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CHAPTER SIX
Grandma lifted the lantern and drew closer to me when I got to the kitchen to see whether supper was ready. From my toes, I was wet to the waist, and that perhaps made her curious.
“Is the brook flooded?” she asked, as she pulled the wick. The lampshade shone brightly. The bright light was accompanied by the scent of the burning wick that was soaked with kerosene. “You shouldn’t have taken the shorter route to the community center,” she added.
“Yes, it’s flooded. The wooden bridge has been carried away by the torrent.”
I moved two steps away from Grandma after answering her, but before I could reach where the basket of fish stood beside the mud hearth, she asked: “How were you two able to cross the flooded stream?”
I wasn’t moved that much by Grandma's second question right away. I thought it was just one of the overly caring attitudes of the aged that was on display. But upon a
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Twisted Thrice CHAPTER ONE
It was early June. The rains had begun. And the weather was cold.Early morning that day, when I was still in bed, grandma entered my room, and when I had responded to her call, she drew closer to the bed and whispered into my ears: “Someone wants to see you.”It didn’t occur to me to ask Grandma who it was. It could be Eben, my friend; I thought. He visits me whenever he hears that I'm back at the village.I dressed up quickly and went out. It wasn’t Eben. It was Esther, and with her was her sister. Esther was a high school student in her final year, the daughter of grandma's friend. I knew her and everything about her family. Rumour in the community had it that, her father and brothers dabbled in the occult. Her mum had divorced her dad. And her three sisters were married. She was the last born of her mum and dad. Her dad had another wife, but there were no children between them except step children.
Twisted Thrice CHAPTER TWO
I stood up from the bench to go back to my room, but before I could move a step, Eben appeared from the left side of the veranda. He was with my dog.While I was away in school, he was able to pet my dog and had it moved to his village, about five hundred meters away from ours. The community was one that consisted of scattered villages and huts of peasants.There was one community center where the basic school was. It was at the community center that the villagers often gathered for celebrations, parties, and petty trading activities. An untarred road from a major nearby town ran through the community. Aside peasant farming, some women engaged in petty trading to support themselves and their families. Grandma used to sell fish and palm oil that I used to her prepare. Esther’s aunt used to sell cooked food in the morning. Esther’s sister, one that she was with that morning, used to sell food too.The community was l
Twisted Thrice CHAPTER THREE
The day run slowly. I went to my maize farm, and after idling around for sometime, I returned home. I did nothing productive for the day. My zeal for what I planned doing for the day was sapped by what happened in the morning.After lunch, I took a seat under the cocoa trees around the village. That was where everyone sought refuge from the sun's heat when it got intensified during the day. I sat looking at two birds perching and playing on a thin branch of cocoa tree. Beautiful birds they were. I couldn’t tell whether one was female and the other a male, but one thing I realized was that, they were very attached to each other. If birds can love, then, they were probably lovers.I sat watching the unique bond between the birds until the sound of grandma's footsteps got me distracted. She was holding a stool and heading towards my direction. She was walking slowly, and her eyes were fixed on the ground. She was careful so as not to step on
Twisted Thrice CHAPTER FOUR
Eben didn’t show up in the evening as he promised. So, I went to bed not long after supper. It was unusual of me to go to bed early but that day, like a habitual early bird, I went to bed before nocturnal creatures started their day. It was not because I felt overly sleepy. I needed solitude to free myself from the day’s shackles. Grandma’s superstitious predictions about Esther and me was the most stubborn stain on my mind that I needed to clean. I didn’t want, and could not afford, to allow grandma’s predictions to come to pass. It was against my will. A young man’s choice of a girl is one that is complete in every aspect, and so, Esther, though quite appreciable on that score, didn’t measure up to my satisfaction. Many men, like myself, desire to have a complete girl, a girl of their choice but quite often, that does not happen. They play games on fields where they do not intend to settle, and when they become stuck, they go ro
Twisted Thrice CHAPTER FIVE
Days passed without seeing or hearing from Esther. Maybe, my interpretation of her visits were wrong. She perhaps just wanted to be a friend to a college graduate to learn from him. If she was really in love, she wouldn’t be able to stay away without seeing the one her heart desired. Or, women love differently? Men become restless when they don’t see or hear from a woman they love. It could be also, as I suspected earlier, that, she was just being pushed by grandma and Esther’s mum to me. If that was the whole truth, then, she wasn’t in love. And what about grandma’s superstitious predictions about us? I didn’t believe it, so why even think about that? Though a thought about her flashed my mind once in a while, I had no urge to look or find out about her. Nothing moved me. The only thing that lingered on my mind when I thought about her once in awhile was her ca
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