Thursday, August 26, 2021

THE TITANIC HAD SISTERS

Given the media coverage and it's accorded prominence, the RMS Titanic and the tragic story of it's maiden and last voyage has found a place in popular culture. Truth is a lot of us are aware of the Titanic story but what most of us are unaware of is the fact that the Titanic wasn't the only White Star Line project that shared that fate.

At the start of the twentieth century, the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast commenced the construction of three iconic ocean liners for the White Star Line and this trio would be named, the Olympic-Class Ocean Liners. Among them were the Olympic, the Britannic and the popular Titanic.

The purpose of building these liners were to create the largest and most luxurious passenger liners in the world and give the White Star Line an advantage over transatlantic passenger trade of it's time.

Now anyone with a good business acumen would confess that trying to harness the potentials of a lucrative market was not a bad idea at all but the focus of this writing was about the shared fate of these liners.


The first to be completed of these liners was the RMS Olympic which left the yard on the 31st of May, 1911 and had it's maiden voyage commence on the 14th of June, 1911.

In size, the Olympic was 882 ft 9 in length, 175 ft in height and a beam of 92 ft 9. That was enough to house it's 9 decks which carried 2,435 passengers and 950 crew members. With it's power source from 24 double-ended (six furnace) and 5 single-ended (three furnace) Scotch boilers, two four-cylinder triple-expansion reciprocating engines and one low-pressure turines all producing a total of 65,000 horse power at maximum revolutions. The Olympic was recorded to reach a maximum speed of 24.2 knots.

The Olympic was the Olympic-Class ocean Liners to fulfill the objective of being the  largest ocean liner in the world. It enjoyed this position for two periods during 1910–13, and lost it when the Titanic was completed. However, the short career span of the Titanic gave way again for the Olympic to be the world largest passenger ship until the German SS Imperator  went into service in May 1912. 

About fate, the Olympic was the only ship of the Olympic-class ocean liners to escape sinking while in service, infact it served the longest for 24 years before it got sold for scrap in 1936 and completely demolished in 1937

After the construction of the Olympic, the next to be completed on the 2nd of April 1912, was the Titanic.

In size, the Titanic was; 882 ft 9 in length, 175 ft in height. Housing 9 decks for 2,435 passengers and 892 crew members. It's source of power being a 24 double-ended and five single-ended boilers feeding two reciprocating steam engines for the wing propellers, and a low-pressure turbine for the centre propeller with an output of 46,000 horse power. The Titanic was recorded to reach the maximum speed of 23 knots.

At it's completion, the Titanic earned the title of the world's largest and most luxurious passenger liner in the world and bore it until the end of it's short lived career.

Nicknamed the unsinkable, the Titanic was regarded to be strong and reliable, it's first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, with a gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants, and opulent cabin. The Titanic however didn't live long, it collided with an iceberg during it's maiden voyage and sank, killing 1500 people on April 14, 1914.

The third and last to join the fleet was the HMHS Britannic. Completed in 1915, after the Titanic disaster, the Britannic was constructed with lessons from the mishap. At such, she was designed to be the safest of the three.

In characteristics, the Britannic was first designed to be similar to her sister ships but some things were altered during it's construction due to the loss of the Titanic. However, the Britannic measured 175 ft in height, and it with a tonnage of 48,158, she surpassed her older sisters in terms of internal volume. Propelled by a combined system of two triple expansion steam engines which powered the three-bladed outboard wing propellers whilst a steam turbine used steam exhausted from the two reciprocating engines to power the central four-bladed propeller giving a maximum speed of 23 knots.

The Britannic although first built to serve as a luxury passenger liner, served as a hospital boat during the first world war.
On the morning of 21 November 1916 she was shaken by an explosion caused by a naval mine of the Imperial German Navy near the Greek island of Kea and sank 55 minutes later. The Britannic went down with 30 people, the least fatal of the tragedies of the Olympic-class ocean liners.

The sinking of two out of the three liners of the Olympic-class ocean liners would be what most will refer to as a fruitless venture and the creating of the disasters of the century but that would be only looking on the darker side of things. On a brighter side, the mishaps of these two liners especially the Titanic revolutionized marine engineering industry in various ways and although the lessons came hard, the White Star Line and other liner companies in the world took them and built safer liners.

© Ifiokobong Etuk (KING of the QUILL)
With data obtained from Wikipedia.

Thursday, April 1, 2021

EPISODES FROM MY CHILDHOOD 4: AUNT PRECY

Aunt Precious, Precy for short was the last of my dad's siblings. She used to be a fair sweet aunt with a smile I used to love. Always there whenever I missed my mom and related with me like a sister, she used to be my favorite. One time she told me I was her favorite too and I smiled and hugged her. It was mutual.

She used to keep flowers in her room and they bloomed like her laughter. Roses mostly, and every other one of them made her room a fountain of wonderful scents. She had a place for them. Close to the window that looked into the courtyard. She made a small table and placed beautiful vases that were never out of flowers on them.

Aside flowers, Aunt Precy loved music and long walks too. She had this small tape player that came with an headset. Whenever she wanted, she would take it with her and walk. She said it used to clear her head. I knew because it was what she told me whenever she returned from the walks with sweets for me and flowers for her vases. 

I used to imagine what "clear my head" meant. Like her head was a dirty room and the headset was some sort of vacuum cleaner. With very little knowledge of how the life of a young adult could be, I used to believe she was just my pretty aunt that had no problems in the world. 

" That daughter of mine was created to be happy " my grandma used to say.

***

" Roses have thorns, beauty harbors pain too "

She used to say that every time I said she had a wonderful life. Once she pressed her hands on my lips when I tried saying I wanted to be like her when I grew up.

I never knew what she meant by that. Was it just some fancy thing she used to say? Was it some fact she knew about her favorite flower? Or was there more adult stuff and growing up bullshit that was interlaced in that statement of hers? I pondered for a long a time over that statement and there was just too little my small mind could decipher.

***

My first understanding of what Aunt Precy called her thorns ( or so I thought ) were in her poems. She used to have this little black notepad. She called it her "book of dark things" and being a lover of horror, I used to read the poems she scribbled on those pages.

They were dark poems. Poems about death, suicide, sadness, loss, rejection and wrecked sanity. Aunt Precy wrote them beautifully with words that adorned them like her flowers. "Forget them, the poems and the flowers, they're all dying slowly". She used to say this everytime I told her about how lovely her poems were. 

It seemed slower and unnoticeable but my aunt Precy was dying. The stress started during her final exams at the nursing school. One of those evenings, she had gone into her room, everyone thought she was studying but when I joined her, she was lying on her desk and crying. Her head was buried in her notepad as her back rose and fell to heavy sobs. 

When she noticed my presence, she faked a smile, grabbed her portable player and headed out of the room " come!" She called me. "Come and stay with grand mummy, I want to walk and clear my head" but when she came back that evening, her face didn't look like something with a cleared head behind it.

***

Aunt Precy was facing a difficult time and it was taking its toll on her. She smiled less and most of the time, the glow on her face was gone. She avoided people and gatherings slowly. I was still a child and couldn't imagine what it was that could take all of one's happiness away. 

Her final exams was going to determine her future and my aunt was scared of that. Who wouldn't? Having all the years ahead of you determined by a single exam was mentally draining. She told me stories about the numerous times her tutors induced fear in them by telling them how failure was sure for most of them. 

My aunt Precy feared but studied. She would sit all night looking at textbooks and lecture notes. She paid less attention to her flowers and spent most of her weekends in the town's library. To me, my aunt Precy was doing more than enough. I believed she deserved the best grade and something to prove she didn't need to be afraid. 

She took the exams finally and the day the mailman brought the result came two weeks after. She held the envelope with shaky fingers. When she opened and read the contents, she flung the paper and her body on the ground and cried like a heartbroken newborn. All through the night of that day, my grandma didn't leave her side. She spent hours consoling and comforting her and when morning came, aunt Precy was smiling like nothing happened, she even watered her flowers and replaced the dead ones.

***

Throughout the week that came after that day, my Aunt Precy was the happiest person I knew. She shared smiles with every face that saw hers. She danced with me when her favorite songs were played on the radio. She increased the number of flowers and most importantly, she gathered all her nursing books in a cardboard box.

Then on Sunday, Aunt Precy in her bright red dress, and matching lipstick went to church. She listened to the homily and was chosen to take the prayer of the faithful. She danced like never before during the offertory and smiled on her way to and back from the altar for communion. 

When the priest said "the mass is ended" Aunt Precy in all the congregation responded with the loudest " thanks be to God" and three hours after we got home, my grandma went into her room to invite her for dinner only to find her lifeless body on the ground with an ugly cut on her wrist.

She left a note saying " I'm sorry you had to believe my last smile, I was on my death bed already"



FICTION
Next episode drops next week.
- Ifiokobong Etuk ( KING of the QUILL )

Friday, March 26, 2021

EPISODES FROM MY CHILDHOOD 3 : GRANDMA'S REMARRIAGE.

The ten years grandma refused to remarry were the years I learnt that greed could make men dedicate a long time into getting wealthy with tricks rather than investing a very short time into doing something meaningful.

They kept pestering and trying to bully her but there was very little they could do to her. She was smater than every trick they tried to play. Stronger than any blow they gave her.

One of the most dedicated men in the whole remarriage story was Edem, the very man that moved the motion. The slim tall fair cousin of my father that although older than my grandma was still older than his own age. The same Edem that had a reputation of warming the beds of numerous widows and older women in the community. The same Edem that had to be thrown into jail before he stopped.

Edem kept doing everything in his power to get what he wanted. Sent men to rob my grandma, plant diabolic things in the farmlands. Join Udoka who was also interested in marrying my grandma in pressing the false charges.

Handling Udoka was simple all grandma needed to do was to report him to the civil service authority with the help of her lawyer and when he found out his retirement benefits were at risk, he backed out and Edem went on.

The last thing Edem did was harassing my grandma over one of the plots of land. It was planting season and my grandma was going about doing the needful; putting cassava stems, and pumpkin seeds into the ground.

One of the afternoons, while I and my grandma were planting, Edem came in with men in his truck. The carried young Palm trees in transplanting bags. He highlighted from the truck with a face that looked like he hadn't had a single reason to smile since he was born. "Oya! Oya!! Oya!!! We don't have time, he kept ordering the men and behaving as if we ( I, my grandma and my cousins weren't there" 

The men started doing the transplanting. " Hey, what is it you people are doing" 

"Putting some manly trees on my land woman" Edem finally spoke. 

"Whose land? You have decided not to stop this madness eh? Leave here!". Edem didn't say a word, he was feeling very powerful that day. My grandma noticed one of the men uproot her yam seedlings while trying to dig a whole for one of the Palm trees. Like a triggered lioness, grandma flung her hoe, it hit his back the very moment my grandma said "foolish thing! You're yet to plant for yourself but you're busy destroying what another person is planting and planting for an idiot".

Grandma grabbed her machete and charged, they all ran away thinking she was coming for them but my grandma was going to the young palm trees. She gave those young things heavy strokes with the sharp edge of the machete and within seconds, most of them were laid to waste. She did all this saying "this is my land" under her breath.

Edem was ready for trouble. He reached for his own machete and charged towards her. The men he came with were not ready to watch a person kill another so they stopped them. They begged my grandma to drop her machete and forcefully seized the machete Edem was holding. 

When the men managed to grab him and seize his machete, Edem grabbed a stick from the ground and started whipping my grandma mercilessly with it, he didn't stop until my grandma freed herself from his grip and ran away cursing. The men held him again, some slapped him and said "is that woman not an aunt to you, this is too much"

My grandma didn't stop running until she was far away from the farm. I followed her to the house and I could tell from her breath that she was boiling with anger. No man had ever raised a hand on her; not her father who was the late clan head, not her husband. Who was Edem to do a thing like that!

Once home, she grabbed some money from her cupboard and left without saying a word. She would visit her lawyer who would lead her to the police station and later a photographer who would make pictures of the bruises on her skin. The next morning, policeman grabbed Edem from his bed and the judge would give him a jail term two weeks later. 

After the other men heard what happened to Edem, no one told them to leave my grandma and her late husbands properties alone. Grandma like she always wanted, never remarried.

FICTION
Next "AUNT PRECY" episode drops next week.
- Ifiokobong Etuk ( KING of the QUILL )

Friday, March 19, 2021

EPISODES FROM MY CHILDHOOD 2 : GRANDMA AGAINST PATRIARCHY


The culture of our town like every other part of Africa was patriarchal. I'm not saying this to sound in line with the observations of most social media commentaries on gender equality. I'm saying this because it's actually what I saw, felt and witnessed first hand. 

It was a system that supported the superiority of my gender over the opposite gender. Men were seen as the most important members of the society, they had more voices and representation in the meetings, they earned most of the recognition for the actions of their children, they were entitled to several inheritances including women. Yes men could inherit women. They also owned the lands and anything their money could buy

The women had a different story to tell. They earned less of the respect, except on rare circumstances where the men in their lives were seen as important. They couldn't own lands for themselves, couldn't inherit any either and there was a limit to what their money could buy. They earned very little recognition from the good works of their children. Yet when the men talked, they used to say " all sons and daughters of this land are the same" and somehow, it sounded like that speech from The Animal Farm that said "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

No doubt, the patriarchy had a way of providing some privileges for the different genders. Everyone had a place they could be pardoned or spared simply because they were men or women. The men could enjoy certain favours, the women too, could walk away from certain things they did wrongly and also enjoyed certain favours but this didn't change the fact that they were placed on a lower place in the whole scale of gender superiority.

As a girl, the men could forgive my elder sister for not attending the family meetings from when the first libration was poured. They wouldn't say a word if she couldn't make tall heaps of Earth for the yam seedlings. They would spare her if she forgot how to interpret the chieftaincy ranking from the length of the feathers in their caps but my grandpa would whip me if I couldn't remember the beads for the family heads and heads of households.

Many times, my sister never had to carry her water pot on the way back from the stream. Other boys did it for her. My grandpa used to keep goats and no matter how hard I tried, I was never able to beat the amount of fodder she fetched for the goats because the boys that did it for her were way older than I was. 


Being a first son, I had seen many times when the elder family members scolded my sister to go away when they were talking because "big people were talking" while I was allowed to sit and listen because I was "...going to be a man one day". Other times, I was always the first person to take my share of the traditional cake before my sister and my other female cousins were allowed to pick. 

I remember once we went for farming. While Grandpa told my sister to join grandma and the other women to do the weeding, he took us (the grandsons) on a tour round the whole estate to show us the boundaries. When he was done, he said " I need everyone of you, including your only Uncle in the army to be brave enough to keep these things after I'm gone. The world is wicked, they will want to take everything away from you people the moment I stop breathing." 

Till today, that statement still makes me believe he didn't have complete knowledge of the woman he married. My Grandma.

That woman was living in times ahead of when she was alive. She wasn't ready to conform to any social construct that enslaved her and she was unapologetically comfortable with that. I knew from her that a woman could stand against societal constructs that oppressed her long before I learnt about feminism and gender equality through foreign movies and social media.

My grandma was a woman that believed that no gender was created to boss around the other. She believed there was nothing a man on Earth could do to make him above her in enjoying any right that was fundamental to the human person. She believed people deserved to be treated better no matter what they had in between their legs. " A penis doesn't mean you are better than the Virgina that birthed you" 

My grandma was never the type of woman that would watch another woman go through unnecessary suffering and do nothing about it. She used to be some sort of guardian angel. One time, she led a team of women that took up canes and flogged a certain titled man that had the habit of beating his wife and the next morning, before the chiefs convenned, she and her women were already at the village square with a goat, palmwine and tubers of yam.

* * *

Grandpa had only two sons, my father and Uncle Emma and what he said about people coming for everything he owned the moment he stopped breathing came to pass barely a year after the soldiers took him away. 

Some members of the extended family started trying to intimidate my grandma over the landed properties. They started dragging her to the town council over false accusations of land grabbing. 

My grandma had a lawyer and she used the services he could offer. One of my grandpas cousin bagged two years in jail for harassing my grandma over a plot of land. The other faced risk of loosing his retirement benefits if he continued to press the false charges.

When they knew intimidating wasn't a weapon that could bring my grandma to her knees, they brought another one from their bag of tricks. Remarriage.

They tried to pressure her into marrying another member of the family so they could use whoever she married as a mule to grab all the properties. The man that moved the motion in one of the meetings was my father's cousin. He looked at my grandma with lustful eyes and romours around the town said he loved warming the beds of older women. Even if my grandma was going to remarry, it was definitely wasn't going to be him. I knew it the moment he started speaking.

Grandma wasn't going to have any of that. She wasn't going to remarry anybody to appease anybody and she was damm good at standing her ground and she did it for ten good years.
.
.
.
.
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FICTION
Episode 3 drops next week on this site.
- Ifiokobong Etuk ( KING of the QUILL )

Friday, March 12, 2021

EPISODES FROM MY CHILDHOOD 1: GRANDPA'S PIPE AND THE COUP.


Grandpa used to say words were like soldiers, always coming home after being sent to the front lines of people's ears. He used to say it with  short stories of his experiences in the war. Every evening, he would sit on his rocking chair at the balcony, smoke a pipe and reminisce about his own days in the trenches. He did it in a manner that would make you believe the TV commercials were lying about tobacco causing a thousand sicknesses.

In my words, as a child, I remember saying in front of everyone at Sunday school that my Grandpa was a fine smoker and going on to argue about how cool smoking was when my grandpa did it. 

"You smoke like you the white man used to do. Sometimes, I wish I could ask you to pass the pipe or walk down the stores and get mine" his friend from the army Ekpeyong used to say.

In truth, he was a fine smoker. There was this vintage and classy way he smoked. He would first of all stuff the pipe with the tobacco nicely, doing it meticulously and making sure he didn't leave stains on the table like other old men did. Then, he would stick the slimer end of the pipe to his mouth; it used to be at the right corner and he'll use his lips to hold on to the pipe while he reached for his lighter.

Grandpa wasn't cursed with shaky hands like other old men I knew. His hands were steady they had the precision of a well programed machine. With his steady hands, he'll light the pipe by moving the burning lighter round the the stuffed hollow of his pipe and after a few seconds, the pipe would be an active chimney.

After lighting the pipe, he would stuff the lighter into his coat pocket and like something delicate that came with the "fragile" shipping sticker, he would hold the pipe with just his thumb and index finger. He kissed the pipe like a lover would, I think he held his lips that same way when he kissed grandma. 

He'll suck the pipe for a few seconds, if you listened well enough, you could hear the burning tobacco sizzling and after that was a "pffffffffffffff" as Grandpa puffed the smoke into the air and oh, that sight of milky smoke escaping from his mouth and dancing in the air before disappearing into thin air leaving that smell ( the third thing my nostrils loved after petrichor and the aroma of  Grandma's cooking ) 

After, doing the sucking and puffing for a minute, Grandpa would reach for his bottle of foreign whiskey he used to buy from the town store. He would pour a measure of it into his tumbler and then down his throat. I wondered which burned more, the whiskey of the tobacco?

I remember one Monday evening, I was in the yard playing with my cousins when Grandpa returned from town. That image of him in a grey three piece suit and hard hat, the sun setting behind him and a burning pipe sticking to the right corner of his mouth is yet to find a replacement in my head. Not even the slow motion of Thomas Shelby in the Peaky Blinders beats that image till today.

* * *

Maybe I remember the said evening not because of the image of my grandpa in a grey suit, a hat and smoking a pipe. Maybe it's not the spicy chunk of fish grandma dropped into my soup that keeps that image in my head and till today. Maybe it's because there were other things that served as the pins that clipped that image permanently and stubbornly to my memory. Maybe it was the military Range Rover that carried Uncle Emma and two other officers. Maybe it was because the next time the Range Rover came, it took Grandpa and he never returned.

***

Uncle Emma was Grandpa's second son and my father's Junior brother. Of Six children, he was the only one that signed up for the military like Grandpa. Uncle Emma joined with a degree and was a Colonel. He was the favorite son. 

Uncle Emma, who wore shiny lace ups and well ironed uniforms. Uncle Emma, who had three stars on his shoulders. Uncle Emma who was always in the company of his escort soldiers whenever he came visiting until that Monday evening. Uncle Emma who loved Palm wine and roasted fowl. Uncle Emma who had a pistol strapped around his waist; one time, I heard he shot a towns man in the leg with it. Uncle Emma who always said the head of state was a complete asshole who ran the country like he was drunk.

Uncle Emma, who came with the officers and spent the whole night talking in hushed tones with Grandpa in the living room and left before sunrise. I could only get small snatches of their discussion and it only happened when they raised their voice a few centimeters above their noses.

"You know I left the military because of things like this... Dimka is a good soldier, his plans won't fail... The risk... There's a reward, you'll head the district... You are like a father to us... Do just this one for the country... Just hold on to the files until we need them..."

***

Grandma was a graceful woman and fierce as well. She wore her skin comfortably and with her, anyone could take the best lessons about self confidence. She used to be a woman that would never stoop low for the comfort of anyone. To the towns' people, she was the no nonsense wife of the retired Major, a radical feminist that didn't fit to any enslaving societal construct, the Calibre of woman you wouldn't want to mess with.

Once, one her way back from the market, one of the touts made a joke about her buttocks and in a matter of minutes, he was sleeping in the army confinement cell for a month. He came back to call my grandma "Eka" meaning mother.

Many children used to wonder how I was able to cope with a strict woman like my grandma and sometimes, I used to wish they knew who she was. 

Under the tough no nonsense feminist woman, was a loving and jovial grandma. She would make the best meals and jokes. She sent me to bed with a lot of stories. Some of them from my English reader and most were our people's folklore and war stories too.

I used to love the folklore and war stories. The folklores contained stories about the tortoise and the hare, romance from Ibibio literature like "Sedibe", and adventurous tales like "Mutanda".

She was in the war too, as a military nurse. Grandma told stories of the war but not like Grandpa. While my grandpa studded his stories with proverbs and figurative language ( most of which were too complex for my childhood mind to understand ), Grandma had imagery, her war stories had vivid descriptions. She paid more attention to creating the mental images of the mushroom shaped clouds of black smokes the bombs made. In her voice, I could hear the soldiers chant and charge, win and lose battles too.

About the jokes, Grandma used to mimic the comic characters on TV. She would tie her wrapper and pretend to be Mama G, wear Grandpas' khaki and pretend to be Sam Loco Efe. " Omo I'm just a clown" she used to say whenever she succeed in making us laugh so hard until there was tears in our eyes.

Grandma was a good vibe to be around when she was happy and although she mostly was, the few times she wasn't used to be hell. One of those few times was after Uncle Emma visited Grandpa that Monday evening.

The next morning, there was trouble. Grandma kept yelling at Grandpa. " This son of yours won't kill you! Did I not warn him to stay away from this bloody military politics?" 

Throughout that week, she kept having outbursts and ended up yelling at people. She yelled at my father on the telephone, she yelled at my cousins and our neighbors, even on Sunday during mass, she yelled at the church warden.

Grandma was far from being in a good mood. Her face would do the job of telling you to keep to your Lane and not cross her path. She answered questions in monosyllables and didn't laugh when we shared a joke. She would not walk with Grandpa to church and she wouldn't join the morning prayers either. 

I knew the whole toughness wasn't a true reflection of what she felt. I could see beneath the fight she was putting up and could tell what it was that was driving her. Fear.

I could see it. Grandma was afraid. I noticed she had stopped keeping late nights and added more strictness to ensuring the doors were locked before we went to bed. She listened to the radio and made it a duty to not miss the news. She quickened her steps whenever she was around soldiers. Grandma was afraid, but of what? I never knew until the last night I had seen Grandpa.

***

The night of the day the head of state was assassinated, was the last time I saw my grandpa. The whole country was in trouble and our small town wasn't left out. The soldiers were on a rampage, tearing down market stalls and flogging the women with their koboko. They wore their combat uniforms like we were somewhere in war torn Iraq and exchanged bullets for the stones hoodlums threw at them.

We were listening to the evening news. The presenter was talking about the coup. She said the military government didn't want us to worry, that everything was in control.

" In control? Does that mean that Dimka soldier failed?" Grandma asked Grandpa. He was about to answer when the land line rang. It was Uncle Emma. "Okay!...Oh Jesus!... Okay!... thank you... You too be safe..." Was the only thing Grandpa said. 

The moment Grandpa hung up, he reached for some files in the cupboard under the TV. They were brown and fat with the numerous documents inside them and had "CONFIDENTIAL" written boldly in red, slantly across it's face.

Grandma sprang up from her seat. "Ette Udeme, Nside?" She asked. Grandpa didn't answer, he buried his face in the files and kept counting the documents. Even when grandma started yelling "talk to me! Have you decided to kill us?" He only spoke when he was done. " Ifiok, get my shovel, woman please stop shouting and bring petrol..." He planned to dig a whole in the yard, burn the documents and leave the house before the soldiers came but it was too late.

"Gbaaaaaaam!" Grandpa didn't finish talking when the front door came down with it's frame. Seven soldiers jumped into the living room with their cocked guns. They held torch lights and didn't forget to point them into our faces. Grandma held me and kept muttering "don't worry, everything is okay" but her voice was too shaky to calm me down. I was trembling like a child with cold. 

One of the soldiers was a Sargent, he only had a pistol, and was smoking a cigarette. He was the leader of the troops. "did I hear petrol? What are we burning please?" He asked. None of us could give him an answer so he slapped Grandpa.

"Ye!!!!" Grandpa yelled as he fell on the ground. 

"I don't think we'll be burning anything." The Sargent said and puffed a smoke as he reached for the files. "Take him!" He shouted at his comrades and from the ground, they grabbed grandpa rudely with just a wrapper around his waist and took him to their truck.

Grandma struggled with the soldiers from the living room all the way to where they parked their truck. She held on to the Sargent's belt shouting "please don't kill him" and crying until he kicked her and sent her rolling in the mud before they drove off.

The rumors said they wouldn't do anything to Grandpa and my Uncle Emma had fled the country to return when things were calm, but none of them ever came back, not Grandpa, not Uncle Emma. Ten years later, we did a funeral with empty coffins and their names on them. The preacher said they died for a noble cause, he said like soldiers, they had returned home from this trench they called life to be with the creator. I thought he was exaggerating when he said he saw them in heaven until I did see them in my dreams two months after the funeral.

Grandpa on his ceremonial millitary suit with golden insignia on his shoulders and a pair of wings behind him. Uncle Emma in the same regalia, dinning with angels. What dream could beat seeing my late Uncle drinking palmwine and eating roasted fowl in paradise and my grandpa smoking a pipe beside the throne. Grandma said I was having malaria so after I took a few pills, the dreams went away.





FICTION
Episode 2 drops next week.
- Ifiokobong Etuk ( KING of the QUILL )

Friday, January 22, 2021

A LOVE STORY ENDED IN LETTERS.

 


I know you seek for who

To love you like a brother

Protect you like a father

Treat you like no other

And never dare give his heart to another.



My love poems are a fairytale in stanzas

Kisses that light up hearts

And feelings twinkling like stars.

Smiles, laughter, wine

I wish reality was no different

From the imaginations on those pages.



Castles, kings, queens, kingdoms

There's more to royalty than the crown on heads

Dates, kisses, gifts, cuddles

There's more to a love story than the words on my diary

Hold my hand and say prayer

Kiss me after and hope the answers come.



Save a date and don't worry about the wine

You're always elegant enough to make everything fine.

Say what you feel and listen too

We should be sure we're on the same page too

For it takes two to do whatever that cliche says.



I sent myself to you in a poem

I asked you to return the Favour, lover.

Seal a letter and send a mail.

In it, a piece of your heart

Flesh of your flesh made into scribbles and sent to a distant land

At the coast of my mailbox, I waited.

It never came. 




- Ifiokobong Etuk (KING of the QUILL)