THE LEAP2

PART 2

(Short story)

The morning was cold and even the sun was still in bed. Akubuike sat on the old scruffy back seat of an old Peugeot 504 saloon car which served him as his bed. He is dirt poor. He is motionless and lost in thought. The only sign of life in the room are the sound of mice nibbling on something in the corner of the small room, and the cold breeze which played with his slacked shabby white singlet with a dusty brown map of his chest from the fall. A Gale of thought hovers through his mind.

Body aching, stomach rumbling and head pounded like a talking drum- he knows this is a hangover. His father is an alcoholic and sometimes his mum had to send either him or ije to bring him home from the bar down the street. Ndulue was popular for his big grammar. He became jobless after the Enugu state government shed off non-indigenes from their pay roll. He moved with his family, away from the staff quarters 12years ago to the slum in ugboye, and after so many years gave up hope on employment. He manages to make enough money to pay for half of his daily booze from his vulcanizing spot at the junction and apparently enjoyed a credit facility with no limit at Mama Adaugo’s beer parlour, from where he accumulates debts. All his evenings were spent at mama Adaugo’s bar discussing and dissecting the government of the day and its selfish corrupt policies, stories of the first and second Republic, or the myth of the failed ideal Biafran State; whose course he fought for alongside his comrades, and some other equally passionate topics like is football. He apparently memorizes every moment of every game, and to the delight of both young and old he demonstrates certain movements in his analyses. Akubuike hardly had enough change to spare for watching any game. He is a bus conductor. Despite his good grades in SSCE, he spends his day clinging dangerously to the door of different commercial danfo buses shouting his voice out to the near and far to attract passenger plying through his popular old-park route.  All his earnings he contributes to his family's support and to offset some of he’s father's bills whenever Mama Adaugo comes storming-in in her usual hurricane manner with her sons to collect her money.

Aku loves football, so he make up for the games he’d missed it by listening to his father while he entertained, narrating events and argued statistics about the games played and yet to be played at the bar. Aku has become so attached to Chelsea FC in the English premiere league, irrespective of the fact he know next to nothing about them. Most of his friends claimed to be fans too. Once he was laughed to scorn when he wore a shirt with the name Robben crested on it. He never saw him play before or how he looked, but to belong, he bragged about his awesome performance in their last game, ignorant of the fact that the player left the club a few years ago. He was never really forgiven for that mistake, the name Robben stuck to him as a nickname among his peers.

The day before was one of those days when Ndulue talked soccer. It was 9:30 pm and the moon had assumed its post when Akubike set out to bring his father home. While waiting for the father to summarize, he was offered a beer by a man in the audience who wanted the entertainment to go on a little longer. He pulled out a seat and sat to it. From one bottle to a few more he went, soon he became stone drunk. It took Ije and her drunken father about half an hour to carry him home at a few minutes after midnight. A journey a strolling young couple would have completed in 10 minuets on a flower field. They both had their bowels and intestines emptied all over her. A flush with a full bucket of water welcomed them before they stepped inside, courtesy of Mama Aku, his mother. 

They all live in one of the streets by the edge of the notorious slum neighborhood in Abakpa overrun by zinc shacks and hovels. In the infamous ‘face me-I-Face you’ setup that the area is known for, they occupy two rooms. Half of one Akubuike’s mother used as her food mart, the other half as kitchen. The second serves as the living area containing the seat where Aku slept, a rolled up blue nylon mat leaning on the corner for ije surrounded by a cluster of battered plastic buckets and jerry cans, and the old foam which used by their parents is folded to a corner to provide room for the day. They are first in the row of rooms whose rusty roofs inclined towards the opposite door, both donating to the narrow drainage with no definite boundary in the middle. The entire rooms in the building all shared the same bathroom and toilet.

The only neat and painted building in the scruffy brown neighborhood is the bungalow occupied by Mma and her family. Her parents both work for the community bank at the bus stop. Being the richest in the poor slump, Akubuike thought her father rode a very high horse and had plagued his entire family with his hubris syndrome with his irrational intention of wiping the poverty mentality off his children’s eyes. Poor Mma being the only daughter and the last in the stack of five ‘well behaved’ children isn’t spared in her father’s iron hands of discipline. Akubuike feels Mma also has a soft spot for him but wouldn’t dare to show it for the sake of peace at home.

Religion is a pinnacle of Akubuike’s household, as Roman Catholics, his mother made morning mass attendance a routine that must be strictly adhered to. Despite Ndulue’s heavy drinking, he never woke up late for it, and would never condone absence from any one either. Akubuike doesn’t enjoy this and would always comply grudgingly as it wasn’t in his attitude to disobey his folks.

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It is 7:23 a.m. and Akubuike steps out through of the St. Theresa’s main exit leading the slow moving crowd dragging their feet, and jabbering as they disintegrated into smaller groups to their various destinations. He was late to church, and had spent the last 15 minutes watching his mum and ije dance, gleefully swing their hips uniformly to the music played by the choir. Thoughts hovered waved through his head like a swarm of bees around sweet nectar, but he thought about nothing in particular. He didn’t hear the music play, the bees must have knocked off every note played and every word sang. The dream is still fresh in his memory, and the clarity isn’t helping him get a glimpse of the beautiful morning. He strolled aimlessly, adrift in thoughts.

His hangover has eased off and he breaths better, the pains from the fall still lingering. The time is 8:35 a.m., he has spent has wondered off physically and in though. Returning to the park, he has missed his bus to the hands of a fortunate early-bird conductor. He waits for another bus to hop on and fetch money for the day. Fruitless. This is his first time miss a bus for the day’s work, and a bad time too. Ije is the family’s hope for a ray of sunlight. His mum nurses the idea that when Ije finishes school and get a good job, she will attract worthy suitors, rich suitors who will elevate the family from the sludge. Aku believes that too and works tirelessly to achieve this dream for Ije and his beloved mother. Ije is pretty, smart, and still very young. Everyone looks forward to her being a lawyer or something great. The fantasy began to fade when Ije spent two years at home after her SSCE due to lack of funds to pay for her JAMB exams to gain admission into the university. This is the fourth year now, and she had turned 22 and had successfully passed her JAMB and was shortlisted for admission to study for a degree in law Ibadan. At last, something to cheer up for. Their joy was only short-lived when she came back from Ibadan with her school requirements. She was asked to pay fifty thousand naira (N50, 000) to secure her admission and a host of other payments amounting to  a hundred and twenty thousand naira (N120,000.00), putting aside personal funds for accommodation and feeding since her school is hundreds of kilometers away in the western part of Nigeria. The only have until the end of October to pay the fees, leaving them only six weeks complete all the necessary payments. The family has exhausted all their borrowing options to pay the rent which had been pending for two years, and they still had a year’s payment to complete or risk eviction. 

His father cares little or nothing about the situation, he simply wanted her to get married off and ‘get the hell out of the house’. Haven taken it upon himself to raise the funds for Ije, Aku has built up a personal saving of almost forty-five thousand naira N45, 000 from the seven hundred and fifty Naira N750 daily contributions which he banks with the Akawo daily, and the Four thousand five hundred naira (N4, 500) hidden in the broken ceiling at home, and cannot afford to take his foot off the pedals now. His mother little effort sums up to feeding the family and nothing more.

************************************************************

It is 10o’clock and thoughts have brought the headache, and his legs hurt from standing. He walks out from the busy liberty park and into the less hovered Iseke Street. There in front of a little construction site, he sat on a bench under the shed of a young pear tree, the only tree in a few blocks, hauling his aching right elbow with the other hand. He lying on his back, he covered his face with his handkerchief and shots his eyes, hoping to gallop off to Shangri-La. 

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Noon, and it’s a beautiful cloudy day, Iseke street is calm and Akubuike has had no troubles finding sleep, he of dozed peacefully. Tiny sounds of conversation filter in and out from the distance, footsteps after footsteps crushing and pulverizing pieces of earth as people and hawkers up and down the streets. Opposite where he lay stood the bank’s entrance which enjoyed a scanty traffic of human and vehicular traffic through the gate. 

His body jerks to the jamming sound of a car’s door slamming shot.

“Thank you very much, Bye! I love you!” the lady screams excitedly as she waved to the man driving away on a black sport car who also has his hand waving at the sky through the window. She looks cheek, dressed in skinny blue jeans pants shy above her ankle, under a loose-fitting black blouse that look like it was made from a square folded diagonally with the neck hole in the middle, with an eye-catching brown embroidery round its neck and down its pointing front, on her armpit a big brown leather bag that complements her 5 inch stiletto.  Akubuike studied every detail as she elegantly crossed the road and gaits into the bank.

“Some people have everything going for them," he mutters, taking off his washed up blue jersey and slapped over his shoulder. Looking at himself, he heaves a muffled sarcastic laughter and continues in his soliloquy. “I’ve never even seen the inside of a banking hall before, big dreaming Akudike!” Pounding his chest and laughing hysterically like a man deviating to lunacy as he spoke, a drop of tear escapes his flooded eye. 

The lady reappears at the bank’s exit looking somewhat paranoid as she hurries off down the street. Akubuike watches her curiously for a while as her image shrunk into the distance. He jumps to his feet and stalks after her, trailing her as she took the turn into the lonely street Ibe Street. She stops suddenly and hurriedly pulls out her cell phone and starts dialing. The muscles on the back of Akubuike’s neck start contracting; a sudden urge and anxiety creeps in. He wants to do something but has no idea what it is. He increases his strides forward shortening the tail and revealing himself. His body trembled, and his heart pounded hard, and he feared she could hear the pounding from 10 meters away. His accelerates continuously as he approaches her. He is afraid of what he is about to do; reluctant, but his body drags him forward. He finds himself jugging. From 2 meters he can perceive the fragrance of her perfume. 

He can hear his heart say “It was time”. A dose of breath and he make a dash at the handbag in what looked a sprint across the unsuspecting victim, he grabs the hand bad and make a run for it.

The terrified lady starts screaming in such high pitch that Akubuike can hear it rip his heart apart. 

THE LEAP

PART 1

(Short story)

By Ubah Ikechukwu Anthony

Looking through the windshields,  the windshields at the two black SUVs that sandwiched his, with a glimmer of joy on his face, Akubuike nodded his head in satisfaction. He leans back, resting his slender body against the backrest of the pure white upholstery that looks well pampered by generous pieces of top-grade leather hides. His feet resting on a genuine lamb wool mats that will have you taking your shoes off, and his right arm gently placed on the white large fold-down armrest of the right backdoor. His lips frozen in smile, he looks down, staring at his left hand, slowly caressing the soft leather seat which carried him.

For a few seconds, he finds himself lost in the euphoria of the dizzying array of luxurious attributes that surrounded him.  He gave his eye an exclusive tour of the graceful interior of the artifact that conveyed him. Perfect finishing, with veneered teak wood and wonderful hand sewn leather dominated the interior. The metallic details feel cold and glitter with silvery sheen that seem to blind him every second he looked at them. Even with the weight of the thick clothing he is wearing, it feel like he is inside an ice box in the Mercedes Benz sedan that chauffeured him. 

“I love this! I love this!! I love….this!!!” he muttered reflexively in what sounds like a mousy squeak, jolting and clenching his fists simultaneously. He startles in embarrassment when he observes the peering eyes from the rear mirror, aligned under the Visor of the Navy-blue peaked cap of his light skinned, middle-aged chauffeur. From the white shirt with navy blue trouser he wore, the man looks everything like the Captain of an aircraft.  

Akubuike had been leaning forward with his lower arms hanging halfway between his thighs, a position he found himself in after the shock. He sinks back into his previous position, almost sitting on his back. 

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“Aku! Aku! Nodu ka mmadu! Do you want to be crooked like your grandpa?” His mother had always resounded in her usually manner by bending forward, and pulling one of her small round ears with one hand while the other resting on her enormous well rounded hips while she cautions Akubuike about his bad sitting posture. Her shoulders are barely two inches above the door knob but grandpa was a total contrast. He apparently towered well over 7 feet from the ground and stands like a sickle with his 4 feet walking-stick which Akubuike had known him with before he died of typhoid fever last August.

“Grandpa what is the temperature up there?” Ije would jokingly asked the old man, pointing at his shiny bald head.

Akubuike’s Grandpa was 87 before he died, but his scalp remained smooth and glowed as though hair never grew there before. Aku never wanted to look anything like his Grandfather, but at 26 he was already noticing the signs of his inevitable baldness. The thought of this disgusts him. However, he simply can’t help sitting in that awkward posture. He is nearly 7 feet, and every tall person he knew sat like that.

“Someone should go out there and talk to chair makers,” he will say, “they should consider us and make better chairs with higher backrests to accommodate our long trunk."

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Body shivering and jaws rattling, he made a puff into his open palms and gently wrapped his hands round his rib cage in a cage. He was beginning to freeze but didn’t want to complain. He takes his eyes off the driver and to the window. His eyes widen, at the well tamed arrogant beauty of the green world of tropical trees which they behold, spanning from the skylines down to the healthy green lawns that terminated on the smooth shoulders of the road side. For the next few minutes, he admires the neighborhood along which they drove. An array of eye catching mansions buried in the greens of the surrounding trees and shrubs appeared and vanished in the sight.

Another thing that suddenly starts to appear and disappear is his vision; he struggles repeatedly to clean the fog on the glass with his lower arm, formed by the vapour coming off his nostrils and wide open mouth.

Opposite a small crystal lake, the mini convoy came to a stop. He smirked at the grace of the dancing lights at the edge of the stream. A sudden gloom appears over him, he quickly tilted his head backwards, spreading his shoulder, and hanging his two arms midway in an attempt to prevent his entire body from falling off the vehicle as a stern looking man in a black suite opened the door on which he rested on.

 “We are home sir," the man grumbles holding the door wide open for him. 

“Home?” he says, rather soft and timidly, jerking his head with small ridges on his forehead.

“Yes, home sir.” The man reply, calmly gesturing him out of the car

The golden sun stood by the edge of the sky like a blushing maiden hiding behind small pieces of cloud. The air was mild and smelled of natural greens. It was mid-morning and the tweeting of birds chirping in rhythm with the swaying trees and dropping leaves as they sang and played an orchestra to glory of a new day.

Akubuike gracefully alights like royalty. Noise filtered into the breeze like a quarry from under the hard sole of his derby shoe, altering the melody of the silence as his weight crushed the pebbles underneath. The temperature was not different outside either. It felt very cold but the sun was out and shone brightly. The harmattan wind was trading down; Akubuike had thought it was just the air-conditioning.

                          

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His outfit reflected his youthfulness. A heavy looking silver necklace towed a circular gold pendant hanging off his slender neck, radiating from his chest through the open velvet jacket he wore. This like his shoes and trouser are cream and seemed to hug his chocolaty body, revealing the masculine mold under the taut white shirt that also married his body. The high shoulder pads complement his wide shoulder, making him look like the plastic models you see in boutiques. His trousers isn’t cheated either, lapping thigh and letting-go at the ankle. His tall figure can pass for an ‘I’.

Holding onto the two flaps of his jacket with both hands, he shots his eyes, and slowly fed his lungs with the cold air, choking slightly. His air-ways felt like desiccated leather. The cold was beginning to get to him, but only he appeared discomforted by it.

For a while, he stood stiff with eyes glued to the car he just alighted from. Something felt odd about it. A thud sound sips into the silence as the man shots the door behind him. Slightly bending forward, the stern dark man he ushers him towards the carved stone pathway.

Suddenly he stops. Lost. He fells adrift. Series of queries running through his mind, He could not figure out anything about himself, or events before the moment. His mind mooched in the mental lacuna he finds himself in, nothing looked familiar.

“I can’t remember anything," he flushes out faintly like a puff of air. His jaw starts feeling too heavy for him to shut completely. His eyes gazing like a blind man, every facial nerve slept and robbed his face off all expressions, frozen and void of emotions. A slight thump to his shoulder by the man guiding him oozed the smell of alcohol from his bowel, which filtered into his stuffed nose from his snapped him out of it.

“I must have had too much to drink." He voiced in a whisper.

With steady eyeballs and frozen face, he starts taking steps forward like a sick old man guided by the slight pressure of the hands placed against his shoulders.

His vision starts getting blurred, and his sight is gradually lost and he rapidly grows weaker. Faithfully relying on the guild of the gentle palm placed on his shoulder as he cautiously places his legs down on the hazed floor. His entire body aches, head weighing extra pounding. He fells too exhausted to voice the question his heart and lips repeated over and over again, ‘what is happening to me?’

“Aku! Aku!!” a faint female voice sounding strangely familiar called form up ahead. He lifted the one ton boulder over his shoulder to look forward. The image of his Mma cleared his vision and soothed him. She stood by the pathway leading to the entrance of a classic Georgian mansion sunk on an acre of even green lawn, and adorned with a thatched sit-out area by the left.

Mma is the love of his life. Though she is pocket sized, it takes nothing away from her pretty face, beautiful glowing brown skin and well curved body. On a three-inch heel, she might only be able to measure up to his shoulder. Before now she had been a part of his day-dreams and fantasies. They never got to talk except for the regular Nigerian pleasantries; ‘hello’, ‘how you de’, ‘what’s up’, ‘how things’, ‘how far’ which he tossed like hibiscus petals at her feet any time they crossed paths. Often she barely seemed to notice them, When she does, it’s simply a ‘hi’, ‘fine’ or ‘good’, with her trademark smile, but ever more than a word, but that was always enough to make his day. Although when she doesn’t reply, he felt robbed and hollow inside; sadly this was the greater ration. There is a worm hole in his heart, and she had a room there.

                                  **************************************************

His face reignites in like activated charcoal. He spread his heavy hands wide open like a man nailed to the cross and make some gently strides at towards her, felling heavier with every step. It feels like a bag of garri has been placed on his back. He wrestles to muscle up and walk erect. A feeling that God must have place a finger on his head, his body guards offered him no help, Mma made no effort to come closer, his own body was falling him.

As he loosened his muscle strings and let his nerves relax, his jaw crashes onto the concrete as he fall effortlessly like a felled mighty three trunk. Fighting hard to get to his feet, he right arm buried under his mass. It hurt like it had been crushed by an elephant. Growling in excruciating pain, he clamps his jaws and pushed himself to his back, facing the sky.

Mma stood over him looking down with a smile. Nothing felt better. Her head cast a shadow on his face as the sun rapidly moves behind her head, as darkness crept in. She gently placed her right palm to his chest and with a big grin started tapping his chest in threes calling his name.

Tap Tap Tap, ‘Aku’, tap tap tap, ‘Aku’ she called

“Hummm what!, ogini ogini!” He slowly replied, puzzled. His vision was blurry again so he couldn’t see her face. Darkness shaded in and Mma’s figure slowly and continually gets swallowed and vomited by the light behind her. Her voice went from faint to a loud overly more familiar voice which was escorted by the noisy scuffle of hurrying feet, water splashes and moving objects. His head pounding painfully and his lungs ached.  He closes his eyes tightly and reopens it, hoping to get rid of the illusion.

A harsh light beam to his face harassed his eyes as he reopened it. The tapping on his chest had seized, his body felt like it was it had been dragged out from under a car’s wreckage.

 A splash of water to his face trickled down his nostrils and caused a sneeze. He springs to his buttocks and crawls backwards on it with his hand and heels until his back hit an object behind it. His eye lids slid wide open, fear, confusion and terror eclipsing him mind. Everything was in gray scale. Two human silhouettes swung from left to right periodically cutting through each other in the middle. He shot his eye and pressured his thumb and index finger across both eyes before reopening as if to drive the nightmare away. The blur starts to fade and his vision starts to focus in. The twin shadows merge in the middle forming a ladylike figure walking towards him. He curls into himself terrified.

“You fell off the bed," Ije said as she helps her frail looking and terrified brother up to his feet. He shoves her off with his elbow. His eyes remains still, steered at nothing in particular. “We have been trying to wake you up for a while now.” She continued.  He turned his unfocused gaze to her.

“Ije?” he said softly, “is that you?” he said sounding like his grandpa on his sickbed.

“Lazy boy it is time for church, mum and dad are on their way their already”, she said, turning around and walking out through the dangling zinc door of the main entrance.

He has been dreaming.