padre and I have my well practiced thin smile on my face, readily waiting should they bother to look at me. Sure enough, they do smile back after I manage to say "Hello". I look at the little boy and begin to gush about how cute he looks. I am still smiling when I stretch my hand to shake the little boy but the boy draws a step back as if he was shot with an arrow, puts his hands behind him and looks up at me with a straight face.

"Your skin looks dirty! Why are you not white? Why does your skin look dirty? You are not white so why should I shake you? You and Padre?" The boy says to me, looking defiant as he speaks. Both parents chuckle out in utter embarrassment as a form of response.

This time, the smile vanishes from my face as I stare at this child, aghast and astonished. My brain is electrified in a 3D shock that transmits a brief paralysis to the rest of my body as I stare at this brazen boy. I can not believe my eyes and ears. This is someone I could actually birth talking with so much audacity and fearlessness. In my country, a child could not be so audacious to speak like this because the typical Nigerian parent did not mind smacking him right in the face, right there in the public eye, and then going back home to flog the devil out of him with a "koboko". But then I remember again that I am not in my beloved country and he is not my son, so I bite my tongue to stop myself from speaking out and reprimanding him.

"Oh.... it's because God wanted us to be like this. He is not stupid, you know. He just did not want to have white people as the only ones in the planet when he created men. That can never be possible. But we are all still human beings and He is happy he created people in different skins. I do not see why that should be a problem for a small boy like you," I reply to the boy with my plastered smile back on my face. I cannot help it nor keep mute to such mannerisms or the lack thereof because I am strongly allergic to rudeness of any kind. The parents begin to dish out apologies for the rudeness and hastily depart.

After a few more minutes, I leave Padre to the other faithfuls and make my way home. The thoughts of the legacies of Martin Luther King Jr, Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks begin to flood my mind. As empathic as I couId be, I know how painful it must have been for them fighting the war of race and human rights. Albeit the years that have gone by and the legacies of these human rights activists which black humans in this jet age live on, there is no gain-saying about it. There is still a long way to go in dealing with racial disparity and prejudice. The length of that road is indefinite and will remain as that in so far as people continue to see themselves as racially superior to others in this 21st century. Racism will always be there when a warped mentality is born and bred out of the desire to esteem oneself on the basis of skin colour rather than seeing oneself as equal human before God. Just like Martin Luther King Jr, I hope and pray for a day when black people will be judged by the content of their character rather than the colour of their skins.

Inspite of how bleak it may seem, without apologies or regrets, I am still proud of the colour of my skin, of how innocent and unbleached it is every time I look at myself in the mirror. I am still proud of how very much of an African woman that I am. With all my flaws, commas and imperfections, I still love myself and where I come from. I am beautiful in my own skin. I am unique. I am so deep, like that.

My Valentine Kaleidoscope...

Charles and I walked into an art gallery at St. Albert when I caught sight of her like perfume wisp. I moved in for a closer look. It was my first time seeing her there, resplendent in poise like a magnificent gazelle. I would swear that I was smitten. The dark brown eyes shaped like large almonds would come to arrest me, the smile would come to keep me glued to her, the full mouth smeared in red lipstick would provoke a certain feeling in me, the hour glassy physique hidden in a very short bodycon dress would make me wonder where in the world such a creature came from, and the exposed long, straight legs fitted in ballet flats would ring an alarm somewhere in the down south of me where all my blood would drain into. Her skin, oh yes, her shiny, bronzed skin would remind me of caramel and caramel is such a sweet substance too difficult to detest. Talking with her would be like talking with a comrade. No, confidant did it better a term to explain in a single word, the deductions of the impression she would have made over time. The mesmerizing allure and charisma consequent upon her damning elegance would constitute the 24 hour traffic of my days.

Standing curvaceously tall at 5'10", she would be the dawn accompanied by the sunrise, the dawn that ushered in a new day. She would wake up before I did and disappear somewhere in the kitchen. She would sing and hum to herself to whatever song that came into her mind while doing her magic in the kitchen. An hour later she would silently walk back into my bedroom carrying a tray of her magic. Try as hard as I might, I could never hear her footsteps. She would quietly drop the tray on the bedside table and when the aroma of that magic on the tray began to have a tingling effect on my nose, she would sit by the edge of the bed to ruffle my hair, kiss my forehead and whisper a salient "Good Morning, my Prince". I would come to love it whenever she called me her prince because she would always say it with a very attractive and possessive form of fierceness. I would come to love it knowing that she was taken by me. My eyes would flutter open at her touch and the first thing I would see would be her charming, dimpled smile with a flashing gap tooth embedded beneath. That smile would come to chase away all the demons tormenting my soul, that smile would come to caress my senses with reckless abandon and that smile would make me get lost in the very depths of a seemingly bottomless pit of that abstract feeling too great to be quantified or measured. That, I would nod to my inner self, was the smile of a keeper. In a flashing second her smile would disappear and she would bend over to kiss me slowly again, this time on my lips, leaving me bemused and darn right speechless. A Mother Confessor she was. My wish, her command, her bidding, her doing. She could read me and she would come to know that she was a wanted person.

My face would slowly and gradually work it's way into its own smile whilst she ruffled and scratched my hair, a form of appreciation to the Mother Confessor. Her nails would dig into my scalp and transmit sweet sensations and nothings down my spine. My eyes would seep in wake and drown into her very sheer essence. We would have our usual and virtual tête à tête, just us both, away from the prying eyes and ears of the world. Her voice would come to be a sonorous melody ringing out consistent vibes when she spoke. I would be the observant listener, like the ever obedient child that listens to his mother and takes corrections from his teacher whilst being eager to learn. She would sit cross legged while I lay down with a propped up elbow on a pillow. She would come to look like a modelled priceless work of art, her arms would stretch out in a bid to gesticulate and the round shape of her nipples would jut out of a see-through nighty with the nice pair of twin towers jiggling gently on her chest with each definite movement of her hands. She was the fiery and fierce temptress, the lioness with the silent roar that beckoned to me to enter into her den. Mother Confessor was a drama queen, her energy and gusto would be a force to reckon with. After I let her talk, she would then ask for my opinion. I was the careful listener, the observant master. I would like it when she always asked for my opinion. It would show that I was truly valued, wanted. It would also show that I was not just an ordinary person.

She would gloriously rise from the bed in a slow motion kind of movement like she was advertising for a product on TV and with her arched index finger pointing at me, moving back and forth, she would tell me, "Come with me, young man". Then she would waltz away into the closet to change, coming back five minutes later in beach shorts and a camisole. I would rise from the bed and stare at my breakfast on a tray on top of the bedside table. The aroma of fresh omelet sandwiched between slices of whole wheat grain bread would stifle my senses that I couldn't concentrate anymore and my stomach would screech and grunt. So, I would take a bite of her magic. A bite would turn into two, then three and the next thing, I would dig into the food like a hungry lion and sip coffee inbetween. Mother Confessor knew how to get to my heart through my stomach but it was the contents of her brain that stood the test of time. Damn, she was that deep and it struck me so hard like a lightening bolt just before a thunderstorm. It was one of her ways. I would brush my teeth after eating and change into shorts and a Tee with the name Mother Confessor boldy printed on the front and the cartoon image of an alluring woman under the print. We would step out into the early morning breeze and the bright morning sun. I would swear that I never knew where she would take me. I would only know that wherever she led was where I would follow.

We would walk down the beach, arm in arm, smiling to ourselves like fools that we were. We would be fools in love and that would be allowed because we could care less. The waves would splatter on our feet and move back intermittently, sometimes the wind would almost drag us into the waters and the sand would bury our feet carelessly. We would come to a piece of boulder a short distance away and sit on it. Then we would stare at the endless horizon, the cool breeze would sweep at us and it would be this breeze that would make her hair fly up and about in different directions. I would say a thing or two, maybe three, and she would laugh while pulling back strands of hair that were scattered by the breeze, this high-pitched sound that echoed in full inside my head, sending the birds of the air chirping out and away. It would seem as if the wind laughed with her. She would not care, instead she would just let her youth glow and glow it did. She would be too good to be true and I would never have enough of this lady. They say, "Behind every happy man is a woman responsible for that happiness". Alas, she was the one holding me at 'siki five', the 'mumu' button which was lost to her bidding.

Hours later, I would sit on a high stool in my studio facing the canvas while she would lay down on a love seat, looking regal like Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, positioned in a very inviting and sensual manner with no holds barred, all behind closed doors. She would not mind leaving little to the imagination where I was concerned since I would be hers and hers alone. She would not mind whether her back ached or her legs hurt in the hours I would spend drawing her. The only thing she wanted was the final output. She wouldnt even  make too much movement or talk much for fear that I would make a mistake. She was patience personified and her humility defined the very essence of the African virtue. I would get to discover the mystery behind that personality, behind that pure work of art. The audacity of hope and veracity of joy she would bring would perplex my consciousness...
***

The cold water electrified my senses. It came pouring down my face as I continued to stare at the painting of Mother Confessor at the art gallery before me with my mouth wide open. My shirt became damp. I jerked up in a frenzy, wondering who the hell cut my trance short. I cleaned my face with the handkerchief from my pocket.

"Lawrence, why are you drooling over a mere piece of artwork? You've been ogling at this painting for the past one hour," my friend, Charles, spoke in a melodramatic fashion. I turned abruptly to see the bewildered look on his face and the empty glass cup that was once filled with water in his hands.

"You better close your mouth, my friend. You look very ridiculous like that," he chuckled. "Let's ball."

I turned to give the painting one last lingering look and for a second, I thought the woman in the painting winked at me. I shook my head a few moments later and walked away. That painting was already etched somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain.

I stood over her calm and resting frame on a hospital bed in one of the ICU rooms at Alexandria Hospital. The room was deathly silent, save for the slow and steady beeping sounds of the EKG, beeps that sounded in tune with each heart beat, each breathing in and breathing out. It had been nearly 36 hours since the transplant operation ended and my inner senses kept beckoning on her for reasons I still could not fathom. She looked so pale in her bronzed skin, yet so beautiful and at peace with herself, her lips dry and slightly parted as the oxygen nozzle aided her breathing. Her hair, thick and full, was braided into French braids that draped over her shoulders. Her long and curved lashes firmly strapped over her eyes. The thin, light scar running across her forehead the result of a previous minor operation. In all, I'd never seen anyone look this peaceful, but it was only because that was what she needed. Peace. Rest. Strong health.

She was my first major breakthrough in my fairly young medical profession as a surgical nephrologist, my first successful attempt at a kidney transplant and firsts are always never forgotten. I'd known her for only a month since the time she was brought here but I couldn't categorically explain why I let myself drawn to her, by her. It was probably because her case seemed critically hopeless and irredeemable at first, or maybe because she was a Nigerian from the Igbo tribe - something I could easily relate to since my mother also shared the same heritage - but it was more likely because my inner thoughts cajoled me to peek further into a world of innocence ladden with pain and suffering. I smiled as I rolled her name out in my mind. Kelechi Krystal Mbanefo. A 25 year old young and ambitious lady who had just begun an MBA program at Lethbridge University, she had only spent the first four weeks of the fall semester before her tragic situation sprung up. I couldn't quite erase everything in her case file from my mind because I'd spent four agonizing, sleepless weeks studying her case, desperate to give her another chance, another solution as she was desperate enough to cling on to the very recesses of hope. I particularly liked that she was a mixture of beauty and brains, for with the current state of the Nigerian education system, you'd have to be darn well lucky enough to graduate with honours from Ibadan. She was quite the fierce fighter, born with one abnormal kidney which was taken out at the age of 12 and she'd been surviving with the other up until recently when she had to fight with her body in order to stay alive. She'd been fighting with her system almost all her life and she'd won the battle. A determined conqueror she was.

I could recall when emergency paramedics brought her in on a stretcher, cold in a swim suit, eyes bloodshot, half dead and scared, struggling to breathe through an oxygen mask on Labour Day. I'd just completed my evening ward round at the Renal Unit and was about to go home when I caught sight of her and immediately sprung into action. It was her first time in Edmonton and her aunt decided to take her sight seeing at the famous West Edmonton Mall. She'd actually decided to take a dive at the beach side area of the mall when she collapsed in the water and nearly drowned. Sure enough, I'd succeeded in resuscitating her, but it wasn't long enough before I found out that the one surviving kidney was at risk of failure and needed an urgent transplant. She'd have had to be a quintessential example of what it meant to be lucky, for there was an organ replacement that matched hers readily available in the following week. Most people with kidney issues never lived to tell a sordid tale, at least 70% of them.

It took only but 12 anxious hours in the theatre, cutting and dissecting her lower abdomen, taking out the old and bringing in the new. It was okay that the CMD of my unit presided over the operation - as he did with all other surgical operations - but it was somewhat nerve-cracking that he let me be in charge while he relegated himself to supervision. Mistakes weren't to be tolerated. I needed my job while she needed her life, a balance of which rested in my oars. Twelve hours of pulling muscles together and I was through, job and life safely balanced.  I still couldn't sleep after the transplant because she plagued my mind like a virus, eating away at my thoughts. I let my usual coffee caress and warm up my numbing thoughts but that didn't really come to fruition. I wanted to see those eyes terribly, I wanted them out of the darkness and into the light.

There I was, standing before her in the last two hours, watching and monitoring, thinking and waiting for that moment that never seemed to come forth even after setting up a mind connection. She would not be disturbed until she deemed it fit herself. I became tired and hell, I needed some good dose of sleep myself. I sighed heavily through my nose mask and turned away from her toward the door, making up my mind to cancel all calls and go home to my bed. I'd just begun to leave when I felt something warm and soft clutch my little finger. Instinctively, I turned around to find her right finger gradually curling up on mine until all her fingers locked into mine. I looked up at her to see her blinking and twitching her eyes, adjusting them to the present settings. She slowly turned to look at me, her face awash with confusion, then nervousness and finally, fear. I pulled down my nose mask for her to see my full face. Her face was expressionless this time. I felt that tidal wave of self consciousness nearly consume me while she stared at me, from my head which was covered in a cap, to my facial features and down to the name tag on the breast pocket of my coat. And then her lips curled up into a smile, a smile that now fully understood the mind connections, which at that moment became the highest point of my first ever transplant operation.

"I'm alive," she whispered in her mind.

"It's Thanksgiving Day. You're awake!" I whispered back. The mind connection was electrifying, no words spoken out....

The alarm began ringing just as my phone rang, interrupting my very carefully planned dream. It was Remembrance Day. I did not want to wake up to present day at 9am, I just wanted to remain revelling in my private dream, without any interruptions. Carefully opening my groggy eyes, I tried to silence both alarm and phone at once but ended up pushing the alarm to the floor and cutting off my smart phone. The silence that came in the next half minute was enough to make my groggy self drift away again before the phone rang the second time. Darn it! I'm off duty today, I grumbled to myself as I reluctantly picked up my phone and made a feeble attempt at sitting up.

"Hello."

"Hi! Good morning!" A soft, subtle but vibrant female voice spoke on the other end of the line. It aroused my senses this time and jolted me to an upright position. Just when I thought my life couldn't get any weirder as a doctor, that was when a female stranger would decide to call me at 9.04 am on a public holiday. I looked at my phone for a split second and after assessing it as an unstored number, put it back to my ear.

"Huh-llooo? Are you there? Am I speaking with Dr. Micheal Harris?" The voice seemed to filter in, joggling me back to the present again.

"Yes. This is he."

"Eerrm.... I hope this isn't a bad time? I was told you'd be off duty so I decided to try my luck again, seeing that you're quite hard to reach."

"How can I help you?"

She laughed. An excited rumbling sound that gunned me down like a toddler gunned down by a mother's love.

"Actually, I kind of sensed you're just waking up. Maybe I could help you since you're off today. When I got discharged from Alexandria I tried so much at contacting you whilst still recuperating but it was fruitless. I was wondering if I could have lunch or coffee with you or at least get a chance to see you and thank you for saving my life..."

"Don't thank me, thank God. I was just a mere vessel," the words flew out of my mouth before I had a chance to process them. I didn't mean to interrupt her speech.

"Oh sure! That's certain." She laughed again, a nervous one this time. It took a while for me to get hold of myself.

"Who am I even speaking with?" A mixture of confusion, surprise and irritation playing host within me.

"It's Kay," she said after a long pause. "Kelechi Mbanefo."

Efosa Ewuare is a young and successful entrepreneur whose values are shown in his love for his family and friends and yet he is haunted by the memories of his past. He falls in love with Adetutu Bhadmus, a smart and independent woman with whom he has a unique  bond, a bond that is tested as Tutu pushes him to confront his fears which still govern his life and threaten to ruin everything they had built together.

Author: Ogochukwu Echezona
Publisher: Reindeer Publications, Lagos (2014)

I stood in a palatial, Victorian-style decorated office block, on the 42nd floor of the CiTi Center building in Downtown Edmonton, facing a tall glass window with its French curtains pulled apart to reveal the Edmonton skyline. Downtown was where the heart of Edmonton was and Edmonton was the capital city of Alberta, a large metropolitan city filled with more professionals and so much expanse of land. It was unlike Toronto, which bustled with the heat and large population of immigrants, or Quebec City, which had lots of Asians going to McGill to become doctors or Concordia to become engineers. The only thing those mega cities on the East coast had over it was a slightly higher temperature range for the weather. It was still a beautiful city, the only place where the temperature would reach a chilly 2 degrees and you could still see the bright sun shining!

Downtown was where the skyscrapers belonged, all standing tall at strategic points overlooking the North Saskatchewan River. It reminded me so much of the days in Onitsha in Nigeria where I would go to Main Market, Ose or the Basilica and it's environs and while walking along the roads made tight by struggling traders, I'd take a moment to watch the waves of the River Niger and the three- to four- or five- storey buildings overlooking the River. I remembered my aunt once told me that those buildings where people lived - some of them looked like they were about to collaspe - were all competing to get a good view of the River and it made me chuckle loudly. However similar, Downtown was still different, probably because it was obodo oyibo where the oyibo couldn't handle such congestion. It was neater and cleaner with plenty more space and fresher air to breathe, but Onitsha had better live and impromptu drama scenes by random inhabitants to display in the public of igwe mmadu - its people.

I'd been standing in the lobby area of Grecian Arch, a large fortune five hundred office block that dealt in furniture, design and interior decoration. I'd spent nearly 2 hours waiting to see the CEO of this rich place after I was told by the receptionist that he was in a meeting, and yet I'd kept on asking myself why I came here and what I was doing here. I didn't just fit in, with my caramel skin where everyone else was oyibo and speaking with the Canadian-style I-wanna-gonna kind of English. I didn't just fit in, with my casual Old Navy blouse draped over black leggings and covered in a leather jacket and Converse sneakers where everyone else wore a suit or some other kind of extremely serious formal wear, the heels of their shoes or stilettos giving the tiled and terrazzo floors a click-clack klonk-klonk sound like the sound of two drum sticks hit together in a continuous rhythmic cycle. I didn't just fit in, with my thick mound of afro where everyone else had smooth and straight hair that was more 'office-like'. This office was too rich, too formal, too plush and everyone that walked past me had on a business-like face that said something like, "If we aren't talking business and money, you have no business here. Next!"

I let myself stare out past the tall windows to look at the North Saskatchewan River, snaking its way through the currents, dividing Downtown in two. Its source should mostly likely be from Saskatchewan Province. I could see the other skyscrapers across the river on the other side. Somewhere in between was a bridge connecting the side where I was to the other side of Downtown. The bridge was designed like a double decker bus - the top had rails specifically for metro trains while below had a road meant for cars and buses. There was another lone bridge some distance away for the long cargo trains. The structure of it all took my mind to the picture of the San Fransisco bridge in California. Infrastructure was top notch. The trees around all had beautiful hues of orange, red and brown leaves that depicted the fall season. The squirrels and little chipmunks had a field day running around the trees and on top of them, even under them. The birds of the air flew graciously over the red horizon, spreading their wings and letting go, not a single care in the world for whoever was watching. The sight was one to behold. If you stopped for a moment to admire the view, you'd be lost like I was.

I fished for the dark brown wallet inside my back pack, my fingers raced gently round the intricate leather design - pure leather designed by the famous  Michael Kors. The man who owned this wallet I was yet to return had to be a man with an exquisite taste in the finest things of life, or so I assumed. I opened it yet again to check every part of it, just to be sure nothing was amiss - an ID card, ATM cards, company cards bearing Grecian Arch and its details, a cheque with the sum of 4,000 Canadian Dollars and 2,000 Canadian dollar notes. My hands were shaky as I counted the notes. I'd never held such a large amount of money. I could recall calling the owner who asked me to come to this office to return it when I found it lying astray beside me in the metro train two days ago. I'd wondered who could have been crazy enough to misplace such valuables. I could almost imagine myself saying, "This one na sanko oh! Kedu ihe patara udi temptation a bikonu?! Hian, Chineke napulu ekwensu ike maka ndu mmadu!" Who wouldn't be tempted to keep such when that big red monster with red horns, yellow eyes, black slits and vampire-like teeth that spoke of darkness and all that is in it crept up into the mind of a sane lady who got on a train and accidentally stumbled upon it? Now I'd been here for the last two hours of my life, trying to do the right thing as my conscience nudged me to.

My hands were still shaky holding the wallet as I turned toward the outside world and breathed a loud sigh, my breath creating a mist on the spotless glass but I could care less. I became impatient. How could one misplace a wallet and then waste the good Samaritan's time like it wasn't important? Some people just had no chill at all, I mused with a slight frown on my face. I looked at my watch again and back up. I sighed once more and decided it was time to hit the road. Whoever, whatever the CEO was would have to come find me. I also had a life too and it didn't include waiting idly around in the lobby of Grecian Arch or whatever the name of the firm was.

I'd taken in enough of the view and turned away toward the exit to the elevators when I bumped into someone with full force, knocking me to the ground, the wallet flying off in a different direction. The man held my arms up for me to stand.

"I'm sorry," I blurted out, looking away at the floor, behind and around me to find the wallet. Where'd it go?

"Looking for this?" He asked, holding up the wallet to my face.

"Yes. I'm sorry again," I breathed out, a wash of relief creeping in for the fact that it didn't fall off too far.

"Ogochukwu Onuzulike?" The man asked again and I actually looked at him for the first time. I was thrown aback by the fact that this man was able to pronounce my full name in the typical Igbo way. With my mouth slightly apart, I stared into the face of a man, fair in complexion but not exactly white, his skin was not pale like the oyibo, but with the strong features of a young male - the broad shoulders covered in a navy blue suit, the eyes brown, the jaw line neatly shaved that there was no speck of hair to be found, the cheek aptly defined, the hair a deep  and curly jet black, the mouth full like a typical African man. He looked a little too young, but somehow mature enough, about 29 or 30 give or take. This was definitely not a Canadian, probably once an immigrant that later became a citizen. How on earth could he pronounce my name so well? The hairs on my head made a beeline stand. I stepped back in confusion.

"I'm Chukwudi Francis Obi-Okafor. You just bumped into the CEO of Grecian Arch, the man who misplaced his wallet in a train which you good naturedly found." The man said with a smile.

I noticed the deep voice for the first time, too speechless to speak a word, too overwhelmed to have finally seen someone who pronounced my name so fluently with all the accents and no mistakes, too astonished by how dapper he looked. Afukwana!! Ocha nke a di egwu, like a 3D shock to my medulla!!......

"Alright! Time's up Owh-gowh-chuukwuuuhh!!" Professor Gingras brought me out of my deep reverie, stretching my name out in a failed attempt at pronouncing it while snatching my answer script of the test off the table. Apparently, everyone else had submitted and left.

It just dawned on me that I hadn't answered up to half the questions before my mind veered off. My heart began pounding fast as I dejectedly picked up my bag and left the lecture theatre room for the LRT metro train station. I was doomed in this test all because I got caught lost in the moment.