Eyes of the Tiger

Grace was living a nightmare. The glitzy ivory dress in the open wardrobe mocked her. She closed her eyes tight. She willed herself to make it all disappear. It was today. The wedding. “I’m going to propose to Yiga!” Mike had announced that night, many months ago in the dim lighted garden, their favourite place, where they sat listening to country songs, sipping on chapman and munching their sharwamas. Yiga never listened to such songs. She said it was churchy and too slow. She loved the fast paced beats, hopping in the club till she dropped. Grace and Mike were petals and leaves of the same tree. He did not see it. She could not tell him.

OJUOLA(1)

She sits by the east wall of the compound facing the blinding sun. Her hands quiver in sync with the creaking branches on the mango tree.
“They came during the dry season. When the maize farms had been torched,” she mumbles. Mary inches closer to her. The bench under her squeaks its protest at the sudden movement. No one has ever spoken of that time. The old men in the family do not speak about it. They grunt and clear their throats and spit thick sputum mashed underfoot as answers. The old women avert their eyes and turn the red oily stew with a ladle until it spurts and splashes on their hands and they retort in anger. “Afira! Be gone, silly child!”

“It was too dark. I didn’t see them,” she mutters.
Mama Agba passes shu-shu-ing her brood of chickens and the moment passes. A brief tightness around her lips, ears pricking up and the spark in her unseeing eyes dwindles.
Ojuola; the eyes of affluence become bereft pools of sorrow.