otarutestimony

 Emma said that she felt unsafe. She felt she was being stalked. She knew he was after her life. The signs were clear enough. She felt his presence anytime she was alone in her house. Sometimes she even felt him breathing down her neck, but when she turned he vanished.  Unfortunately nobody believed her, so bore the burden alone on her delicate and extremely fragile shoulders. Her sea-blue eyes always looked frightened. Her hair always messy.  Nightfall was a cruel torture for her. Each night she waited for him to end her. Eventually, she could no longer bear it. She decided to do it herself with the knife she always carried about for self-defence. 

 I should have known. The signs were clear enough. And how I managed to ignore them still remains a mystery. For once I listened to my heart instead of my head and I was definitely not prepared for the devastating consequences that followed.   I thought we were headed somewhere beautiful. A place where nothing else mattered. A place were we could savour the sweet and precious feeling of having each other. Alas, my journey into this mysterious love plain was doomed and it ended before it even started. My fault actually.  Still new to the business, I painfully misconstrued every single thing. Her smiles I interpreted as acceptance. Laughter as deep affection. Holding of hands as a sign of better things to come.  Apparently, the better things didn't come. I became an innocent victim of deception. Initially, nothing weird at first. Just little excuses which seemed reasonable at first. However, it soon became glaring that she'd transformed into something else. Someth...

 Paul, a security guard was standing near the door of a restaurant when a young lady breezed past him and entered inside with the lemon scent of her perfume trailing her. She ordered something small and simple and chose to seat near the door. Her dark-green jacket was buttoned to the chin and she only unbuttoned the first three buttons before she began eating. But she didn't really eat much as she kept fiddling with the vegetables on her plate with her fork. Every sixty seconds she picked up her phone and dropped it after another ten seconds. She fiddled more and more with the food, before taking a sip from the glass of water on her table. The sleeves of the jacket folded up to her elbows and Paul could see several scars on her hands. She seemed to have noticed and pulled the sleeves down to her wrists and adjusted her the black wig on her head. Her jacket and the long gown she wore underneath matched the wig's colour. However Paul knew there were more scars beneath the clothes...

 Every single passenger in the bus protested as the driver insisted on waiting for the woman that morning. The woman however seemed unbothered, and took her time getting into the bus. When she finally climbed into the bus she stopped at the door and observed everyone seated with an unmistakable sneer on her broad face.  There was nothing fascinating about her really, except that she was wearing an unbelievably thick red sweater which was a complete mismatch for the weather as the sun was up earlier than usual and was already shimmering with it's radiant morning heat. Also, the woman had a dog in her brown and odd-looking handbag. Which was a rare sight since most people around that area did not own dogs, and the very few who did always kept their dogs at home. Yet there she was with her dog and all. She had even taken her time to put a red bow on the dog's head. With this, it was clear she didn't belong there; she was a stranger. Apart from the dog and the red sweater, ther...

  The wind coursed violently down the street and the metal roofs of nearby houses squeaked in protest. One thing was clear; it would rain soon. In was in this weather that Tayo sped along in his unhealthy vehicle. He was totally oblivious to the screams of the wind. Only one thing mattered, the lady in the car he had just picked along the road. So he sped on, to his sweet destruction. 

 Ola entered the house tiredly. He was aware that it was well past eight in the night. He had a quick shower and then devoured some slices of watermelon for dinner. After eating, he washed his hands and settled down behind the desk in his room. He turned on his laptop and tried to feed words into it. But his mind kept wandering from one thing to another. Besides, the noise from his cousins who were watching a football match in the living room wasn't helping.  Frustrated, he picked up his phone plugged in his headphones and selected a song to help him focus. He did focus eventually, on chasing birds in his dream.

 Ayo brought out his laptop from his bag. He was seated on a bench in the park, directly under a tree. The atmosphere was relaxing cool breeze was somewhat seductive. He gathered his notes together and tried to conjure a nice story but the snuggling couple a few steps away from him were distracting him. Then a group of drunken friends near him started arguing loudly, prompting him to put on his headphones to protect his headspace from the noise. But just then a lump of a foul smelling substance landed on his nose. After verifying that it was bird poop, Ayo decided that he had had enough.

 John stretched himself and dragged himself out of his bed as he turned off the alarm. He picked his phone and walked to the desk in his room. He sat and turned on his phone's screen. It was just a little past two in the morning and this was his favourite time of the day. Still feeling sleepy, he got off the chair and did a few jumping jacks before he resumed his seat. Now energized, he muttered a few words summoning the god of writing, the goddess of literature and the spirit of wakefulness to his side. When he felt the presence of these beings, he proceeded to do his business.

 The door opened and someone stepped in. It was a boy. Umbrella in one hand, handkerchief in the other.  Ge stepped further into the room and she realized  he was younger than she had initially thought. He took more steps forward looking this way and that as though searching for someone, occasionally stopping to greet people.  But despite his seeming calm composure, she noticed the slight tremors of his hands. Besides, there was something familiar in the way he walked, talked and gestured. She couldn't remember now, but she knew she must have met him before. Suddenly it hit her. He was the son of the man she had murdered two weeks ago. 

 Now or never. Tom said to himself. He knew she was the one. He had felt it within him down to his bones. But he couldn't bring himself to tell her despite the fact that she was sitting directly opposite him. He glanced at his watch. The time was running out and break-time would soon be over.  He looked around the school canteen and was relieved to see that no one was watching them. Then he tried to speak. In fact he opened his mouth, but the words remained stuck inside. Why is this so difficult? He asked himself. Eventually, he was able to say her name and she looked up. But it was too late. The bell rang. Break-time was over. 

Wale was seriously disturbed. His dark beady eyes narrowed as he read the letter for the hundredth time. And on his broad face, weathered by long exposure to the unfriendly Nigerian sun, creases appeared. He opened his mouth, closed it and clenched his teeth. His prying tongue ran across a few teeth reminding him that two days had past since he'd last brushed.  Despite this, he wasn't too keen about brushing as he had several issues to settle. Besides, brushing made no difference at all on his oxytetracycline-stained teeth. In front of these were lips marred with numerous bruises and scars which were his only trophies from his countless brawls. Sometimes, he lost bitterly in these brawls. And other times, he nearly won.  Another look at the letter told him he was getting into another fight he would never win. The letter was short and simple: 'We know you killed her. We have the evidence.' Wale looked around his room in desperation. The room was poorly lit and in disarra...

 Bisi walked down the lonely path. The temperature was a little below twenty degrees, but she didn't mind. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. She wasn't even sure why she was crying. A sly rustle behind her prompted her to increase her pace. She had walked on that path more times than she'd remembered to count, but not at that time of the night. Besides, on most days she was usually asleep by that time.  But that day was different. She had just left her house after engaging in a boiling altercation with her parents. The third of the day. Clashes like that were becoming more frequent than necessary. Most times she emerged from these unscathed on the outside, but she usually sustained deep and nasty emotional injuries.   Although she was just nineteen, her anatomy was that of a twenty-five year old. As usual, this did not escape the wanton eyes of several men. Despite this, Bisi still seemed pure and chaste and was a perfect example of a modest lady. On the ...