Niqui Anekwe's Blog

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.

Humans on earth wish for a thousand and one things - fast cars, wealth, money, fame, the Forbes list to mention a few - and if wishes were horses, we'd be riding high on chariots. However, there is only one thing every human on the face of this earth would never wish for. Accidents.

When the ill-fated Titanic sailing on the ice-cold Arctic Ocean in the dead of night hit an iceberg and sank in 1912, leaving behind over 5,000 dead bodies at sea and many thousands still missing today, no one ever saw it coming. No one ever wished for it.
When Osama Bin Laden's troop of Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked two planes and deliberately slammed them head long into The World Trade Centre and The Pentagon in 2001, leaving behind a trail of over 3,000 dead bodies, no one envisioned such monstrosity.
In 2005, when the Sosoliso Airlines flight 1145 DC-9-32 crashed to the ground from 30,000 feet up in the air, leaving behind 108 unfortunate souls who are now 6 feet under, no one ever imagined that this could happen in Nigeria. It did happen.

When accidents are about to happen, there are no telltale signs, no preparations, no excuses and sometimes, no warnings. As surely as it takes a split fraction of a micro-second to blink the eyelids is as exact as the time frame for an accident. When this happens, the gruesome results spans dented and badly squashed cars, spilled blood from bodies strewn carelessly on the ground, news reporters scuttling about with camera men for headline reports and the godawful shrieks of witnesses, some of who could not miss the moment of recording live photos and videos streamed across the internet for public viewing from smart phones. 

All it took was a split fraction of a micro-second to witness a highway accident. Death on a highway 101.

The Monday morning was so bright and promising and by afternoon, it became hot and tiresome. Having finished with my major business of the day, I left for the bus terminal and booked a ticket to a known destination 4 hours from where I was. In the wait for the loading bus to get filled up, I bid my time and got myself a snack and a drink, anticipating in my mind about this journey and getting silently agitated that prospective passengers were not forthcoming. I needed to get to this destination before night fall because I hated night journeys and impending traffic. So I ate in silence and tapped away at my phone, ignoring the local hawkers coming to me to buy their items.
Not long after, the bus got filled up and moved out of the park terminal at a moderate speed into the highway. I vaguely sensed a misgiving twenty minutes on the highway. The bus gradually declined in speed and a traffic was slowly building up. I looked up from my phone to the stretch in front and saw a line up of cars, motorcylces, buses, trailers and trucks moving at a slow pace. I noticed the cars diverting across to the other side of the highway to form a one-way lane from the lane we were on. Looking ahead out the window, I caught sight of a deep gully that had cut into the highway lane we were on. The gully had created a scary ravine-like feature into the depth below. It was impossible for any vehicle to pass through the lane, hence the need for the diversion into a one-way lane on the opposite highway.

I shifted on my seat and turned my eyes away to the stretch ahead on the one-way lane. The sound of the crash came through like a bolt of lightening strike and corresponding thunder rumble through the clouds. In the twinkling of an eye, I caught sight of three bodies upthrust in the air before they came crashing down. I thought I was seeing stars so I blinked my eyes and shook my head. I probably should have been running my imaginations deeper than expected, else how could I explain the sudden thudding of my heart and dryness of my throat?

The bus I was in moved too slowly it could pass for a slow motion skit. I saw the bright red liquid colour up the black tarred road. Blood.
The first body was a little baby who on a close up random guess could not have been more than 9 months old, lying with her back to floor, her bright red blood gushing carelessly from the back of her head. She was dead on the spot. She could not have survived the magnitude of the fall for a toddler of that nature, especially on a very hard surface as tarred road.
Adjacent to this body was a female adult who could've been her mother, laid on her back with her right leg missing. She wasn't breathing, her blood was the only thing moving around her, spilling away in reckless abandon.
The third body was just a few paces from the woman and the baby. He could have passed for the driver of the motorcycle, for the motorcycle was squashed in a heap beside him. He laid unmoving in a pool of his own dark red blood with his face to the ground. Passersby flocked around the bodies, starring clueless.
The bus that collided with the motorbike was parked haphazardly to the curb a little distance further. The passengers got out one after the other, dusting off shards of broken glass from bodies, some of which got cut with bruises. The driver of that bus was nowhere to be seen. 

I felt so nauseous and light-headed. The blood. The lifeless bodies. The collision. The survivors. The confusion. The building traffic. The screams and shrieks from the other passengers. Everything seemed to bring a sickening sensation to my stomach. I held my head to stop the spinning inside my head, then covered my mouth to keep myself from puking. 

As gruesome as it seemed and looked, I'd never been mortified by the sight of death on a highway. The image hunted my senses all the way to my destination and days later.
One would most likely think that if only the gully hadn't cut into the highway, I bet these unfortunate souls could still have been breathing by now. If only the state of the road had gotten more awareness from the government in charge, and possibly been sand-filled or stone-filled, this accident wouldn't have been an incident.

All it took was a split fraction of a micro-second and the final destination on a highway became a gruesome account of a worst case scenario that would stay etched in memory.

No one wished for it. No one envisioned it. No one ever saw it coming. The final destination into the great beyond. 

Today was another day to run my imaginations deep. In order to do this I needed insight and it came in the form of a TV show on TLC channel (DSTV) called Your Style In His Hands.

A couple has been married for 12 years with two daughters. They were college sweethearts before they got married so it's been a pretty long love-relationship. Initially, the woman gave up her job and moved with her husband to a new city because of his job. His job was paying very well. She then became a housewife, doing all the cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, taking care of the daughters, etc. 
Slowly, she started losing confidence in herself. She began to gain weight, the kind of weight gain associated with child birth, but it was not so much, and no matter how hard she tried, the belly fat just won't go down. She started to care less about herself and more about her husband and kids. She didn't have time to shop for clothes to make her look more appealing but rather resorted to wearing loosely - fitted sweat pants, sweat shirts, slacks, pajamas and all those loose dresses that hid all her curves and swallowed her up, making her look shapeless. She cared less. 
Her husband still loved her very much, but he couldn't stand her lack of confidence and general outlook to life as a wife and mother. He especially couldn't stand the way she dressed and became worried, hence seeking for help from the anchors of the show.

His help? The anchors and producers gave him a task. He was to discard every item he didn't like in her wardrobe and replace the wardrobe with a new set of clothes, shoes, bags, etc, all for a whooping sum of£5,000 (did I hear you whistle or raise an eyebrow? Yep, your guess is as good as mine). He would do this by shopping at two different malls in 5 days while she would be away from him, away from the house, elsewhere trying to gain her confidence and self esteem back. It was quite a daunting task because the man knew next to nothing about women fashion and didn't even find shopping interesting. However, he conquered his worst fears, clung onto his love for her after 12 years of marriage and bought her a £5,000 wardrobe! Interesting!

My point exactly? Married men need to take a serious cue from this man. If you think it's easy for a woman to give birth and battle with belly fat and weight gain, then you should probably imagine yourself as a woman. Think again, men! 
If your wife's lifestyle changes for reasons best known to you both and you don't find it comfortable, if her choice of dressing bothers you a lot, if her confidence or self esteem gives you sleepless nights, if you wish (or want) for her to improve to at least half the person she was as a spinster before she became a mother and it eats into your soul even though you still love her, don't just sit there insulting her about being a fat housewife. Don't just sit there and complain and nag about how unattractive she looks. Don't just foolishly get yourself falling for the temptation of adultery. Don't just look at her and ignore her, pretending you don't care when in fact you are slowly dying inside you because she doesn't flatter you as she used to. Get up and do something! If she can't shop because of time factor, help her overcome it for the greater good of you both. That is why husband and wife are supposed to be help mates, I guess. 
***(clears throat, whispers). Please, I didn't say you should go and steal 5,000 pounds to buy the universe for her***

Women aren't left out. Help yourselves. If it bothers you so much that it bothers your husband, please help yourself too so the man doesn't have to look outside to get satisfaction he craves for.

It is easier said than done, I know this. It is not so easy, but if more self consciousness, communication and knowledge were applied, then at least better results would surface.

Niqui Anekwe©, 2015.

Below is a comparative list of the different kinds of people and/or characters existing on Facebook after much observation, viz;

1. TEACHER NWA NJOKU: these kinds are the kinds that pretend to have graduated from Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, Stanford, etc. They even pretend they're related to Professor Wole Soyinka, always quick to correct like it was part of their destinies to fulfill but they don't know jack about anything. I'm not saying correction is bad. Everybody makes mistakes and stands to be corrected, true. But what is most annoying about it is when they try to correct you over what you know full well, making themselves look stupid in the end.

2. BLUNDERERS: it's okay to make mistakes, but it becomes foolish when such mistakes are repeated erroneously over and over and over again without learning from the mistake. As I wrote in category 1, no one is perfect. We make mistakes in writing every once in a while, but how on earth can you continue to justify your mistakes knowing full well where they came from? Tsk tsk tsk.

3. LAZY: when these kinds of people write/type, it's a sight to behold. They make the reader(s) have eye sores and cramps from too much strain. The one that still grates me is k, kk, kkk, kkkk, lawd, gawd, etc.

4. ATTENTION SEEKERS/DESPERADOES: these ones derive so much pleasure in craving for EXCESS attention. Everyone loves getting attention once in a while, but these ones make it their duty to make you notice them by posting nudes, half nudes, meaningless updates, etc. They think the world revolves round them. Well, not everyone would care. Some people don't give a rat's poop about them. Whadaya do? Sigh and move on. Next!

5. DUBIOUS: need I say more? 'Course we don't need a soothsayer to know who these are. They post questionable adverts about how to make money, buying online, paying money into an account, etc. The worst of them are the hackers. They are very deadly. Y'all need to keep your eyes and nose and ears open to fish them out before they fish you. 'Nough said.

6. FAIRYTALES: these kinds turn their worlds into fairytales like the cartoons, deceiving unthinking fellas with their outrageous lies about how perfect their lives are, trying to make fellas green with envy. Do you know that all those friends that lie about studying in Rochester and living in Yaba are also dreamers like the fairytale category? What about those talking about winter, spring, summer and autumn while living in by edges of the Lagos Third Mainland Bridge where the locals take a dip (shit) by the lagoon? Mehn! How can someone envy such fake people?! Ike gwuru!

7. PERILOUS: these ones get obsessed and begin to secretly police you around, appearing in every post. They can view your profile over a hundred times a day and in three days, they would have successfully crammed everything about you. Did I forget they are good at ranting? Now you know.

8. LOST: these kinds would always come to your posts and comment things that are totally off point and have no nexus with the central theme. Phew!

9. FIESTY: these kinds only know how to insult. Make a post and they rush in, screaming like a banshee, spewing out insults which they don't even know the meaning. Some of them are prone to give in to baseless, senseless arguments that yield no valuable profit at the end. No time to waste time, you just send them to Blockville village straight up. Ain't got time for talks.

10. THIRSTY NIGGAS: immediately you accept these ones they move in faster than the speed of light. They come to your wall and post blunders about accepting the friend request and proceed to message you with 'baby', 'i', 'wanna know more about you', 'you are so sweet'.... Urrghh! Dude, who gave you such right? Sitcho ass down and take a chill pill. If you don't have anything important to tell, just keep your hands to yourself before I keep em disfigured.

11. THE FAKE BACHELORS: Oops, think we need to sniff deeper to smell these ones out. These ones would add up all the females on your friend's list and friend's friends and friends of friends lists and ask them for marriage all at the same time. It's more like them spinning a lucky wheel at a casino or playing black jack. Ladies, open up your eyes and use your head! Next!!

12. THE WRITERS, POETS: these ones have a knack for writing. Oh yes, some of them are good at keeping your timeline busy instead of dry and empty. While some are quite educative and informative, others just make you yawn out loudly. We're talking about over 20 posts a day. They just love to put that art up for the world to see. Next please!!

13. PROPHETIC PASTORS: these ones make religious posts. I'm not against it because it's their wall after all. But where my nerves get grated is when the religious messages come with threats like, 'if you don't pass this on to 7 people including me in 7 days, you will die... Something bad will happen...' Dude, shut up mehn. Even Jesus didn't threaten the people he preached to. Who do you think you are? Get lost!

14. MONITORS: these kinds are so annoying. They make you grit your teeth in irritation. Why? Because they are always watching you in the secret places. They are mad at your success and happy at your downfall. That is when they would spring up like a hot geyser and strike. Some would even start questioning why you are online. For pete's sake you aren't the one subscribing the data, so just sit your silly ass down, wallow in your self pity and mind your business. We need the services of TB Joshua for these ones. *smh*

15. DISASTERS: remember the late Cynthia Osukogu saga story about a couple of years back? Yep, you bet! Those people fit in this category. They lure you online to meet up physically and 99% of the time, it's disastrous. You'd be lucky to come out alive after meeting them. Unfortunately, poor Cynthia wasn't. This is a big eye opener.

16. CONFIDANTS: oh I love, love these kinds. They're the real deal! They are your close friends from school, a function, etc. The more interesting ones are those you meet up with physically after meeting online and the friendship just clicks like the definite click-clack sounds of a lady's high-heeled stilettos. If you're lucky, the friendship might graduate to a serious thing and if you aren't, it might just fade into a once in a blue moon thing. There are a lot of genuine people in this category as there are ingeniune people in category 15, but it is worth a while.

17. COMEDIANS: another interesting category. These ones spice up your time line with funny posts, skits and comments. They make you laugh out loud people will be wondering why you are laughing at your phone but they won't have the slightest idea.

18. SADISTS/EXTREMISTS: these kinds are self explanatory, always posting extreme content that leave little to the imagination. I don't even know which is worse between sadists and extremists.

19. COPY CATS: these lack ideas, innovations, you name it. They just follow the band wagon aimlessly with no input. They copy your posts and post on their time lines without crediting the original posters. They go as far as committing plagiarism. It's quite a pity.

20. DIGGERS: it takes ounces of muscles to know these because some of them are silent. Just as the name describes, they dig into your past posts and pictures like hired private detectives, investigating for no purpose or ulterior motives. Either way, one has to be wary of them.

I don't think this list is exhaustive because I get to see more characters spring up like the hibiscus springs up when exposed to the morning sun. Do you have any category of yours that isn't on this list? Be my guest.

Niqui Anekwe. Copyright. 2015.

Just when you think Nigeria does not surprise you enough already, that is when you walk out of your home to the road side and see the 'Madame' of a local Iya Basira (buka) raising her skirt so high in public by the side of her restaurant, by the gutter, you see her tights but it is not enough. She pulls down the tights and the pant and squats down, revealing a pair of the typical black African buttocks, urinating!

She does not wash her hands when she is through, but goes straight to dip her hands in the coolers to continue serving food to the customers already seated.

This is exactly why actor Chiwetalu Agu will scream, "Ekwensu enwego phone number!"

Hian. Ogini bu ife a bikonu?!?!

#faints

Lagos!

I got myself a spot at representing my Alma mater with five others at an international Geoscience - related competition. I looked forward to being on the island yet again, to enjoying the beautiful views of the beaches and the coastlines, where I could go to and just let the cool breeze caress me or let the tides chase me, to admiring the lush buildings that spoke of extraordinary class, like the Radisson Blu, the Oriental, the Intercontinental, the Peninsula, the Four Points by Sheraton, to gazing at the high class cars being driven too meticulously for fear of getting unceremoniously bashed. I looked forward to seeing the overly dramatic and coordinated people (the ajebo),  some of who feigned phonetics with American and British accents that almost made one feel inferior for not having traveled abroad, they always made a part of me laugh about how fake some people could be. A part of me would always think that the hustle is always real in Lagos, that everyone is a hustler in Lagos, be they on the island or on the mainland and lowland (the outskirts). Everyone. Lagos always has an effect on the people who live there.

At the venue of the event, during one of the dinner sessions, it was always an avenue to let oneself at ease, after the tensions and nerve - cracking presentation sessions where every participant was a little too edgy. Presentations always made one edgy with nervousness, no matter how good one is at public speaking. Dinner, in its buffet style, was an awesome opportunity to network with industry personnel, the kind of opportunity that was inevitable, so everyone was involved. Having carefully placed what I called appropriate proportions of balanced diet meal on my plate, I made my way to the table where my mates were seated.

The atmosphere was social, calm and jovial, where everyone was at peace. Glasses clinked, spoons, forks and knives hit the fine china plates with the gentle kind of tap common with stainless steels. People were talking and laughing, I wasn't left out. Someone in my table was cracking all of us up and it took severe effort to restrain myself from laughing too loudly. Darn! Everyone was struggling on the very edge of courteousness (famzing).

In the middle of all the gregariousness, I caught sight of this lady just across from my table. A pretty one, she was. But it was not the prettiness that struck me. It was the act she put up that got me shocked, confused at my own disbelief. The lady in question apparently picked up everything from the buffet onto her plate until she collected a mountain of different assorted food. She went on to bring out series of nylon bags from her hand bag where she meticulously poured the food into and the bottles of drinks were not left out as she willfully placed about four bottles of drinks in one of the nylon bags. When all the nylon bags were laden with food, she went back to the buffet and collected more, asking the waitress for extra take - away packs, to which she was given a generous amount. She had not a care in the world for whoever was looking. I could have sworn this girl wasn't married, for I could have pardoned her if she was going to feed her children or the dog, but this was a pure spinster who was going to take the food straight back to the hotel room and down it all in one stomach. Because the table where she sat was next to the one where I sat, I could just as easily hear the conversation between her and one of her mates (a guy) :

" Are you going to finish all that food? " The guy asked. 
" No, I can't finish it. " She replied. 
" If you cannot finish the food then why did you take so much? This is not the last day of the event! This is bad! " The guy probed further, astonishment written all over his face as much as it was on mine. 
" I will wake up by 2 am in the early hours of the morning to finish everything. No big deal! " The girl countered in defense, the I-dont-care tone in her voice very evident.

I turned away, unknown to me that my mates at my table had seen the little drama acted out. The guys made a joke of it, while a female classmate whispered in a low voice about how she must have forgotten that she was a young lady with this horrific expression I couldn't describe. But this case scenario is very common especially at weddings and parties and the likes, where women struggle for food like we are in the Nigerian Civil War era, where it was survival of the fittest strongly at its peak. The irony of it all is that this food that is being fought for is something that will end up being excreted after digestion. A waste eventually. It's ludicrous to see such happening where some women behave like they haven't seen food in ages.

Oh, Nigerian woman, I am not against you going to a party or event and taking extra food with the intent of taking it home. It is a mainstream kind of thingalmost - but not all - everyone does. But except you are going to feed your children or dogs or some other person other than yourself who isn't at the event but at home, please wise up and don't give in to the shameful act of gluttony. It's bad for your image. Get a grip, give yourself prestige and respect thyself. You never know who is secretly watching.

Lagos, where the hustle is always real and everyone is a hustler!