LOST TILL DAWN

The two jolly Friends, Mary Adam and Elizabeth Fallon or Mary and Lisa as they like to be called, found themselves in someplace like a passage. It was a long dark and narrow tunnel which led to somewhere they couldn't tell. They also didn't how they got here but they kept threading this long tunnel oblivious to whatever was ahead or anything but the funny discussion they were having. "And he said he'd have loved to.. eeew!" Lisa said as Mary laughed very hard till she was out of breathe. "seriously, just the sight of his lips makes me want to puke" Lisa added with a snort that could judge the look on her face. The pair could hardly see themselves or the direction they were going. "Wait, why am I carrying a backpack?" Mary stretched out her left arm to find Lisa and feel the backpack she was carrying. "Why are we carrying backpacks? we didn't have backpacks!" Lisa couldn't answer that question. How did they get there, she wondered. The last thing she remembered was standing in front of her former house in Ballybane Road waiting for John Daly to round off his well rehearsed love speech and go away. She couldn't stand watching him talk. She thought to herself, Though John had a 'killer body' but his crooked set of teeth were like his curse. Perhaps that was the price he had to pay for his bodily beauty. The girls continued down the dark tunnel and Mary noticed some people walking ahead of them. "We are not alone!" she cried happily. There were three boys walking ahead of them, going further into the darkness of the tunnel as they all talked and laughed. Lisa suggested they maintained a little distance between them and follow them quietly but Mary was ready to hurry off to them. Lisa pulled back her friend by the hand. "Aww!! that hurts!" Mary screamed. Lisa put her hand over Mary's mouth and stood still as the boys suddenly looked back at them. "I'm gonna take off my hand and you have to keep quiet okay?" she whispered into Mary's ear. Now the boys were gone. Where did they go? Could they be hiding? Are they dangerous? All these unanswerable questions from Mary only increased the adrenaline level in Lisa as they both ran down this tunnel which seemed to have no end. The tunnel actually had an end as the two now found themselves in an empty room with no other doorway but the one leading back into the tunnel and windowless windows through which they saw big trees and heard birds chirp. They walked towards the window and to their shock, it was the earliest part of the morning and they were in the middle of a thick forest. In the middle of nowhere. Mary dropped her bag as she gasped "Where the hell are we?" "Holy mother of God" "How did we get here?" Lisa could only stare back at terrified Mary with nothing to say but " Holy Mary!" They heard footsteps behind them and spun around. The boys were back. They made their way through the tunnel. With expressionless but scary faces they walked slowly towards the window where the girls were standing. Mary didn't think twice before screaming, jumping out the window and screaming off into the forest. Lisa froze up as she watched her crazy friend as she disappeared into the thick forest and wondered if it was a Gorilla that would get to her first or a Tiger. Then she turned around calmly thinking to herself that it was better to be faced by humans rather than animals. The once empty room was now filled with chairs and desks and the boys were seated quietly and hardly with a movement. One of the boys pointed to is far left "That is the way out" The way he had pointed to was the way that once led into the tunnel but now all Lisa could see was a doorway into the forest. As she moved towards the doorway, the forest lost it's trees and the bush vanished. All that was left was a garden in bloom and a sunshine that beautified it. Lisa was amazed by this transformation and, for the next minute, did not bother to find out where she was. It was so beautiful. She looked around and saw nothing but beautiful flowers coming to life. Then a cock crowed. The cock crowed continuously as it vibrated from under Lisa's pillow. She pulled out her phone and hit the 'dismiss' button. "Dave, wake up. It's time for school" she said to her brother who was still half asleep beside her. She dragged him off the bed and into the shower

NOW I FEAR BEING MISQUOTED MORE THAN EVER.

If I introduce my friend to you and you ask me "Where and how did you meet?". I assure you I will not answer you. In fact, I will be offended.

I didn't notice how behind I was until a few nights ago when I was watching a film with my sister and there was a romantic scene. Perhaps, I am just old-fashioned or "old" as she put it. But I can't possibly be too old at 20 neither will I admit to being uptight.

Now, it's not that I hate slang but the level at which people use and substitute words for expressions or other words that are totally different in meaning or translation is sickening.

I have come across many slang, misuse or abuse of the English language, but this one hit me like a punch and hurt me like a sting: In the romance scene, the guy was kissing the girl and caressing her. When he started kissing her neck, my sister said "He's giving her a icky". Icky?? I first thought it was a mistake she made but after I questioned the use of  "icky", she replied "That's what they say if a guy kisses a girl on the neck." I was going mental now because I hate arguments and I get annoyed as soon as one starts.

So after my sister showered me with more unbelievable information, it was apparent that almost all teenagers accept the new found meaning for words like "icky". I even got more cautious with what I say as even the most basic words can mean exactly something else to other people.

I learned that: To 'Shift' or 'Meet' is to Kiss and/or probably do more. This is amazing now that I can possibly boost your imagination when I tell you that "I met him on the bus". You may even get an interesting impression of who I am with that.

Honestly, I don't know who to blame for this grammar situation. But I seriously hope that there will be a module in school totally dedicated to reading/studying the dictionary so that people don't use adjectives as nouns; say that a guy kissing a girl on the neck is giving her a icky (adj. disgusting); or believe that the word 'Bogus' means 'Huge'.

THE AWFUL FILM I LAST SAW

I have been going on about wanting to be a writer (scriptwriter especially) but I realised that I have not written any fictional stories in a while- I guess it's because I had my journalism course and other things going. Perhaps, I need(ed) a nudge. And I got one!

Something irritated me yesterday: It was a film: A Nigerian film titled Májòkó (a yoruba word for 'Do not sit'). Not commenting on the production because it's never a thing to write home about as usual, the story line of this movie was at first intriguing. Then it ran from an arousing story setting to a series of scenes with no direction or focus.

To summarize, Májòkó is (well supposed to be) based on a poor and desperate young man, named Débò, who is generally known, along with his friends, as an "internet scammer" or "yahooboy". Débò apparently gets impatient as his scams are not paying off as expected and his "magas never pay". So he decides to find a faster route to wealth and commits a money ritual which requires a human sacrifice and yields "blood money".

Well, the story did not really go in accordance with my own conclusion of what the plot seemed to be as I was led to believe that Débò was the main character- at least I expected him to be, while his victim could be second main character. But it turns out that his victim, Bùkólá, is the main character whom Débò uses as sacrifice by sleeping with her and using her body fluids for money rituals. Bùkólá gets mysteriously ill and could not hold her urine once she's seated, and the more she wet herself, the more money Débò mysteriously gets. Hence the title Májòkó (Do Not Sit).


Shockingly, Debo disappears into thin air and is found no more. The story took another turn from here: Bùkólá's mother soughts spiritual help for her daughter and is told that Bùkólá has to find a man to sleep with in order to pass this curse unto him. But she's warned not to ever set her eyes on whoever she sleeps with. After Bùkólá does this and is free from peeing on herself like a kid, the story took another turn again to a point where the title of the film lost its essence.

To cap it all, it turns out that Bùkólá gets to be the one to face the consequence of her actions- that is, passing the curse unto someone else- after enduring a crazy marriage, where her husband cheats on her with a lady whom he impregnates and elopes.
 Bùkólá, after reading the 'goodbye' note from her husband, gets upset and crazy and runs into a car in which its driver is the man she passed her curse to and is warned never to set her eyes on. How unfortunate!

So what I find disturbing is how Débò who started the whole problem with his evil acts goes scot-free!

Well this is just one of the many crappy films produced every year but I know there are a few great ones that are worthy of awards. It is that Nollywood releases about 40,000 films in one year. So what do you expect?

Mystery In My House

One of the reasons why I despise living at home, with my family, is because of our number. There are nine of us, a couple of parents, Six siblings and I.
Our house is a two-storey building, with a back yard that has not seen a lawn mower in ages and a parking space, in front , occupied by a car we do not own- our two cars are parked else where.

My first few months,in 2010, in this house were not the best of months even though I wished the family union my father anticipated went according to plan. For almost Eight months, I would wake up daily to a filthy and noisy house. As soon as I stepped out of my room, I would have something to complain about as I descend the stairs.

Then the view of my bathroom, which I share with one of my sisters, would disgust me and make me want to cry. Her clothes would be flung on the floor, and there would be make-up stains everywhere in the bathroom from the mirror, to the slab. And God was the sink messed with toothpaste and foundation oil.

I'd get more furious as I stormed into the living room to give out to my siblings only to find the place like the control room of Mr. Mad. Papers squizzed and scattered about the place, the table taking the place of the chair. It was total chaos in my living room daily.

Head east, then my living room leads into the kitchen where the fridge would be left ajar and the bin bag refused to have dirt thrown in it and would rather be surrounded by dirt- a decision my siblings could have made for the bin bag.
The sink would be filled with plates and left overs that looked and smelled like products of a fortnight ago. You would not believe I washed the dishes before I went to sleep the night before. Even I would think I must have washed in my dreams.

I tried not to get mad, and just clean up after my siblings who find themselves to big to do house chores and boast to their friends that they don't know how to cook as if it's the best quality to find in a girl. But I couldn't handle it all on my own, thirty minutes after I washed the dishes, cleaned the living room and cooked the food, it would look like I did nothing at all. The food would be gone and the sink would be filled with plates and marshy left overs as evidence to prove that I cooked. Oh and by now, the visitors' toilet which is located in the kitchen would have looked like it had more visitors in a day than it would in a year. The feaces filled water closet would be surrounded by dirty toilet papers.

You'd be wondering where my parents  were during all these. Well, in bed waiting for break fast. That's where they would be. And when my dad would come down stairs probably thirty minutes after I cleaned up, he'd give out to me about the dirty house being that I am the first child. My dad would get so furious, he'd start scrubbing the floors and walls all by himself. And that got me Madder!

Now let me give some of my siblings credit or justice. So with no names mentioned, I will refer to them according to position in the family.

Second born boasts that she doesn't know how to cook and isn't bothered. you can't tell her what to do because before I came, she was the first child. Oh yes, she can make noodles, oats and hot water. She eats and doesn't wash her dishes. what she knows how to do best is to clean every nook and cranny of the house only when our mother is there.

Third born cooks, she cleans up after second born most of the time. I can give out to her because she understands. So, that means I can make her wash once I find the sink filled with plates agian. She doesn't like the fact that I tell her what to do while I couldn't do the same with second born and they are just a few months apart in age. She likes to do things in her own time too.

Fourth born is the one who was assigned to do all the chores after I left the house to go to college. He had to wash everyone's dishes and clean the house. He's 12.

Fifth and Sixth born were the ones I used to really yell at for dirtying the house because they were the youngest. But a realisation I had over the past few days has made me to decide to write this.

Seventh born has not even started talking.
So I left the house and chose to study at a college many hours away from home because I couldn't stand daily living in that house. I didn't like that I got mad every minute. I didn't like that I started concluding that having children wouldn't be in my To-Do list.

Within that one year, I only came home twice, maybe thrice. And everytime I came home, it was the same. the bathrooms were dirty, the kitchen was sticky and the bedrooms were a disaster. The only exception was my mother's presence. whenever my mom was home, the kitchen was sparkling because she cleaned it every minute and that made me angry.

I get angry when elderly people clean the house and the young ones are just sitting down playing away like nobody's business. And I feel guilty because I'd also be part of those young ones seated. I don't have the guts to go to her and relieve her of her chores. That's just not me. I hate company when I am cooking most especially and I would never come to assist you if you were cleaning or cooking. The least I'd do is find a spot to clean without asking you if I could help.

Anyway, fast-forward to the day I was finally moving back home- I had already finished in college. My whole family went on holiday except my father, and the house was at peace for both of us, especially me.

I hardly had anything to clean for three days after first clean up. For the whole week that my family traveled I didn't have to clean the living room and the only things I had to do was cook and wash dishes. So I started telling myself how right I was about my siblings being the ones who disorganise the house.

And as soon as they returned, they proved me right. The house was in total disarray again, though it wasn't as annoying as last year. This time I did the cooking and cleaning and tried to maintain a clean house by trying to just clean up and tell the younger ones (fifth and sixth) to clean up whatever filth they create.

So now, my mother and both the second and third born have been away again for a few days and surprisingly the house is not looking bad at all. My living room is constantly clean and the kitchen is neat. Even the toilet I washed over the weekend is still sparkling.
My remaining siblings (4th,5th & 6th) wash their dishes without any hassle. 5th born even made pizza for my father and cleaned up after herself. I made breakfast for them this morning and nobody told them to wash their plates. They just did!

I don't know if it's my constant yelling that has paid off and is now maintaining a clean house or I accused the wrong people of messing the house up i.e 4th, 5th & 6th born.

But one thing I know is that whenever my mother is around, 5th and 6th born use that opportunity to do whatever they want, however they want it . They get very naughty.

I really do wish the house would just continue to be this clean. But I fear that once the rest of the family returns and we are complete again.. The house will result back to Mr. Mad's dwelling.

MY FIRST YEAR IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

I first learned about abortion when I was almost 10. I had just begun my first year in secondary school.
 I learned that our seniors- who were around the age of 14 and 16- had series of abortion after getting the results of their “improper acts” with the boys.

The boys’ hostel was a good distance away from ours. The so called strict security system did not stop the boys from jumping over the fence and creeping into their girlfriends’ room. They threatened the juniors not to utter a word or we’d experience hell on earth.

The senior girls too were “bold”; they’d squeeze themselves through the opening of our rusty gates and go off with the boys.

One cold morning in the court yard, the dew was just settling and our bath water was almost ice- in our hostels there was nothing like air conditioning for hot weather conditions not to talk of heater on a morning like this one.

The house mistress buzzed us up to get ready for the day at 4:30 am. Being first year students, we were the first batch of girls to have a bath every morning. 

The courtyard was facing an array of rooms- rooms one to six.  My roommates and I just had to walk out of our room, jump over a tiny gutter and we were in our court yard- our open bathroom without a roof, tub, shower or tap.

My friend Oyin was first to see a small pool of blood on the floor, some part of the blood was thick you’d think it was some internal parts of a chicken.

 We didn’t know whose blood it was or how it got there because hours before 4.30am, we all in the hostel were supposedly asleep. Was it Lady Koi-Koi - the ghost lady in red and black jacket, hat and shoes who haunted our school every night?

We didn’t know and we did not really worry until Christina, a first year repeater, told us that a senior must have aborted a baby.
 We were shocked and could hardly believe her but she convinced us and even assured us that we’d see more of that. We spent the better part of our bath time staring from the blood to Christina as she told us how the seniors killed their unborn babies.

“It’s easy! You’ll get a pail handle or an iron cloth hanger- the pale handle is better sha (Sha is a Yoruba word often added to the end of sentences for emphasis)” she started.

“You’ll straighten it and then insert it inside your vagina, you push it in, and in, and then you’ll hang the womb with the little curved part, and then jack it down and out!” She explained with a demonstration of her hands and imaginary pail handle; and the force with which she yanked out the imaginary womb was the scariest I had ever seen.

This was the trending topic among us first year students that day, and we wondered out loud how people would kill innocent embryos.

In retrospect, what could a 14 year old girl, in Nigeria, 1999, know about sex not to talk of abortion?

I have just converted to blogger!!

My previous blog is www.mszeegy.tumblr.com. I planned transferring all my write ups from there to here but I'm thinking these few is enough. It'd be better if Icontinue on this one with newer posts


You can check out my old - and not transferred- articles on my last blog (www.mszeegy.tumblr.com)


Thanks

DEATH

Death is a concept that has fascinated man since the beginning of time. You and i know that all living things die eventually. Death is indeed more inevitable than taxes, even though the English saying considers both death and taxes inescapable.

What is death?

Thing is, if I start to give definitions, I’ll type all night long and even exceed the word limit for this blog post. That is to say there is no specific meaning- apart from it being the end of something- or explanation of death or its need. We all have our different theories- and even hypothesis.

Death and dying are not things that we consider on a daily basis. Perhaps we confront death when our own mortality is directly threatened or when a loved one falls ill. Indeed it is innate in us all to cling unto life at all cost, AT ALL COST! We cannot deny our instincts to survive.

Further more, consider the ways in which people get caught up in stories of miraculous remissions of cancer and people being brought back from the brink of death. Our preoccupation with death is so perverse that it is continually reported by the media. Has LIFE afforded as much media coverage as DEATH?

Can we consider death then, not only as a state of being or indeed, not being but also as a form of symbolism? Talking of symbolism, The ‘death note’ is full of symbolism ranging from christian and roman overtones to great literary pieces such as Macbeth, Ceaser and Sherlock Holmes. There are different kind of symbols that stand for different things. A good example is the ‘apple’ which is a symbol that represent more than one thing: Knowledge; luxury; wisdom; joy; and/ or death.

Indeed, death has more connotations than we might at first consider. Take the religious perspective for example, death can in some religions be seen as the transition from one state of consciousness to another and not simply ‘The end’.

Death and dying also raise ethical issues like every other. Consider ‘euthanasia’, for example, and the debates which surround it. On the one hand we resist death at all cost; on the other, we choose to end our lives permanently.

Death is very much seen as a forbidden subject, an unspoken truth until through circumstances beyond our control we are forced to come face to face with it.

While death may be a taken for granted concept, it is only by unraveling its many mysteries that we can see how a complicated topic it is. One that often seem distant but gets one that is only a heart beat away.

The guy in the library

Only God knows what she saw on her computer screen that made her moan a sigh.This lady is two seats away from me in the library. Almost everyone on this long reading table has a laptop in front of them.

The guy seated on my right has white plug-in head phones which spat music in and out of his ears. I could make out without struggle the title of songs that played as he changed the tracks from his connected Acer laptop. Maybe it’s a music video he is watching but I’d rather not peek to find out. It’d be awkward.

This guy must be Brazilian or… Brazilian. That’s what I think he looks like.
On his blue shirt is a print of a skeleton skull with a pair of crossed bones behind it and over the skull was the word ‘DSQUARED2’. Good thing his shirt is short sleeved. I can see his fairly tanned ‘Brazilian’ arms. And he is also wearing a black D$G wristwatch.

Am I staring at him? I hope he hasn’t noticed.

I could hear his loud and sharp breathe among all other sounds, like his loud head phones and the whispering couple on my other side.

You’d see the top of his head from where i’m sitting, without a strain on your eyes, and you’d see only little hair covering it. I’d say he’d be totally bald in a couple of years.

He has a beautiful skin, looks soft and slightly hairy. And his fingernails are neat too.
He is not a fast typist from what I can see. He uses his left fore finger and his right middle finger to carefully types away on his silver laptop.

He has no ring on too. He’s probably in a relationship though. He looks to good to be single.

I remember a time

As the bicycle whizzed past me I was reminded of my young days long ago. In my estate where there were many children like me. We were around the ages of Six and Seven and we all went to the same school and after school.

I remember the time when an Islam cleric would cycle round our estate with his monkey on his back. All of us would come out and follow this man and his monkey around. We would watch as the pet jumped from tree to tree and carried out his master’s commands.

We all did not have the courage to move very close to the monkey, at least not me. My friends would offer him some bananas and I’d always thought that one day the monkey would yank off their fingers together with their offering.

USING OUR INITIATIVE

I am not saying that the social welfare scheme is a bad establishment, but it has given a lot of irish people - youths as far as I’ve seen- an opportunity to be lazy and not take responsibility for their lives.

In my home country - Nigeria- where the population of one county is outnumbers that of the whole of Ireland, there is no such thing as social welfare neither is there medical cards and all other  freebies we have in this country.

In Nigeria, we create jobs for ourselves, by ourselves. Though that is supposed to be a shameful thing for the Nigerian government, it has given us that drive, that strength and initiative to survive without help.  If you need water in Nigeria, you dig a well; if you need constant power supply; you buy a generator. With your own money.

Most Nigerians are self employed, that is the only way to survive, That was/is the way our parents could sponsor our education.

 I think the Irish should think of other ways to survive and live other than draining the government’s purse. Yes, they are entitled to welfare, but  money,  no matter  how much it is, will run out. It comes and goes- we all know that looking at the boom years from now.

Even that way, the youths will all grow to be innovative leaders in the future.

THE UNIQUENESS OF ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY

A lot of things come to mind with post modernistic arts, ranging from a digital aspect to extraordinary works like using real people’s skin to alter a doll’s photograph as Andreas Scholz portrays.

In his studio in Temple Bar Street, Co. Dublin, Andreas Scholz is showing me his fascinating work, one of which was the “Baking Barbie”. He says he never saw anything like it until he made it. “The idea is that you bake the Barbie in the oven, I don’t recommend this because it’s toxic. So when you bake it, it looks like Francis bacon’s [Anglo-Irish painter] distorted portraits of people.”

In a more diverse piece, he shows me a picture of Croke Park Stadium. The appeal was confusing at first because this stadium is real and he went to the stadium to take this photograph. But attending to more detail, it was made to look like a cartoon scene. Everybody and everything in the photograph looked like toys.

Andreas, at 21, had his first lesson about Photography in Germany where his tutor told him that he would never be a photographer. He then took up the challenge to prove her wrong. He made photography his career by taking the course in DIT and graduating with First Class Honors in 2009.

Andreas’ first work published was the ‘Blackrock Baths’ in the Irish Times in 2007. And again he experienced the enviousness of another tutor who didn’t inform him about it until weeks after it was published. “I don’t think she likes me” he says. “I legged it down to the national archives to find my photograph. At the time, one couldn’t go into the archives because there was no [computer] records.”

Born in 1981, Andreas moved to Ireland eight years ago from Germany where he grew up. He grew up dreaming to be “president of the united environmental agency”. “I thought something like that would exist. I love nature and want to help preserve it” he says.

Aiming to confuse people who take a first glance at Andreas’ work is not his only area of expertise. He is also into commercial photography and he works with models as well as people who like to be photographed. His work portrays sensuality. He shows me another piece of a father and his son, staring at themselves, naked.

Andreas is on the rise through current artistic developments. No doubt his work will be in the main stream in the coming years.

Razac Clothing Inc

This shoe reminds me to be grateful for not being tall. If I were 6ft tall, a pair of 5” stilettos wouldn’t look very sexy.

Razac Clothing Inc, an exclusive distributor of Bordello shoes, has a range of shoes the class of which Desperate Housewives’s Gabby shops to console herself.

This black satin,pin striped and crossed buckle suits every occasion, be it your friend’s party or foe’s memorial.

One of the best ways of leading successfully is being stylishly charismatic, a lift not only underfoot but a graceful elevation of your chin and shoulders. 

You’ve got nothing to lose; your heels can only lift you up. High.

visit Homepage: http://razacclothing.com / Heels:  http://razacclothing.com/store/?cat=13 

His smell triggered a memory

There are many things I don’t like to remember even though I have the fear of totally forgetting them.

I don’t want to remember some days in my life but things I see and hear remind me constantly.

I don’t want to think of the people most dear to me but far from me, yet a lot of these deja vu(s) don’t help.

Today, it’s the smell. A scent so soothing to the nerves; the smell of leaves and seas and the earth. Funny I don’t remember the name of this smell but I remember vividly what it looks like and who it reminds me of.

It’s a small clear bottle with a turquoise blue cover, it’s neither round nor squared. It’s more inbetween- an oval with edges.

It reminds me of my mother. I remember the day, like every other day except yesterday, when she’d just finished having a bath and I was applying a moisturiser to her back. She had a very beautiful skin, not as tanned as mine or as pale as Michael Jackson’s.
We’d cream her back every morning, not because she had no hands, but because we all enjoyed it and she loved the bond between us- my mother and her three children.

“From side to side, and the top of my back” She’d demand.

Our hands were quite tiny so three pairs could do the job perfectly.

I think it was the day after she returned from her vacation to London. One of the things my mother would never forget to bring is perfume. She had brought a carton of different kinds of perfume, from London, ranging from Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds to Elizabeth Arden’s Provocative Woman.

One of the perfumes, of which I can’t remember its name, is what smells off the guy seated next to me today.But I am paying no attention to him, just his smell.

I just want to close my eyes, enjoy this smell and take myself back to the days when my mother was alive. I want to relive the memory of her presence in my life just this once.