The Stories I Tell...

  Chidi struggled with his tie in front of his wife's mirror. He could hear his Adaku's patience going down the drain as she repeatedly honked from the garage. A smile appeared on his face as he mused about how husbands usually have to wait for their wives. Now she was the one waiting for him. If only he could knot the damn bowtie correctly! After a few more trials, Chidi gave up and took out the navy blue necktie, which he already knotted in the usual way some time ago. Then, grabbing their tickets, he went to join his wife in the car.  In less than an hour, they were seated in the conference hall. The event planners had decorated the hall with ribbons and balloons in the company's colours: red and blue. Two chairs were placed at round tables which had been arranged around the hall to face the dais. The dais had the designated high table behind which had been placed large cushion chairs. A banner on the dais loudly announced: Happy Retirement, Chief Oluwole! In front of t...

 I'll start with two axioms.    The first goes thus: “ No man is an island .”   The second axiom is “ Life Na per head .”        The first axiom is a popular one that basically means humans need each other. According to this translation, no one has  all  that he needs to survive. He needs another person's knowledge. He needs tools produced by someone else. He cannot possibly produce everything he wants and therefore needs to trade with another person.         But that's just the foundation of the axiom. It is more than that. In fact, there are several levels of how humans are interwoven with one another. Scientists say man is a social creature. He always seeks out others to form relationships. That's probably why we have words such as community, couple, citizens, family, associations, guild. The list goes on.         However, of particular interest to me, is another le...

   4 A.C  This life no just balance o .    Since Bayo met Cynthia, he has been giving me extra work. Anytime she's nearby, I have to beat faster. Sure, I know Bayo is still a young man and that means I am a young heart. But that doesn't mean I should start doing extra work because of another human being. It's not as if Bayo is dreading being sacked anytime his boss asks him to his office. Neither is he playing football. I bet Cynthia's heart is not doing any extra work on Bayo's account.    A girl that looks the way the Eyes have described her surely wouldn't be falling head over heels for Bayo. Eyes said Cynthia has hips that didn't lie, skin the colour of roasted groundnuts, and teeth that had probably been in a million toothpaste ads. She's out of his league. She probably only talks to guys that have their own cars and Bitcoin.  P.S: I'll be using A.C meaning After Cynthia to denote the timeline. 37 A.C   I'm too young to be diagnosed with...

  I don't talk to strangers. What I mean is, I don't have unnecessary conversations with service people. If I have an appointment with a doctor, I don't need his bedside manner. I don't need enquiries about my welfare from the market woman at the stall where I always buy my semo or idle chit chat with my barber as he cuts my hair. Even on a bus, I don't join in on the familiar chorus of how bad this country is getting. I don't think I'm better than people. I'm just not good at verbal communication, so I write instead. I'm better at it. I eavesdrop on the conversations of people around me and reinvent them as fiction. That's how I became an international best-selling author.  A year has passed since I last published a novel. That's why I decided to go out to find fresh ideas. Public transportation is usually ripe with stories to transform into captivating tales.  As I waited on a street in my city, I spotted a keke. It was empty except for the...

   A woman and her daughters. She sits on the tiled floor with her back against the wall. She is clothed in a wrapper which is tied around her waist, leaving her saggy breasts exposed. Oluwashikemi, her firstborn, sits on the floor in between the robust thighs of Opemipo, her last daughter. Taiwo, her second daughter is lounging on the sofa while staring at the ceiling. She appears to be present only in the flesh. Kehinde, her twin sits on what used to be her father's favourite chair. Like an exiled dictator, the man of the house is in his study which he rarely leaves since he retired.   Shikemi, aged 25, by having lived longest with their mother knew what was on her mind. She is the one to slice open the silence.  “Guess who I saw at the bank yesterday?” “Another fine bobo to be your brother-in-law,” Opemipo replied without missing a beat as she made her sister's hair. “I saw Lanre.” An audible sigh came from the sofa. “That guy is in serious money,” she bent h...

  "You won't believe what I saw this afternoon!" Bolanle said. "What did you see this time?" I replied. I could already see the signs of impending gossip which was indicated in her dramatic exclamation. Bolanle was one of the interns under my supervision at the pharmacy. Interns usually were not so bold to chat with the department head, but Bolanle was my bestie's younger sister and the time she used to spend hanging out with us had imbued her with familiarity even the workplace couldn't cure.  “I was helping Dr Andrews fill out a prescription for Jason Fashola.” “Who is that?” I wondered aloud. “That fine boy I told you about. The one that sings in the choir. But that's not the gist sef. It's what the prescription was for.” I wondered again to myself who this Jason was. Bola was always having a weekly crush on someone and it was difficult to keep track of them all.  “What was it for?” I asked with no interest whatsoever. I wanted her to get back...

               This is the second part of a series. For the first part CLICK HERE. Thus it began officially. He got a job in the same town Esosa lived in with her parents. Esosa also got a job. Between their busy schedules, every single free moment they got was spent together. It became one of the inside jokes of their group. If you couldn't reach him, you called Esosa. The reverse was also the case. He became more enamoured with her. The thought of her smile made him grin at odd times. He had not yet given her a ring, but he daydreamed about her dressed in a snow-white wedding gown declaring her love for him before an audience. He couldn't imagine being in love with someone else. He loved her to the point he sometimes felt inadequate. Like a destitute supplicant offering one naira at his God's temple, he feared he would never love her in the way she needed to be love. Whenever he told her this, she would always reassure him that he was enough for...