Originally Posted by buda atum

An Egg A Day Keeps the Demon Away!

“Why don’t you ever do as you are told”, ma asked.

“Oops, I did it again”, I thought. Ma had found me with another book!

I had taken to reading ever since ma taught me to with her wonder working once in a lifetime reading lesson, which she was going to become famous for years later. She’d been told I was stupid, and was unable to learn at the school she’d enrolled me in when we first got to Nigeria, so she had taken to her koboko and ‘taught’ me to read. “A for ap”, whack! “For ap”, whack! The koboko landing, on my head whenever I hesitated. No way was ma going to allow me to “burn her money”, as she called it.

“Read!” she’d yelled, koboko landing yet again on my head. “A is for a-p-pipili”, I’d stuttered through my snivels, tears running down my face, till eventually, the koboko, or the fear of it, made me realise that the letters A-P-P-L-E meant a goddamned apple – the picture of which stood right above the letters I was trying to read! It didn’t’ take long for me to realise the words made by the letter always described the pictures above it: B was for ball, C for cat, D for dog, E for elephant, and so on. And that was it, I’d cracked it! I could read.

I had gone on to read anything I could lay my hands on, even foreign languages that meant nothing to me, or rather, that I could not understand. My hunger for books to read was not to her delight though. She wasn’t one to buy school textbooks for any of us till the school year was gone when she could get them cheap. This meant I was always behind everyone at school. I guess having to spread whatever money there was between my books and those of my four sisters explains the delay in my getting any. Besides, in a tussle between paying our school fees, and buying books, it had to be one or the other, and it wasn’t as if she had da around to help out or nothing!

My love for reading turned me into something of a thief. I would steal books from my mates at school, or steal ma’s money to buy second hand one’s from a little bookshop in Ikeja. I’d worked out a deal whereby I could return two books and pay half price for a new one, which considerably increased my purchasing power. I was eventually going to get an even better deal where I’d bring back one book in pristine condition, and get a new one for half price. But there was a problem. Ma wanted me reading schoolbooks, textbooks to be specific. I was more interested in a good old James Hadley Chase, or any other fiction I could get my hands on. Looking back, it was probably the picture of a semi nude woman on the cover that provoked her; though in reality, it didn’t matter if it was a Chase or a Dickens – if it wasn’t school prescribed, it was out! She’d resorted to searching my bag when I got back from school looking for ‘banned books’. So I had resorted to smuggling the books into the house without her knowing. This I did by getting it into the bathroom through the bathroom window, and smuggling it from there in my pants into my room. I daren’t put on the light in the room to read. I’d wait till night when everyone was asleep, and read by sticking the book out the window where I could see it with light from next door. Thankfully next door had an electric generator, so I could always see.

This particular day, ma had searched my school bag, but hadn’t found any book. She’d later caught me coming out the bathroom in the evening with a bulge in my pants. She’d asked what I had in there, and I’d lied, “nothing”. Ma made me pull down my trousers, and there, surely, was a brand new James Hadley Chase, The Wary Transgressor that I had picked up at the shop earlier that day! I had transgressed all right, standing there with my trousers half down my legs, and a semi nude woman sticking glaringly out at ma from the cover of the Chase I had in my pants! “I am going to clean this disobedience out of your head once and for all”, said ma, very angrily indeed. I was to get ready that weekend, we were going somewhere - to the cleaners, I reckoned.

Last time we had gone “somewhere” to clean my head of my “disobedience”, I had ended up in some grungy place, where some stupid man had washed my body down with black jujued soap. He’d claimed the black sea shell he had in his hand afterwards was the stubbornness that had been planted inside my head. He’d been able to wash it out with he’s soap, but there was loads more in there. In his opinion, some evil person - probably from my father’s side of the family, he’d said - had wanted to the family harm. But not being able to get to the “other, well protected members of the family”, they had chosen me! Of course, it would end in me dying if ma didn’t do something soon, at a cost, he had warned. But I had ridiculed ma so much in the days after that she been ashamed to take me back there for more. Now however, it seemed she’d found a more acceptable alternative for the cleansing of the demon in me, so to speak.

We walked down to Oshofa’s home in Ketu close to where we lived. Oshofa is - or rather, was, he’s been dead a while now - the founding father of the Celestial Church Of Christ. It was claimed he could perform miracles, and, well, it seemed I sure needed one. We arrived in a huge hall, where a woli, a prophet, asked us to shut our eyes and focus on the throne-like seat that Oshofa would be sitting on. I, as usual, with my over active mind, decided I had to keep my eyes open, after all, “how could I watch the throne with shut eyes; stupid!” I’d muttered under my breath. Seemed the woli heard me, the killing look he gave me!

He prayed, for a long time indeed. When he was done, he told all of us sitting, waiting, that while we prayed, the chair had swiveled round and around and stood on its legs! I of course hadn’t seen anything of the type, and scoffed loudly at his seeing things. The woli looked at me with his deadly eyes, and then Oshofa came in and sat on the throne.

We were first in line, so got up to meet him when he called us over. Oshofa looked at me and told the waiting crowd not to believe in false prophets. My eyes softened from the scorn that it held as I looked back at his gentle eyes. He asked me how old I was and I answered, “12”. He turned to ma for the first time and asked her what the matter was.

I didn’t listen much to what ma said as I’d heard it many times before; “my son doesn’t listen to me, my son is disobedient, my son is a thief, my son reads books with pictures of naked women on the cover, my son this, my son that”, but I remember full well what Oshofa said in return.

He told us a parable of a man who had a fruit tree at the back of his garden. He said the man was tired of the fruit tree because it produced no fruit. The man would have chopped it down except that it provided shade from the hot sun – the man was wont to sit in this shade in the evenings, where he’d usually fall asleep waking up refreshed. Oshofa said, one day the man decided that he would appreciate the tree for the shade that it did provide rather than bother that it didn’t give any fruit - after all, “it was a rather enjoyable tree to sit under”, he reckoned. So he cleared the base of the tree to make it an even more enjoyable place to sit, and he watered it more regularly, and got himself a more comfortable seat to sit on.

Oshofa said ma should buy 31 eggs and cook one for me each day for a month. He also gave her a gallon of water, which he’d prayed on, telling her the two of us should drink a cup together, everyday, for a month. He said the after a little while, flowers blossomed on the man’s tree, and it produced fruit; and what nice juicy fruits they were. He then placed his hand on both mine and ma’s head and prayed, and we left.

There were nine of us living at home at the time - steppy and ma, my four sisters, my cousin, steppy’s son, and I. We usually had eggs for Sunday breakfast, all nine of us sharing 4 or 5 eggs. Now I was to have one whole egg to myself everyday for a whole month! You perhaps can imagine my glee, and my apprehension! Ma would never give me a whole egg everyday, I thought, but was I wrong, somewhat! She gave me one everyday for the next 7, and then shared the rest with the whole family and that was it. The water? Seems we kind of forgot about it as soon as we returned home.

Ma went on searching my bag, ripping up any book she caught me with. I went on stealing her money to buy more James Hadley Chase with the semi nude woman on the front. I became more adept too at smuggling them into the house. And I continued reading them with the light from the generator of the neighbour. I read 120 of those books, records of which I still have. I also read Dickens, and any other books I could lay my hands on. And yes I guess I am still stubborn.

Ma and I, we get on like a house on fire now! We look back on those days, and laugh about it all. She too loves reading now, so I’m always getting her books. We collect books in London for the library in the Orolu Kingdom, and work together getting them there. She tells people in the Kingdom to read or they would never get anywhere in life. “Look at me”, she ends, whenever she gives her motivational speech, “I got far, didn’t I?” O! She doesn’t mean me of course, I suppose, she means her delightful self. But I cannot help agreeing that she is the most wonderful ma ever!

Originally Posted by bluestocking

Buda when are you publishing this? Your stories give me a sense of nostalgia, even though i couldnt have been born when they happened, if they did happen.

Keep doing what you're doing, i love them.

Originally Posted by Obariba

Wordless understanding-

A perception, sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious wordless understanding; and by this understanding will you awake to the truth of Zen.
-Huang Po

Originally Posted by buda atum

I just figured I'd tell you; those NIA peoples have fallen off the wall, again, this time, they forgot the ! All the Queen's men, and all the Queen's horses are putting them back together again!

Seems some o' them just can't sit still: 'splat!', thats how they went, a big fat spalt!

You might know them when you see them; though come to think of it, you might come across bits of them only, and not recognise them - they really scattered when they fell off that wall! I'd say call the Queens men if nothings suspicious! They'll come sort them out, and hopefully, put them back together again!

Happy Sabbath

Originally Posted by bluestocking

Bravo! Buda!

Originally Posted by buda atum