“Emeka!”
Mr Balogun’s sharp call drew Emeka back to reality, making him jump. The class laughed quietly.
“Sir?”
“I asked you a question.” Mr Balogun said.
“I-I’m sorry sir, I didn’t hear the question”.
“Apparently, since what I’ve been saying since doesn’t concern you, right?” Mr Balogun said, walking up to Emeka’s desk.
The rain came early this year, but that was not the problem. The problem was that I had forgotten about the leaking garage roof. And that wouldn’t have been a problem if we had not moved some boxes out of the house to the garage pending the time we would “sort the wheat from the chaff” as Funmi delicately put it.
Call me a hoarder but I like to keep memories in boxes.
The occasional chirping of crickets punctuated the otherwise dead night. He laid awake on the bare floor, naked save for his boxers.
It wasn’t just because he liked the coolness of the ground but also because it gave him a sense of closeness to mother earth.
His eyes had grown familiar to the darkness around him and he could almost make out the outline of the room if he tried hard enough. But he wasn’t trying tonight. Even though his eyes seemed fixated on the vacuum above him, his mind’s eyes were somewhere far away.
Tonight is the 63rd night you’ve been gone.
I try not to keep track. I try to move on and do other things like drinking myself to stupor or cutting myself. Yet those pains are dull compared to the gaping wound you left in my heart.
The nights are the worst because you are always present when I close my eyes. Then I wake up and remember you’ve been gone for that long.
I thought to come after you once, to try to make things right and live out the remainder of our days how we planned we would.
Remember?
I checked the clock by the bedside, its light glowing, almost pulsating in the dark room – a reflection of my feelings before morning. It was 3:15. I couldn’t believe it’s just been 2 minutes since I last checked.
Instinctively, I reached my hand to the other side of the bed but it met nothing save the cold empty space beside me.
I miss her.
Nights like this are always the longest. Nights when I know that by sunrise I’ll see her again.
The days he left, I cried. Yes, actual tears fell.
Continue reading “Morning Sunrise (flash fiction)”
I SAW THE ENVELOPE FIRST. My name was finely written on the paper. The writer must have taken their time and have a good knowledge of calligraphy, I thought, scared to think of anything else. Seeing my full name sparked something in me. I have not been called by my middle name since my mother passed.
She would say it was the best name in the world. That it was a name that meant so much to her in one of the most depressing times in her life. And she had lots of those.
I loved the name. It made me feel particularly connected to her. I remember watching her face light up as she laid on the hospital bed one evening, her weary eyes making an effort to glow. I took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. She sighed with content.
It was not the usual clang clang sound of two rusted iron tied together that always preceded Bruno, Mr Fagbem’s dog, that called my attention this one time. It was a snarling. The snarling of horror mixed with madness. It was the sound of being majorly pissed and at the same time scared shitless.
Bruno was a German Shepherd, notorious for he’s ferociousness with strangers and he’s playfulness with allies. But the allies were not necessarily people that Bruno saw frequently, they were people he trusted, people he chose. You could come to our compound every day and bring a sack of bones for Bruno each time and it still wouldn’t like you. And if Bruno didn’t like you, he wouldn’t touch your bribes. But not just that, if Bruno didn’t like you, you would not enjoy your stay in our house very much because Bruno would almost bark his head off. And once you come out, make sure your back was not turned to him at any time.
