THE LAST TIME YOU SAID A PRAYER

The last time you said a prayer,
The pain in your heart couldn't find the strength
To morph into a word
So all your quaking lips could mumble
Was _"dear father"_ and a Trinity of tear drops.
A wish fell off the tip of your tongue's cliff
Plummeting into God's ear.

This morning, his heart grew fonder
So he sent a dove to knock the door of your soul.
The bird was an answer
A sign
Sent to perch on the shoulders of your faith.

For his child calls him father
For his child shall not suffer
For his child shall not want

Good morning.

By: King Ofthe Quill

PERHAPS A POEM, PERHAPS A PILL

...

Perhaps a poem
Perhaps a pill

Will fall from the aisle of your palm
And plummet into

the well of your throat.

Perhaps a piece
Perhaps a part

Of you will approach death with a childish bravery
and hope the reaper fears

a man that did his work.

Maybe it's the end
Maybe it's the same

But you will learn these things for a price
So relax

Allow the poem
Allow the pill

Do it's work
and cure the life and reality

Away

Maybe to peace
Maybe to pain

By King Of the Quill

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.

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 )

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 )

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.

.

.

.

.

.

FICTION

Episode 3 drops next week on this site.

- Ifiokobong Etuk ( KING of the QUILL )

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 )

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)

IT'S THE 25TH.

 

.

.

I love the smell of Christmas and

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

From our abundance

Let's join God to make a toast today.

.

.

1.

I've been listening to Carols and church bells

The preacher talked about what happened the night before Christmas

He said love was born 

And three men followed the star to offer Gold Myrrh and Frankincense.

I've been reading a Bible story 

About the immaculate conception

And the birth of God the son.

2.

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

When the weather was cold like the heart of man

And the night dark like the sins on the soil

Heaven sent a shepherd King to a manger.

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

When his children had wandered off the path he choosed 

And lies became a cloud of darkness over his creations

He sent the way, truth and life.

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

When the blizzard of nemesis ravaged mankind

And was shredding it's essence in an icy storm

The creator of nature sent the one who could calm storms.

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

3.

I love the smell of Christmas

The spicy aroma that spreads across the table

And the thrilling scents of celebration

Every moment of this day, stays a memory until forever.

I love the sound of Christmas

The melodies from the carols and bangs of fire works.

The chattering and laughter of a people sharing meals, wine and love. 

Every moment of this day, stays a memory until forever.

4.

While we eat and drink from our abundance

And dance to best music 

Let's remember the lone child on the street

And spare a meal or more.

Celebrate love by spreading love.

While we decorate our Christmas trees and homes

With lights and gifts for the season

Let's remember our penniless neighbors

And spare a light bulb or a gift pack.

Sharing the glow and wealth won't make you dim and poor.

Celebrate love by spreading love.

5.

Join God to make a toast today 

In memory of the beginning

Of a new covenant with mankind.

Join the Angels and your church choir

To sing carols and hymns for him

The one called Messiah is born.

.

.

I love the smell of Christmas and

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

From our abundance

Let's join God to make a toast today.

.

.

© Ifiokobong Etuk (KING of the QUILL)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to our readers and contributors. 

What's your favorite line(s) ?

PLACES I'VE SEEN CUPID'S ARROW

 

I've seen Cupid's arrow

Pierce through a mother's heart

As with tender eyes and time

She watches her baby

Grow from the cradle to maturity.

I've seen Cupid's arrow

Stuck on a fathers biceps

As with wise words and swords

He fights for and prepares sons and daughters

For the journey through life.

I've seen Cupid's arrow

Mounted on the warriors banner

As with a lion like bravery and bullets

He heads for the trenches

To win or die for his country.

I've seen Cupid's arrow

Sailing wildly through space

Like the sensation created by young lovers

When they say sweet words to each other

And seal them with kisses.

I've seen Cupid's arrow

Bounded in the letters from my Heartcode

When in the middle of the night

She punches her keypads just to say

"I love you whichever way"

© Ifiokobong Etuk (KING of the QUILL)

MY CONTEMPLATIONS ON GOD AND MAN

1. 

THE DIVINE 

You see heaven gave us everything

And when it came to knowledge of itself,

It cursed us with a certain kind of ignorance

So blame not myself for my mortal contemplations.

My head has me thinking God is selfish

A narcissistic being so deeply involved with power and control

So much that he decides to share his glory with no one 

Yet in the end, our selfish God thought it kind enough

To leave the earth entirely for his creations. Is that not generous?

Golgotha still has a question mark hanging out on the old rugged cross.

I see two parties justifying their actions and calling each other bad.

To the jews, a man had been blasphemous and was meant to die

How well did man play God?

Yet to God, his son was sent to save mankind and pay the price by dying

How well did God play man?

We were told God allowed it happened. A simple case of "...God killed God"

And till now, the Trinity is yet to provide a name for the Golgotha story.

Murder or suicide?

Then man, in his constant cravings for everything good, played a role and called it salvation.

Speaking of which.

I was told never to question mysteries

So because of this, the Trinity basks in the euphoria of my ignorance

But since science has failed to explain this theory

And my humanity decides to be omni-inquisitive.

I think I'll need a piece of paradise to understand how three person made one

So in all my wishings, I crave for the Pentecost flame to rest on my temple

Maybe that way, I'll see things in a new light.

I have decided not to contemplate on miracles without understanding God first

What's understanding what God did without understanding God?

So until I understand who did what,

Let's just pretend to believe Water to wine, five loaves of bread and two fishes were all possible.

I contemplate because I seek to know

And,

In all my wishings, I crave for the Pentecost flame to rest on my temple

Maybe that way, I'll see things in a new light.

2.

WHO MAN'S? (HUMANS)

Since dogma forbids me from questioning the creator

I think I'll put my question marks on the creation

Maybe that way, I'll be free from the bliss my ignorance offers.

My fear is not in asking or getting answers either

Because I know people try to answer when asked

Yet they don't guarantee you'll like the answers.

Any difference from dogma?

Man answers from what he knows

And what he doesn't, he finds a way to get lost

Unlike dogma that knows all but answers some

Man doesn't know all, yet he answers all

Man claims to know all from the confidence of knowing little

Yet because he can't do without bliss

Ignorance sits on the crown of his finite knowledge.

In knowing,

I don't think man knows a thing.

We might be peacocking in science but we know nothing.

Yes! The plenary of people know absolutely nothing

How can you say you know of all and nothing of your beginning at all?

Genesis or Big bang? How unsure are we again as a race?

For peace, let's leave the beginning for the past

And talk about a common battle we fight differently

Evil. 

Genderless evil in every sense of it.

How does man see it?

Is it only evil to man because it wasn't done by him?

Or because it is what it is?

How does man know evil?

Oops! I forgot he knows nothing.

For the records

Man might end up being the only mystery that fails to understand himself.

What should I expect from something created out of the image of a mystery?

You tell me.

3.

CREDITS AND BLAMES

When we pray for rain, we also ask for flood

We give God the credit for the first

And say it's good

We gnash our teeth and curse the later

And say it's evil from the devil.

When we pray for long life, 

We are only asking for a delayed death

And if God grants one, he grants both.

So why do we say death is not of God?

We pray for sunshine, and heat is part of it

We thank the first for drying our clothes

And curse the later for making the earth burn our soles.

Such pettiness!

Why can't we be thankful for 

Rainfall and flood

Long life and death

Sunshine and scorched Earth

All at once?

If one being created nature

The credits and blames should be to him.

Should it not be so?

4

ON HOW MEN SEE GOD

Ask man to define God

And watch him talk and brag

About a flawless version of his being.

I think man's perception of God is rather narrow

What if there's more to God than the flawlessness?

What if perfection is not the only thing that defines God?

There most be more to the being of God

Than what perception man draws from his imaginations

There's no way the beauty of heaven will be just golden gates.

I don't fear God for the sake of it

God in his mysteries have taken the status of the unknown

And in all I've learnt

I've learnt to fear the unknown for it's unnumbered possibilities.

#my_contemplations_on_God_and_man

- Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

Which line(s) could you relate with?

5.

THANKSGIVING

We call God times more than we can count

For problems. For help. Whenever we can't get our hands around things

So basically, we're cry babies that can't move a finger without calling the father.

Oh! I almost forgot, we call to criticize him too

And we call to tell him he doesn't even exist.

Puny beings!

I think religion made it that way

"Call God whenever you need help and he'll be there"

It's written in the book of every religious basics

And paraphrased to attain some level of the same difference.

Then one part comes a little bit too late.

Thanksgiving!

How often do we call God to show some gratitude?

Spare me the trash of self-righteousness 

And tell me the last time you did some appreciation.

For the last gram of oxygen you swallowed

For the last second you just spent

For the last time the miracle of waking up happened

When was it?

Are you ever thankful?

Am I?

Are we?

?

#my_contemplations_on_God_and_man

- Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

Which line(s) could you relate with?

I BLESS THE DAY I FOUND YOU

I think the Telenovelas are good liars because our love story never started like any scenes they created. Or maybe they tell a little truth, because from what I see, we might be heading to happily ever after

Or are we just on a vacation to wonderland?

Whatever it is, I decided to hold on to every good thing the day I met you. I had stopped fighting for certain things; Fame. Happiness. Peace. Love. Because I believed every good thing would come. Just come! Just! And just like every good thing, you came.

Forgive me for being goofy but I think I can't remember what day it was. What I was doing. What the weather looked like or even what I wore. Everything has been dissolved in the waters of time except for how I felt. 

In the midst of my forgetfulness, I still cherish what I can't remember and leave what I can't hold in my head for my heart. Every day births new reasons to believe blessings still come and although I can't remember, I bless the day I found you.

Like the coming and going of sea waves,

Time and events have come and gone

Yet I still thank heaven for making the day we met.

- Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

"SIMPLE LUNACY"

The only man that knows the taste of poison lives in a cemetery and is sleeping under his own tombstone but unlike poison, same cannot be said about lunacy.

Don't be fooled, the world we live in follows the pattern of a certain form of lunacy that has been accepted and shared globally. It has been so widespread and humans have come to give this new cohabitation a name. The call it "the norm".

In the midst of this acceptable lunacy called norm, is always a rare occurrence of lunacy that gets incubated in the heart and ends up corrupting the mind with wild imaginations of soft kisses on heads on soft pillows owned by bodies under soft duvets.

The lunacy I talk about is always below ground level so your first verb to it will always be a fall.

Your first sense of this lunacy was sight. The day you saw doom in a manner that made you think we all lied about the devil. His dreamy eyes had blue tint and his hair was a thousand times better than the best quality of wool you could ever Imagine. His body was like that of the Hercules you read about in your classes of Greek mythology. Tall, fair and all shades of handsome in complexion and when he added a smile to the picture, damm! You had found the perfect prince charming for your lunatic story and if anyone told you he was Lucifer, you were willing to walk through hell with this creature.

The second sense of the lunacy was sound. You know the ears have great powers when it comes to the creation and paranoia and this is exactly what his "hey girl" did to you. In the eternity of a split second, you could testify even before God that you had heard the voice of one of his angels. 

Sad to say but your sixth sense came third in all this. She just like you was lost in the story you were writing in your head. You made your nights sleepless because your bed and pillows couldn't offer the comfort your imaginations did. You allowed him become a regular character in the screenplay of your dreams in the little pockets of time you couldn't cheat sleep. Slowly he was winning you over and by the time he had your sixth sense fully, all that was left out just needed a little calling to win over.

You lost your senses of smell, taste and touch under one moon visit. 

"A hand to hold 

A heart to love

A lip to kiss

A heaven to feel"

You only leaned in closer to smell what heaven felt like when it happened. You were still lost in the floral explosions your nose was getting from the gardens of Babylon when the taste came. You weren't ready for it but what's the point of declining something that tasted good when your tongue was telling you clearly that it wanted this and nothing else. Heaven sure tasted and smelt good, for once, you knew there was more to the lips and tongue than covering the mouth and saying words.

You couldn't think of the sweet things you had tasted before like chocolate, strawberry, cakes, sugar, honey, milk, and vanilla because none of them was a match for Lucifer's tongue and that's how you knew why lies were sweet and the truth was bitter. 

To crown it all, you needed to open the doors for him to find a way inside you and that was how the last sense came about. Touch. He touched you so well. First with his tongue and then with his third leg. You welcomed him into you with closed eyes, soft moan and a tight grip of the duvet and in he was to do wonders in your wetness and succulence.

Once in, he kept running in and out in a progressive rhythm. He did it so well that you didn't need words to tell you he had a mastery of what he was doing. You weren't ignorant either, you responded to every thrust with the right moaning note to match and for a good ride, you knew when to tighten and loosen the carriage way. Slowly and quiet gasping, then a little bit faster and a peaceful call for "harder", then a fast pace with closed eyes and a more soulful moan, then the fastest came last with you screaming in the euphoria of lunacy until you became a storm with gargantuan waves of orgasm slamming the doors of your womanhood and making it's walls quiver. This was heaven. You couldn't think otherwise as he gushed his liquid seedlings inside you. That night was weather for two.

To think that this lunacy you were living was forbidden was impossible. How could something so sweet be given such a bad tag? Truly you were convinced that when it came to this, ignorance was not bliss but missing out.

Then a time came when he played the endgame. Lucifer he was and Lucifer shall he remain. You only knew of the few beauty of hell and by the time you knew of the countless horror it held, your soul was lost already.

In the end of the story, you get to wail from a never ending pain and when asked about what love intertwined in lust meant, you only spit at your disgusting past and say it's simple lunacy. Such understatement!

© Ifiokobong Etuk

( KING of the QUILL )

Picture credit shutterstock.com

FOR MICHAEL JACKSON

Before I started loving boobs and pretty women,

A good number of my childhood fantasies revolved around the wonderful and creatively carved masterpieces of entertainment Michael Jackson was putting out right before me on the TV and radio sets.

MJ was one person I loved for many reasons. His voice, his dance moves and the huge achievements he was getting for his name in the course of his career.

There was never a time in my childhood I dared to skip a track from him no matter where I was rushing to. To every extent, I was and I'm still a fan of the King of Pop because his name alone used to be and is still a whole different form of entertainment.

I remember four year old me waking up and crying all night and pestering my parents to get me the type of shoe he wore to shoot his Billie Jean video. I mean that was how far the concept of him having every tile he stepped on illuminate. I wanted it so badly that my childhood reasoning didn't for once think it wasn't the shoe but the video production and I didn't stop until I got whipped.

Whenever I had control of the home entertainment set, I was either  watching cartoons or playing MJ and trying to mirror his moves and singing along at the same time and no matter how sad I was, the moment I heard or saw something from him be it a track, a snippet, a newspaper cutting, a video clip, an instrumental, just whatever, I was bound to get happy again.

I would talk MJ all the time, do my poor moonwalk and even try to act out the scenes from videos with my senior sister and yes, I  was gradually becoming a freak.

Actually, I was enjoying the MJ freak I was becoming until my dad took the African parenting step by cutting me off. Sad to tell, but a time came when I was banned from seeing MJ on TV and the only chance I had to hear from him was when his song was played on the radio. I had to watch with enough pain any heartbreak could cause as all his tapes and video CD we had of him sat comfortably in a carton on my dad's wardrobe and I didn't even have the power to touch them.

2008 and early 2009, the media was getting choked with news about my beloved MJ. This time, he wasn't having a mass airing of his song like he had for "Black and White" in 1995, he wasn't bombarding the world with another album, he wasn't winning eight Grammys in one night like he did in 1985, he wasn't having to appear in court for one of his numerous celebrity controversies, he wasn't doing the moonwalk at the Motown 25th anniversary performance, he wasn't recording a "we are the world" song with the other big names of the American music industry, he wasn't on another world tour that would get his hair on fire like it happened in the 1987 "Bad" tour in Japan, this time, he was fighting for his own life. 

I listened to every news story with fear and the agony of having your favorite celebrity in such a painful condition. It was either he was having to cancel a show due to health challenges or his doctor was telling the newsmen how bad his condition was getting.

The video clips of him appearing in public was nothing close to the same man that used to amaze the crowd on every stage. What I would see was a man that could barely even breathe having his security aids surround him and deep down, I wish they could protect him from what was coming.

I knew he wasn't going to get better but I couldn't even tell my self that. I never wanted to imagine a world without the King of Pop. It always felt like we were doomed if this legend went away.

25th of June 2009, I started hearing the rumors at school. A friend said he was dead, the other said he only fainted and the doctor was confused, another said that he died and resurrected after ten minutes. I bet you know how crazy these celebrity rumors get. Just so many things I never wanted to hear. 

The first thing I cared about at home was every from of the media I could find. Then the radio told me what I wanted to know but wasn't ready to hear. Michael Jackson, my beloved MJ, the King of Pop was gone. Damm!

"... American singer Michael Jackson died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication..."  was all the media could say.

It's been ten years already but his works are still making his name evergreen.

Gone but never forgotten. Rest in peace the King of Pop.

Michael Jackson

August 29 1958 - June 25 2009

© Ifiokobong Etuk

( KING of the QUILL

#NOTEPAD

PATIENCE IN GROWING

Growth is certain and we all know that. It's part of the characteristics of living things we all learnt back then at elementary school, MR. NIGER D remember?

Growing is fun and beautiful. I mean the idea of having to record improvements and success is something every human being and organization in the world wants to do. It's very human and natural for anyone to do what is necessary in order to move up to the next step or level in any field of endeavor. 

Growth is long process, it takes time and requires a lot of work as well as patience and this is what most people lack. Many people just can't wait to see themselves at the top.

In the quest for growth, impatience is one infirmity that leads to opposite results in most cases. Many people want to grow so fast beyond the natural Order of things only to end up failing and this my friend is not what you want to do.

Understanding that seeking growth impatiently is dangerous is something you need to do and always remain conscious of.

In whatever you're doing, the process of growth will always be tough and time draining. Sometimes, the time frame maybe shorter and sometimes it might be longer but no matter what, you must stay patient and positive enough to make sure you undergo the full process for the purpose of your well-being.

You don't have to be in a rush for any reason because every second in the growing process is important and should not be neglected for the purpose of trying to be hasty.

I know it's hard to wait patiently especially in a world where people grow in different time frames. There will be days you'll feel like you are not making any progress maybe because someone your supposed to be with is way ahead of you or because someone you're supposed to be ahead of is coming up to your level and your aren't moving at all. You shouldn't feel bad at times like this because every person belongs to a different time zone of growth and no two persons share the same time frame in growing.

Some situations are bound to make it nearly impossible to remain patient. This sometimes makes us to doubt the process and start believing a lie that says there are easier ways to acquire growth without having to follow the natural process. In the real sense, this is actually when you need to be patient the most.

In all your doings, always remember that growth will certainly come and all you need to do is to work and wait patiently. It's going to be hard. It's going to be tough. It has always been that way. If growing was an easy task, then people at the top would have never been celebrated. No one would have appreciated Mohammed Ali if reaching the peak of a boxing career was easy, nobody would have celebrated Chinua Achebe if writing African literature was not an uphill task, we wouldn't have accorded any respect to Michael Jackson if becoming the King of Pop was something anybody could do, the men and women we look up to today as icons wouldn't have had these titles added to their names if what they did was easy, it was not, and it will never be easy and that is why those who get there deserve to be celebrated.

We will all get to the top one day. I mean you and I because we sure have what it takes to get there. All we need to do is remain patient enough to work on ourselves and develop steadily. In essence, growing till the apex will take long, but we must wait.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

First published @FelieMac.com

#NOTEPAD

During one of my classes on Media Content Analysis, our lecturer brought up a question that would change our perception of the media forever.

"By the way, what is objectivity in the media?" He asked.

As 200 level students, we all tried to define the word "objectivity" according to what we had learnt in the previous level, what we had heard of somewhere and what our mobile phone dictionary could provide.

After taking enough contributions from the class and explaining the concept of objectivity to a crystal clear state, he asked a second question.

"Can you point out any media house that practices 100% objectivity or is it even achievable at all?" With that, the whole class went silent. Everyone thinking without any positive response.

From that lecture session till this very minute, I have had more that enough reasons to say that objectivity in the media is unattainable. Believe it or not.

No media house in this world of human existence can boast of 100% objectivity in all its daily reportage. Not even the BBC that serves as a model to many other top media firms in the world.

The truth is that even in the apex of professionalism, every media house will only show you what it wants you to see and never the whole story.

The media is controlled by humans and until humanity losses all its strings of subjectivity which is almost impossible, the media will never be fully objective.

Wether you think it's true or false, every media firm has a name, person, movement and propaganda it protects and promotes and for no reason will it publish what threatens to tarnish the image of what it protects. And guess what? Under the guise of "agenda setting" and "framing" this is termed as PROFESSIONAL.

What you hear, see and read everyday on your radio, television, newspaper and the Internet is not the true appearance of news but a well sculpted and polished version of the reality that has been tailored to fit for the promotion of the media firms ideology.

It is dangerous, toxic and unhealthy to swallow whatever you see on the media hook, line and sinker because you are most likely to end up with a distorted image of reality.

In all your doings, never trust ONE media source for all your information but always try as much as possible to confirm and verify what you are getting from the media through comparison and personal research.

This is just the simple complexity of reality.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

#NOTEPAD

.

I love childhood for many things

Fantasies are real and reality seems fake

You play with the world

And get serious with toys

But I hate childhood for a thing

In this fools paradise

A wrong kick 

Can burst the bubble of dreams

Never mind young lad

Play and play for all you care

Wear your happy face

And smile to the little wonders the world offers

Play and play for all you care

For God watches your young feet and soul

So every bubble you kick won't be killed dreams

But a burst of amazing surprises

That will add color

To your childhood story.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I've heard and read good stories, coupled with experience I've had every reason to say youth is fun. I love youth. It's the only time of your life where you get to enjoy the fools paradise of believing you can do anything. Of course you can but it's easier said than done.

You get to feel like a god. What's more? The crown of responsibility sits on your head and like you've always wanted as a child, you're in control.

Youthfulness is a very wonderful package. So much to make you happy. So much to make you laugh. So much to make you dance. All of these with every energy you'll need to experience and explore everything.

Enjoying youth is no crime at all. For all I know, there's not yet a prisoner that was convicted for that. 

Although slippery, speedy and snaky, the path of enjoying your youth is well defined and the ride is running at the speed of light.

Light is speed and like speed itself; every wrong turn, every wrong push, every wrong aim is a certain disaster and that's what you don't want.

Everyone keeps saying it. There's a thin line between enjoying youth and ruining life and you will never know when you've crossed it. It's just like dying in your sleep, you mistake the afterlife for a dream until it's too late.

I didn't write this because I'm a saint or because I'm done with my own ride or to sound like some hypocrite or something. I'm still riding too and I hope and pray I'll get to tell the story of my ride one day.

In the end. It might be two decades from now or more. It might be to my grandkids or students. It might be in a family dinner or a birthday. It might and it might never be but I pray it should and it should come with smiles and an exhausted to-do list. I hope you do too. Old age will be more fun than youth provided we ride well. Trust me.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

#NOTEPAD

After pornography, the next worst thing you can do to your mental health is having conversations with people who are dumb enough to believe that learning new things is a total taboo.

Believe these words or not, our world certainly has a fair share of these people and fate has distributed them so evenly that you'll always get to see one everyday.

Experience will tell you that every word these people say, every point they make in an argument and every opinion they share is never bare of toxicity. 

They carry a rare kind of toxicity that affects the most precious possession you could have as a human. Your mind.

Whatever it is, in all your doings, try not to engage in any exchange of ideas with these people because it will always prove to be a waste of valuable time, energy and brain power. Good morning and happy new week. 😊

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

JUSTICE FOR UWA: HOW FAR WE'VE COME WITH THE POLICE.

While America and a greater part of the world have been submerged in an aggressive online and offline protest against racism, the Nigerian narrative have also had the internet on fire over one of the most gruesome, appalling and horrendous malefactions to be committed against any person in God's green earth. Rape and murder.

Nigerians have had their social media timelines become an inferno of reactions, comments and protests sparked by the horrific rape and murder of 22-year-old Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, a microbiology student of the University of Benin. A hideous act of misdeed that took place at one of the Reedemed Christian Church of God branch in Benin city, a church where Uwa worshipped with her parents until her tragic demise.

News report had it that Uwa (as popularly called by friends and family) had left home on Wednesday May 27 for the church to read just like she had been doing before and ever since the initiation of the lockdown order in the country for very obvious reasons only to have her paths cross with that of the miscreants that had a wicked and violent nonconsensual carnal knowledge of her and sent her to her early grave. 

These men with nothing but evil intentions didn't just stop at raping her, they went ahead to attack her with a fire extinguisher making her sustain serious injuries. Three days later, Uwa died in a hospital and the news of her death have given the Nigerian social media space an offline gist communities a shock they are yet to recover from.

The news of Uwa's death was received by numerous reactions from Nigerians calling out to the appropriate law enforcement agencies to swing into action and make sure the culprits were made to face the law. 

One of the first of these effects was the trending of the hashtag #JusticeForUwa on social media. A trend of had numerous of Nigerian top celebrities condemning the totality of rape as a crime, calling out for justice for the deceased, and also sympathizing with the family of the victim.

Sooner than later, Nigerians got a reassuring message from the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu who through his spokesperson, Frank Mba issued a statement on Monday vowing "that the force will surely bring the perpetrators of the callous act to book in the shortest possible time.” 

The IG also begged Nigerians to remain calm even though it was difficult to due to the extreme emotions Uwa's death evoked.

The statement also informed the public that the IG had drafted investigation aids and forensic support to Edo state all in an effort to ensure the Uwa's killers were stripped of their present anonymity and made to face the punishment for rape and murder as provided by the Constitution.

Yesterday, a report that confirmed progress in the tracking and arresting of Uwa's killers surfaced on the internet. Nigerians were given yet another reason to believe the police were actually doing something when news came that one of the suspects was identified, tracked and arrested.

The development was made known to the eager public through a statement from the spokesman of Edo Police Command, Chidi Nwabuzor.

Nwabuzor claimed the suspect was identfied through the fingerprints that were left on the fire extinguisher which is the murder weapon that was used against Uwa.

A lot of Nigerians including myself are hoping and praying that Uwa's case doesn't get swept under the carpet like others that were before now and until this moment, the Nigerian Police Force have been doing the opposite.

Almost all hopes have been on the competence of the NPF despite the recent happenings like police brutality and killing of innocent civilians by trigger happy policemen that have created a bad image of the force.

The Nigerian Police Force sure has its own weakness and the public is clearly aware of that but no matter what, Uwa's murderers must be brought to book and the NPF must give it their best shot and nothing else.

After putting up this post, I'll join the rest of Nigerians on the internet in tracking the latest development of this story and others. For judging wether or not the NPF is equal to the task of solving Uwa's rape and murder and also the other numerous rape cases that have been troubling the internet lately, I will try not to.

Rape and murder are crimes and Uwa deserves justice even in death. It will surely come because it's the only thing we can hope for at a time like this.

Uwa will get justice. 

I hope

I believe

I know.

May your soul find rest, Uwa.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

Kingofthequill.blogspot.com

For those of you that justify rape, don't come near this post else, the social media principle of Tiger generator will be your portion.

MY CHILD

The moon was smiling at Grandpa's homestead

I could hear my clansmen pounding the leather drums

Crickets chirping and owls hooting

This was the African night I longed for.

Grandpa laid asleep

His face up, while his back faced the earth

He was among the fallen heroes of the Hamlet

Sleeping six feet below a pile of sand.

Grandma sat on a wooden stool

Chewing on her youthful days 

As she munched her chewing stick

Her eyes staring into the future as she thought about the past.

My child! She called out

Come sit close to me

Under the luxury of this moonlit night

Let me tell you a story

A story with which I'll write history

On the clean slate of your childhood memory

Let me tell you what my father told me

About his father and the fathers that were before him.

Once, your ancestors were giants

Men that wrestled with leopards and lions

Men that fought with tigers for tribes

These men carved the ivory mask of Benin

They made the furnace that fired the terracotta

They carved the Calabar statues with elongated arms

They danced to the tune of the Tom-tom and Kakaki

They lived the written literature of Moremi, Mutanda and more.

Your ancestors were great men

Their braveness the height of the Kilimanjaro

Their love for one another flowing like the Nile

Their strength like the raffia ropes of Ikot Ekpene

Their African spirit was wild fire in the harmattan

But like your grandpa,

They died forgotten as their red caps lost its colours

The day they died, 

The African spirit fell asleep

What killed the African spirit 

Was the question my innocent childhood lips could mutter

Change!

The white change

As the church bell rang from afar.

Grandma pointed at the crucifix

There lies the reason

That cathedral sent the African spirit to sleep

It made us cast away our sack cloth and follow the cotton cassock

We lost our fathers because a man came to teach us how to say our father.

And like sheep, we ate the wheat and weed from the pastures of the pulpit

And till today, like sheep, we obey the shepherd and not the master.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)