It is always said that your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, and repeated actions develop into habits which sum up to make your character that speaks more than a volume about who you are. Habits are integral building blocks in the construction of your life; be it a majestic edifice of sound, covetable personality profile or a dented, substandard and wobbly structure resulting from a pile-up mixture of negative behaviours which of course heads straight for destruction. Simply put, your habit makes or mars you.


There is a story about a man who so hated his wife’s cat and decided to get rid of it. One day, he put the cat in the car and drove it three streets away, dropped it in a nearby bush and drove back home. Before he could get home, the cat had found its way back. Next day, he decided to drive the cat ten streets away, he pushed the cat out and headed home. Driving back to his compound, there was the cat! He kept taking the cat further and further and the cat would always beat him home. At last he decided to drive a few kilometres away, turn right, then left, past the bridge, drive up a flyover, then right again and another right turn, then left turn until he reached what he thought was a safe distance from his home and left the cat there. Hours later, the man called home to his wife: “Clara, is the cat there?” “Yes,” the wife answers. Frustrated, the man shouted, “Put that beast on the phone, I am lost and need direction home!!!”


Funny huh? But I won’t want you to laugh away the moral I choose to deduce from it in relation to what I’m telling you– your habits. Like the man in the story, so many of us have the habit of criticizing, hating, hurting, maligning people, even the innocuous ones who have done us no wrong. Many of us can go any length to tongue-lash whoever gets us angry. And what have you got in return? Dump accumulation of malice, hate, wrong notions, mind-restlessness which have all made your heart hyper-rotten like a six-day pie and with an overpowering stench like that of dead bodies.


There are many of us who have mastered the habit of lying, cheating (even in exams), stealing (church money, public funds, etc), and running after the opposite sex with all passion and vigour to bed him/her. So many people love skipping classes, playing soccer video games to the extent of dreaming new goal-scoring strategies while sleeping. Yet, some are not just voracious feeders but gluttonous eaters too. Some of us are highly volatile and irritable; some are habitual late-comers and excuse-givers. While some will not take their baths regularly, some will not brush their teeth before taking breakfast. Some don’t know how to say, “Thank you”, “I’m sorry”, “Please forgive me”, “It’s my fault, I’m to blame”, etc. It’s a pity that these things are what short-circuits us from reaching the level we should get to because in one way or the other, we have hurt people that matter a lot to our destinies, I mean people that should help us. Worse still, we might have sent them away, having truncated their stay, with terrible and putrid mindset towards us. There are those who are heavy sarcastics while some are hardcore sour sardonics. What a habit you need to do away with! Assess yourself now.


Why not take a one-eighty degrees turn to what’s good and right? Why not pick up new sets of beautiful habits in your thoughts, sweet words (positive confessions), morally sound ethics and actions which make up a superlatively adorable habit that finally results in a stupendous and colourful character trait. Make new friends but cherish old ones. Smile always. Be happy per moment on your journey on earth (don’t have a sunken boring outlook towards life). Return borrowed properties on time and well presentable too. Always leave everything better than you found it. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated- with respect, understanding and consideration, with gentle words soaked in highly concentrated kindness, ribboned with love. Keep your promise no matter what. Keep appointments. Keep secrets! Don’t condemn people (even when they are at fault). Appreciate others a lot. Give compliments and complement people too. Be a “Thank you” fan, “Please” addict and an “I’m sorry” agent. Like I always say; do what is right, for the right reason, when it’s right, where is right, how it’s right and to whom it’s right. This is because there’s an old saying that if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.


Stir up the habit of being a staunch optimist no matter what. Have a positive disposition towards life and people. Be disciplined! Be responsible! Above all, fear God in all that you do, honour Him in all your ways, spend quality fellowship time with Him and obey His instructions. They say it takes twenty-one days to form a new habit and twenty-one days to break an old one, start now and be persistent. You know why? It is because we first make our habits and then our habits make us. The Lord is your strength! You can do it! Happy habit reform and rebirth! Meet me on the top of the ladder of excellence! Ciao.

mute4real: What I want to share with us today is about the pain of pleasure. We live in a world today where we are literally killing ourselves with pleasure. We are dying everyday, not out of pain as we define it, but out of pleasure. And nobody seems to be saying anything about it. We are amusing ourselves to death and nobody really cares. Stella Damascus, the Nollywood actress, shared in her column in about how a friend of hers was mad at her because when her(the friend’s) kids wanted to watch TV the only channel that the decoder was locked on Nickelodeon and the kids wanted one of the “more interesting” channels like Ben Ten where some real violence take place.

Today, entire families sit in front of the television box and are ingesting pleasure capsules hour after hour not realizing that they are dying. May I suggest to you that just like any other thing in this life, pleasure can be addictive? And the addictive nature of pleasure brings about negative repercussions. I don’t have to be a genius to know that unless urgent measures are taken to fight this addiction we are going to keep seeing an increase in divorce rates as families become mere acquaintances of one another. And an increase in divorce rates will lead to an increase in fatherless and motherless homes, which leads to half-prepared children sent out to face the pressure of society, which leads to these kids growing up to be men and women who are not responsible enough to be fathers and mothers themselves but have the tools between their legs to make them have babies. So, when they have kids they abandon them. They never knew what it is like to have a father or a mother so they have no idea how to be one, themselves.

Besides the long term effect of the addictive nature of pleasure like just narrated in the preceding paragraph. I also see that one of the more immediate effects of the pain of pleasure is the reluctance to learn. I see a dearth of knowledge all around. All that is on the minds of recent graduates now is how he or she can get his or her own Blackberry. I hear the cost of a new Blackberry today begins at N20,000 ($130). I even hear that the cost of some go for as high as over N100,000 ($660). Is that true? And when I turn to have a decent conversation with one of these young and beautiful ladies brandishing their Blackberrys all around, I get the shock of my life that all there is is a Brazilian hair and an empty brain. Except for the well developed part of the brain used in pinging.

I and a friend in Benin run what is commonly called a Business Center. Nothing much, just a few copiers, about 10 computers, 2 printers, a scanner, two good digital cameras for passport photographs, etc. You get the drift. He manages the day to day running of the business, since I reside in Lagos. But once a year I go to Benin and spend a couple of weeks there. And whenever I am in Benin, I usually spend some time with him at the shop. In my last but one visit to Benin, I was at the shop with him when a beautiful young lady in her NYSC Khaki pants came in. She needed to work on her CV. The two employees we have working for us are just Senior School Certificate holders, so we just pointed to one of the computer systems for her to use by herself. To my utter disdain she knew nothing about Microsoft Word. Maybe she is only used to Excel, but I doubt that too. It was one of our employees that ended up working on the CV for her. But she had in her hands one of the higher classes of Blackberry. Of course the lower classes are for guys.

I worship in a church where there are over 20,000 regular members. My church seats over 5,000 people per service and holds 4 services every Sunday. And this number does not include children who have a different building. It’s one of the new generation churches. Once in a while corporate trainings are held so members can develop themselves. These trainings are not free but very cheap. As low as N7,000. There was even one that was for N2,500, but the training materials was like N5,000 which was optional. One would expect that for a new generation church where everything from religion to business is being taught there will be a mad rush for such trainings. You will be surprised to know that for some of these trainings only 700 people participate out of over 20,000 members. And these are trainings that go for as high as N100,000 in the corporate world. But why should I spend N5,000 for a training when I can get some good time with my babe in a fast food restaurant with some cups of ice cream?

I advice the young ladies, I am focusing on you because you are at the frontline of the receiving end of the ills of the society. I advice the young ladies, there is more to life than “my boyfriend dresses well and smells good. Hmm! I am so in love with him.” It’s high time you started asking the right questions. How much of his budget does he invest on Personal Development? How many books did he buy in the last six months? How many has he read? What did he learn? When was the last time he spent his own money, not the company’s, to attend a training session for himself. You need to have an answer for these questions because perfumes never made any marriage work. Any marriage where the woman has a flare for personal development and the man does not, can never be a happy one. Just listen to one episode of Real Life issues aired on Inspiration FM 92.3 in Lagos if you doubt me.

If you, referring to the young ladies, would follow through on the advice given on the previous paragraph, I promise you, many of you will be shocked to discover that that guy you’ve been kissing for more than a year now, has not bought a single book in the last one year. That means all he knows now is still the same things he knew like 3 or 5 yrs ago. Except maybe that Jonathan did not have any shoes. I have met guys who never bought a book in the last 5yrs but never failed to renew their DSTV subscription. And when you are the type that wants to spend your Saturdays attending seminars and your husband sits at home to watch football, then trouble is brewing. Why not nip it in the bud now? It may hurt but you will be saving yourself a lifetime of pain.

From my personal projections based on the number of people that have enrolled for the April session of School for Personal Leadership, for the first time in three sessions ladies will outnumber guys by a long pole. And this is a trend that is beginning to show all over the world, especially among the black race. In the United States today, the ratio of educated black girls to guys in the corporate world is about 3:1. There are not enough good guys to go around anymore so sex is now being used as a weapon to keep the few good black guys. The crave for pleasure in the Rap industry is causing a lot of young black brothers to drop out of schools while those ladies in bra and G-strings dancing in the music videos are attending night classes to further their education.

Am I going to continue to see this kind of trend in the School for Personal Leadership that current projection is indicating? More ladies interested in Personal Development than guys? Are guys only interested in buying Blackberrys for the ladies so they can at least get some sex in exchange for it? But I want us all to have a rethink. The problem with the world today is not just pain as we know it. It is pleasure. The pain of pleasure is far worse than any other kind of pain you can think of.

I want to encourage you. If you are the type that has never seen the need to invest in Personal Development, begin with School for Personal Leadership. It holds right on Facebook, completely flexible, you go into the online classroom when it is most convenient for you. You get to meet people from different fields, different states of the nation, and residing in different countries. It is awesome. Come spend some time with other people who have a desire to make a difference in their lives and in the lives of others. Come and learn principles that will change your life forever. All you have to do is to first add me as friend on facebook then send a text in the following format, WSPL*SURNAME*FIRST NAME*SEX*STATE OF RESIDENCE (If in Nigeria) or COUNTRY (If outside Nigeria)*EMAIL ADDRESS*PHONE NUMBER to +234-803-874-9796. Payment details will be sent to you within 24hrs. The fee for this August's special weekend Session is N3,750. God bless you.

Thanks,
Mute Efe,
+234-803-874-9796 (SMS only)
www.facebook.com/mutehimself

N.B
Please leave a comment as an encouragement after reading the note.

Wow, it's high time we woke up from this slumber of silly pleasure at the expense of things that truly matter more and veer into this sphere of personal development (most especially as men cos the women are fast taking over since most of us abdicated our responsibility far too long) as on it hinges a whole lot which our lives depend on. Thanks for the awareness. Hope a positive change ensue.

Divepen: In life we miss many legality in what we do, do we agree we are optionless.
Sometimes we get works like Dygeasy's the Job,
sometimes we have relunctant Bride( Tiffanyj),
Sometimes people have to spend their honeymoon in prison( Sammy hoe),
What will you do if a gun is pointed at your end?
According to Harvey in the film, the Suits, he said 'there are more than 300 ways to escape the gun pointed at ones head'.You dont need to shout take my things, take my women(Harddon)
Do we need to continue living under the table?
NO.
Let us Haunt the person's feeling(Firestar).
Or do we give up and say Good night(spiceyeve) or should one hide under religion and be in love with a priest(Spiceyeve).
My brother, everyone is a genious(Sammy hoe), so we need to look for a way to turn people's heart to a heart of a woman(coolval22com), play a game of love on people's heart(Temitope Daniels).
Get a life(safarigirl), by thinking like a complete assassin because life is a battle for power(D9ty7). Stop living under the table, I understand everybody want to call someone their own(Tiffanyj).
Even,if the world is going to end(Royver) or there is a roaring trouble overnight and we have 7 hours before dawn(tmx21), remember that life is full of Love and blood.

We cant keep on living under the table. Let us live outside the box...
I welcome you all, especially Ebi awon Genious.

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dis is ingenious... Lovely... Thumbs up... Great work! Jah bless!

In the middle of criticism, adversity and antagonism, if what you're doing is right and you believe in it, don't mistake the victory, (like T.D Jakes said) THE VICTORY IS NOT TO CHANGE THE MIND OF THE CRITIC, THE VICTORY IS IN COMPLETING THE ASSIGNMENT YOU'VE BEEN GIVEN. And if you're not careful, you'ld start living your life to change somebody else's mind. Don't look to the left or right but keep on doing what He told you to do! DON'T GIVE UP ON YOUR MISSION. DON'T RESPOND TO YOUR CRITIC, SAY NOTHING BACK, JUST GIVE GOD THE PRAISE! GOD'LL ANSWER YOUR CRITIC AND BLESSING WILL COME TO YOU!!!

When you acknowledge your critics, you give them your power. They are not important until you respond. Learn what you can from them, eat the meat, throw away the bones but God didn't send you here to argue with critics, He sent you to get something done with your life. Let them have their problem to themselves, pray for and ask God to help them but go after what He promised you. God doesn't want you distracted by the voices around, you have the power within you to stay focused and keep moving. It is not the problems that will destroy you, you will never be destroyed by that that is surrounding you, you are only contaminated by that which is within you.

You will not be distracted. You will not be confused. I rebuke the camouflage from all of those friends that aren't really your friend. You will stay on your calling. And this goes for all those that have been critical of others, you've been a thorn in the flesh of other people. You didn't mean to be used like that but having read this you realize that your words have been harmful, your thoughts hurtful, the things you said about them have made their lives miserable without a cause.

Today is an opportunity for you to repent and to pray that you will no longer be used of the devil, you will not lend your tongue to the devil. Many lives have been bruised by your words, not from the healthy constructive criticism but brutal criticism that have stripped people of their respect, self esteem and left people wounded. This is a day of liberation. A moment of independence is coming to your soul and spirit because God will liberate you from people and restore your focus back to your calling.

Thank you for reading thus far, hope you've been blessed. If yes, pls just comment something and share too.God bless us.

Divepen:
wel... Dairis God ooo

*Smilesss*

...Seeing my disappointment and hearing my hearty and painful pleas, the angel told me, “Tell PRECIOUS STONES to humble themselves, be in one accord, amend their ways, then pray to the KING that the SUN not scorch them in its strength but subject to His will; that the MOON not hide away his face when they need him most; that the DIAMOND, PLATINUM and GOLD not close their ears and hearts but respond positively to the cry of the SILVER and BRONZE bearing the burden of the STARS touching their hearts while the STARLETS polish them well to shinning.” I did so immediately. Lo and behold; calm, orderliness and love was restored with progress more evident. The Precious Stones jumped up for joy, the Starlets were happy, the Stars and Silver were more comfortable in their respective places. The Gold was looking better, the Platinum displaying well, the Diamond began shining wonderfully more. The Moon began smiling broadly, the Sun laughing happily and the King was pleased with them. Their predicament was over. Excellence was reached beyond all reasonable doubt, Integrity was displayed at all levels and good Service was enjoyed beyond measure by all and sundry. My joy sky-rocketed and knew no bounds.
Furthermore, the angel continued: “The Precious Stones are the Students, the King is God Almighty, the Sun is the Governor, and the Moon is the Vice Chancellor. The Diamond, Platinum and Gold are the Registrar, Bursar and Librarian respectively. The Silver is the Provost, the Bronze is the Dean while the Stars are the Heads of Departments and the Starlets are the Lecturers. The Ball is the Earth, the Gun Pointed Down is Africa, the Yam Tuber is Nigeria and the Cone is LAUTECH!” Then, I understood better all that I saw. Finally, he said to me, “Write the vision, and make it plain upon the tables that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time…”
Written on Thursday, February 24, 2011, nine days before the unsavoury face-off between LAUTECH students and the indigenes of Ogbomoso during which some students died and which resulted in a forced one-week closure of the school on March 10, 2011.

LarrySun: The Prequel: The Brand Of Cain



PROLOGUE

… and he gathered all the bits of shell and stuck them together. That is why Tortoise’s shell is not smooth.
(C.A. Achebe, Things Fall Apart)

1975.

GN––Genevieve Nnaji wasn’t famous in 1975––she was still four years short of existence. Neither was Regina Askia; a mere schoolgirl. Wizkid haunted no young women’s dreams. Wande Coal, Dagrin, Darey, D’banj and P-Square––their existence was yet to be accomplished.

General Yakubu Gowon was the Head of States in 1975––he was acclaimed the youngest Nigerian leader. Nigeria witnessed her third military coup that same year.

The best-seller among African novels was Things Fall Apart (though it was actually first published in 1958).

The movies: Behind the Cloud, The Village Headmaster, Aiye.

The music: Ebenezer Obey, Dele Abiodun, Majek Fashek, I.K. Dairo, Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

It was a different time. A different world.

The Nigeria’s exchange rate of the naira to the US dollar in 1975 was sixty-two kobo.

Petrol pump price per litre was less than ten kobo.

Economic Community Of West African States was founded.

Seven federal universities were founded in Nigeria.

1975. It was the year when Cain Martins was still a young lad of eighteen.


He was drunk when his mother died.

The half-mad Cain Martins staggered into the hospital, having his gin bottle firmly stuck under his armpit. Occasionally, he would release the bottle from the bondage of his arm, uncap it and take a deep swig, he appeared not only to be drinking the gin but also bathing in it. Every of his being stank of alcohol, he even sweated alcohol. In his drunken stupor, he entered the waiting room and sat down amongst two pregnant ladies. Offended by Cain Martins appearance and smell, the pregnant women rose to occupy another seat farther from Cain. His eyes scared them; they were granite hard and restless like the eyes of a vulture. The drunken eighteen-year-old ugly boy grinned at the women and said:

“Can I help it if my face frightens people?” giving a mock grimace, “Come to think of it, it even frightens me sometimes. Especially when I suddenly find myself looking in a mirror.”

Cain smiled at his comment, and when he smiled, it was the most unbeautiful thing in the world. He said in his drunken accent that elongated vowels and blurred consonants, pointing at the women’s protruded bellies:

“Did each one of you swallow a watermelon overnight?” his voice sounded as if he had something in his mouth; an odd, strangled sound.

One of the women said, the heavier one, “I think you must be mad! No sane man could talk as you do. No man in his right mind would walk into a hospital in such a drunken state.”

Cain shrugged, “What if I am? What is wrong with being mad anyway? Why do people have such a horror of being thought mad? I don’t. I’m perfectly satisfied with the way my mind works. After all, madness is just a matter of view point.”

Sitting there for just fifteen minutes, Cain decided that he had been waiting too long. More people had come in to sit in the waiting room––waiting their own chance to visit a father who had had his appendix removed, a mother who had discovered a small lump under one of her breasts a bare two days ago, a friend who had been struck in the chest with an invisible sledge hammer while jogging, a brother who had fallen off his bike and hit his head on the tiled road. The faces of the waiters were made up with composure; except, of course, Cain’s.

He got out and made his way to the Intensive Care Unit––where his mother was lying supine on the bed. The petite thirty-five-year old young woman who had once been graciously pretty; the voluptuous curves that had once ruled her body had now withered away. She was now shrunken, her beautiful eyes were now shallow, and her skeletal structures were now visibly pronounced. Her arms and legs were as thin as matchsticks, and this made her feeble limbs look more like a toad’s. AIDS had finally won over her body’s immunity. Pamela was shriveled and withered like an Egyptian mummy.

The room directly opposite the Intensive Care Unit was the delivery room, and two young women had just put to bed therein. And as Cain staggered into the ICU, two ladies emerged from the delivery room, each carrying a bundle of joy. Cain only just made the steps into the ICU. If he hadn’t clutched on to the back of the chair before he sat on it, he would probably have found himself sitting on the floor of the room.

“You aren’t dead yet, Pamela.” He said to his mother.

Although Pamela was Cain’s mother, she always felt a chill crawl up her spine at the sight of her own son, just like she was feeling now. “Cain, I’ve been waiting for you.” Her voice came as a low rasp.

“What do you want from me?” he slurred, and then belched.

“Have you been drinking again, Cain?”

He nodded eagerly, as if he was a little boy and his mother had just asked him if he wanted a new toy, “Yes, I have. Not drunk yet, just a wee bit boozy-woozy. It isn’t against the law to be drunk, is it? Even the Bible confirmed it. Jee-zuz said,” he slurred, “ ‘For in wine shall thou find pleasure’ it’s in First Thessalonians or Second Babylonians, I can’t remember which.”

“How more drunken can you get than this, Cain? I’ll have to go to my grave with the memory that my son is a drunkard. This way you’re drinking yourself like a fish, you may kill yourself if you keep it up, Cain.”

“Pamela, I haven’t fallen off the wagon yet. I’m mobile, am I not? And my words aren’t coming out as lisps, are they? Give me a tongue twister and I will tell you without a slight break. Besides, we both have our different tastes, haven’t we, Pamela? I’m always on the look out for a new bottle of booze while you were always on the look out for something new in trousers. Who knows to how many men you’ve distributed your virus? Now, why did you call me into this shrine they call a hospital?”

Pamela hesitated, as if what she had to say was going to be physically painful. “I have a confession, Cain?”

“And you want me to call you a reverend father?”

“No, Cain, no––I have to confess to you before I die.”

“Wait, let me get my rosary and Bible. What do you want to confess? About where you kept your money?”

“No, no––not about that. It’s about––”

“Where did you keep it?”

“It’s not about––”

“Where did you keep your money, Pamela?” his voice was louder now.

“I want to tell you about––”

“Tell me about the money now or I’ll walk out of here and you shall never see me again. Oh! How you stink so, Pamela!”

Tears flooded his mother’s face as she spoke:

“The money is in the backyard at home––inside a pouch under the water pot. I kept it there because you would have stolen it if I had put it in the house.”

Cain leaned forward, an unusual smile on his face, “How much did you keep there?”

“Everything contained in the pouch is coins. Cain, won’t you listen to my confession before I die?”

“How much do you have in the pouch?”

She said with an effort, “Twenty naira.”

“What!” Cain exploded. He stood up instantly; he nearly lost his balance and quickly held onto the table by the bed to steady himself. Because he was drunk, he was too rocked by the news to stand upright. Sweat poured out from the pores of his face, as if he were a Coke bottle that had been left too long in the freezer. Suddenly his fist clenched itself and came down on the table with a bang; his face crimsoned and two big veins stood out on his forehead. “Is the floor moving up and down or am I drunker than I imagine I am? Did you just say twenty naira, Pamela? You incompetent, useless pin-headed hoe! With all those illiterate, prissy-groined, dye-in-the-wool nincompoops and brutes you’ve been screwing, all you were able to come up with in the end is twenty naira?”

“Cain––my confession––”

“Shut up, Pamela!” he screamed, his face was suddenly vicious. “Just shut up! Lest I kill you before the AIDS do. You filthy woman! I used to think you made real money from your immoral business, so I didn’t care if you trekked up Mount Calvary, climbed the cross and screwed the Christ. Now, you’re here blabbing that all your life’s saving is twenty naira.” He was getting angrier as he spoke, “Listen to me, I know I’m the son of a b*tch––do you know what a b*tch is, Pamela?––and I’ve learned to live with that. But even in death, as you’re busy satisfying Satan and other damned souls in Hell on per minute billings, you are going to wish you had never given birth to me. That, Pamela, I am assuring you.”

He had lost control of the little sense which was still left in his mind, because he was screaming now; thundering curses and vile utterances upon his own mother. Pamela was shivering and weeping, every word from his came upon her like the stab from a knife. Cain, having depleted almost all the curses he was capable of coining, he turned to go, still cursing maniacally under his breath as he exited the ICU.

“Cain!” Pamela called after her son, “Cain––my confession! You must listen––” her shiver had resulted in violent seizures. She began to foam at the mouth. A doctor and two nurses rushed into the room. The doctor switched on the ophthalmoscope and directed the light in Pamela’s right eye.

As though the beam from the machine was a piercing needle and her life a balloon, Pamela let out an explosive breath; her last word came as a whisper:

“Cain!”

She brought her head up suddenly, looked directly into the light which shone on her eyes, slumped back upon her pillow, and died.

With the few techniques and instruments available in the ward, attempts at resuscitation of the diseased and deceased patient were made, but to no avail. Pamela had taken leave of life, and she wasn’t coming back.

As the drink-sodden baboon staggered down the corridor of the hospital he raised his gin bottle to his mouth and drank deeply, the liquid ran from the corner of his mouth down to his chin and the front of his chest, and onto the marble floor of the hospital. When he got out of the hospital the bottle was already empty. He brought it to his mouth again and sucked at air. He was surprised at this; more surprised than at the disappointing news his mother had told him. He brought the bottle up and peered curiously at it so as to be sure it really was empty; the little ram on the bottle label looked back at Cain too. Cain caught the ram’s stare and asked it where the alcohol therein had gone; the ram didn’t offer any answer. Angry at the bottle, the ram on its label, and his mother, he attempted to fling the empty bottle away but it slipped from his grasp. He had no more money to buy another alcohol. Cain swayed home to retrieve the twenty naira inside the pouch which lain under the water pot.

He did not listen to his mother’s confession.

However, Pamela was not the only woman who gave her last sigh back in the hospital. Five rooms away from where Pamela was, a young woman also uttered her last word, and her word also came out in a whisper:

“Abel!”

Both women died at precisely 4:15pm.––June 12, 1975.

Wow! Wow!! Wow!!! All I can say for now is WoW!!! More inspiration sir! More ink in your pen and better energy to write! I love this!

By the rivers of our tears, there we sat in pains as we remember Zion- our good old days. Left alone, I cried out in despair, “Open the eyes of my heart, I want to see; open the ears of my mind, I want to hear. Show me the way out because the travails of my people are long overdue, we are perishing beneath the heavy burden we are carrying. Where is thy face, O God? Why is the sea of my people’s troubles not abating? Why is our mountain so high that we can’t climb and our valley so low that we are scared? Tell us the solution because we don’t know what to do.”
Those were my words, my heartfelt prayer to God and many more till my voice failed me, till my strength diminished, till my eyes decided ‘lights out’, till my heart shut down, till my spirit slipped out and my body dropped in unconsciousness. I opened my eyes and behold, I saw myself standing on the shores of life, in between heaven and a dark space. Then, somebody touched me and lifted me up. It was an angel and he pointed towards a direction. When I looked, I saw a BALL rolling out of the dark space and illuminating the place. Suddenly it broke into pieces and a fragment of it was a GUN POINTED DOWN advancing towards me without any visible mechanism controlling it. Next, I saw a wonder: behold, a mighty hand held the gun, pulled the trigger and expecting it to release a bullet, I was both shocked and disappointed at the same time when I saw a big YAM TUBER coming out of it. As if that was not enough, the yam tuber fell to the ground, started germinating and out of it, a CONE was produced which grew so high to the sky.
“Why are you showing me all these? How can a gun fire out a yam tuber? And how can a yam tuber produce a cone? Do you want to drive me crazy? Stop messing with my mind!” I kept charging at the angel but he said nothing. He merely took a handful of water from God-knows-where, washed my face with it and asked me to look inside the Cone. I did and behold, I saw people fill the streets in disorderly manner. Row and acrimony took over the atmosphere, anarchy here and there, everywhere you turn. I saw some people running for their lives, those that stayed back could not rest in peace. The insecurity was so unbearable as everyone was in constant fear of what danger will come up next. The sky above them was angry, the cloud was furious and even the earth was hot against everything on it. I was confused. Was it about to rain? I asked and prayed for the sun to shine. Immediately, the prayer was answered, the sun shined and I smiled thinking that was the solution. But till the sun went down, the tension was not eased, the predicament was not reversed. The sun just could not help out.
*** to be continued***

By the rivers of our tears, there we sat in pains as we remember Zion- our good old days. Left alone, I cried out in despair, “Open the eyes of my heart, I want to see; open the ears of my mind, I want to hear. Show me the way out because the travails of my people are long overdue, we are perishing beneath the heavy burden we are carrying. Where is thy face, O God? Why is the sea of my people’s troubles not abating? Why is our mountain so high that we can’t climb and our valley so low that we are scared? Tell us the solution because we don’t know what to do.”
Those were my words, my heartfelt prayer to God and many more till my voice failed me, till my strength diminished, till my eyes decided ‘lights out’, till my heart shut down, till my spirit slipped out and my body dropped in unconsciousness. I opened my eyes and behold, I saw myself standing on the shores of life, in between heaven and a dark space. Then, somebody touched me and lifted me up. It was an angel and he pointed towards a direction. When I looked, I saw a BALL rolling out of the dark space and illuminating the place. Suddenly it broke into pieces and a fragment of it was a GUN POINTED DOWN advancing towards me without any visible mechanism controlling it. Next, I saw a wonder: behold, a mighty hand held the gun, pulled the trigger and expecting it to release a bullet, I was both shocked and disappointed at the same time when I saw a big YAM TUBER coming out of it. As if that was not enough, the yam tuber fell to the ground, started germinating and out of it, a CONE was produced which grew so high to the sky.
“Why are you showing me all these? How can a gun fire out a yam tuber? And how can a yam tuber produce a cone? Do you want to drive me crazy? Stop messing with my mind!” I kept charging at the angel but he said nothing. He merely took a handful of water from God-knows-where, washed my face with it and asked me to look inside the Cone. I did and behold, I saw people fill the streets in disorderly manner. Row and acrimony took over the atmosphere, anarchy here and there, everywhere you turn. I saw some people running for their lives, those that stayed back could not rest in peace. The insecurity was so unbearable as everyone was in constant fear of what danger will come up next. The sky above them was angry, the cloud was furious and even the earth was hot against everything on it. I was confused. Was it about to rain? I asked and prayed for the sun to shine. Immediately, the prayer was answered, the sun shined and I smiled thinking that was the solution. But till the sun went down, the tension was not eased, the predicament was not reversed. The sun just could not help out.
*** to be continued***

kayemjay:

My email is kelvinmania@yahoo.com

Thank you.

sorry, I wanna ask, is dere any reason u nid ma email?