LINES AND VERSES

It is 02:20 in the morning; I have just woken to the sounds of crickets in an eerie atmosphere. Beyond the light from my apartment, is darkness – total darkness, it leaves you with a feeling that you are being watched, or lurked around. FEAR – you see, it is not these things I could see in my room, I mean these I am familiar with, that give me the chill, but the ones beyond my walls. Those ones that lie only in my imagination, those I cannot touch, those I do not know. In life what scares us the most are not those things that are in the known. Our biggest fears often work into our psyche and become the greatest hindrance of a lifetime – our choices, our hopes, our joy marred by things that more often than not will never come to pass. The biggest burdens most of us carry in life are not our troubles, or the real challenges of life, but the boulder of fear we laden our shoulders with. They turn trouble into nightmare and challenges into dilemma. We are imaginative beings, always ...

It was an early March afternoon; the sun scowled at the earth from a cloudless sky, and all the cashew ghosts were on the prowl. Down the valley, where the plantation adjoins the cemetery, Cletus, Manga and Ibru crept through the hedge into the plantation, on the no-man’s-land beyond the town. They have been friends from birth, all born in the same week, live in the same compound, of three competing couples. Except they were of different parents, they would pass for a triplet. At fifteen they should be in school but weren’t. “I am scared,” Cletus muttered, his eyes darting nervously. They weren’t supposed to talk loud or they’d provoke the ghosts. “Me too,” concurred Ibru who cowered in-between his friends for his own protection. Manga held a rather resolute face while he kept his trembling fists from his friends’ view. It was his idea that they come to the haunted plantation, he should, at least, show a semblance of courage. As far as the eye could see, red and yellow juicy f...

Someday, may be, we all get to realize that we are not in control of our very life, or destiny. We may be in charge of our daily activities, grant or hold back our consent, and even decide what shape our body takes or what not to do, where not to go. But, ultimately, the general direction to our purpose on earth can best be seen beyond the human grasp. One night a young man conceives a big idea, and when the morning comes he sets out to realize that vision. He breaks through every barrier and surmounts all oppositions, and finally he reaches his destination. His personal purpose may be to arrive at a point ‘A’ and he does, but soon he realizes that arriving at that point is only a beginning of an even greater mission, or a mere lesson of a decision never to have been made. At times, other peoples’ interests are to be advanced by what may have been selfish at the onset. There are times when we reluctantly take on a course in life, we search for reasons not to go on, and we fight eve...

Like the river runs to the sea In frantic disregards Awakening the earth, weakening the strong - Possessing. These faces we see, This race we run, This grace, all surrenders to time On the way to eternity. - J.Ifeme