R.
It's a season full of sweet uncertainties, rolls of years, of dreams ahead, the ache to amputate, or reverse, oh my. But it's never so wrong to get fired up early now with the reluctancy following closely like the noise of Iya Roheemoh’s grinding machine does; the abnormalities—reveries in smokable rolls—are wake up calls on a windy morning to all reelers of that storey building guarded by mountainous rocks.
My noise is the reluctancy, Bamise, the tugging, mad feeling not to venture out for dream-achieving tasks. I feel burdened, right-cornered, mind-clogged when I see vastness of the space, existential dreads, of tasks I must carry-out to feel “among", “successful", “respectable".
< Roheemoh came bouncing with her hijab covering part of her face; she was just putting it on, like I put on my teen secret of rat-eaten socks masked by green and white sneaker girls love. She held the index of my right fingers, held one of hers to her lips and pulled me down the stairs built IN the storey. She peered into a hole, of doors, gateways to childish trysts, the bricks were perfect passages the morning red sun did seep through with that agility I never had.
No one was outside, but God was.
She came, looked intently into my shaky pupils—oh she saw the light! Certainly! But I didn't. I don't. I may be too blind or too eye-blurred or too…
“Close your eyes", she whizzed breathlessly, with her phonatory organs, her voice was like a slow outpour of waters on soft soils and the breeze did that for me, unasked, unapologetically. For they closed, my eyes, ready, braced for unassured, assumed impacts. She [redacted] and I [redacted]. >
The noise is back, in the present, now, my head is a dirty harbor housing ships of thoughts Roheemoh has planted, preserved, nurtured, sailing on their own without the vikings.
400.
I am a finalist. Bamise, I was christened. 4 years now feel like 4 days. I am reminded of hope, of starts now ending, of glory, of tears that filled the bottles I held onto in 100. Of midnights I let out high-pitched cries because mosquitoes wrought transfusions without my permissions and I have Language and Style tests the next dawn.
I am a novelist. Each chapter of my debut-in-progress feels like a mountain. Chronicling deeds of some characters—my secrets inclined friends—while they are reluctant, like myself, to speak, is hard. So I steal, under the cover of the night moon, into their cupboards, without stress—foolish friends—they leave their cupboards open! And the skull of their skeletons roll down onto my feet. Then I write.
NYSC feels like a slave trade the government sends us to with the consent of our parents. I picture the rurality of Sokoto, or Benue, or Bayelsa, or Imo. I will collapse under a minute's pressure. Bamise. The horror of separation from family for a year, expensive! The thirty-three coins will never suffice. My novel will build worlds there—that’s the good part!
DREAMS
Wake up! Roll here! Step here! Don't step there! Run! They're behind you! We're behind you! Arghh! Eat this! Tomorrow you die! Wills! Write your wills! Estates! Cars! Wives! Cash! Rivers! Indifference! Wake up! They'll be gone! Teased! Wasted! Have Christ! Have love! Have God! Have sense! Have sense!
“Shut up”
My words, bi-syllabic, out of the sweat-soaked blankets held firmly by my hands, are like the soft speech of a sheep to a jungle tiger. Cajoles! They'll be futile.
What if we achieve dreams and Death screams those 27 shouts of commands to your frail eardrums right in the center of the galore?
Answer me, Bamise.
Answer us.
#
I am Bamise. It's a mechanism of language I found intuitive in recent weeks. The idea of conversing with oneself without words. Confabulation within the mind and the mind. I hope you find the dialogues untiring as I do.