Fictions by Ima.

Uncle Lanre was the worse. When he was bounced around by his mother’s family to stay with uncle Lanre, somewhere in his heart, he hoped that uncle Lanre would be the father he never had but that wasn’t the case. Uncle Lanre was the worse for when he got high on alcohol or anger, he’d call him a bastard. That B word that he had never gotten used to. He couldn’t deny that he sometimes nursed the thoughts of killing uncle Lanre while he was intoxicated and shamelessly lying bare on his room floor but he needed the man to help him through school. He moved out of his uncle’s house as soon as he received an offer to study in the university and had never set foot in his uncle’s house since then. Not even when he heard that he was ill and asked to see him. Rejection was all he’d known all his life. No one wanted him, no one loved him. Only his grandma had shown him some love but died before her work could take root in his life. He hated the thought ...

He knew he wasn’t supposed to remember but he did. He was so excited when the bus left his home town. He enjoyed road trips, looking at houses and trees never ceased to please his seven year old senses. His mother had told him that they were going to meet his father for the first time and this was the best news he had heard all his life. He wore the best clothes he had, which were the ones his mother had bought for him three years back. Sure they were a little jumpy in length and he couldn’t find a good comb to comb his hair but he made sure he used more than enough salt to brush his teeth so that his father could be pleased. He wondered why his mother had never told him about his father before today. He couldn’t think much about it because now, he’d stop asking because he was about to meet his father. Jide and the other children at school could stop teasing him and calling him a bastard now because he was going to meet and know his father. He could stop praying every night to God for ...

I woke up to the smell of drugs and blood and the noisy chattering of nurses discussing about their patients. I knew I was somewhere in that gossip. I looked around and saw Tobe. He didn’t know I was awake so I just looked at him. His sleeves were folded up, he was thinking. Probably about why a good evening landed me on a hospital bed, I wondered same too. My head hurt and my lips when I tried to speak. I found it difficult to keep my eyes open, the room seemed to be swirling and it made me dizzy so I closed my eyes and I guess I passed out. The next time I opened my eyes, I still saw Tobe and this time he saw me. He told me that when he had called several times and couldn’t reach me on my cell phone, he decided to drive over to my apartment and that’s when he saw me unconscious on the floor with Dare nowhere in sight. I too explained my part to him and he boiled. I had never seen Tobe that angry before. Even though I asked him to let things go, I saw that he couldn’t. He was clearly...