The Next Day

    This story will be uploaded in  parts. It's titled "the next day". it's part of a cultural series i'm writing; titled " stories my mind told me".

  

      The next day

Growing up in my little village urualla, in Imo state, Nigeria, as common with most villages in Africa and possibly around the world, there are moments in your childhood you wouldn’t trade for the world, be them good or bad.

As a young boy I would remember waking up in my mother’s hut early in the morning after the seventh cry of the early morning cock, I would rush outside to my mother’s cooking area and grab a piece of charcoal, sometimes I loved to stay and choose carefully the smoothest or the shapeliest of them; whatever caught my fancy really, whilst most times I would just randomly pick any and run to where I kept my grinding stone, after grinding the charcoal I would mix it with salt from my mother’s kitchen, put a little of this mixture on the tip of my finger using it to scrub my teeth and tongue. After this I would wash of the night sleep and her kisses from my face and rush off immediately to my friend’s compound if I was lucky, if I wasn't before I would be able to rush off as was my norm my father mazi Ikwunze would call out to me

         “obia”  !  “obia”!!      to which I would answer

          “e mpa” (yes father)

I would quickly run to his hut for my father was not a man to be trifled with which was apparent in the way he called my name, my name is “obiajuru”—the heart than refuses” I was named after the famous forerunner who died saving our village from being infiltrated by nearby villages in the guise of night by raising the alarm cry even with a cutlass to his throat. Everyone in the village called me obi but my father chose to call me obia.

“eh mpa ina akpom”- father you are calling me, I would answer out of breath from running to answer him, I would enter the hut to see him already dressed with his “akwa” firmly tied round his waist, his cutlass gleaming in the dull light cast by the tin candle from being sharpened one too many times already slung over his broad shoulders

     “ehe obia get ready we are going to the farm”

As he said these words no matter how many times I had heard it and would still hear it my heart wouldn’t fail to flop like a fish into my stomach for I so hated farm work, I would rather spend my days playing with my friends nkem and uzo or go to the school built by the white men in my village but that was not possible seeing as how my father thought education a waste of time. My father standing almost six feet tall with the strength of 20 bulls scared almost everyone in my village including members of his age grade, so of course I a scrawny child of 11 with “ukwu okuko” (chicken legs) as my friends loved to call my legs, and a chest as dry as thin cut meat sun dried for days  kept to myself thoughts on what I would rather do and would nod grimly like person accepting certain doom, I would trudge to the farm in the gloomiest of moods planning that day the different ways I would escape going to the farm the next day. On the other hand if I was successful in getting away I would run to nkem’s compound built in a similar manner to mine and every other in my village except the white men’s schoolhouse, I would rush into the hut he shared with his mother for I was no stranger to his compound and start our familiar morning call.....

please drop your, thoughts i would very much like to know if you enjoyed this piece above, will be updated in two days. Remember keep on "kweening' and kinging!!!!!!!