MY SAVIOUR, YOU THINK

They say when you die your life flashes before your eyes and usually you get some sort of epiphany, well something like that was happening to me right now, I thought as the man continued disfiguring my face with slaps and punches, and by that time I was already too tired to cry. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I had not planned my evening that I’d get battered and beaten by a white man, but it was exactly where I ended.

I had left the house for the egg store earlier in the hours. Mama had told me not to stay out too late due to the whole crisis and there was going to be a curfew at the black side of town and, I had to get back as soon as I can. So I didn’t even remember to take my jacket because I was in a hurry I hurried down the stairs very hurriedly and was soon on my way where only a black leggings and a skimpy green floral dress on.

“Talia how’s mama and papa today?” mama Rafi asked me as usual as soon as I got in front of the counter. She was one few black people that didn’t hate my papa.

“They very fine” I answered with a smile

As we conversed, all of a sudden there’s a loud noise a gunshot actually, a guy was trying to rob mama Rafi’s store,

“Everybody down” the masked man ordered

“You!” he pointed at mama Rafi

“The money now I haven’t got all day” he screamed at her as she fumbled out of fear to five him the money at the counter. The men had held us for a much longer time I was supposed to spend at mama Rafi’s and after he left, every customer left quickly not wanting the authority around, but mama Rafi did not call the police what the thieves had taken from her wasn’t as much as what the cops would take from her.

I left the store after mama Rafi had calmed down and was soon on my way back home, having it in mind I was going to tell papa about what had happened at mama Rafi’s. I was hurrying home as fast as I could, because it was getting really late. With the eggs in my hand, heart racing very fast and after what had happened earlier at mama Rafi’s, I had no more confidence to face more calamities. As I ran faster and faster, getting closer to home, just around the corner I could see my street up head, feeling a lot safe and no longer scared, I stopped for a minute to catch my breath close to a dark alley very close to the street.

As I stood up to continue, a white hand came out of the darkness and grabbed me by the hair with one hand, dragging me and covering my mouth with the other. I had a small stature and was very young it was pretty easy for him to pull me, I struggled as well and much as I my little strength allowed me but it wasn’t enough to get free from his grasp. He then released me closed to the end of the alley and stood blocking my way. He was a stereotype white man, tall, fat with a protruding belly, he was dressed like a biker with a jean jacket and dirty jeans pants and it was obvious he had been drinking because he so stank of booze and, the look he gave me was so savage, like a predator to his prey but in the present situation I was he’s to prey on.

“Make this easy for me and you’ll be on your way soon enough.” He said referring to me

“But, if you don’t then, we are goanna have ourselves an argument my little sweet thing.” He then added smiling widely and showing he’s dis-arranged yellow set of teeth.

I don’t know what he was expecting but all I knew was that I wasn’t goanna let his man touch me again and as soon as the thought came to me, I made a run for it but he was quite fast for a fat man, and soon caught me as I was about to make it pass him, he dragged me back quite violent that the force sent me to the floor, as I was about to scream he held my mouth nearly breaking my jaws as if he was going to twist them, the pain only made me want to scream more. To me it seemed the more I struggled the more he enjoyed it, and all the while he was smiling, the leggings I was wearing wasn’t a strong material, and he easily began to rip it off my body, as he concentrated on peeling off the leggings, his hand slipped into my mouth and I bit him really hard, he didn’t scream, he just began to batter on my head until I could not take it anymore and let go of it, even though I had the will to keep fighting, I had lost all strength to actually continue. Now he was mad, and I had given up, and, the only thing I begged for now was that he doesn’t kill me.

He continued disfiguring my face with slaps and punches, and at that time I was already too tired to cry. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I prayed in my heart for a miracle because nothing short of this would have been enough to save me. He had torn open my blouse and bra included and had almost had his way with me and, at that moment, my miracle came.

He was tall, slim, and handsome for a white man with all that was dressed formally. He bashed the molester on the head and while he still struggled to get himself, my saviour, took me by the hand and pulled me away, both running away to no direction in particular. All my concern was getting away from the molester and, after about three minutes of running, we arrived at the front of a classic British sub-urban house and he took me in, it was apparently his house since he had the key in.

On getting in he had offered me his jacket and then gone inside to get some cocoa. He then came back and gave me come clothes to change into and handed me the cocoa and while I took it he asked me to narrate everything that happened and while I did, he listened, after the whole thing, he gave me a room to lay my head due to the fact it was already dark, this was the first time I had ever met a nice white man, I had taken my bathe and then changed into something more comfortable And, laid my head to sleep.

Later that night as I slept on the bed he had provided, I heard the door slowly creak open and due to the fact that the lights were off, I could see the long shadow of the person. It was him, my saviour, Alan was he’s name. I was a bit glad he was around, because I couldn’t sleep and was big scared. I pretended to sleep and he came around to sit at the side of the bed. He tapped me lightly and amorously, and at that moment I turned to face him with a smile on my face.

“I wanted to know if you were okay.” He said smiling at me

“Am much better sir, but I couldn’t sleep.” I answered him trying to sit up but he held me softly pushing me back on the bed.

“What’s with this entire sir? Call me Alan, we are friends aren’t we?” he said again

“We are” I answered smiling back He then began to touch me slowly and then started running his hands on my thighs softly. Now fear was beginning to set in. I was wondering what he was doing.

“Sir, what are you doing?” I asked fearfully as I tried to shift away from him.

“We are both adult and you understand what am doing, to be fair I really like you actually.” He said smiling and trying to pull me closer to himself as I struggled to get away.

“Please sir don’t do this to me, haven’t I gone through enough please sir.” I said pleading with him

“Am not trying to hurt you Talia, I want to love you” he said again still trying to draw me even closer.

Now I was completely scared. How can similar calamities happen to me twice in one night? This time I was willing to do anything to get away from him. I reached slowly for the table lamp beside me and smashed it on his head with one heavy swipe. He didn’t scream but got up staggering and nearly losing his balance. I got up and ran for the door only getting there to find out that he had locked it, I looked back and there he was standing dangling the key in front of me before shoving it in his pocket, the smile on his face had disappear and replacing it was a dark sinister expression less look. It was then I realised that there probably was no escaping this one.

“I cared for you and helped you and all I asked from you was just something small and you refuse me of it. Now am really going to hurt you.” He said not smiling at all As I was trying to plead with him, he didn’t even give me a chance and though he was slim, it turned out he had a lot of upper body strength. He easily lifted me and threw me across the room, my back shattering the table I tried to get up but couldn’t I had lost all strength and I was losing consciousness.

Out of some deep inside of my soul I summoned a strength I didn’t know I had and decided if I was going to go down I'd go down fighting. I lunged at him that it surprised him, but it wasn’t much of a fight, he just slapped me away right back to the bed. This time all I had on was the bath throb he had earlier given to me. Is was easy to get it off me but I made sure it wasn’t easy for him I held onto it strong enough he would have to tear it off my body, but he just continued hitting me until I let go of it. He removed the bath throb exposing my bare body, he started fondling on my just developing breast, and I tried as much as possible to stop him but he was obviously ready to kill me. He had beating me so bad that I could no longer lift a finger to resist and at the end of the struggle I had no choice than to let him have his way with me, I had never had sex before and I had to lose my innocence to a savage white man.

All the while he committed his atrocity, it hurt worse than even the beating I had received from both men that had assaulted me today, even as much as I cried and begged him to stop, he didn’t and just continued to satisfy himself and ignoring my cry of pain.

After he was done, he left me there broken, and innocence lost, there was blood all over from cuts tears and bruises I had gotten, I could not stop crying I couldn't believe this still happened to me, I was stake naked and all he did was get up and leave locking me in. after some minutes, he came back into the room facing me and standing without a single trace of guilt in his eyes.

“What else do you want to do to me, the only thing you can take from me right now is my life and right now I’d gladly give it to you.” I said to him

“Your life means nothing to me, you are worthless.” He said and dragged me out the bed with my clothes all ripped and all, I was screaming but he just hit me even more and kept dragging me until he finally pushed me out of his house and locked the door, where would I go now, it was the middle of the night.

Now am standing at the edge of a bridge completely naked and bruised all over ready to end my life and thinking how my life was ruined in just one night, thinking of the stigma I was going to live with and the things I’d have to face what if I get pregnant and give birth to a white's man bastard? I looked down into the river and without hesitation, let go of the railing and plunging to my death freeing me of the misery of this worthless life.

By joseph Mathew junior

The funny thing about movies

Just think about it, if you were allowed to make or direct you own movie, what would you do, with would it be like? Me for instance anybody that knows me well knows that I love movies, like I'd take time out of my schedule to watch a good movie, and if I'd be allowed to direct my own movie, I'd want it to be good. Am not pro-Nigerian movies or anti and neither am I pro-foreign movies or anti and just pro-good movie and anti-bad movie. My love of movies or basically and anything artistic makes me hate bad movies.

The funny thing about movies expecially Nigerian movies is the fact that sometimes I see some movies been aried and I wonder why it's even there. Their are so ridiculous that as an average movie audience, I wonder if the producers and directors even spent any dedication make it. Sure it obviously not easy to make a movie but I think if I have been making movies for forty years I ought to be good at it or at least better than I started.

I have seen some really good movies, great Nigerian movies in fact, mentioning a few names like October first, doctor Bello and others. October first had one of the most spectacular use of fantastic props I have ever seen in a Nigerian movie and the quality was breathe-taking. The customes were very convincing and so was the location. It made me feel like that must have been how it was in 1960. Though I thought the storyline could have been a whole lot better. But it was pretty good compared to a conventional Nigerian movie.

In an like ours where we have technology that should if not for anything give us quality movies, why do we still end up it lame ones? I have watched some movies and thought to myself "was this really made in 2015" some movies are to bad that if they were made in the 90s they'd still be bad. For having the biggest movie industry in the whole of Africa, we sure do make a lot of lame movies.

For instance, how can you make a movie where some one gets shot in the leg and ends up in the hospital with a bandage on his head. Or in a situation we can actually see that the guns are fake, why would you give a pistol the sound effect of an automatic rifle? As if it's not bad enough, so times you watch a movie and you see knockouts or "bangers" as popularly known in Nigeria jumping already the screen while guns are been shot. We are not stupid you know we can see Em.

Sometimes, someone gets shot and his blood spills on the camera. Isn't that taking it a little bit far. And you'd think in this age of such flamboyant cgi, Nigerian video effects should have improved but they are just as lame. What's with the Len flare they always use to symbolize disappearance?

I was watching a movie just today and you should see what flying looks like, it was just bad. Lemme talk about a movie that's quite popular on African magic, a quite recent movie at that. I won't mention the name but if you've watched it, am sure you would know it as I write along. The movie was so bad, I had no choice but to stop and watch it.

The very first scene I saw in this movie, depicts a man, a popular small person in Nigerian screens, under a mango tree with his so called girlfriend. He is supposed to be a musically talented person in the movie, and he's about to sing for his girlfriend. This is exactly how he looked like. He wore a netted singlet in the colour of the ghanaian flag I think, with an oversized shorts. Then he had something that could easily pass off as the hide of a dead goat on his head for a dreadlocks or "dada" as if all this wasn't bad enough, he had in his hand a broken-down lead guitar that God knows where they picked it from and was playing it, without light or an amplifier. And that wasn't enough or, he was also singing and playing it. But of the sounds where like they were dubbed over the video and it was obvious he wasn't really singing or playing. What would it actually take to actually dread his hair, or just give him a normal acoustic guitar? And every time in the movie he played and sang with the lead guitar without an amplifier and with that dead goat hide on his head.

It seems some Nigerian actors and directors don't know there's something called over acting, that's when your acting looks forced or its obviously fake and yet they dub themselves professionals. If you know your actors are not capable then don't put them in situations that with show their mistakes. And at least you can either re-act mistakes or just crop them out, but no, they are not that dedicated. You're watching a movie and someone just got shot and then they zoom in on the persons face who is supposed to be dead and you can see the person either blinking or breathing. Or someone is hanged or died in a hospital and they zoom in on the person's face and you can see the actor's eyes moving.

That's why it called movie magic. We know it's fake but it should look so real that we doubt that it fake, and kinda believe it can truly happen. Another thing gangstas don't have to dress like fools the way they are shown in Nigerian movies with their stupid fake accent. And not everybody who goes aboard comes back with and American accent. If he went to Britain he should come back with and English accent. And how can come travel abroad and without seeing the airport, the person gets deported and yes comes back with an accent. He was in America for like what two minutes?

Besides what's with the stupid effect of accident. When someone is about you have an accident, you show the car interiors and shake the cameras, so lame isn't there any other way, and also what's with the lame soundtracks that reminds you of what has happened in the movie previously? For instance ngozi, goes to Lagos and gets pregnant so the soundtrack of the movie will play "ngozi leave village go Lagos come get belle what a wicked world, chei ewo" and on and on, just crazy.

As much as there are lames movies there are great movies, that other movies should learn from. And I think there should also be a standard to Nigerian movies, so that not anything goes. And not only Nigerian movies are guilty of all these great crimes against my eyes and ears but others too. I was watching an Indian movie that also had such blunders. The blood looked red, not bloody but red crimson red like the flash. In fact everybody is guilty in fact. I think bad movies should be banned. It's not like we are not trying but there so kind of movies I don't expect to see anymore, there should be improvement. In Nigeria, some commercials or popular called advertises are have some much better quality and cgi than a regular movie why should it be so, Abeg make we improve o. God bless 9ga.

If you have any other blunders from movies that should be addressed or treated don't forget to leave them in the comments and also reactions too, cause I know not everybody will agree with me.

Life's symphony

Hello, this is not exactly an article but it's something I wrote a while ago, it's purely fictional and it's in preparation for my article on child abuse. It's a short story which I hope you guys enjoy.

With its own notes, life is like a symphony, it plays its own tone and like a flute, it is an instrument to different music the music of life makes us dance according to what we hear.  But to me, it’s not a pleasant one, it’s like salsa, very complicated. Its whispers are like the breeze of death to my ears and the pain of nine-inches nails stuck in my eyes. Nobody can adequately answer what life is in general but everyone reads he’s own meaning to life. If you ask me, life is sleeping with your problems and waking to find it multiplied in its folds. It’s the frustration of always trying again and again and failing even worst the next time.  It is the constant hard work that’s paid in sorrows and sadness. It’s the pain of childbirth and the anguish of an ocean of candles to a child’s grave. Life is worse than dying a horrible death. In the simplest of answers, life is hell. This is life from the perspective of a broken soul… You might ask me why but you will never understand even if you work a thousand miles in my flip flops, you’ll get it a hundred percent wrong.

I had not always seen life like this and neither did I start up bad but trust  me, the worst thing that will or can happen to someone is to taste the sweet, amorous and alluring taste of the good life and at the end of the day, crash from it. I had once lived like an emperor, do what I want, when I want but you would have thought all it needed for all that to change was just one, horrible night? My mother was the sole-provider of the family while my dad drank his soul away.  She had built up the family into riches from nothing but starches.  She had burnt herself body, soul and energy to make sure everyone including my wretched dad was comfortable but, yes he wasn’t.  He would come home as drunk as sleep and still beat her up and forcefully make love to her while physically abusing her.  He was a sadist. My mother was once a beautiful woman, a price for every man but now she was barely a shadow of her old self, looking haggard and far older than her real age. It was all out of the stress and abuse. That night, my father came home as drunk as usual; he was puking all over the place as headed for my mum’s room upstairs. And before he got there, he spilled and broke his beer and out of anger and frustration, he began to beat my mom again. He wasn’t always like this this either, but ever since he lost his job when I was seven was when he began his drunk adventure and took his frustration out through beating my mom.

As he beat her, she tried to run away from him but he pulled her by the hair and pushed her on the bed and went on pounding at her. As she struggled for her life, she felt a piece from the broken beer bottle and stuck it right into the side of his neck nearly severing his jugular vein, he fell straight to the ground, holding his neck as it continued to bleed with no sign of stopping. It was then he must have thought he could die and at that moment, he took her by the hair and dragged her down to the garage where he tied her up. As I watched through the keyhole after he locked me out, I saw him pouring some liquid on mum and then he lit a match with hate in his eyes, looked into her eyes and dropped it on her without hesitation. Within seconds, the flames had totally engulfed her, he watched her with a smile of satisfaction on his face as the whole house was drowned in her screams of anguish and pain, and without remorse in his heart, I could see total satisfaction in his eyes. I didn’t realize when tears started streaming down my face. What could I have done, I was only twelve.

He kicked open the door and saw me there. All he did was frown at me and threw me out of his way. Didn’t care for the repercussion of what he had done. He instead went to the kitchen to take another bottle of beer. I couldn’t believe what was happening, was happening. It was like a trance, a nightmare if I would say. How could one night go so horribly wrong? It was then it all sank in and totally mutilated my soul. He had killed her, he really had killed her! I recited in my mind to understand. It was then I did the unthinkable. I took a baseball bat from his collection and bashed him severally in his head while he stared at the TV “you killed her! You killed her!” I screamed. He got up in annoyance and lunged at me.

The rest that happened was just as surprising as what had happened earlier, he slapped me so hard I became disoriented before he tried to have sex with me. My own father was trying to rape me. I fought as hard as I could but the more I did the more he seemed to enjoy it. He went on with the beaten and after he had satisfied his lustful craze he left me beaten and broken down to my soul and went back to watch TV.

My own father no, Not my father, this DEMON couldn’t be my father. It was then I decided. I went to the drawers in the dining where he kept his revolver and picked it and while he still watched TV with his back turned, I shot that bastard. He was unlucky not to have died at once cause I went to him while he crawled on the floor with his last breathe and pumped the remaining five bullets into his head screaming and streaming down tears. Blood and brain matter everywhere. I left the house forever, with its horrors locked deep inside my now cold, dead heart. I now knew what it felt like to kill someone, to be a murderer… BY: joseph Mathew junior

The funny thing about love

Just think about it, what is love, Have you ever falling in love before, if you have, accept my heartfelt sympathy, if you haven't thank whichever God you believe in and a piece of advice stay away for love. If you want to be happy, love is not for you but if you want to be happy still love is for you. You cannot know the true meaning of hurting if you've never falling in love and can only truly feel hurt by someone only when you care for them. At the same time you cannot comprehend what love is if you've never gone through a world of hurt, if someone has never taken you heart, smashed it on the wall, took the pieces, pounded it into powder, blended it into paste and either feed it to you or blew it right in your face, And even after that, you just love the person even more, and then you've loved. I had always thought personal that although love existed, humans were usually incapable of loving and only few of us can actually truly love and even that is relative to an extent.

What exactly is love anyway, a lot of people have said a lot of misguided nonsense about what love is supposed to be some say "love is trust", some say "care", some even go as far as saying "love is the feeling you get like butterflies in your stomach when someone you care for is around you", my dear you go vomit, it's not love you're actually feeling nauseated, some others say "love is when you discover you can't do without or live without someone", my dear have you not be leaving before you meet that person, you're just simply either obsessed with that person or suffering a bad case of infatuation.

But what truly is love? Love is what a mother feelings for her baby as soon as he is born, the only love at first sight that exist actually. Love is jumping in front of a trailer to save someone you've don't know; love is what give mothers the power to lift cars off their babies if they have to. In short love is God and God, love. Am not trying to be spiritual but think about it, for a supreme being to sacrifice his only beget just for the fact that he loves you, and for his beget to willingly agree to the will of his father also for that same love he shares for you if that's not love then I don't know what is. Love is the ability to sacrifice anything including your life for the sake of someone else', love is giving your all to someone no matter how ungrateful and unmerited that person is. Love is when mothers stay hungry to feed their children, love is when fathers carter for the family with every fibre of their being and totally neglecting themselves, love is when your brother receives a bullet for you, love is the ultimate sacrifice you can give to anyone.

Still think you are capable of loving I don't think so, if you still do you deserved to be idolized and made a god, if you don't then trust me you are what you are human, the only true love I believe exist is the love of God. Someone wrote that the greatest gift of mankind was love, but I beg to differ, although love is the greatest commandment and testimony, what exactly allows us to love is hope, hope is the greatest gift of mankind, its hope that allows us to survive, hope allows us to keeping living without giving up, without hope, man would die out, would have giving up anytime new obstacles faced them, man has survival instincts, the drive to survive at all cost and the belief it will survive is driven by hope, that survival instinct is hope.

If you are conversant with Greek mythology, you will know the story of Pandora's box, after man was made, Prometheus the titan of mankind also the first man, was giving a wife by Zeus the king of the gods, called Pandora, she was the first woman and was engineered by Hephaestus with a lot of qualities including curiosity and stubbornness to cause the fall of man unknown to Prometheus, to further celebrate their wedding, Pandora was giving a box by Zeus that was sealed shut and was warned never to open it. And after a period of time she kept to the instruction until one day, her curiosity could not allow her the fact that she didn't know what was in the box, she thought to herself what could one peck do, and decided to look inside the box, at the brief moment she opened the box, every gift of mankind including eternal life went out of the box and when she shut it back the only gift of mankind remaining was hope which was the greatest gift of mankind.

And with hope anything can be lived through believing the future is going to be better and not worst, hope is what allows us to love and live, while achieving love is basically and nearly impossible, hope on the other hand is for everyone, everyone cannot but have hope and anyone can hope, and when life is hopeless then it's not worth living, and there's a popular saying that goes "when there's life there's hope and when there's hope there is life", it's also similar to the saying that goes "when there's a will there's a way and when there's a way there is will", its hope that gives you the will to find a way and keep moving forward, it's that same hope that gives you faith, faith is the evidence of things hoped for and not seen, as much as love is a beautiful thing, its survival is slim without hope. Beyond reasonable doubt, hope truly is the greatest gift of mankind.