'The last time I saw her, I was wearing a round neck top customised ‘Veronica’ and she made a joke about me wearing her...I promise to keep wearing you 'cos your memory lives on.' … Akinbobola Iteoluwa Omalicha (culled from Facebook)

Vero', she did wear you today and I remember you were also wearing life inside of you this time last week. Albeit, on a sick bed. Rest in peace dear. 

My Saying Goodbye to Vero’ Series, which started yesterday continues with Joseph Omotayo’s piece. Read and feel free to drop your condolences. The ones dropped so far are appreciated.

***

AND VERONICA DIED…

By Joseph Omotayo

Forgive me if I write in ellipsis. My thoughts are broken and so will I show them. Ellipsis will do.

Memories…

Veronica passed away, recently… I can’t think… I must write. Veronica will live on… I can’t see it…clearly. My heart is dark now… I must be the next to the devil. I am the only one insane, presently.

I still can write… it seems I am not touched by this loss… I am not pulled… I am writing about this… I must be the devil. Writing about this is devilish… Wait… Am I still writing…? It seems I still have the strength to order my thoughts. Again, that’s devilish. When you lose someone, you shouldn’t be as ordered as I am. I don’t think I am moved by this loss. Say I am evil once again. Yes, I am. I am not human… I am just too collected to be one. I am not human. I am the devil. My heart is so dark now.

This year… I have seen a death too many. I refuse to pluralise death. Death is single. A single collected experience. Anyway, death shouldn’t be my catchword. Scratch out those death words. I hate them. Scorn death… Veronica did. And she lives. She is still living. And why the tears anyway? Please, stop. Veronica… I know where she is… Tell her loved ones I said so… But sorry she wouldn’t graduate with this present set. She is just smarter than you all… She wrote life and passed away. Her coursemates will all submit their projects and leave the four walls of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, to face life… Veronica is life already… She is smarter.

Wait…! Is this a tribute? It can’t be. This piece can’t be obituary… I am only recording… Veronica is my subject.

Veronica…

Ok, agreed. That was the best option you took. But you should have stayed – say – a day. You stopped me from writing erotica this week. And I am vexed. You should know how my anger can burn. Just delay the pallbearers for some secs. Wait a little until my anger is spent? We have some score to settle. You paused my erotica this week. And I am rattled.

Don’t mistake this… I write for Veronica. Veronica alone… Don’t mistake the ellipses… They are unlike your watery SMSes; the ones you send to your fake lovers and admirers; badgering them for airtime vouchers or sex. Mine are more important. These lines…are not poetry. They may be poetic. Whatever joor… Veronica is my only concern… My girlfriend won’t be jealous. Don’t bother… she will understand. For now, I think of Vero.

Vero…

It’s not every day a girl, a damsel, walks up to you and the only thing she says is how she’s been following you, your writings, on your blog. Any guy will scamper to make Vero’s acquaintance. Vero strode down to my side some weeks back and gushed she knows TrueTalk, my blog. I blushed. I was happy. Vero venerated my writing… Days later, I would ask Oyebanji Ayodele, her friend, about Vero. I would want to know, from him, when he thought Vero had been reading my words, on my blog. Oyebanji Ayodele’s responses were not satisfactory. Or maybe Vero could only have answered them better…

Vero… TrueTalk knows you before I met you physically. But now, how do I go telling TrueTalk, my blog, you wouldn’t again visit and contribute to its readership traffic…? This is the hardest part… I can’t. Remember I said I am not human? Only a human will lose a dear one like you and still write this long.

Vero… where else now…?

Now, my tears drop. I am moved… Say I am human once again…because I just cried. My touchpad is slippery with my tears…

I can’t write further… Please, Vero… Wake. Up. And. Make. Me. Human.

I should know you more than my blog, TrueTalk does.

Death, stop! My neighbours and friends are becoming fewer. Enough now!

Courtesy of Opayinka Moyosore

This post is the first of a series I will be doing alongside some friends of mine. It is in memory of someone dear to us, Oyemade Veronica Oyelola (20).  She left this world for the world beyond last Friday, after a brief illness.  The post was meant to be published last Friday as a get well soon post for her. However, it was in the process of publishing the post that her demise was announced.

I pray that God grants the family and friends the fortitude to bear the loss.

***

THAT MOMENT…

By Oyebanji Ayodele

For one of the many I love, my 'two and three and two'. I wish you a speedy recovery. Rest in Peace.

That moment you get to know she's on the second drip; that she's to be transferred to the Teaching Hospital, you decide to stab the class. You ignore the drip of urine that streams down your penile hose as you appease the lecturer to allow you go irrigate the white cistern at the end of the block of classrooms. He agrees.

Liar!

You scream at bikes and they think you are mad. That you'll bite their helmets and heads off their necks. They flee. You get one eventually and you slap him on the back.

‘More speed!’

You get to the hospital to see her being lifted into an ambulance. You hand the biker his pay. He makes to give you your change but you are gone.

You sit by her in the ambulance, holding her hands and murmuring excerpts of Psalms. They don’t come out in full at such times. No matter how short.

That moment the ambulance arrives at the Emergency Unit of the Teaching Hospital, you observe her breath. She pants ceaselessly and you jump out of the bus. You scream at the snailing nurses. You don't care being regarded as mad. You find her a wheelchair and trundle her till you get a vacant bed.  

A third drip is fixed. Tension builds in your body. You gift the air a hushed fart.

That moment the latest okada accident victim murders the silence in the ward with his shrill of mo daran o, she opens her eyes and asks if she is close to hell. You want to express some faith. You tell her the hospital is nearer to heaven. The air conditioner murmurs its attestation. She believes and shuts her eyes.

That moment you decide to ask how she feels and all you get is a mouth open like the gaping cover of a coffin and tiny globules of tears swimming down her pale face, you think about death. Death! And the black bowlers of undertakers. You dip your tongue in King James’ incantations:

‘Thou shalt not die but live…’

You never believed in them, but everything should be done to keep heaven and hell far from her. You want her back. You want to kiss her on the forehead.

That moment you slip your hand into her palm with your thumb massaging the back like an alfa does to his prayer beads, you see her breath regulate itself. Then, you remember how helpful a rub could be. You curse the doctors and their insensitivity. You serve her your palm.

Your palms mate; hers on top. At that moment, you both doze off. Your hand in hers. Your chair, by her bed.

You move into a new world. That of reminiscences.

They creep into your view. The handshakes. And hugs. Fights.  And make-ups. The video seems 3gp-ish, you think.

Snap! A cleaner slips and falls.

You wake. She shudders.

‘I don't want to sleep again,’ she says.

You know it. That she fears death. You do too.

Your eyes catch a stretcher being pushed out of the ward. On it is a pregnant woman. She’s completely covered with a white spread. You turn dumb. Your eyes baptize your face.

‘Lailai, you can never die,’ you find your voice, clicking two fingers around your head.

You press your lips to the back of her palm. 

***

This series continues tomorrow. Your condolences are valued. Please drop them in the comment box with your name.


It is only few people that won’t be captivated by the title of this collection on seeing such on the shelf. I must say I judged the book by not only its facade. I fell for its title; but I find it surprising that ‘Seun fails to give account of the creativity I have come to ascribe to him in works such as this and this. A good editor could have helped matters.

I have read this collection of eight stories three times and I find it really disturbing that such would be churned out by such promising writer as ‘Seun. This is not about ‘Seun trying to experiment with this collection just like other writers do with their debut works. Nothing is experimental about this work. It is just the normal short story collection, devoid of the freshness I expect. The simplicity of ‘Seun’s use of language could have been one of the strengths of the collection. However, it comes out without flavour on many occasions, deficient of sound images.

THE SON OF YOUR FATHER’S CONCUBINE: A NIBBLE

Kweku’s Return
Here is a Ghanaian story that could fit into any other spatial setting the moment the characters are re-christened in the context of the novel setting. It doesn’t go beyond that.

It is a reality that throws ferocious punches at the readers that the drug pushing twist ‘Seun adds to the story towards the end is not researched at all. I don’t want to ascribe his silence on this very sensitive issue to the desire to achieve brevity. Concision is a character of short stories, but such issue as drug pushing is such that is so germane to this society that our writings are not meant to scrap its details.

I recommend On Black Sisters’ Street, on the ground of the research work its author - Chika Unigwe - puts into it to ‘Seun Salami.

Though fast paced, ‘Kweku’s Return’ leaves more than enough for the reader to imagine. With that, it trivialises the details the reader would have found instructive about drug pushing. The creative touch that could have been infused into the drug-pushing aspect of the story is murdered to satisfy the ambitiousness of the story.

A good editor could have avoided this:

“Good morning mama!” He bellowed to her in the distance.
(Page 9)

Nothing could have necessitated such expression in the scene Seun describes. ‘Bellow’ is rather heavy for a greeting.

Licentious Romance
This is a story I consider purposeless. It could have been rescued in the resolution only for it to suffer another swipe: VAGUENESS. 

Pastor Jay Is Dead
‘Pastor Jay is Dead’ is an account of the life of a prominent campus clergy who meets his death in the discharge of his ministerial duties. His demise helps the narrator take in the reality of death’s imminence.

The inconsistency in the naming of the major character in this story is an issue. I find Pastor Jay and Pastor Joshua reading almost differently. Though unintentional, it can easily mislead the reader, especially one who is not accustomed with the act of replacing a name with its diminutive.

The Son of your Father’s Concubine
This is a synthesis of salient issues among which are rape and religious hypocrisy. It describes, though in a tacit way, the history a particular extended family has with rape. The last rape recorded in the family turns out to be the handiwork of the son of the narrator’s father’s concubine. A pastor.

Nothing best captures the situation in the text than the word ‘knotty’. Its significance is in its recountal of what rape victims pass through in our society.

Greenland Reverie 
In a situation where all seems not to be in tandem with one’s desire, a day dream might just help in fulfilling such thing one hankers after. At least, on some utopian plane. The consolation a reverie is meant to give is not what Segun gets from his.

What I like about this story is the inventiveness of the author in capturing a futuristic image of Nigeria.

Quarter Past Midnight
The worst way to trivialize the power names have is to say ‘What’s in a name?’It is ‘just a name’ that earns Gabriel a ticket to eternity. At an odd time.

Thunder From The Gods
This story is a demonstration of how religion prevents us from accepting things for what they really are. If only a group of corpers will consider what their exploits in their Rural Rugged Evangelism spells for the remaining gods left in Obosima, they will not link their losses and sufferings to diabolical phenomena. It is nature at work.

The following description in the story is monotonous:

‘…He looked really rough, the one they call ‘Prayo’. He was very slim and very tall. He had bathroom slippers on and looked like he had not truly eaten good food in three days. The other one that came behind him was the one they called ‘Rugged’. That was his official name and he looked just like that. He had tribal marks and said ‘hall’ instead of ‘all’. He asked the sisters if they brought ‘heggs’…’
(Page 101)

Passport Office
The Passport office could be one of the locations that afford a free display of the level at which nepotism and corruption have both scoffed equality in our society.

Narrating this story in the second person earns it a footing in analysing contemporary social order. The ‘you’ can be anybody on the receiving end of the scourge. Anybody, who laughs at the failure of moral ethos in his society.

Here is a peep into the situation:
‘…Then the officer responded in a bogus baritone, “Better mind your business. This one is oga approved oh! Order from above…”’
(Page 113)

***
I refuse to define Seun Salami by this book. He is more than this. I await his next book.


For Days And a Night (Cover page)
If anybody is still in doubt of what the internet is capable of achieving in our Literature, Seun Odukoya’s book is a proof of the potency of the mass medium. Paperbacks are closer to their graves.

Seun Odukoya is an author; an author of a fifty-four leaved e-book. Look beyond its sparse pages and intangibility. It brims with the fresh voice and inventiveness of a pasticheur. Beyond that, he is a ‘director’. This is contained in the dramatic and conversational form most of his narrations take. 

Seun is an aesthete; his book, a collage of letters and graphics; conventionality and sometimes, over-stretched and bland crankiness.

For Days and a Night is divorced of every element of formalness. Seun writes with the ease with which one probes one's abode, dwelling more on domestic subjects. His titles, mostly products of colloquialism, present such simplicity that the reader does not unravel till he devours each story to its very base; its end.

'FOR DAYS AND A NIGHT': SEEKING OUT THE STARS AND SUN

Though stories such as How Stupid and True Romance read like pointless ramblings, the resplendence of other stories conceal their insipidness. 

Pause
When the confession of one's love seems herculean than Hercules' murky task in the Augean stable, it really could be bad. An anonymous character doesn't just fail to claim what should be his, he earns a slap for being pretentious in his honesty. For allowing a PAUSE. Such pause that sees kisses resulting in Hollywood movies. This story is my best. However, I loathe reading it to the very end. Its last sentence is redundant.

My Little Girl
The reader is confronted with the picture of an observant and inquisitive girl in this story. She reminds me of Lola in Sade Adeniran's novel, Imagine This. And just like Lola, she is a product of a broken marriage. A 'problem child', she fails to sense any illumination at the end of the tunnel of her parents' relationship. She pushes her dad to seek his lost happiness.
Her questions give the story the kind of pace it wouldn't have had; an explicitness that holds the reader spellbound.

Eba
I fell for this the first time I read it. Why? The reason is what another reader would call the over-stretching of a story beyond the limits of reality. The story is as true as saying Seun Odukoya wrote For Days and a Night. The fact is this: search engines can be saviours. You don't believe it? Eat Eba.  No. Read Eba.

A Game Called Life
This story is an attempt by the narrator, a newly wedded groom to probe the insides of the guests at his wedding. He arrives at this decision on realizing what sort of husband he would make, having fallen for his wife's friend. The story tends to quiz the shady games life pushes people to play. Such game is not timed; 'it goes on'.

AND THE SKITS…

Seun’s skits are the reverse of what skits should be. I hold nothing against them. I love them the way they are.

Seun’s skit II is too serious to be taken as a skit. There is nothing 'skit-ty' about it. He struggles with concealing his emotion about the failure of the feminine folk to discern the amount of power they possess. This makes the skit 'un-skit-ty' though.

Skit IV makes me love this work of his more. Seun presents this skit in the form of an advert. It is no skit. It ends on the note of spurring a revolutionary action against rape. Every Phlebas in Nigeria deserves to be protected from the lustful fangs of rapists.

***

The book’s flops are majorly editorial. I wish the author had invested as much as he invested on graphics on the editing of the book. However, For Days and a Night is a good read. You wouldn’t want to miss out on this delectable work. 

It is free. Download yours here.
 

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