Fiction and Articles

He realized he was dreaming again as he woke up in a fit banging his head against the exhaust pipe of the vehicle he was under. It was a reoccurring dream where his shoulders were being held by a masquerade and while his head was deep in a pool of water and he would struggle not to drown. He woke up and said the Lord’s prayer. The only prayer he could recite from the beginning till the end. He had started as an apprentice after the ill fated incident that claimed one of the legs of Uncle Korede and often left him in seizures. Time and medication only soothed their physical wounds but Joseph had lost out of the lifetime he dreamt of working as an house boy in a decent environment that had a bed and clean water. His prospective employers had rejected him. They believed his omen was not right and they didn’t want any bad luck. Uncle Koredes wife however pitied the young lad and recommended him to one  ‘Alfa Jimoh’ , a short and robust cleric who immediately took him in as an app...

On the day Esther also known as Mama Kekere passed on, it rained heavily. The whole village was flooded and no one dared to come out. No one except 9 year old Joseph who had managed to drag his heavily pregnant mother to the house of Mama Nonso a short and brutish midwife who had delivered all Mama Kekere's children including Joseph. Joseph’s mother gave up the ghost six hours  after trying to have her baby who also didn’t make it. He was a boy.  Joseph loved his mother dearly, she was his rock.  she fended for the family when all seemed to be failing with no one to help and  even though Joseph had often tried to prove that he was old enough to take care of the family, she would still step in to treat him like the child that he was and make sure everyone was okay. Often times she referred to Joseph as her husband and said she had the best husband in the world. This seldom made Joseph happy, he was nothing compared to the deadbeat father he had who spent his lifetim...

Joseph was particularly excited on this Tuesday morning. The rain was pouring heavily and it seemed the sun would not rise in time, but that was not a problem for him because  life as he knew it is was about to change. He hurriedly packed his bags and went to the yard to shower before anyone else woke up. Not because he was an early bird or loved to shower on time but because he wanted to show their guest who had travelled miles from his destination that he was the right candidate for the job. The water from the well seemed refreshing and soothing as Joseph scooped it from an iron bucket which he had used in fetching water the previous night.  He had heard several stories of people who lived in places where you didn’t need to fetch water from the well, he had even seen a tap once in his lifetime when ‘Baba Show’ who was bidding for a political position several years ago installed a bore hole some kilometres away from the village. During that period, it seemed the whole vi...