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The story i never told( currently working on this, a short story.. Try this fellas, )

The first day Mama slapped me was the day I lost a tooth. It didn’t grow back because I was sixteen and Papa said that a permanent tooth never grew back. In a way it was good because I had open teeth and at least I was better than Papa who had lost three of his tooth as a result of Mama’s wonder slap. Papa had told me that Mama’s hands were made of iron just like that of Mama Okey(the heavy weight champion in the compound), I remember him whispering it into my ears to avoid Mama’s fat ears from hearing it and uprooting the remaining teeth he had. Every morning I woke up with a different kind of illness usually as a result of the mosquitoes that bit me. It started about a year ago when Mama sent Papa and me into the small living room, saying that we would be sleeping there permanently. She boasted that she was the only one who was qualified to sleep in the bedroom. I kept wondering what made her qualified. Papa didn’t argue, he had stopped arguing with Mama since he lost his job as a banker. Now I helped Mama in selling beans and other food stuffs. I had told Papa to join us in selling food stuffs at Ariaria market but he smiled. Sometimes I pitied Papa just the way I pitied Aba, the nasty city we dwelled in. if Nigeria ever needed a perfect refugee camp, Aba would definitely serve better than any other place. Every morning, Mama yells at Papa, “jobless man, itiboribo! Go and make your life useful.” I would just stare at them both. I pity Papa the more because Mama had made him look like a nobody. Mama wasn’t like that few years ago when we lived at Okigwe road in an ancient-looking storey building that had cracks as though it would fall at any minute. Mama called Papa ‘sweetheart’ then but now she addressed him as Papa Ikenna. I remember the day I became scared of Mama, the day I started worshipping her like a god. That was the morning she threw Mama Okey on the floor and blinded her eyes. Mama Okey’s cheeks got swollen and looked like big balloons, and when the other neighbors helped her get on her feet, she then resembled Okonkwo, the blind mad man that lives on the street. It was just a little quarrel that started the fight or perhaps Mama Okey had long wanted to teach Mama a lesson. I could still remember everything vividly. I remember the way we stood in line that morning waiting for Mrs. Iyawo to come out of the bathroom, the terrible looking bathroom that I couldn’t spend more than a minute in. But Mrs. Iyawo spent hours; it was as though she was dead in there. Angry neighbors kept shouting, ”Iyawo are you giving birth, come out before we dismantle you in there!” Mama talked less, perhaps she was upset. She only talked when she was happy, but acts when she gets angry. I remember the way Mama Okey splashed a bucket of dirty water on Iyawo, the way our neighbors threw her on the ground almost stripping her naked as she finally came out of the bathroom. That was the first time I saw a woman’s breast in my entire life apart from the ones I had watched on TV. I remember Mama waking majestically into the bathroom as though she owned it, even though she was the fifteenth person standing in line. Nobody had stopped her except for Mama Okey and after defeating Mama Okey that day; she rubbed Mama Okey’s blood in her fingers and wrote on the wall close to the bathroom: 18th July 2005. That was to mark the day she won the title of the heavy weight champion in the compound.
Papa hardly talked at home; now he begs me even before he sends me on an errand. Things changed after he lost his job, everything changed. The first day Mama had beaten Papa up was on a Monday morning. Papa and I lay on the floor in the living room; he was talking about removing the pile of books and the twenty-year old table from the living room. He boasted a lot about the table in the past, telling me how he had used it since his secondary school till date. That was the same table Mama used on his head, shattering it to pieces. I thought I saw tears in Papa’s eyes that morning, perhaps Papa fought like a woman or maybe Mama was something else, definitely not a woman. I had asked Papa what the quarrel was all about and he said softly, “just because of five hundred naira I took.” I wanted to laugh, laugh madly like we do in school when a student wears the back of his shirt or when a teacher wears a ‘jump-up trouser.’ But I didn’t, maybe because I still respected him. Papa was fond of opening Mama’s purse lately. Of course he couldn’t ask her for money because he would regret ever doing so. It was poverty; poverty makes a man’s life a living hell.
I stopped attending living word academy about two years ago when Papa lost his job. Mama said I had to start selling sachet water in the street but Papa said a big NO! That was the day Papa lost a tooth. The slap had sent him to the ground after he staggered like a drunkard to the floor. I thought women were supposed to be the weaker sex? What happened in Mama’s case, I pondered. After much thought, Mama sent me to golf course secondary school to complete my o level. Years ago when things were better, Mama was different. She was even an usher in the Redeemed Christian church we worshipped. “You are welcome in Jesus name,” she would say with courtesy and take you to a vacant seat in front. Most people didn’t like staying in front, I never knew the reason why but nobody ever refused Mama. Mama would come to me in the night and cover me with a blanket. Sometimes she would ask, “Ike, are you hungry?” and I would nod my head smiling within myself. But now, she had written down days when we would observe fasting and prayer. Papa would be in charge and she would sit on a stool watching the both of us. My head would ache and my stomach kept murmuring.  Two days would pass without food and yet I would see her eating garri and egusi soup at Mama Dera’s place. I had seen her through the window, talking, laughing and eating. It didn’t take much time for me to find my own hiding spot, at Ikechukwu’s house, where I ate rice every day. I remember when Mama made it three days without food, I saw Papa at Ikechukwu’s place. I wasn’t shocked; I just walked quietly and sat on a sofa, waiting for my own meal.
Finally, Papa got a job or at least he told me that he had found a job. I was happy, and I danced a bit. After a few days, Papa came home with a bicycle and when I asked him, he said it was for the job. He disappeared the next day taking the bicycle along. I found out later that Papa’s new job was to sell ice creams, carrying it from schools to market places and then back to schools. I told Mama about it and she smiled. She did nothing about it nor did she utter a word. I thought she was going to search for Papa and then break the bicycle with her fat hands but she didn’t. After a week, Mama asked him about his new business.
“Dede, how is business going,” Mama spoke in igbo. Papa stared at her with a blank expression on his face. He acted like a frightened schoolboy asked to speak at a morning assembly.
“We thank God,” he replied and then left the house.
After some weeks, Papa drove into the compound with a bus. He came with a lanky young man who was dark skinned with an uncombed hair that tightened into kinky balls. I later found out that the young man was his conductor. Papa had begun a different kind of business. He always came back with two loaves of bread at night. We ate one at night and the other in the morning. Mama didn’t eat with us, maybe because Papa stopped eating her food. He was now able to fend for himself. I had told Papa that I wanted to join him in the transportation business but he refused and insisted that I finished school. The next day he took me to school with the bus. Everyone stared at me, an intense gaze that made me inspect my blue t-shirt to make sure I wasn’t wearing the back. I felt like a celebrity. One of my classmates had asked me if the bus was Papa’s own and I quickly said yes. That same day was the day I talked to Judith, one of my classmates in school. We always looked at each other but I never had the courage to approach her probably because my friends told me that my clothes were worn out and that it smelled like ice fish. They all nick-named me ice fish after that day. But the day Papa took me to school was different, perhaps because I was different. Papa bought me new clothes and an okirika sandal, the sandal he told me that my great grand children would also wear in future. That day, I mustered courage to approach Judith. She had pretty dark eyes set upon high cheek boned face with fat buttocks like that of Mama. We talked quietly and I found out that she was easy going. I invited her home after school on a Friday, perhaps that was the biggest mistake I had I ever made. Mama was at the shop and Papa was definitely busy with his new job. Judith followed me and we came into the house. We came in and she sat on the bed immediately. I wanted to tell her that the living room was my bedroom and that we were standing on a holy ground, a room that is out of bounds for Papa and me, but I let her stay. An old-looking white bra and black panties sat on the bed beside Judith. I removed them quickly, flinging them to no direction in particular.
“Your house is beautiful,” she said with a smile. My jaw clenched hard. Was she mocking me or was she even serious? I imagined how her house would look if she was actually serious considering how terrible my house was.
“Thanks,” I replied smiling.
“Am sweating o,” she said and then unbuttoned her black blouse revealing her ample breast clad in a black lacy bra. My lips became watery and I imagined how her nipples would look like, whether they were pointy like that of Mrs. Iyawo. Suddenly, Mama barged in. I felt like I had seen a ghost, my mouth flopped open, my eyes expanded. Mama starred at Judith and then looked at me with an expressionless face. My pulse throbbed in my temples; I wanted to explain to Mama, I wanted to tell her that nothing happened between Judith and me, but I stood speechless. Mama searched for something in her bag, something that had made her leave her shop. I gesticulated to Judith that she should leave and she stood up walking close to me.
“But why?” she asked.
“Just go, now!” I shouted and then she left. Mama turned and gazed at her under wears on the floor, shaking her head. She left few minutes later without saying a word.

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A romantic short story(visit smashwords. Com for the complete story)

Late Night Rendezvous
I crossed the conference room making a
beeline directly for him. I had sat in my
seat during his entire presentation
getting wetter by the moment watching
him walk around and discuss the latest
financial forecast for the company. I sat
in the second row gazing at him during
the entire presentation, watching him
walk slowly back and forth in his dark
blue pin striped suit with his white shirt
and perfectly paired tie. He looked like a
typical upper management type, with his
short trimmed hair and the glasses that
sat across the bridge of his nose making
him look not only intelligent but gave
him a hint of being a nerd and that I
loved. He was tall well over six feet
probably closer to six foot five inches.
He was at least 10 inches taller than my
own five foot seven inches. I saw him
talking with one of my co-workers and
hung back a little waiting for them to
finish up. As he glanced up from his
conversation with her, he saw me
standing there and gave me a quick
wink. Looking back at her, he smiled a
row of beautiful white teeth and a
dimple in his right cheek. My eyes swept
over his tanned face with his
pronounced brow, up to his dark blond
trimmed hair, back down to his deep
blue eyes hidden behind his square
framed glasses. He was attractive in a
different way, he did not have the
rugged good looks or the pretty-boy
look either, he was just an intelligent,
handsome man. My gaze traveled down
his body taking in his slightly muscular
chest, he was fit but not overly
muscular as some men get that spend
hours in the gym, he had more of a
strong toned look to his tall slim build.
He had very long legs that came up well
past my waist, given his tall stature this
was not a surprise.

ROSES (a short story) by me

I hate my life; I have always hated everything about life. I hate when I hear them screaming in tears because death had come knocking at the door. They cry aloud because they would never see Dr Jude again. Mama had even wanted to commit suicide but that was two years ago. Now she had forgotten about Papa’s death and had moved on with her boring life. I have never been obsessed about power or politics, I like keeping things simple. In this miserable life of mine, I had learnt that everything is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. About three years ago, I didn’t feel exactly the same way. I enjoyed life because Papa always said that life was short and that one had to enjoy every minute of it. He had died on top of a woman at Terminus hotel, what a shame! The news was all over the city; of course nothing could be hidden in Aba as long as it had happened here. I remember the first time I stole a piece of meat from Mama’s pot of egusi soup, oga Ekene, the carpenter that lives few blocks away from us had asked me how many meats I had stolen. He had asked me with a mean expression on his face as though he had never stolen a coin before. At least I knew of his colleague, Sir James, who stole meat from his wife’s pot of soup. Sandra popularly known as ‘James bond’ would never give him a piece meat except on Sundays. I ate meat every day, Papa made sure of it. At least that was since we packed into our new house, a duplex. Now I was in the verandah, looking down on the dirty street where Papa had built this mansion. I wondered how the big cities like New York and Washington would look like compared to Aba. Definitely that would be a senseless comparison. Paul, a classmate of mine had boasted about travelling out. He said that cars rode in the air not on land like ours. He told us that all the houses there were touching the sky; one could comfortably climb into heaven if he pleased. Paul had brainwashed our heads, at least I know better now because am twenty eight. Mama told me of recent that I was due for marriage. She talked often about the olden days, “in those days,” she would start and then she would explain how women got married at the age of thirteen and men at seventeen. But she didn’t get married at the age of thirteen, her excuse being that she wanted to get married to a doctor and it took years for her to find Papa. I had smiled when she told me that, so if every woman gets married to a doctor, who gets to marry the carpenters and bus drivers? Mama kept saying I was getting old even at my age. Then I thought about Obinna, a friend of mine, who was still single at the age of forty. He told me he had to own a nice car and build a fine house before thinking about women. “A woman is a liability,” he would say. Yet he slept all through the day, he didn’t even know when a customer would come and then pass his shop and move to the next to repair his shoes. How could he buy a car or build a house when he was just a cobbler. Mama had told him to join her in her sewing business, stressing that it was more profitable than repairing foot wears but he paid deaf ears.
I am tired of living. I wish I could just go to sleep and never wake up. Even after Papa’s death, more deaths came. It is painful knowing that you keep losing your loved ones one after the other until finally you are left alone and then you still join your ancestors later on. I had watched Mama cry a couple of times, rolling over the floor and tearing her dress. She cried like a baby, like a baby who had been denied breast milk. Perhaps all women cried the same way or maybe hers was a special case. Papa told me that men never cried. He said that it was an abomination for a man to cry. I watched him that morning, five years ago when he heard about the death of his father. His eyes were red but his face was firm as he clenched his jaws and tightened his fist. Mama had wept helplessly in a manner I thought her eye balls would have fallen off from their sockets. Perhaps Mama was always like that, even as of last two years, the same year I lost Papa when she came for my graduation. She cried, at least I had seen tears streaming down her eyes and that had gotten me upset. I was a graduate with a bachelor degree in micro biology yet she cried and then she told me later that they were tears of joy. Mama cried a lot and sometimes I question her age as the only son. I stopped her from watching the news about a week ago when she cried about the bombings at Kano by the boko haram insurgents. It wasn’t really that day I had gotten pissed off. It was just a day after when she had woken me up from my sleep weeping and rolling on the floor because she heard a rumor, a rumor about the Ebola disease that had spread to Nigeria but it hadn’t spread to Aba. She wept because a friend of hers had told her that the deadly disease had spread to Aba and that we were no longer safe.”Daniel, we should sell the duplex and go to the village,” she said that morning. How easy it was for her to make such a decision. Papa would have given her a hot slap if he were still alive. The usual dose that keeps her head in other and seals her lips for good. Papa was a strong man, and stubborn too. Maybe I got the stubbornness from him or perhaps I got everything from him. I got the looks and the charisma too from him. There was no resemblance between Mama and me, and I had always doubted the fact that she was my mother. Few days ago, Mama had brought Nneka from the village, a lady she wanted me to marry. I remember the disgust I felt the first day I had seen her. Her stature had reminded me of a girl I had seen on the roadside, the girl who was suffering from kwashiorkor and had approached me in my Toyota Camry begging me for some money. Maybe Mama brought her for me because I had told her that I liked women with fat buttocks. Perhaps I should have told her more, at least she shouldn’t be hungry looking with eyes that kept moving left and right like that of a professional criminal. In spite my hatred for Nneka, Mama still let her stay with us. Mama was always bossy and that was the part that always started quarrels between Papa and her. She picked Papa’s calls and read through every new text that Papa got. No wonder Papa had gone out to seek for greener pastures. I would have cheated too if I were in Papa’s shoes. Sometimes I asked Papa, “How did you even get to marry such a woman?” he would smile and then tell me that it’s a long story. The usual phras for any story or event he didn’t want to talk about.
Nneka was always trying to please me, to make me happy. But love is a thing of the mind. She got a bouquet of rose flowers for me some weeks ago and I rejected them. Mama loved them or maybe saw something in them. Nneka now gets those rose flowers for her every week. I had asked her what she used them for and she replied smiling, it’s a long story. I sighed gravely. It didn’t matter to me; nothing she had ever done had mattered to me. But of course she was still my mother.
Three days ago, I had experienced love at first sight. Maybe my heart was just playing tricks on me but I don’t really know. Nneka had come home with her best friend, Angel. She introduced me to her as her future husband. While she went on with introduction, I stared deeply into her eyes; Angel was also staring at me. We were so into each other and it felt as though I had known her for a long time. Her eyes were sexy and boldly lined in black; her skin was smooth as silk. Her lips were red and roundish like a tomato fruit. Of course she had the height and probably everything any man would have wanted in a woman. I felt as though I was drowning until Nneka had touched me with those rough hands like that of a brick layer. I shuddered and then she pulled Angel away from me. I waited until Nneka went into the kitchen to help Mama prepare lunch. Then I sat on the couch opposite hers. There was something about Angel, it was so different. When I looked into her eyes again, my entire body trembled like it was an electric shock. I imagined those subtle lips on mine; I would definitely melt into heaven. I just stared at her, speechless or perhaps words alone wouldn’t have been enough to express my feelings. It was embarrassing because I had stared at her for over ten minutes without saying a word.
“You are making me uncomfortable,” she said with a soft voice. The kind of voice that would make a man give a lady his entire life savings.
“You look like a rose flower,” I blurted out. Probably the actual words seemed to have left me or maybe they hung in my throat. Nneka disrupted our conversation as she walked in beckoning Angel to come and join them in the kitchen. Nneka was an enemy of progress, the kind of woman that would take a man from ‘hero to zero.’ I remember that day I had seen her for the first time, I lost a job interview in a company that had assured me of the job. The manager looked at me disgustingly and told me to leave his office. I remember blaming Nneka for that loss.
The next day, Angel came alone. She forgot a project she was working on. She left it on the couch. I knew she was a final year student because I had seen the title of the project and the university. It was the same place I had studied, and at university of Ibadan, only final year students did that project. Angel saw me reading through it as she walked in; the project left my palms and landed on the floor. I smiled picking it up
“I figured this would be yours, so I kept it,” I said quickly.
“Thanks,” she replied casually and then collected it from my hands. “I will be on my way,” she added.
“Don’t go yet please, I have a surprise for you,” I said with a cracking voice. To my surprise she stayed. I was a boring person; at least my friends always told me that. There wasn’t really a surprise but I had collected a rose flower from the bouquet of flowers Nneka brought for Mama the previous day. The television was on, and she watched the cartoon channel smiling occasionally.  For the first time in a long while I felt happy. I took out the rose flower and gave it to her. She collected it with a warm smile and then she looked into my eyes. Like a magnetic attraction, our faces came closer gradually and her lips almost fell on mine when I noticed Mama by the curtains. She was watching us with hands akimbo. I could read the expression on her face, she felt rage, sadness, bitterness and she held a knife in her hands. “Mama!” I had shouted as I stood up frightfully. Mama went into the kitchen and Angel ran out of the living room and headed for the door. I didn’t stop her; I just sat down slowly on the couch. The expression I had seen on Mama’s face had reminded me of the story she told me. She had the same kind of expression on her face when she told that story. That hatred, burning anger and sadness was written all over her face. It was the story of how she lost her virginity. The story she made me swear never to tell Papa. I always wondered what made her tell me such a story. I was her son for God’s sake not her husband.  She had been raped at the age of thirteen by five young men. They raped her in turns and at the end the fifth man gave her a rose flower. She told me that I knew who the fifth man was. I remember shivering when she told me that. It was as though she had lost her mind. How could I possibly know who the fifth man was when I didn’t witness such painful event? I peered round the living room; Papa’s pictures weren’t hanging on the walls any longer. Mama burnt them alongside with his clothes few months after Papa’s death. When Mama gathered all pictures of Papa, I had stolen one of them. A picture that was still so confusing even at that moment. For no reason at all, I kept the picture always with me in my pocket. It was a picture of Papa and a woman, a woman who wasn’t Mama. It was a wedding photo. It perplexes me the more because I look so much like the woman in the photo. Papa never discussed about other women with me but I had known that he was cheating on Mama. Of course Mama knew since she picked Papa’s calls and read his text messages.
That same day, Mama had warned me about the rose flower I collected. She said I shouldn’t ever come near those flowers in her room. Even though a tear slid down her cheek as she spoke, she was mean and her eyes hardened. I nodded and left for my room. “The rose flowers,” I pondered. What was it about the rose flowers that Nneka brought that made her talk to me in such a harsh manner, I thought. I just slept on it.
I hate myself and everything about my life because now I had uncovered a bitter truth. I did that today. I had lived my life as a stranger of my own self. Now I’m crying like a baby or perhaps I’m crying just like Mama. Papa had said that men don’t cry but even Papa would have cried if he found himself in my shoes. Now am left with a choice on whether to kill the woman who had claimed to be my mother for a long while or kill myself so that she completes her mission in my father’s house.
This afternoon, Mama had left for the market, stressing that she would be back in a second. Her door wasn’t locked unlike before; perhaps she wasn’t going to waste much time. I opened the door to her room slowly and walked in, one careful step followed by a pause. I imagined her setting a trap for me just like the way she does to the rats in the house. My gaze fell on the rose flowers at the left end of her bed. Her bed which was just like mine was the shape of a sports car and took much of the space in the small room. I walked gradually towards those flowers and I was scared, scared that maybe they had arms, long arms hidden somewhere in them that could grab me. I lifted the rose flowers gently staring intensely at them. I noticed a box on the floor where I had picked the rose flowers from, an ancient-looking box that sat carefully on the ground. I bent down, opening it slowly. In it, I saw passports, seven of them pinned to a sheet of paper. Six of them were marked with an ‘x’ symbol. Papa’s picture was there, he was the sixth and among the six of them was a woman, the same woman I had seen in the strange wedding photo I took. It was always in my pocket, I brought it out and then confirmed that were the same not just a resemblance. I felt a rush of heat and cold go through my body. ‘The passports of five men and a woman all marked in ancient box,’ I muttered to myself. I hadn’t really noticed the seventh passport which was unmarked. It was me, I was the seventh person. My brain became suffused with heat as I dropped the paper frightfully.  A sepulchral voice froze my legs; I stood rooted to a spot.
“I told you that you knew the fifth man, didn’t I?” Mama said as she walked in. I turned looking at her. Her voice had changed; it was masculine and deep just like Papa’s. But tears streamed down her eyes.
“Papa was the fifth man?” I asked. Perhaps I knew the answer. Papa had been the one who gave her the rose flower after they deflowered her. My hands trembled, they didn’t tremble because I knew now that Papa was the fifth man but they did because an inevitable truth was coming to light, the fact that Mama had killed Papa.
“He was, and they all paid with their life,” her voice was strangely velvety now. She was sobbing and it was clear that she didn’t mean to hurt them but she wanted revenge.
“You killed Papa!” I thundered, coming closer to her position with a boiling anger. I froze just then as Mama pulled out a gun, a gun that had looked initially like a toy just meant to scare children. But then I wobbled backwards, tears sealed my eyes now.
“You are going to kill me in cold blood?” my voice dropped a pitch lower as though I wanted her to pity me but I wanted to collect the gun from her and then slap her first just like Papa does, and then shoot her head open.
“I have contemplated on whether to do this. You got in the way just like your hopeless mother did.” My heart burned, my eyes expanded as I fell to the ground. The woman in the wedding photo had been my birth mother all along. Something worse than butterflies churned my stomach, and I stared at Mrs. Rose, my step mother with teary eyes. I had just remembered that Papa had called her Rose only once. The same day he died perhaps that was the reason I never remembered her real name.
“You killed my mother too?” I asked her stammering, hoping she would deny doing it or lie to me. But she smiled, a snake-like smile that seemed to mock me. Suddenly Mama fell to floor and the gun ran towards my direction. I looked up and I saw Angel, the only woman that had given me a reason to live. Perhaps she was the reason I hadn’t committed suicide long ago, long after I had lost Papa. Angel had struck Mama with a rod along the passage. Probably she had come looking for me. She ran towards me, hugging me tightly. ‘Are you hurt?’ she asked staring at me. I shook my head and watched Mrs. Rose on the floor. She had deceived me all along, she also deceived Papa. After a few minutes, I called the police and they took her into custody. She would be sentenced to death and I wouldn’t shed a tear when the time comes.
Now I know am an orphan. An orphan with a future though. Papa would say that life wasn’t a bed of roses. But now I know that roses not only stood for love, they meant much more or perhaps they meant much more to Mama.