LINES AND VERSES

I don’t hate Gecko. How could I? I mean, God must have spent quite some heavenly time to mold and breathe on that one, too. But waking up every morning to find that creepy, lazy troll on the wall by my head is just too much for me. It stirs up nightmare, you know?  No wonder I often found myself in some nondescript desert, trapped in this particular nightly sight in which this odious skeletal figure in turban chased me with a long dagger dripping with blood, I think, screaming, “I want brood! Gimme brood!” And, I running like I’ve got two bags of cement tied to my thighs. I have never had the gut to stand and ask why it needed the blood, and particularly mine. Call that fear if you will. I’m only human. Besides, I hear fear is a more permanent human emotion than courage. And courage hasn’t ever existed where there isn’t fear.    Having fled the religious chaos of Kaduna city with nothing but the clothes on my back and a bag of letters I was to delive...

I grew up in a small town where men still hoe the land and carry their burden on their head and back. I was once a king; a king to my kind. Though we were all owned; I ruled, just like my father before me. I am a descendant of the great Kwa, of the Kwa-dynasty. My name is Kwa-kio. I was one king with the largest brood in the whole of birdkind. I had the most beautiful hens. If not for mankind, I would rule the world. At least that was what I thought; all I know now are faded dreams and stale memories of passions, of freedom, as I await the wrath of the human knife. The human knife: How would it feel? My friend Kuk has just been murdered. Though he was my friend for only two sunrises, it felt like I had known him all of my life. I witnessed his head being separated from his body. The cannibals, devour of the highest order, they had the sense of indecency, among other things, to let me watch as they sliced his innocent throat. I still remember his last words; run, Kio run! And the...